Chapter FifteenFischer #2
My body goes on high alert, and not in a good way.
It feels like pins and needles running along my skin, spreading up my arm and into my chest until my heart rate kicks up higher.
I tuck my arms behind my back, trying to rub the feel of her touch off on the polo I’m wearing.
It isn’t working, and I dig my nails into my palms instead.
“I think you’d be better off just setting up camp where you can,” I mumble and head in the opposite direction of Micah because it’s the only direction I can go.
Finding Kenny on one of the couches, I resist the urge to pace in front of him as I ask, “Was there anything else useful in the closet?”
He shakes his head. “I think everyone should be able to manage just fine.”
I’m rubbing my arm. Stop that. You’re fine. Stuffing my hands into my pants pockets, I search the room to see what I can do. I need a distraction.
Not that distraction. Micah is now talking to my admirer, both of them all smiles. If they become friends, there’s nothing to keep Alice from making another move and making my skin crawl. “What are you doing out here on a couch?” I ask Kenny without taking my eyes from Micah.
“Gave up my room. I figure some of these people need it more than I do.”
Good for him. There is no way I can sacrifice a bit of peace and solitude after all of this. Not if I want to be at all functional tomorrow.
A hand grabs my shoulder, and I flinch, nearly throwing a fist as I turn to face whichever nightmare wants my attention now. “Grant!” I croak.
He squints, probably hungover at this point.
“What is going on here, Price?” Only, his language is a lot more colorful than that, with a few choice words thrown in there.
He’s clearly livid and ready to start shouting, so I put a hand on his shoulder in return.
The gesture is as foreign to him as it is to me, based on the way he frowns at my fingers, and that’s probably the only reason he listens when I explain.
“The storm got too bad for us to safely leave,” I tell him. “The power went out about half an hour ago, and a bus got stuck in the snow just down the road.”
Grunting, Grant shifts away from my hold and wavers a bit. Is he seriously still drunk? Just how much did he have? “I hope they’re prepared to pay for all of the cleanup this will entail.”
The people closest to us murmur too quietly for me to understand what they’re saying specifically, but they definitely aren’t impressed with my boss. If Grant isn’t careful, he’s going to sink this reopening before it even happens.
“Think of the publicity,” I say as quietly as I can. I can feel several pairs of ears listening, so I nudge Grant to the edge of the room. “You could be a hero who saved a few dozen lives tonight by charitably welcoming everyone into the lodge.”
He snorts. “A hero?”
Based on the smell of his breath, there’s a chance he had some alcohol on him somewhere and consumed it more recently than I would like. Something tells me he’s not even going to remember this conversation tomorrow.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I tell him and lead him back to the bedroom he was occupying earlier.
By the time I have him settled and make it back to the lobby, Micah is nowhere to be found. Alice and her friend have also disappeared, as well as the two young men, which has my stomach twisting itself into a knot, though I have no idea why.
“Where did she go?” I ask Kenny, once again clenching my hands into fists and letting the pain of my fingernails digging into my skin keep me steady.
He chuckles. “She’s off playing matchmaker, I think.”
“But all the rooms are full.”
“Pretty sure she’s giving them her room.”
Cursing under my breath, I ignore the several people who call out to me and stalk down the dark hallway to the room directly across from mine. Sure enough, Micah stands in the doorway as the four apparently single people discuss how they’re going to share the two beds.
I grab Micah’s arm, gently tugging her away from the door and into my room, shutting the door behind us. The windows are a wall of white and darkness, which makes me shiver. I flip on my phone light before the darkness makes me dizzy, setting it on the small table by the door.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
She blinks. “I’m making sure everyone has a place to sleep.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea, putting the women with those men? You don’t know what they might do.” The men or the women. Alice wasn’t shy about showing her interest in me, and we don’t need strangers hooking up in the lodge in the middle of a snowstorm.
“It’s fine, Fischer. Besides, I think they’d be cute together.”
“You don’t even know them.” I growl, knowing I’m not frustrated by her matchmaking. What I am frustrated about eludes me, but it’s not that. “Where are you going to sleep now?”
“I didn’t need two beds.”
“Now you don’t even have one.”
She blinks again, and I realize something’s off.
She’s not smiling. In fact, her expression is shifting in the opposite direction, eyebrows pulling together and mouth pressing in a firm line.
“It’s fine,” she says again, though she’s not convincing with her breathless words.
“I need to go check on everyone.” But she doesn’t move.
I stand there for a few beats, watching her chest rise and fall with too-quick breaths. “Micah?”
“We need to find some food or something,” she says and lifts a shaky hand to tuck some hair behind her ear. “And I don’t think there are enough blankets. And without the fires it’s…it’s going to get… I don’t…”
I swear and press my palms to her cheeks, recognizing the beginnings of a panic attack.
“Hey, stay with me okay? What can I do?” That’s a stupid question.
She’s already lost to overthinking, and I’m just making it worse.
Brushing my thumbs across her cheekbones, I try to keep her gaze on me, but she closes her eyes, a tear slipping onto my thumb.
It’s killing me that I don’t know her well enough to talk her down.
For all our talking during the drive, with all the things I learned about today and over the last couple of weeks, she’s never mentioned anxiety or panic attacks, and I feel like there should have been signs of something like this.
She’s always so happy. So positive. So in the moment.
She said it drives her brother crazy because he never has to worry about her.
Well, maybe he can worry now. Micah needs someone familiar. Someone who really knows her. I wish that someone was me.
“Can I take your phone?” I ask her, moving one of my hands to her waist. It’s in her back pocket, but I’m not about to grab it without permission.
She manages a nod, and that’s good enough for me.
Carefully reaching for the phone, I swipe it open and search for her brother’s number.
What was his name? Chad? I curse when I don’t find him.
Micah suddenly puts her hand over my mouth. “You shouldn’t say bad words,” she breathes and then takes her phone, scrolling until she finds the contact info for someone named Grizz. Once it starts ringing, she presses it to her ear and then curls up against my chest.
Though a moment ago I’d still been feeling the lingering effects of Alice’s touch, Micah in my arms soothes all of that and leaves me warm and calm.
“I need your help,” Micah says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or Grizz. “We’re stuck at Greenwood Lodge and there’s a storm so the power went out and there’s a bunch of people here because a bus got stuck and I don’t know what to do. I have to take care of them but I don’t… I can’t…”
After a pause, she sucks in a breath. I hold her tighter, hoping I’m actually being helpful because I’ve been useless until now.
“I can’t do it,” she whimpers.
I hate this. I hate that I can’t help her.
Micah attempts a deep breath, and this time she seems to get a decent amount of oxygen into her lungs. “Thanks, Chad,” she says into the phone after two more breaths.
Okay, Grizz is her brother. Noted. At least there’s not some burly mountain man out there somewhere to stir up feelings of jealousy that I have no right feeling.
“Um.” Micah relaxes a little as she continues speaking into her phone, and thankfully that just melts her body into mine and makes her easier to hold.
“We don’t have a lot. All of the beds are taken now and we handed out all of the extra bedding.
” She pauses. “I don’t know any of that.
You know that. I only know how to plan parties.
But what if this turns into a Donner party situation?
What if people start eating each other?” She snuggles in deeper, almost knocking the wind out of me with her elbow.
“Sorry,” she says, probably to both of us.
Though I will not complain that she wants to be close to me, I’m more than glad when she pulls her phone from her ear and changes it to speaker. “Fischer is here too,” she says. “He works for the company that owns the lodge.”
I have no idea what to say, but I feel like I need to say something. “Hello, sir.”
“Learn any survival skills at Columbia?” a deep voice says from the phone.
I don’t know a lot about Chad except that he’s older than Micah and works as a private investigator.
For all I know, he could be a couple years my junior, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking of him as an intimidating beast of a man.
I swallow. “Not really, sir.”
“Pity. What about fireplaces?”
“They turn on with electricity,” Micah says.
“Do you have any batteries?”
There are probably some stashed away somewhere. “We can find some,” I say.
“The fireplace should have a battery tray you can use. As long as there’s gas, they’ll work.”
Micah breathes a sigh of relief right along with me. “Really?”
Now I really hope we can actually find some batteries. If nothing else, there should be some in the lantern that Kenny found, and maybe one of the travelers has some in their luggage. If not, we may all end up huddling together in one of the bedrooms for warmth.
“You’re going to be okay, Half-pint. As long as everyone remains calm and is willing to work together, you can make it through this. Fischer?”
I stiffen. I forgot that this guy looked into me, and he probably knows way more about me than I’m comfortable with. “Yes, sir?”
He grunts, probably unimpressed by the crack in my voice just now. “Look after her, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
“What about you?” Micah asks quietly. “Do you have power?”
“No,” Chad says. “I have my neighbor over at my place to wait out the storm, but—”
“She’s at your house ?” I don’t know who this neighbor is, but with the way Micah instantly perks up, I have a feeling there’s a story there. “Go take care of her!”
Chad clearly doesn’t like that response. “Micah, I told you not to—”
“Go. I’ll be fine.”
He sighs. “Call if you need me, okay? As soon as the storm lets up, I can come get you.”
“Don’t do that. We’ll drive back to Sun City as soon as we can.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind this guy showing up to take over this nonsense, regardless of what he knows about me.
I’m tempted to tell Micah the rest can fend for themselves and we should just crawl into my bed and wait out the storm together.
Not together . Not in an intimate way. Just…
together. With her in my arms, our feet tangled together, my chest pressed against her back.
I’ve never been gladder to know Micah’s brother is a PI and not a psychic. I do not want him in my head right now, though a part of me wonders if Kale will somehow figure out some of the fantasies that are currently playing out in my mind. They’re more vivid than I would like.
“I should go,” Micah says, and though Chad protests, she hangs up and frowns at her phone. “My battery is going to die.”
I don’t miss the rise in her voice, probably as some of her panic settles back in.
“I’ve got plenty of battery if we need it,” I tell her.
By plenty I mean twenty percent, but it’s better than nothing.
Though, I should probably save my battery as much as I can, so I turn off the flashlight and stash my phone in my pocket.
Micah takes a deep breath. “We need to find some batteries.”
Or we could stay right here the rest of the night. “Yeah. I’ll ask Kenny if he saw any in the storage closet.”
“I’ll ask all of the passengers.”
I frown. “I can ask some of—”
“Fischer.” Stretching her hand against my chest, Micah shuts me up. “You hate talking to people. I know you do. Especially when you’re tired, and you were up all night.”
She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I want her to start panicking again. “I don’t mind,” I lie. “I would rather get the lodge warmed up so none of us freeze.”
As she tucks her head under my chin, she fits so well in my arms that the thought of letting her go is physically painful, like I crave her touch as much as I hated Alice’s.
I don’t understand that any more than I understand how she has bounced back from her panic attack so quickly, and that leaves me dizzy.
“Come on,” Micah says with a sigh. “Time to be heroes.”
I’ve never wanted to be a hero in my life, but as soon as Micah Taylor says those words, I want nothing more than to live up to the ideal and make her proud.