Page 49

“Tanner, there’s the bridge. We’re almost there.”

“Leave me,” he whispered.

Bree just rolled her eyes and kept walking forward. “Don’t go all martyr on me now. If I was going to leave your heavy, muscled ass it would’ve been half a mile ago.”

He didn’t respond. And he stopped walking. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Can’t. You go.”

Bree got in front of him again, grabbing him by his soaked shirt, careful not to hurt any of his many injuries. She was going to use his greatest weakness against him and didn’t even care if that made her a bitch.

“You want me warm and safe inside that shelter, Hot Lips? Then you keep going. Because if you stop here, I stop here. That’s it. End of story. Dig deep for me, baby.”

His expression didn’t change, but he started walking again.

She couldn’t even see the crude door until they were right up on it. It was a small shelter that had been built into the highest section of the river’s ravine walls. Unless you knew it was there, you’d never guess that was what it was.

She was carrying almost all of Tanner’s weight the last dozen yards up the trail. He was almost unconscious on his feet.

And that damn storm never let up.

Leaning Tanner up against the side of the shelter, she pushed the heavy door open the only way she could, by throwing all her weight against it.

Nothing came flying, slithering or growling out. Anything else she didn’t care. Grabbing Tanner on his good side before he fell face-first, she eased him inside the door. Then helped him as best she could down to the ground.

He was out cold.

“You made it, Lips.” Not that she’d ever doubted he would. Not when it came to keeping her safe too.

She kept the door open to try to look around the shelter in the dark. There wasn’t much. But what there was, was beautiful.

In one corner were five blankets wrapped and sealed in plastic. In the other corner, at least a dozen cans of food and a couple of can openers. She wouldn’t be able to start a fire to cook whatever was in the cans, but she would gladly eat it cold at this point.

But first she had to get Tanner warm.

When she stumbled to the blankets and was assaulted by dizziness, she knew she was on the last of her own reserves. Tanner hadn’t been the only one to draw on every remaining bit of strength.

She pulled the blankets over near him and began stripping off his clothes. He wasn’t shivering—that was a bad sign. She dragged off every piece of clothing, then did the same for herself. Fingers nearly numb, she ripped open the packages containing the blankets. She immediately began wrapping them around Tanner, starting with his feet and head. She wasn’t sure if what she was doing was technically right but figured anything had to be better than his cold, wet clothes. When she’d wrapped three blankets around him, she lay down beside him and wrapped the final two around them both.

And then she rubbed. She rubbed his chest and shoulders with her hands. She rubbed his legs with her feet. She rubbed her body all over his.

If he was awake, he would’ve teased her unmercifully about her gyrating, but at least it was creating warmth between them.

She rubbed until she wasn’t able to find the energy to move anymore, then tucked his hands between their stomachs, and his feet between her calves.

She slept in fits and starts over the next few hours. At one point she got up and opened herself a can of what ended up being black beans, eating it with no hesitation whatsoever right out of the can using her fingers. But when she tried to wake Tanner up to get him to eat, he didn’t even budge, not even when she wrapped his bullet graze with some gauze she found.

Shouldn’t he be waking up? What if he had a concussion? Internal bleeding? She still had him wrapped in the blankets. It wasn’t unbearably cold now that they were dry and out of the elements, but still his skin was cool to her touch. How many times this past winter had she called him her personal electric blanket, always rolling in toward him seeking out his warmth? But it wasn’t there now.

Darkness had fallen, and there was nothing she could do right now anyway. If he still hadn’t woken up by first light, she’d have no choice but to leave him and try to get help herself. She lay back down, pulling his body close to hers, resting her hand over his heart, assured somewhat by its strong, steady beat.

So many variables came into play, so many things that could still go wrong. Of course, she and Tanner had had all sorts of variables—good and bad—laid out in front of them before, and they’d always dealt with them one by one because...

Bree sat straight up, then lay back down.

She had her vows.

Just like that, they’d come to her. Right here, lying naked on the ground after eating a cold can of beans, she’d finally figured out her vows.