Chapter 19 Gregory
Gregory
I’m staring at the firewood stack by the hearth.
Or rather, the lack thereof.
We’ve burned through almost all of it.
Though honestly, it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. Considering we’ve kept the fire roaring 24/7 because it’s the only goddamn heat source in the entire chalet...
“We need more wood,” I tell Sorrel when I walk back to the kitchen. She’s washing breakfast dishes with melted snow at the kitchen sink. “Before we attempt the roof. A quick run to the wood storage. Think of it as a practice run for the roof.”
She turns, drying her hands on a towel, and says: “Are you sure you’re not just trying to delay clearing the satellite dish? Delay our rescue?”
There’s that sarcasm I’ve come to admire. Good to see it back. Because let’s be fucking honest, that mountain lion scared the shit out of her.
And me?
Yeah.
Me too.
Not that I’d admit it to anyone but myself.
Still, the question lands hard. Because fuck if I know anymore. Part of me wants that dish clear, wants rescue, wants her safe and warm in civilization where mountain lions don’t stalk the perimeter and she has proper food and her parents and friends can stop worrying about her.
The other part?
The other part wants the storm to come back. Wants the roads to stay closed. Wants this bubble we’ve built to last forever.
I don’t answer her question.
“But you are right,” she continues, reading my silence correctly.
“If something goes wrong on the roof, we’ll need heat.
Besides, even if clearing the dish works, rescue won’t come immediately.
We’ll need the fire regardless.” She crosses her arms. “And it certainly feels safer to make a quick run for firewood than to be exposed on that roof for who knows how long while we’re shoveling out the dish. ”
I nod. “Okay. Glad we’re on the same page.”
“So where’s the wood stored?” she presses.
My jaw tightens. “North side. Under the eaves. Near where we keep the food.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “Near where the cougar has been circling.”
“Yeah.”
She’s quiet a beat. “Hmm. Maybe not so safe. Well.” She straightens her shoulders in that way that means she’s made a decision. “Let’s gear up then.”
“No.” The word comes out sharply. “I’ll go. You stay inside where it’s safe.”
Her expression shifts from cooperative to mutinous in about two seconds. “Absolutely not.”
“Sorrel, that thing is dangerous,” I tell her. “You saw it. I’m not risking you.”
“We’ve already been through this.” She steps closer, jabbing a finger at my chest. “You promised we’d do everything together, remember? Everything. No going outside alone.”
Fuck.
My own words, thrown back at me.
“That was before I knew how bold the cat would be,” I argue, even though I know I’ve already lost. “It’s different now.”
“It’s not different.” Her voice softens but stays firm. “Gregory, I’m terrified something will happen to you, too. So we go together. Or not at all.”
The admission stops me cold. She’s scared for me.
This brilliant, competent woman who can repair generators and organize food storage and make me so hard it hurts is scared something will happen to me.
It makes me realize how much I care about her, too.
And how completely fucked we both are when rescue finally comes.
“Fine,” I concede roughly. “But we make noise. Lots of it.”
She nods. “Cougars usually avoid confrontation with humans if they know you’re there. Usually.”
I don’t like the emphasis she puts on the word usually.
But I understand completely what she means. If an animal is starving, say because a five day blizzard wiped out its usual food source, it will do things it ordinarily wouldn’t do.
Like attack a human.
We bundle up in layers. She’s already wearing my Columbia hoodie under her coat. Has been wearing it almost constantly since that first day. My scent on her skin... my warmth wrapped around her body.
Mine.
I grab two metal pots and wooden spoons from the kitchen. Makeshift noise makers. Not exactly high-tech, but better than nothing.
Finally we return to the mudroom and step outside into air so cold it burns my lungs.
The sun is brilliant on the pristine snow, making everything blindingly white.
Beautiful but deadly, I remind myself.
The walk through the deep snow to the wood storage feels like a mile instead of fifty yards.
We hug the walls of the house, moving outward to circumnavigate the bigger snow drifts, and I constantly scan the tree line along with the chalet roof above us.
You know, just in case the cat is perched there.
We occasionally bang our makeshift noisemakers.
I’ve made Sorrel walk in front of me so I can protect her back. She’s so close I can hear her breathing, and see the white puff of each exhale.
I can also hear her teeth chattering. She’s shivering, despite all the layers.
I rest a gloved hand on her and stop walking.
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Gregory, what are we--”
I lower my makeshift noisemaker and shrug off my Patagonia jacket. Fifteen hundred dollars of technical winter wear that suddenly means nothing compared to her comfort.
“Put this on,” I order, draping it over her shoulders as an additional layer.
“Gregory, no, you need--”
“Put it on.” I command. “You’re freezing and I’m about to haul wood. Thermodynamics. I’ll be working, generating heat. You’ll be standing watch. Mostly.”
She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. She lowers her pot and slips her arms into the sleeves. The jacket swallows her, hangs past her hands, and she stops shivering.
I can’t help but smile.
Mine.
It definitely feels colder now, wearing just the sweater, but I grin and bear it.
She slightly rolls up the sleeves of my Patagonia jacket so that she can grip the pot with her gloves, and we continue the walk.
We reach the wood storage and I immediately see them. Fresh paw prints in the snow. Huge and recent. The tracks circle the food storage containers just twenty feet away, then disappear into the tree line, coinciding with where we saw it earlier.
“Gregory.” Sorrel’s voice is tight with fear.
“I see them.” I scan the tree line, looking for movement, for tawny fur against white snow.
Nothing.
Doesn’t mean it’s not there, watching in secret. I hand her my pot and wooden spoon so that she has two of each now. “Keep making noise. Loud as you can.”
She bangs the pots together while I load my arms with split logs. The sound echoes across the snow. Primitive as hell but effective, apparently.
When my arms are full, she stops banging and sets the pots down carefully. Stacks a few smaller pieces of wood inside each pot like makeshift baskets, then tucks one pot under each arm. It’s awkward as fuck but resourceful.
Classic Sorrel, making do with what we have.
The walk back feels longer. More exposed. Doesn’t help that my arms are heavy with firewood. Thanks to the exertion, I barely even notice the cold anymore. My back will hate me later but I don’t give a fuck. Every piece I carry is one less she has to manage.
I keep myself behind her, watching the tree line and the roof.
Halfway to the house, I hear it. A low sound. Not quite a growl, not quite a hiss.
My blood turns colder than the air.
I search the tree line, can’t spot the damn cat.
“Don’t run,” she says quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t run. It triggers the chase response.”
“So what do we do?” I ask.
“Walk. But slowly.”
So we keep walking. Slowly. Carefully. No sudden movements.
The sound doesn’t repeat but I can feel eyes on us
A predator evaluating its prey.
Calculating its odds.
We make it to the mudroom door.
I yank it open, usher Sorrel through first, then follow and slam it shut behind us.
Lock it.
The door’s solid wood. More than enough to stop a two-hundred-pound cat. But the click of the deadbolt makes me feel fractionally less useless.
We kick off our boots and dump the wood by the fireplace in the great room. She drops the pots.
My arms are shaking from adrenaline and exertion. Sorrel’s breathing hard, her face flushed from a mix of cold and fear and relief.
She peels off her gloves and holds them toward the fire. She keeps wearing my Patagonia jacket above her own, and the long sleeves creep down a bit now that she’s removed the gloves.
As I look at her, I notice it...
Her fingers are bone white.
Bloodless.
The tips already showing the telltale waxy appearance of the beginning stages of frostbite.
“Shit, Sorrel.” I cross to her, catch both her hands before she can hide them. They’re like ice even through my own gloves. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because we needed the wood more than I needed warm hands,” she says, but her voice wavers.
“You don’t get to make that call,” I tell her roughly. “Not when it’s your body on the line.”
I pull her closer to the fire, strip off my own gloves, and capture her frozen fingers between my palms. Rub gently, trying to force circulation back without causing damage. Lift them to my mouth and breathe warm air across the white tips.
She’s staring at me with those wide brown eyes that make me want to burn the whole world down to keep her safe. The intimacy of the moment cuts through the lingering adrenaline, the fear, everything.
I keep rubbing, keep breathing warmth, watching color slowly return to her fingertips. Pink creeping back where white had taken hold.
“One thing I don’t understand.” I tell her as I work. “You were outside for four hours yesterday working on that generator and your hands were fine. Meanwhile, this was what, twenty minutes? Thirty at most? It didn’t feel that much colder to me.”
She glances down at her fingers, then back up at me. “Fight or flight response. When you’re terrified, your body shunts blood away from extremities to protect vital organs. It’s an evolutionary survival mechanism. Core temperature preservation at the expense of fingers and toes.”
I nod in understanding. “So fear made your hands colder than the actual cold did.”
“Basically.” Her voice is steadier now, slipping into scientist mode.
“Yesterday I was focused on the repair work. Problem solving. Today I was scanning for a predator that could kill us. And when we heard it... my sympathetic nervous system went into overdrive and decided my heart and brain needed blood more than my fingers.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“It’s better now, though,” she says.
I nod, but keep doing what I’m doing until I’m satisfied her hands are the same temperature as mine.
And I just stare into her eyes.
She returns my gaze, somewhat shyly.
We’re both alive.
Both safe.
Both here.