“Hank?” I murmur. If he wants to kiss me, all he needs to do is ask.
Slowly, I open my eyes. Zelda’s snow-covered face hovers in front of me. “Hey, girl.”
She whimpers, nudging at my arm.
I lift the limb, realization setting in. I’m not buried by the snow, but I’m trapped, nonetheless. Wedged deep in a snowbank with the tree on top of me and no room to wiggle, I feel like I’ve been run over by ten reindeer. The limbs of the fir scratch at my face, though, luckily, there’s a small air pocket to my left that allows me to breathe.
Taking long, deep exhales, I will myself not to panic. It’s a difficult feat with what feels like a million pounds sitting on mychest. I can’t stretch. Can’t even wiggle my toes. And it’s cold. So very cold.
Ugh, God. I went down the hill like one of those cartoon animals stuck in a careening snowball. Luckily, my leather gloves and hat stayed put during my tumble. Though it’s possible they’ll just ensure a slower, more painful death.
Another whimper from Zelda pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“I know. If I could move, I would.” Grunting, I heave one shoulder, trying to free it. But it’s useless. I’m stuck.
“Help!” I yell, but my voice is thin and weak in the silence of the wild.
Oh God. Hank will find me in the morning, wet and dead. I should have taken his advice and forgotten about the tree.
Hank.
I look into Zelda’s eyes. She’s the best chance I have. “Go get Daddy.” At the word, she straightens up, her wagging tail barely visible through the branches between us. I make my voice forceful, stern. “Go, Zelda. Get help. Now, girl!”
She leaps, yipping once, then takes off into the snow.
My heart sinks as she disappears.
I’m an idiot. All this for a stupid tree.
Above me, the falling snow, whipped by the wind, obscures the sinking sun. Darkness is coming on quickly. Fuck. What a way to spend the night. I’ll be buried here like Frosty the Snowman. No one will find me. I’ll die alone in the freezing Montana wilderness.
I try again to wrench my shoulders free, causing the pine branches to scrape across my face. But the tightly packed snow grips my body, holding me in place in a frozen little coffin.
Tears blur my eyes. Cold seeps through my jacket. I shiver from head to toe, teeth chattering, bone-deep cold.
My arms, my eyelids are heavy. I yawn.A nap, I think.Just five minutes.
Hank’s voice.Don’t go to sleep, Bellamy. Don’t you dare.
I dare.
The cabin’s empty. I know it the second I step inside. Even so, I spend three minutes scouring the eight-hundred-square-foot space.
“Bellamy!” I call out.
Dread pools in my stomach as I turn to the window. The winter nights in Montana are long, daylight nearly gone. The wind whips, the blowing snow blurring out the world around the cabin.
Heart in my throat, I zero in on the front door. “She wouldn’t,” I lie to myself.
She would.
This is the girl who raised a passel of orphaned opossums, sleeping in the barn next to them for weeks. The girl who gave up her job in San Francisco for a poor cowboy. There’s no stopping her when her mind’s set.
It’s one of the things I love most about her. Yet it scares the hell out of me.
Worry roars, truck-like, through my blood. I rub a hand over my jaw, feel it tick. “Goddamn it, Bell.”
She was upset and angry when I left this afternoon, but the very least she could have done is left a note.
