Wordlessly, he grabbed the fuel canister and eyed the stove, primed it, and lit it carefully.
She looked like a zombie. He imagined he did, too. Running a palm over his jaw produced a fistful of tiny icicles. They sat in his still-gloved hand like a pile of white marbles. For one furious instant, he wanted to fling them outside, to fight back, somehow, against the absolute hopelessness.
“You okay?”
She nodded from her nest where she sat huddled smaller than he’d ever seen her.
He slid into the bag and held her tight until the shivering subsided. His or hers, he couldn’t tell.
“That storm wanted a piece of us.”
He nodded. “Yeah, we should have stopped before.” He didn’t have to say what he was thinking—that they couldn’t afford this delay.
Maybe food would help. Not just for sustenance, but because it meant something to her. It fed her soul. He might not know her well, but he’d gathered that much about this woman.
As he set to work doing all the things that would ensure their survival, he thought of how the GPS unit had flickered earlier. At the time, it had told him they’d gone seven miles. He couldn’t imagine they’d made much more progress once it had gone full whiteout.
Seven goddamn miles when they had over two hundred to cover. Somewhere around two hundred forty now, probably. At this rate, it would take over a month to get there. Longer if the storm didn’t let up. Their food wouldn’t last that long.
And then there was the distinct possibility that their pursuers would come after them once the weather cleared. Maybe not by plane, now that the chill had arrived in earnest. Nobody flew here once it hit fifty below.
And they were definitely getting there.
Which made him want to laugh in ascrewed if you do, screwed if you don’tkind of way.
“Here.” She jolted him from his thoughts. “I’ll do it.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. Working helped the time pass. It kept a person from going crazy out here.
She looked better as she took over. Tired and drawn, but more herself. After a few seconds, he turned to his own issues—the socks he needed to get out of, the blisters and chafing to patch up, the fingers and toes to check for telltale numb spots and loose skin.
Everything around them shook—the canvas, the zippers, the clothes they’d hung to dry. It all rattled as if the earth itself were shuddering beneath them. But in his sleeping bag, with an extra bag wrapped around him and the stove on, he felt human again, if not toasty. As he watched Angel cook, the color seeping back into her face, something strangely content, almost domestic, overtook him.
His eyes shot to hers. She couldn’t possibly know what he was thinking.
But so what if she did? She was cooking; he’d set up the shelter. If it resembled—in even a passing way—a cozy living situation, then he’d take it.
He sat forward and sniffed, wishing he could get a whiff of what she was making, but the day’s travels had burned that sense right out of him.
Apparently his taste buds didn’t care if it smelled good or not, because just the sight of brown, rehydrated chicken à la king, or whatever stewy mess sent steam rising from the bowl, had saliva shooting into his mouth. It felt good, this hunger. His body had earned this meal.
She handed him his food and he dug in like a starving man. They ate, cleaned up, and prepared for bed in silence, exhaustion making extraneous effort impossible.
With the raging storm, they couldn’t hear each other speak. Their language was barely suppressed groans—of pain, exhaustion, pleasure.
It wasn’t until she went outside to take care of her needs that he looked at the sleeping bags, separate now, and had a moment of awkward indecision.
They’d be warmer together. But last night had been…confusing. He wanted to curl himself around her again, craved the feel of her body, soft and appealing, even through layers of clothing. And that desire freaked him out.
She came back in and fussed around without meeting his eyes. Embarrassed, maybe, at having to perform bodily functions in such close quarters. He headed out for the same purpose—into the hard, stinging, soul-snatching vortex.
Coop hadn’t experienced darkness like this since last winter, before the sun had risen for short-lived austral summer. Beforeshe’darrived.
Now, he barely felt the ice and wind and snow as he stared at the half-buried orange structure glowing like an oasis in the desert.
And suddenly, he understood why he couldn’t have her back then or now. Or ever.
He was a starving man and she was an oasis, a hallucination, a single sparkling drop of water in his desiccated world. And the problem with giving in, drinking that water, getting just one little taste, was that he’d know exactly what he’d been missing. And he’d never ever be able to go back.
