Chapter 21
Gregory
I’m supposed to be fetching the ladder, but I keep watching Sorrel move around the great room instead.
She’s collecting our makeshift noise makers from where we dumped them on the floor.
The pots and wooden spoons that we used during the firewood run.
Her hair is still messy from sex, and she’s wearing my Columbia hoodie.
The fabric hangs past her fingertips and I want to strip it off her and fuck her again right here right now.
Fuck.
Not helpful when we’re about to climb onto a steep roof with a goddamn mountain lion circling the property.
She catches me staring and her cheeks flush pink. That tells me she’s thinking about it, too. About the way I made her ride my thigh until she was begging. About the way I made her cum again and again after that.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, but there’s no heat in it.
“Like what?” I ask casually.
“Like you want to devour me.”
I grin wickedly. “I do want to devour you.” I cross the room and cup the back of her neck, tilting her face up. “Every single inch. But first we need to clear that fucking dish and call for rescue.”
Her expression shifts from desire to fear almost instantly, and I hate it. The worst part is, I’m not sure if it’s the cougar she’s afraid of.
Or rescue.
Or both.
“I know,” she whispers.
I should let her go. Should focus on getting the ladder and not dying on an icy roof.
But I don’t.
So I just hang on.
Finally, I kiss her once, hard and fast, then force myself to pull away.
I head down to the basement storage room and return with the extension ladder. It’s aluminum and awkward, but manageable. I prop it against the wall near the mudroom entrance.
Sorrel is already in the mudroom, pulling on her boots. The makeshift noise makers are on the bench beside her. I grab a snow shovel from the mudroom closet. One of the pair Thomas keeps for clearing the entrance after storms.
“Why only one shovel?” she asks, watching me carefully.
I pause, shovel in hand. “Because I’m going up alone.”
“No, you’re not.” She stands and nonchalantly zips her coat. “I’m going up with you.”
“Absolutely not.” The words come out sharply. “You hold the ladder. I clear the dish. It’s too dangerous up there for you.”
“Gregory, listen to me.” She grabs my arm, forcing me to look at her.
“That roof is steep and icy, yes. But you know what’s more dangerous?
Me standing alone on the ground for twenty or thirty minutes while you’re up there.
Me holding a ladder. Unable to run. Unable to climb to safety.
Just standing there like bait while that cougar circles. ”
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. My brain was stuck on the image of her slipping on ice, sliding off the roof, falling. The immediate physical danger of the climb itself. But she’s right.
The cougar is the bigger threat.
And my plan leaves her completely exposed and vulnerable.
The fuck is wrong with me? How could I even consider doing that to her?
“You’re right,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“Happens to the best of us,” she quips.
The truth is, I’d prefer it if she stayed inside entirely, but I already know that’s not going to happen.
“But you do exactly what I say up there,” I grit out. “No arguments.”
“Okay.”
I reach back into the mudroom closet and grab the second shovel. Her face shows relief that I actually agreed, but it’s gone the instant she looks at the door.
“I’m scared,” she admits quietly.
“Me too.”
She tilts her head. “You don’t seem scared.”
“That’s because I’ve had years of practice pretending I’m not. But I am. Terrified something will happen to you up there. Terrified the cougar will come back. Terrified...”
That we’ll get the dish clear and call for rescue and everything will change.
But I don’t say that latter part.
“Let’s do this,” I say. “Before I change my mind and keep you trapped here forever.”
“Would that be so bad?” she asks, and there’s something wistful in her voice that makes my heart break.
She reaches for the door with her mitten, but then I remember what happened during the firewood mission. How her fingers went bone white courtesy of her fight-or-flight response.
“Wait.” I pull out a pair of thermal liner gloves from the mudroom closet. “Put these on under your mittens.”
She looks at them, then at me. “Gregory, those are yours.”
“And you’re the one whose sympathetic nervous system sacrifices fingers to protect vital organs when you’re terrified.” I press the gloves into her hands. “Your words, not mine. We’re about to spend some time on a roof with a cougar potentially circling. So wear the damn gloves.”
Her expression softens. She takes them, pulling the thin thermal layer on before sliding her mittens over top.
Then I hand her my Patagonia jacket as an additional layer over everything as well.
“What? No, I can’t do that.” She shakes her head. “You need some protection from the cold. We don’t know how long we’ll be up there.”
“Take it,” I order her. “You’ll be working up there with me, true, but you’re smaller. You lose heat faster. You need the warmth more than I do.”
She sighs, and finally accepts it. “Fine. But if I see you’re getting cold, I’m giving the damn thing right back. Especially considering how low your body fat percentage is.”
“Works for me,” I tell her, though secretly I have no intention of taking it back when we’re up there.
She opens the door, then scoops up both shovels. She leaves the other noisemakers... no free hands to carry them. I grab the ladder and follow.
Outside, the cold hits like a physical blow. The sun is brilliant on the snow, making everything blindingly white.
We trudge through the deep drifts toward the north side of the house where the satellite dish is mounted. For the most part we stay close to the walls. Every step requires effort, and my thighs burn from the exertion. That’s good, though. Exertion keeps you warm.
Sorrel leads the way in front of me while I verbally guide her. She follows the path we previously trampled through the snow to get to the food storage area, so she doesn’t have to break fresh trail until we’re past it.
The extension ladder is awkward as hell to carry through deep snow, but I manage it. Sorrel meanwhile occasionally clangs the shovels together, converting them into noisemakers.
We’re both scanning constantly. Tree line. Roof overhang. The food storage area where we know the cougar has been circling.
Nothing.
That somehow makes it worse.
When we reach the dish area, I set the base of the ladder on the ground and extend it section by section until it reaches the roof edge. Then I lean the ladder against that edge and step back, assessing the thing like I’m surveying a dangerous mine shaft.
Except this time it’s not about quarterly yields or extraction efficiency.
It’s about getting Sorrel up and down that ladder without her breaking her neck.
And once she’s up there...
The roof pitch glares down at me. Eight on twelve, Thomas had mentioned once in passing. At the time it was just a construction detail, meaningless trivia about a property I barely used.
Now it’s a potentially lethal incline.
Steep enough to shed snow efficiently in normal circumstances.
And steep enough to send a person sliding right off the edge if they lose their footing.
Which could kill her, at the height we’re talking.
I force the thought down and focus on the ladder angle, the stability, whether the base will hold in the snow. My hands check the extension locks twice. Three times.
Because if this thing shifts while she’s climbing, or if anything goes wrong...
Fuck, I shouldn’t have agreed to this.
“How deep is the snow?” she asks.
“Looks like about four feet from here,” I reply distractedly.
“Shit,” she says. “That’s a lot.”
“The dish is completely covered,” I agree. “Can’t see it at all.”
I can’t shake the building dread I’m feeling.
“Well at least we know for sure why it doesn’t work,” she quips.
“Yeah,” I tell her. And then I keep talking. Mostly to delay the inevitable. “The funny thing is, Starlink advertises a ‘Snow Melt’ feature. But it doesn’t work when the power is off. Or when the snow falls too fast.”
“Figures, right!” she cracks back.
I don’t answer. I take the shovels solemnly from her, and she stops smiling when she sees my face.
I toss them onto the roof one at a time. They sink deep into the snow up there.
Then I stare at the ladder.
Would it be safer for her to go first?
Or me?
I decide on me, since I don’t know how slippery it’s going to be up there.
If anyone is going to slip and fall as soon as they step off the ladder, it’s going to be me.
“You hold it steady while I climb,” I tell her. “Once I’m up, I’ll brace the ladder from above while you come up. Understand?”
“I know.” She’s already gripping the ladder, testing its stability. Her face is pale but determined. “I got you.”
“If you see the cougar, call out immediately. I don’t care if it makes me fall. You warn me.”
She glances toward the tree line. “Gregory...”
“Promise me, Sorrel,” I insist.
She sighs. “Fine. I promise.”
I kiss her once more because I need to, because if something goes wrong... I can’t climb onto that roof without tasting her one last time.
God.
She tastes so good.
Worth it.
Then I start climbing.
The ladder rungs are cold even through my gloves, and I’m starting to shiver now as I climb without my jacket, but I do my best to hide it.
Each step up feels precarious, with the ladder shifting slightly despite Sorrel’s grip.
I can feel her watching me, can imagine her heart racing with the same fear that’s making my own thunder in my ears.
When I reach the roof edge, I carefully transfer my weight onto the slope. The snow is deep... four feet of accumulation from the five-day blizzard blankets everything. I can barely see the roofline beneath all the white.