her plan complete, Leslie stepped off the porch into snow up to her knees. Great. Just what she needed. However, she had no intention of returning to the cabin without something to read, since it was obvious that her reluctant host didn’t consider conversation with her necessary. She’d keep going if it killed her.
And it might.
Leslie lost track of time as she struggled to move through the snow. She had quickly learned to shuffle her way forward. Her legs were wet and clammy-cold. She clenched her teeth. She refused to go back and admit to Jason that he’d been right. So she continued forward, feeling like an inchworm.
By the time she reached the road, she was panting and she’d actually worked up a sweat, which was weird. The snow on the road wasn’t as thick as the stuff on his driveway, probably because some of it had melted before the road cooled off.
She turned and looked back. The cabin was no longer in sight, but she saw the smoke rising, which encouraged her to believe she’d find her way back as she had yesterday.
The car was covered in snow when she found it still nestled in the ditch. Her winter gloves had been no match for the storm. The wool was soaked. She jerked them off and fumbled for the car keys she’d stuck in her coat pocket.
Leslie went to the trunk and pushed snow away until she found the lock.
It was frozen.
She didn’t know whether to cry or to curse. She would not go back to the cabin without her belongings. With new determination she knelt until her mouth was close to the lock and began to blow on it. Every minute or so she’d jiggle the key before continuing to blow. She finally had to stop because she was getting light-headed and the back of her jaws ached from her efforts.
This time when she jiggled the key, there was a faint crunching sound and the key turned. She put all her muscle into prying open the trunk, feeling like a conqueror when it groaned open.
Not wasting any time, Leslie opened her suitcase, stuffed the various books and magazines scattered in the trunk into the bag, and pulled it out of the car.
She closed the trunk, grabbed her keys and looked around. She could either struggle back up the lane to Jason’s house or she could cut through the trees, where the snow wasn’t nearly as deep. There was no question which way she’d choose.
The way through the trees seemed much longer today than it had the day before, but then, she hadn’t been dragging a suitcase the size of a pup tent at the time. Her mother had always told her she was too stubborn for her own good.
“You got that right, Mom,” she said out loud. Maybe her mother had been there to help get the trunk open, knowing that Leslie wouldn’t give up until it was open or she’d succumbed to the cold. She grinned at the thought.
She and her mom had always been close. Her mother had been pregnant with her when her dad had been killed during a police action in the military twenty-six years ago.
Her mother had never been interested in another man and Leslie had grown up convinced that for every woman there was one particular male who was the right one for her. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, she wasn’t as certain of that as she’d been at ten, though.
Her mother had made her feel very special, telling Leslie that she was so thankful she’d had her. She’d kept her husband’s photos around the house so that Leslie would know who he was. What her mother probably hadn’t considered was how much Leslie grew up despising all things military. She’d been deprived of a father; her mother deprived of a husband. And for what? Some military situation that was so minor in the general scheme of things as to have been long forgotten.
She paused and looked around her. It was darker beneath the trees but there was little underbrush to get in her way. She got a better grip on the handle of her suitcase and continued on, her thoughts going back to her childhood to a time when she wasn’t alone, wasn’t scared and wasn’t half frozen.
She’d been gone for over an hour! Jason was so blasted angry at her that if she did manage to survive her outing, he just might strangle her himself.
He’d been pacing from window to window for the past twenty minutes, propelling himself around the room with the help of his cane. He hated feeling so helpless. Despite his wounded leg, he was much better prepared to survive out in this mess, so why hadn’t he insisted on going himself?
Because he hadn’t really believed she’d be so stupid as to go out there. He figured she’d stand out on the porch for a while, realize how ill equipped she was to make it and come back inside.
He didn’t know how long he’d been reading when he realized she hadn’t returned. With a curse, he’d gotten up and made his way to the door. When he’d opened it, he warmed the air with a blistering attack on her intelligence and her stubbornness. He could follow the trail she’d made until the driveway curved out of sight. The snow helpfully showed him how many times she’d fallen and gotten up, moved a few feet and fallen again.
She deserved to freeze out there. Or so he’d been telling himself for the past hour. Now he was scared. She’d been gone much too long. Like it or not, he was going to be forced to go find her, probably in a snowbank, unconscious.
He took the time to put on his heavy winter gear. He couldn’t use the snowshoes, which further infuriated him. Instead he got his crutches out and hoped like hell he wouldn’t fall while moving through the snow.
Jason had gone about ten feet down the driveway when a movement to his left caught his eye. It was Leslie, creeping along beneath the trees and pulling a humongous suitcase by a strap. Of course the thing tipped over, not for the first time from the looks of it, because the wheels couldn’t work on this kind of terrain. Zombie-like, she stopped, righted it and crept on.
He wanted to shout all his fury at the universe for placing him in this situation. Instead he painstakingly turned and headed toward her.
She didn’t see him until he was right in front of her and when she looked up, she screamed so loud that she startled him, throwing him off balance. If the crutches hadn’t been planted so firmly, he would have toppled over backward.
“What the hell is wrong with you, woman? I came out to see if I could help!”
“You startled me,” she replied, her voice a little hoarse.
“No kidding!” He reached over and lifted the suitcase. “Get into the house.”
“But, I—”
“Go!” he thundered, causing her to jump. She stared at him and her look of terror almost undid him. He opened his mouth, closed it and finally said, “Please go into the house and get warm. I’ll get this the rest of the way.”
She nodded mutely and turned away. He watched her creep through the snow between them and the cabin, fall over, right herself and creep forward until she finally reached the porch. Only then did he hook the handle of the suitcase onto the crutch and hobbled forward.
When his nightmare finally ended and he placed the suitcase on the porch, Jase was exhausted. He’d had to rely on the damaged shoulder and it was telling him about it. His side felt as though he’d just run a 100K marathon and his thigh throbbed with each heartbeat.
His muscles were giving out on him when he finally reached the door. It opened just
