“You’re right,” he said, his voice free of the skepticism she expected. “We can reevaluate in the daylight.”
Those words alone tempted her to pull him closer and declare her undying love. His confidence—trueconfidence, not the blustering swagger of so many men—was sexy as hell. How refreshing that he was comfortable enough with himself that he didn’t have to appear right in order to appear strong.
Her brain spun like a whirlpool as she and Todd scooped the snow away from the tent’s opening. Outside, the ground had gone from a dark void to an eerie white blanket that made the entire forest glow.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered, loath to disturb the pristine hush with her voice.
“Pretty amazing, right?” Todd continued clearing a path several feet from the tent. “I love walking around my neighborhood after it snows, especially at night, when it’s bright like this, the fresh powder still untouched, before the plows and cars make a dirty mess of it.”
“I don’t know if I’d want to live in this, but it’s incredible. Does DC get a lot of snow?”
“Not usually,” Todd said, slipping up from behind and wrapping his arms around her.
She leaned into him, shocked by how easily they’d slid into the smallest intimacies.
“The most I can remember getting from a single storm ismaybetwo feet, but that’s not normal. We usually get a couple of inches, maybe eight to ten once every few years. The county dispatches plows to the freeway onramps, ready to drop salt and scrape the roads as soon as the snow starts falling. Unless they’re caught by surprise, the highways stay in pretty good shape and the city streets are usually clear by mid-morning.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I think the wind is worse. Almost as bad as Oklahoma. ‘Today’s high will be forty degrees with a wind-chill of nineteen,’” he said, imitating a well known TV meteorologist. “‘Bundle up.’”
“What were winters like in Oklahoma?”
He set to work heating several scoops of the snow for coffee and oatmeal. “We got a few inches of snow at most, and because it was rare, they didn’t have the resources to deal with it. Even worse was the freezing rain. Everything gets coated in a thick layer of ice. Power lines, trees, cars. It’s beautiful, but deadly.”
“Yikes. Between that and tornados, I think I’ll stick to the beach. The worst I ever have to deal with at home is fog, the rare earthquake, and people running red lights.”
He laughed. “I think red light running is universal.”
He’d know better than her. Part of her envied him for having experienced so many other parts of the world. After all, as much as she’d traveled with her family as a kid, she’d only ever lived in southern California.
“Where else have you lived?” she asked, gratefully accepting a mug of steaming coffee.
“Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Arizona. Some of that as a kid when my mom was active duty, some from when I was in the Air Force. I guess Afghanistan, too.”
She couldn’t even imagine. “How many tours did you have?”
“Three.”
How did someone decide to give so much of their life—decide to riskgivingtheir life—for others? She couldn’t help but admire and respect Todd’s sacrifices, even if she didn’t understand them.
Pop pop pop.
She froze, her gaze clashing with his. The sharp sounds were distant, but no less frightening for it.
“Is that gunfire?” she asked.
His expression hardened. “Probably. From the direction of the compound.”
“So they’re still there.” That was good news, right? If the men were there, maybe Megan was too.
“Sounds like someone is.”
Megan was there. Lindsey could feel it. Somehow, they’d sneak past the armed guards, rescue her friend, and get back to town without being discovered. Then they could focus on getting out of this legal mess once Megan was safe and could tell investigators what had really happened with JJ. Logically, she knew it couldn’t be that easy, but if she let herself stew over everything that could go wrong, she’d lose her nerve.
She was as prepared as she could be under the circumstances. And what other choice did she have? She couldn’t count on the police to help them.
Todd finished preparing breakfast with a frown on his face, clearly deep in thought. They sat close together on a tarp to eat, the hot food and drink warming her from the inside. Around them, the world turned blinding white as the day broke, the snow reflecting the first rays of sun and coating the forest and the floor below in fairy dust.
