Michael slips off his glasses and sets them down on a side table before answering.“We’re still on the property. It’s less than two miles if you take the trail.”
He mentioned something about a trail before. “Less than twomiles?”
At his nod, the future movie about my struggle for survival becomes a blooper reel.
CHAPTER SIX
“I can’t believeI missed the stupid trail.”
“If you hadn’t walked out in a storm and gotten turned around in the woods, you would have seen the signs for it near those bushes you mentioned,” he assures me, but I can tell his sympathy is now warring with his amusement. Well, sure. Who wouldn’t find this funny? Oh, that’s right. The idiot who managed to get lost beside a well-marked trail.
“Connor will never let me live this down,” I say fatalistically, imagining years ofYou Are Herejokes and arrows set up to point me to our living room.
“Connor,” he repeats the name darkly. “I spoke to him while you were sleeping.”
I look up so quickly I almost wrench my neck and wince at the headache that hasn’t entirely faded. “You spoke to him? What did he say? Shit, where is my phone?”
I run my hands through my hair, thinking about my missing hat. I’m not sure where my clothes are at this moment either, but there are only so many things I can panic about at once.
“It’s upstairs charging. I had to dry it out, but it still works. Relax, Win. There’s plenty of time for me to answer all yourquestions. We won’t be going anywhere until tomorrow at the earliest.”
It should sound ominous. Alone in the woods with a virtual stranger. A snowstorm. My friends too far away to help. But I’m cozied up in a cabin with Michael and two little teddy bear dogs, which feels more like a holiday romance than a horror movie. If I weren’t injured and out of sorts, I might even be able to relax and enjoy the situation.
“Wait, how did you get ahold of my roommate if my phone needed to dry?” And how did he get by my locked screen?
“I used my phone to call the lodge and let them know they were missing a guest.” His fists clench at his sides. “I’m afraid I wasn’t that polite about it.”
There he goes, growling again. I wish I didn’t like it so much.
“It wasn’t their fault. There were plenty of people wandering in and out of the lodge. Even the weather channel wasn’t expecting a blizzard.” I bit my lip. “I hope nobody was out skiing when this hit.”
There were kids who were excited to try it this morning. I saw a few pairs of cute, smaller skis in the lobby, making me imagine bunny slopes and anxious parents. Was anyone caught on the lift I’d seen in the distance?
“They told me the rest of the guests were all accounted for,” he assures me. “And the employees at the lifts were brought in as soon as the weather turned.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
He nods. “The woman at the front desk was a little upset that you were missing. And that she was being harassed by both me and another man who’d been demanding she hand over supplies for a search party.”
“Connor?”
Another nod. “She gave him the phone and I let him know you were safe.”
“He was trying to start a search party for me?” Go Conman. I knew he wouldn’t leave me to die in the mountains.
“That’s usually the next step when someone goes missing.”
I ignore his dry comment. “Was her name Veronica? The woman you talked to?”
His eyebrows lift. “I don’t think I caught her name. Is it important?”
“Not to you.” A wicked grin curves my lips. “We met her when we arrived yesterday and Connor was deeply interested. There were sparks all over the place. I was planning on finding an excuse to get them together again at some point, though getting lost like an idiot in a snowstorm wasn’t in my playbook. Still, as long as he wasn’t too rude, it sounds like it might have done the trick. Super wingman strikes again.”
Michael blinks. “Wingman? So you and he aren’t…”
I’m wearing my gag face before I can stop it. “He’s basically my brother. My very straight brother who doesn’t wash his socks for months at a time because Sports. What did he say?”
“He said to tell you ‘the others’ were calling every five minutes for updates before his phone started fritzing, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up as soon as the roads opened again. That was after he suggested I’d kidnapped you, since you never go into the woods voluntarily, asked for references, and threatened to ‘Liam Neeson’ me if anything happened to you.”
