“It’s not cold enough to ice over yet, so that’s something,” Huck remarked on the flowing water before glancing upward. “I can’t tell if the storm is passing or if the trees are just blocking out most of the snow.”
“Perhaps this would be a good time to look at the map of the forest in the brochure you picked up. May be enough moonlight to read it.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t a map so much as a vague blob with some symbols indicating ghosts and beheading locations, what have you.”
“Are you joking? You said you were certain this was the way out!”
“Now, now. Temper, banshee.”
“We’re lost in a haunted forest, Huck!”
He held up a finger. “Not lost. Here’s a stream. Bound to lead somewhere, yeah?”
I shoved his chest with both hands, and he stumbled backward in the snow. “Are you kidding me? You should have killed us in the plane crash while you had the chance. Because now I’m going to have to strangle you, and bears will eat your carcass!”
“I told you animals lust after my leg meats—” He shielded himself and laughed as I smacked his arm several times. “Hey, now! Control thyself, empress. We’re not lost, I tell you. I know exactly where we are.”
“So do I—lost! In a haunted forest.”
“You love ghosts,” he said, grabbing my gloved hand.
“I love warmth and not freezing to death too! I love not crashing planes in the middle of the wilderness.”
“I told you I didn’t want to steal it! You should be praising my name for landing that bajanxed hunk of metal! Now, stop trying to hit me, for the love of the saints.” Exasperated, he grabbed my other hand too.
“What did you say when we were going down?”
“Pardon?”
“When we were crashing—”
“Landing,” he corrected.
“You said ‘I regret’... something. You regret what?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me!” I said, pulling against his grip.
“Just did,” he insisted. “Isaid, I regret nothing.”
“Oh,” I said, a little breathless. I stopped trying to yank my hand away from his. “You mean...?”
He looked down at me with snowflakes clinging to his lashes. “You know what I mean. Everything. From the first time I kissed you until that night in your room. It’s what I meant to tell you before. I do not think that what we did was sinful or a crime against God, no matter what Fox says.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head, and in that moment I felt the invisible wall between us fall away with the snow. And there it was: our connection. It wasn’t broken after all. It hadn’t disappeared with the months we’d spent apart.
“I don’t either,” I said in a small voice. “I don’t regret a thing.”
His grip loosened, and his hands tentatively clasped mine. Such a simple thing, holding hands. Such a simple, miraculous thing. My heart pounded rapidly inside my chest.
Somewhere in the forest, a branch snapped. Might have been a squirrel or the weight of snow breaking a twig. But it was loud enough to invade the magical, perfect moment that I was feeling with Huck. And then something changed in my peripheral vision.
It was on our side of the stream and much bigger than a squirrel.
It was also moving.
