As Tash had helped him as best she could, considering her hands were still cuffed, he’d explained that the only reason he was building a fire was because of the smoke that was already hanging heavily in the air.
The current low-hanging cloud cover was keeping the smoke from escaping, Thomas had continued in his narrate-a-nature-video tone. Normally, in clear conditions, smoke from even a small fire like this one would be the equivalent of a neon sign announcingWe are here!andCome and get us!But with the amount of smoke both from the exploded SUV and whatever else was burning already hanging in the air,theirsmoke wouldn’t stand out.
The sun hadn’t seemed close to setting when Thomas had first announced that there was no way they’d be able to hike all the way to the Ustanzian compound tonight, and that they’d need to stop so he could build them this shelter.
The very first thought that popped into Tasha’s head in giddy response was:We’re finally gonna have sex!
Her stupid imagination had immediately concocted a glorious story—she and Thomas, clinging together for warmth in a far less tick-slash-spider-filled shelter than this one. Whispered talking would lead to banter would lead to heated glances, which would lead to a kiss and then many more kisses... which eventually would lead to them both shedding their clothes, orgasming wildly, and then proclaiming their undying, endless, and epic love.
She knew it was ridiculous, and yet...
They’d both survived a fiery, explosive death today. So even if the proclaiming-undying-love thing was admittedly a stretch, the idea of two healthy, grateful people havingwhoop-whoop, we’re both alivesex didn’t seem allthatfar-fetched.
Except for the fact that one of them was her and the other was Thomas King.
Back when they’d first stopped walking, Thomas had given her a long list of verynon-we-gotta-have-sex reasons why they couldn’t push on to the ski lodge; why they had to stop for the night even though it was still daylight. As they continued, the incline would get far more steep and at times even treacherous. They’d have to use their hands—and hers were still cuffed. No way was he willing to attempt that blind.
Because out here, he’d grimly told her, when it got dark, it gotdark.
“Not a lot of kidding is gonna be coming out of my mouth between now and tomorrow morning,” Thomas informed her now as he checked the temperature of one of the large rocks he’d placed along the bottom of the fire pit. Apparently, instead of snuggling together for warmth, they’d each get cozy with a rock or two, like a caveman’s version of a bed-warmer, “when we extract via Uncle Navy’s rescue helo.”
“You weren’t kiddingis just an expression, Thomas. Jeez,” Tasha countered, more irritated at him than she had the right to be. Except, no.She’descaped death today, too. “No need to clutch your pearls and go all Navy SEAL on me.”
He laughed at that. “And now I’m wondering—hard—about the dress code for the Ustanzian special forces. Pearls?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, instead of shouting,For God’s sake, stop treating me like I’m your little sister!
Because even though he’d started this with his wholeNot a lot of kiddingthing, she’d purposely saidclutch your pearlsto get the laugh that she’d wanted. And gotten. He’d obliged.
It was a game they’d played back when she was much younger, back when Thomas had babysat for her, twice, sometimes three times a week, and then later, when they’d just hung out, watching movies. He’d intentionally take whatever she said literally. It had always made them laugh themselves silly, but revisiting it here and now just made her feel sad and tired.
Of course, maybe shewasjust sad and tired. It had been a truly stupid day.
I do love you. You’re my little sister.
“You always hated camping,” she said to break the silence that was stretching on a little too long.
“Still do,” Thomas said evenly. “This isn’t camping. It’s SERE, with an emphasis on the S and the Es, and right now I happen to love it very much.”
SERE—as every family member of a Navy SEAL knew—was a military acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. Back when Thomas first realized that he aspired to be a SEAL, he recognized that although his San Diego-born-and-raised background gave him the swimming and boating skills required, his mountain-man type living-off-the-land abilities were lacking. He talked the SEALs in Team Ten into giving him a crash course in SERE training—and hated every minute of it.
Not that he’d complained to Bobby or Wes or Captain Catalanotto. But he’d shared his pain with Tasha, who’d giggled both at his stories and the fun he’d poked at his own despair.And then, it started to snowbecame their laughter-infused callback to any situation that went from bad to worse.
“You sure you don’t have, like, a pin or a pen or anything metal?” he asked her now, clearly hoping for some way to get these handcuffs off her.
She sighed heavily. “I’m still, sadly, not a time traveler from the early 1900s, so my supply of hatpins remains zero.”
Back after he’d started to rub two sticks together and she’d countered by pulling out Ted’s cigarette lighter, they’d done a quick inventory of the contents of her jacket’s pockets: a few folded tissues, two quarters and a dime, and a receipt from Dunkin’ Donuts, probably from Logan Airport.
She wasn’t wearing any jewelry except her earrings, which were studs. They’d already determined that the metal posts that pierced her ears were too small to use to pick the cuff’s lock.
Thomas had asked if she had any bobby pins in her hair, but he hadn’t known what to call them, so he’d reached and come up withhatpins. Her mockage had been mandatory.
“No other...” He cleared his throat in the darkness. “Larger piercings, like...” His dot-dot-dot hung in the rapidly cooling air.
Tasha waited.
Thomas cleared his throat again. “You know.”
