“Hell, it deserves to be picked,” she murmured as she plugged in her laptop.
When everything was situated, she realized that Axel had been gone for a while—much longer than he had the first time he’d gone down to the supply room.
“Okay. Don’t panic. He’s fine. He’s just doing a more thorough search of all the supplies down there.”
Except…another ten minutes passed and he wasn’t back.
And then another.
Now she was definitely panicking.
The first thing she did was run to the back door and open it to see if she could see him anywhere. The wind was fierce and it was blowing rain right into her face. It was too dark to make out anything, and she feared he had gotten hurt while attempting to get down the stairs.
And she was afraid of meeting the same fate if she tried to go down and find out.
“I can’t just leave him out there if he’s hurt!” she reasoned frantically. “But I’m also not going to be of much help if I go out there and get hurt too!”
Ugh…this was a horrendous decision to make, but the bottom line was that she had to go after him.
Closing the door, she ran back out to where her clothes were hanging by the fire. They were mostly dry. Not that it mattered because they were about to get wet all over again. Her shoes weren’t very practical, but they were better than nothing. Quickly changing right out in the open, she pulled everything on haphazardly, slid her feet into her shoes, and went to the kitchen to make herself a poncho.
It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but she eventually got herself situated and, with a fortifying breath, she made her way out the door. She kept a death grip on the railing as she slowly went down the steps. It was dark, and she knew it was smarter to take her time. At the bottom, she called Axel’s name but didn’t hear a response.
That’s when it hit her that she had no idea where the supply room was.
It took a minute to get her bearings, and when she did, she decided to go around behind the stairs because the other direction would take her back to the front of the lodge.
The ground was muddy, and her shoes were sinking and sticking to it. She mentally cursed because they were Jimmy Choos and they had cost her a fortune. After this, they were going to be worthless.
So not the time to be worrying about that…
Feeling her way around she came to the side of the building and saw a faint light. It had to be the supply room, so that’s where she went. When she stepped inside, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Axel?”
“Maisie?” he replied, but his voice sounded far away and weak.
Not a good sign.
“Where are you?”
“Far back left corner. Just…be careful. The power’s not on down here. I found a flashlight.” As if to prove it, he moved the beam of light around so she could find him.
When she did, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw.
Axel was on the ground with a mountain of stuff wrapped in plastic on top of him.
“Oh my goodness! What happened?” She quickly moved to kneel beside him and began pushing the packages off of him.
“The shelf collapsed. I didn’t let a bunch of pillows, blankets, and towels take me out. Just so you know.”
She laughed softly.
“It just knocked the wind out of me. I would have been up on my feet in a minute.”
“Of course you would,” she said. When she found his hand, she gripped it and helped him sit up. “Did you hit your head? Do you feel dizzy? Anything hurt?”
“Just my pride,” he murmured as he steadied himself. “Thanks.”
