Page 7 of Mountain Refuge
Even though he hadn’t made a sound while I moved him, I knew I needed to give him a more thorough check for injuries.
I glanced towards the kitchen. My open floor plan meant I could see clearly into the kitchen from the living room without having to strain my neck or move. Since I didn’t have a highchair, the girl had the baby sitting in her lap at the table. She was spoon feeding him from a small jar. I didn’t have baby sized spoons so I’m assuming she was using one that they had had in their backpack.
I didn’t have baby clothes or toys either so I really hoped that bag was a Mary Poppins style where it was bigger than it looked.
I looked down at my patient. He really did look exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes. His forehead, cheeks, and nose were red with windburn. He looked gaunt, like he had lost weight quickly and not in a healthy way. I had him lying on his back with a pillow under his head. Thankfully, his boots were already off. He had a long sleeve fleece shirt on with jeans.
That last bit caught and held my attention as I realized for the first time that they weren’t dark colored pants but soaked through blue jeans. Shit. In this weather, jeans were not the appropriate attire. The Mylar blanket would not keep his internal body temperature from dropping if his jeans were frozen and soaked through.
I needed to get those jeans off of him. As far as I could tell, his shirt was dry. Really hoped the guy was wearing underwear or I was about to get any eyeful.
The baby suddenly made a giggling sound, breaking my train of thought. Shit, the kids. I didn’t know what type of family they were, if the dad was comfortable with his young daughter seeing him half-naked. As the only conscious adult in the room, I made the decision because I was not comfortable with it.
I grabbed a thick blanket off the back of my lounge chair. I took the guy’s socks off first. I felt his feet. They were cold but not freezing. That was a good sign. He must have been wearing good winter boots. The outer extremities lost heat faster than internal organs did, but it didn’t mean the guy was out of the woods yet.
I snorted at my pun and quickly got back to work.
I took one more look into the kitchen to make sure Lydia was still occupied. I think she mentioned the baby’s name, butdamn if I could remember it. Unbuttoning and unzipping the guy’s jeans, I was relieved to find he was wearing a pair of boxer briefs. Not that I should have been paying attention to such things while the guy was unconscious, but they were black and did nothing to hide the fact that the guy had something to be proud of in his pants.
It was a struggle to get the jeans off with him just lying there unable to help. I checked multiple times on the kids as well as made sure he hadn’t woken up yet. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to wake up so I could get some answers and he could help me get his pants off or if I preferred he stayed out so he didn’t wake up to find a strange woman taking off his pants.
Then again, not sure if guys would freak out about something like that. If the roles were reversed, I certainly would if I woke to find a strange man was taking my pants off, but women had different things to worry about in a situation like that.
I chastised myself for once more going off topic and worked harder to get his jeans off faster. His legs were damp but not overly cold to the touch. Again, this was good. He hadn’t been exposed that long. The snowmobile ride from his car to my cabin had only been about fifteen minutes, but, in these conditions, fifteen minutes could be a very long time.
I covered him with a blanket and then went into my bathroom. It made me realize the girl hadn’t asked to use it. Was she afraid to or maybe didn’t want to leave her brother long enough to use it? I’d inquire when I got back to the kitchen.
I grabbed a bath towel and went back to the couch. I made sure the guy’s legs, arms, pits, hair, and torso were dry. No need for him to get a cold or pneumonia with no medical attention accessible. Mind, I generally didn’t go see one myself. I was in great health with no conditions that needed regular attention. I checked my breasts monthly, got my period regularly, and wasn’t on any medications. During the winter, going into townwas doable in an emergency but not something I did or relied on doing. There was no point. I spent my spring, summer, and fall months preparing for the four to five months I’d be stranded on the mountain during the winter. It was only recently that I started prepping extra for Tommy.
I canned my own fruits and vegetables, hunted and cured my own meat, and kept my own garden. I had access to a fresh water source on my land I used during the warmer months and used melted snow for my water source during the winter. I was self-sustaining. It took a lot of learning and many, many mistakes to get to where I am today, but it was all worth it. I got my private, quiet, and peaceful lifestyle. Did I get lonely sometimes? Sure, but it passed. Generally, with a trip to town where I am reminded of how petty and loud people could be.
I didn’t go into Whitefish often. When I did, it was usually for something I wasn’t able to grow, hunt, or make on my own up here. The last time I went was to get extra parts for my hot water heater just in case something happened to it over the winter.
In my previous life, I hadn’t been very mechanical. Hell, I remember joking once that the only thing I knew about cars was which pedal was for the gas and which was the brake. Back then, I never would have imagined that I could or would ever learn every part of my truck, snowmobile, and four-wheeler so I could maintain them myself. While my truck was parked in town due to there being no direct road to my cabin, I rarely needed it or used it. In fact, I think the last time I did use it was going on six months ago when I’d gotten lumber for Dalton to build Tommy a ramp over his stairs while he’d been in his wheelchair following his hip surgery.
My life here was so different than I ever pictured or imagined for myself. But it was also what I needed when my life had gone belly up ten years ago. I never would have chosen this lifefor myself and yet I also wouldn’t trade it. I needed my cabin; I needed my peace. I worked every day to make sure I had food and shelter. The little money I spent was generally earned back when I brought Jack extra bear, deer, bobcat, and/or coyote jerky. He bagged it and sold it in his store during tourist seasons. I also made soaps from the animal fats and added spices to make different scents to also sell atJack’s. Occasionally, when I bagged a male deer and his antlers were full-grown, I sold the antlers to my neighbors for them to make their furniture or weapons with. They also hunted, so it wasn’t often that they asked for extra parts I might have.
While I was proficient in gun usage, hunting, tracking, and treating my own meat were new skills I had to learn. I used to look down on hunters, thinking the sport was inhumane. But it only took me one winter up here to realize there was a difference between hunting for food and using all the parts I could rather than hunting for trophies or bragging rights. I would never hang a deer head on my wall, but I would use the hide to make blankets. The bear-skin rug in my living room was one of the firsts that I’d made on my own. The bear had come too close to my cabin and I’d had to shoot to defend my meat-stores. When at all possible, I did try to let bears be. They tended to be more of a nuisance than dangerous. It was coyotes and bobcats that were the real dangers. They weren’t as easily deterred as bears were. Plus, bears were usually too big for me to handle on my own.
Tucking the blanket around the man, I decided to let him sleep. I was not a doctor, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with him other than signs of exhaustion and being cold. Keeping him by the fire and letting him rest were the best I could come up with for now. If he woke up and there was something more serious going on, I’d figure out what to do then.
His jeans were an obvious sign that he was not from thisarea or used to this type of weather. I searched his jeans when I’d taken them off for a wallet or ID but there’d been nothing in his pockets except a very worn postcard of the beach. Random and not helpful.
I journeyed into the kitchen to see how the kids were faring. I still needed to move my snowmobile, bring in my bag, and check my gas levels. The generator had plenty of fuel, especially if I only used the fires to keep us heated. Many times, on stormy nights like this, I slept in front of the fireplace in my living room so I didn’t have to keep a fire going in two different rooms. I always had a fire going in the living room, as it was my most frequently used room. I only kept the kitchen and bedroom lit during extreme cold waves. Tomorrow, depending on the conditions, I should be able to dust off my solar panels to conserve the generator. Regardless, I had a feeling this was about to be a long night.
Chapter Four
Adam
Sunlight woke me. My head was pounding, so opening my eyes to the brightness was difficult. It took several blinks to get my vision to focus. I was staring up at a vaulted wood ceiling, though I had no idea why. The beam across the center had lights built into it, but they weren’t on. No, it was the light streaming in from the window that had roused me.
My head was foggy, and I wasn’t entirely sure I was awake. After all, my bedroom in the mansion was painted white on the ceiling. Certainly wasn’t wooden or vaulted. I wondered briefly if I’d had too much to drink. I wasn’t a drinker, but I liked the occasional beer. I hadn’t overindulged since my college days. But after the shit I’d seen and experienced recently, I might have given in to the temptation to escape for the night.
My brain, though muddled, immediately rejected that conclusion. I wouldn’t risk not being able to be there for my kids.
I sat up quickly, my heart pounding. “My kids!”
“Easy,” a gentle voice said from behind me. “You’re safe. The kids are safe.”
