It took an hour of riding before he found something.
The edges of the forest appeared on the horizon. The trees looked black against the skyline, and they swayed and groaned as if the wind was trying to tear them from the earth. He pushed ahead, and on the edges of the tree line he saw something that made his stomach drop.
It was a lone horse charging from the forest.
Gabriel kicked his horse toward it, and he saw immediately the empty saddle. The horse rushed right past him, but he did not waste time going after the thing. Sophia was in that forest somewhere, he was sure of it. And he was just as sure that she needed him.
He reached the edges of the forest, climbed down from the horse, and threw the reigns over a fallen branch. His horse kicked back and tried to run as the world erupted, but he eased it to calm and double checked that it could not break free.
And then, not wasting another second, he marched head first into the dark forest.
Each step taken was a struggle. His boots sank into the mud. Rain lashed his face. Branches fell from the sky. He pushedforward always, tripping over the branches, scratching his face open on sticks, rain blinding him.
“Sophia!” he called through the howling winds. “Sophia! Where are you?!”
Terror reigned over him. The gaping pit in his stomach grew wider with each step taken so that it threatened to swallow him whole. The urge to give up was right there, to admit defeat and mourn his lost wife…No! Not yet! Just a little further…
He continued forward, calling for his wife.
“Sophia! Sophia! I’m sorry!”
Gabriel could not say how he spotted her when he did. It was so dark that he could hardly make out anything more than a foot before his eyes. Those same eyes stung from the rain. Everything looked the same. But somehow, through the wilderness, his vision cleared as if a beam was shooting down from the sky to light his way.
More than that, hefelther. He could not explain it, but something pulled him in the right direction. The fates intervening, it must have been.
There she was, Sophia, curled into a ball underneath a fallen log. Her arms were wrapped around her body, she visibly shook from the cold, but she was alive.
“Sophia!” He tripped and stumbled as he ran for her. “Sophia! Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” He fell to his knees in the mud and pulled her trembling body close to his. “Sophia? It’s all right. You’re going to be all right…”
Were those words for her? Or were they for him?
Her eyes were closed but a soft moan escaped her lips. “Gabriel…” she said in a whisper. “Are you… is that you… how?”
“I’m here,” he said to her, his voice cracking. “You’re safe now.”
She was so weak that she couldn’t move. So broken that he feared touching her in case she crumbled. With no other choice, Gabriel summoned every last bit of energy that he had and hoisted her over his shoulder as he somehow climbed to his feet.
Then, once he had had safely in his arms, he began the long journey home.
This was his fault, and that was a truth that Gabriel could not escape. Wanting to prove herself, she had done something stupid, and very nearly paid the price. Had Gabriel just been a little kinder, had he told her the truth of how he felt, none of this would have happened.
But Sophia was alive, and that was what mattered, and that was what he focused on as he carried her home.
CHAPTER 21
Sophia woke up with a start.
It felt as if air was pouring through her lungs and she gasped and lurched and sat herself up in a way that might have suggested that she was coming back to life. Breathing heavy, body trembling, it took her a moment to remember what had happened.
She was in her bedroom, tucked safely into bed, dry and comfortable in ways that should have been impossible. Her last memory was of the storm and the wet, her body breaking down, the strength leaving her, her final effort to find shelter under a fallen log before letting her eyes drift closed…
I should be dead. Maybe I am? Is this what heaven looks like?
It took a few more minutes of confusion before the rest of her memory came back to her. It was muddled and confused, andshe wondered if she had dreamt it. But that she was here right now suggested that it was real.
Gabriel had saved her. She remembered now, him finding her in the forest, carrying her to safety, putting her on his horse and leading it back through the chaos. She tried to remember more, what he might have said to her, but her head throbbed painfully.
“Gabriel…” The room was too dark to see but hope gave it light. She looked around, searching, expecting him to be there. “Are you… there?”
