Chapter 2 #2
“What are you thanking me for?” As he pulled more wood from the pile, searching for smaller pieces to add to the stack of newspapers, kindling, and firestarters, he realized how raw his fingers were. A dull numbness, cold and soaking wet, had settled deep in his bones.
He was a robot.
An ice machine.
But he couldn’t fall apart until he had her safe.
“Not shivering,” she murmured, the tone making him turn and look at her. Colleen’s eyelids were drooping, and a deep gong–a loud, ominous alarm–went off in his head.
Hypothermia.
Damn it.
Right next to the fire starters, he found a big box of blue-tipped matches.
With more dexterity than he thought his frozen fingers possessed, he managed to light some edges of the newspaper, careful to spark five different flames.
This would have to do to get the woodstove going, he thought as he blew on it softly, then turned to attend to Colleen.
Who was slumped over.
“No!” he called out, moving fast to shake her shoulders, her eyes opening suddenly. Glassy and unfocused, they terrified him. Her sandy blonde hair looked like seaweed against her shoulders and cheeks, a stray strand across one eyebrow.
Pulling her close, he tried to warm her. They were on the floor, about three feet from the edge of an unmade bed.
“Colleen!” he said sharply. She blinked rapidly, then squeezed his arm.
“I’m not shivering,” she said slowly, slurring. “Nee’ to ge’ warm.”
“I’m trying,” he said, looking at the fire, which thankfully was showing signs of catching. Standing, he scanned the room. A small trunk served as a coffee table, in front of two wood-frame chairs with cheap vinyl cushions.
The chance there were blankets in that trunk was good.
His attention pinged between the trunk and Colleen.
“Sit up,” he ordered her.
“Can’t.”
If he kept her talking, everything would be fine.
“Maybe you just cursed yourself,” he told her, trying to get her goat, get a rise out of her, anything to keep her talking.
“Huh?”
“Third Date Colleen. Never thought you’d end up in your own ER after a third date.” He lifted the lid of the trunk.
She blew a laugh through her nose. “Too far away from Luview for me to be in the ER.”
Score! Two big feather-down comforters, both of them a cream color with a patina that spoke more to their age than to a color palette at a textile factory. His fingers screamed as he gripped the thick, soft fabric, but he grabbed the top one and brought it to her, covering her.
As he started to wrap himself in the other one, he realized he was still soaking wet.
So was she.
Thin hints of warmth began to creep out of the tiny woodstove and he turned his attention to the fire again, blowing on it lightly, then checking the flue.
Whew. All was well. He added a few small pieces of wood he found littering the backside of the woodstack and hoped the fire would continue to take.
“I’m cold. Wet. Brain slow. Mouth slower,” Colleen whispered, with a tiny smile.
“Since when do you have a slow mouth?”
“Moore.”
His stomach dropped. Looking down at her, his down comforter on his shoulders, he panicked. Stress flooded him like he was underwater again, fumbling for her seatbelt, her life in his hands.
Pressure like that belonged to people like her brother, Luke.
A police officer. A first responder.
Not desk jockeys like Moore.
Heart pounding furiously but missing a beat here and there, as if he had to warm up enough to melt the ice in his bloodstream, he tossed the comforter on the unmade bed and went into the kitchen, opening cabinets frantically.
“What are you doing?” she slurred.
“Looking for alcohol.”
“You want to drink at a time like this?”
There it was. Everyone had a liquor cabinet in a hunting cabin. Liquor cabinet might be too fancy a term, but the bottle of cheap rum was certainly a welcome sight.
In a separate cabinet, he found two mugs, one with the Bilbee’s Tavern logo on it–If we don’t have it, you shouldn’t drink it–and the other plain.
Hands shaking so badly, he felt like one of those paint-mixing machines at the hardware store, he managed to pour a half inch in a mug and another half inch on the counter before he stopped and just drank a shot or two straight from the bottle.
The swallow burned.
Burning never felt so good.
Walking over to Colleen, he sat gingerly on the floor, his skin no longer a shield, his body a mess, knee screaming from the hit it had taken on the stairs.
But he was better off than she was, so he had to keep going.
For her sake.
“Here.” He held the mug to her lips.
“What’s that?”
“Rum.”
“I don’t like rum.”
“We’re not at Bilbee’s and Rider isn’t working the bar, so you don’t get a choice, Colleen. Drink.”
“Moore?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared.”
“Me, too. So drink this, honey, and let’s warm up a little.”
The word honey slipped out. Her eyes softened with something so close to attraction, he did a double take. Their faces were inches from each other, his body curled around hers. Her breath was hot against his hand.
“Not s’posed to drink alcohol when you have hypothermia.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not shivering. Tired. Want to sleep.”
“No, no, no sleeping!”
“Call 911, Moore.”
“I can’t, our phones are in the truck.”
“Landline?”
He cursed himself. In the rush to get her warm and safe, he hadn’t even thought of it. Searching the tiny cabin, though, uncovered no magic landline.
“No luck.”
She groaned.
“We–Colleen, this is the best I can do!”
But was it enough? Would it be enough to keep her from dying?
She couldn’t die. He would not let that happen.
Pushing the mug to her lips again, he got her to drink a tiny bit. She swallowed slowly, then lifted her head.
“Burns.”
“Good. It’s something.”
“I’m not here, Moore.”
“What?”
“I’m not cold. Not in pain. Just… not here.”
“You have to be here.” Panic zoomed inside him, with a resolution to do whatever it took to snap her out of this. No phone. No help. Just him and Colleen in a cold cabin with a bottle of rum.
The universe had a sick sense of humor.
He returned to the fire. One thing was going right, at least, because it was burning nicely. Adding another piece of wood, a thicker one, was something he could do, and it bought him a little time to think.
Can’t feed a fire too fast, he knew. You had to pace it. Too slow and it would starve, too fast and it would smother.
“Moore?”
“Yeah?”
“I need you.”
“I’m here.”
“No. I mean, I need you. There’s only one way for me to be okay. I have to start shivering. Have to get warmer.”
“You can have my quilt.” Standing, he began to pull it off, ready to cover her with it, anything to improve her situation, to make her feel better.
“Not enough. I have to get out of my wet clothes.” She flopped a helpless hand against her knee. “I can’t move.”
“You want me to undress you?”
“Yes. And you, too.”
Processing her words was taking far more effort than it should.
“You want me to take both our clothes off?”
“Yes. Naked.”
“Naked?”
“I need you to get us both naked. Now.”
“You–you want to have sex?” he barked out in disbelief.
“Being naked together is the only way to save my life.”