“Smokey?”
I close my eyes.
I replay the moment a little gray thing streaked across my foot…right before I closed the door.
No!
“Where is he?” I ask the dogs.
They raise their heads quizzically, then drop them back down again, when my words clearly have nothing to do with dinner.
I leap up and conduct a search of the cabin: behind the curtains, up into the loft—which turns out to be a cute little bedroom—in the bathroom, under the sofa.
It doesn’t take long to establish that Smokey is definitely no longer in the cabin.
Crap.
I grab my coat again, shove my arms into the sleeves, and wrench the door open. The cold cuts right through my clothes. Wow. It’s dark out there.
I turn on my phone’s flashlight.
The beam barely illuminates the snow three feet in front of me.
“Smokey!” I yell into the darkness. “Get your furry butt back here!”
My voice disappears into the night. It sounds thin, too human for this wilderness. Nothing answers—no meow, no movement. Just the soft hiss of snow falling.
I step off the porch, boots sinking to the ankle. “Smokey!” I try again, louder this time. “This isn’t funny, Cat Face!”
Nothing moves in the darkness. The flashlight beam flickers over the path, catching on drifts of white and the black spines of fir trees. I start walking, one hand lifted to block the snow, the other clutching the phone like a lifeline.
I’ve never been anywhere this darn wild before. All my instincts tell me to get the hell back inside. But there’s no way I can let Smokey freeze to death out here.
As I advance into the darkness, my heart’s hammering way harder than it should for a missing cat.
The wind picks up, cold and stinging. My phone light flickers, the battery icon a cruel red sliver.
Then I see it. A small, dark shape darting among the trees. “There you are!”
I take off after it—too fast.
My foot catches on something and I go down hard.
My phone drops, landing face-up in the snow, the light beaming straight into the sky.
“Fantastic,” I mutter, trying to push myself up, but my feet can’t get purchase on the snow.
Somewhere behind me, snow crunches.
I freeze. “Smokey?”
Another crunch, closer this time. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. I look around wildly.
Crunch.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
A deep voice.
