Chapter Three
“He’s gone? What do you mean, gone? Gone gone?” I ask Bazzy twenty minutes later.
We’re at the top of the highest, least woody hill at the compound. Baz and I rode here on one of his snowmobiles, barely managing to follow Archie’s speeding ATV up the snow-covered trail. I spent the entire ride with my face buried in Baz’s back and my arms squeezing his waist. The wind in your hair when it’s negative degrees outside? Not so nice.
Baz sweeps his arm out toward the bottom of the hill and beyond. I point my eyes in the direction he gestures and see the speck of a tiny, infuriating little man hauling our snowmobile – along with all our stuff – after him as he strands us on what I’ve been calling a hill but is truly a small mountain.
“I’m going to kill him,” I say. Baz shrugs, and I turn on him.
“Seriously? We’re stuck up here! Even if we sled all the way to the bottom of the hill, we’ll still have to–” I shudder. “– hike the rest of the way home.”
Yeah, I’m definitely going to kill him.
“I hope he crashes and gets hypothermia! I hope a bear comes out of the woods and eats him! I ho–”
Baz’s hand lands on top of my head, then shakes it side to side. He does it gently, but the “shut up” comes through crystal clear anyway. I huff.
“No, Bazzy. No.” I shake off his hand. “It’s not cool. The bottom of the hill is a mile away from the houses. We have no phones, no water, and no snacks – and it’s hiking .” I shudder again. Dramatic? I think not.
“I’ll carry you.”
My eyes bug out.
“Since when are you so talkative?”
He only shrugs, then climbs onto the purple sled at his feet. He pats the spot in front of him, and I bite my lip.
I look out toward where I know the houses are – where I know Archie has gone – then back at the sled. Baz waits patiently, watching me. I groan.
“Fine. Fine! But I’m downloading every virus I can find onto his computer. He’s not getting away with this!”
Baz smiles, and I pause, heart rate spiking. It’s big. It’s glorious.
It’s evil.
I like when you get vicious, it says.
I gulp.
His smile widens.
I sit down in front of him on the sled before my heart decides to give out.
Without a word, Baz pushes us forward until gravity takes over, and he wraps his arms around my marshmallow waist. We fly down the mountain, gaining speed as we go and moving together to dodge trees and, strangely, a little squirrel who did not get the memo that she should have been asleep this late into the season.
Wind whips through my hair as we go, and I throw my hands up with a joyful scream. Bazzy’s arms wrap tighter around me, and his legs press into mine. My laughter gets lost in the snow-dusted air behind us as we zip faster and faster down the mountain. Baz’s arms feel like snakes around me, constricting nearly to the point of crushing.
This is scary.
My arms lower, wrapping around his where they squeeze me. I twine my fingers with his, then lean back further against his body, forcing him back too until we’re nearly at a forty-five- degree angle. We slow marginally, then more and more as the sled levels out at the bottom of the mountain. Coming to a slow stop, we topple over the side of the sled and into the soft snow.
We lie there on our sides, me in front and Baz still wrapped around me, catching our breath. Once I can breathe freely, I untangle our limbs enough to roll, pushing him onto his back and propping myself up on his chest.
“That. Was. Exhilarating!” I yell, beaming down at him. He winces, grunts, then throws an arm around my neck and buries my face in his chest.
It was not.
I rub my nose against the warmth of his coat and let my body melt against his. The more time we spend cuddling on the ground, the more time I can spend pretending we aren’t about to hike the rest of the way home.
Stupid Archie.
Unfortunately, Baz doesn’t let us laze for long. After only a couple of measly little minutes, he gives me a get up pat. I do, grouching the whole way up, and he follows. He takes a quick moment to get his bearings before heading in what I trust is the right direction.
Not that it matters. I’d follow Baz anywhere. To home or deeper into the woods – as long as I’m with him, I know I’ll be okay.
“Archie is on my list ,” I snarl, walking behind Baz so that I can step in his boot prints. “What is wrong with him? Was he dropped on his head as a baby? I know the man likes torture, but he’s not supposed to torture us . He’s supposed to save that for the bad people!” I stomp into the next Bazzy bootprint. “Is he bored? Is it slow season for torturers? Do torturers have a slow season? You used to kill people. Surely you’ve got some kind of inside scoop into Archie’s demented little mind.”
Baz stops to look over his shoulder at me, eyebrows raised.
Ah. Right.
“Not that I think you’re demented! Or anything like Archie!” I smile an apology, grimacing. My legs work double-time to get me to Baz’s side, and I grab his hand. Walking backward, I pull him in the direction we’d been heading. “I’d never imply anything so crazy! Or rude! You’re Basil Cole, the most wonderful man on Earth. Other men look at you and tremble! Women fall at your feet!” Unfortunately true. Ugh. “You would never be anything like stinky, stupid, annoying Archie. You–”
I trip over a tree root, and the most wonderful man on Earth tumbles after me. He catches himself, thankfully, before all twelve trillion pounds of muscle lands on top of me. I look up at his face – his very close face – and blink.
“Oh,” I say, because I am a genius. A blush works its way up my chest and neck, joining the frigid redness on my face. Baz’s hot chocolate eyes trace the warmth on my neck up the side of my face all the way to my eyes.
I’ve never seen this expression on him before, and to be honest, it’s freaking me out a little. He looks predatory – a jungle cat ready to pounce.
It’s scary.
It’s electrifying.
My lungs are barely taking in any air, and my heart appears to have stopped working altogether. He erases a centimeter of space between us, and my lungs give up the ghost as well.
“Bazzy?” I wheeze.
“Yeah, baby?” he rumbles back.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
That was not a friendly, platonic baby . That was a hot, large British man type of baby .
I moan a low, embarrassing sound.
His face loses its feral edge, and he hums what might be amusement. I can’t tell, because I am dead.
Dead.
So, so dead.
And the afterlife is lovely, thanks for asking.
He leans down, getting rid of those pesky final inches between us, and pecks a quick kiss on my cheek.
Except, it wasn’t my cheek. It was ninety percent cheek, ten percent mouth.
Ten percent mouth.
Confirmed: I am no longer amongst the living.
What is happening?
Is Archie’s stupid whackjob plan actually working ?
Before I can figure it out, Baz is on his feet, pulling me up – and up. He lifts me until we’re face-to-face and chest-to-chest, then he starts walking. His arms are under my legs, supporting me. I throw my own arms around him and rest my head on his shoulder. He wants to carry me? Fine. That’s cool. I will let him.
And it has nothing at all to do with the fact that I’m not sure if my legs will work right now or not.
My brain is a fog, reliving my divine death.
Ten percent mouth.
Ten percent.
I wonder what twenty would feel like…
I scold myself.
No, Heidi, you do not! Respectful .
I sigh, gazing over Bazzy’s shoulder as he walks us ever closer to warmth, comfort, and all things good.
Then I notice a purple spot in the snow, getting smaller and smaller as we move farther and farther away from it.
“We forgot the sled!” I exclaim, leaning back in Baz’s arms to point at it behind him. He hums.
“We can’t just leave it there! That’s littering. It’s plastic, Bazzy. It won’t ever degrade into the earth. In seven hundred years, it’ll still be right there, a slightly faded purple relic of the past, surrounded by bare, dead land from all the micro-poisons it will have seeped into the ground by that point. And it will be all our fault. And Archie’s! Mostly Archie’s, actually. But still. We can’t leave it. Let me down. You can wait here while I go grab it!”
I put my hands on his shoulders to prepare for landing, then wrap them around his neck, screaming when he pivots without warning.
“Baz!” I yell. “You can’t scare a girl like that! What are you– oh!”
I lock my ankles around his waist and hold on for dear life with all of my limbs when he bends to pick up the sled. One of his arms holds my back, helping to support me while the other scoops up the purple toy.
He shoots back up, and the arm on my back slides under me now to support my bottom. Before I can process that petrifying sequence of events, he pivots again.
I bury my face in his neck as he retraces his footsteps toward the cabins, then realize I’m being selfish. It’s not at all fair for him to carry me a mile through the snow just because I am outdoors averse.
I suck in a breath to tell him that I can walk, but he grunts his shut up grunt before I get a single word out.
I release the air on a sigh. All right. If he wants to, I guess.
“Okay, Bazzy. You can carry me,” I tell him softly.
He grunts again – my favorite one. Soft, low, caring. He pairs it with three quick squeezes of his fingers on my thighs.
“I love you, too,” I say, smiling into his neck. I close my eyes and let myself enjoy the safety of Baz while we wander through a still, quiet forest.
It’s quite beautiful here in his arms – warm and bright and cozy.
It’s so Christmas, now that I think about it.
Hmm.
Maybe Archie isn’t so stupid, after all.