Chapter Thirty-Three
Sommer
Friday, Close to midnight
Sommer was used to emergencies; that was how she made her living.
But there was relief in the competence of the team surrounding her.
The size of the helicopter surprised her; the way the men jumped and moved.
They had spine boards for transitioning Marna and Abbie onto the helicopter.
They gathered the gear and stowed it away.
Gabriel’s arm was around her waist, and his hand was on her head, reminding her to duck because all this happened before the rotors stopped spinning.
Sommer sat on the floor nestled against Gabriel with Whiskey in her lap when they took off for the few minutes in the air to take them down to the field near the ranger station.
While Iniquus would helicopter Marna and Abbie to Marna’s hospital for care (wouldn’t the staff be surprised when they found her on the gurney?), she, Gabriel, and Whiskey dismounted so they could get their cars.
Sommer was numb.
This would take time to process through.
Setting her pack on the ground by her car, Sommer fished in the top pouch for her key fob.
“No,” Gabriel said.
Sommer looked up. “What, no?”
“You’re not driving home. You’re a traffic hazard,” Gabriel said.
“You’re no better,” she countered.
“I think I am. I slept last night. We’ll come back for your car tomorrow. Give me a second.”
Sommer beeped her car unlocked, but it was too hot from the trapped air from the day to sit in comfortably. She shut the door and sat on the ground.
Whiskey was back in her lap, and Sommer was soothed by stroking her velvety ears.
“Here’s a compromise,” Gabriel said. “There’s a hotel ten minutes up the road that allows dogs. I drive us there. We get ourselves cleaned up, we eat, sleep, recover, and tomorrow I drive you back here to pick up your car.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
“Okay, I’m booking two rooms,” he said, tapping the screen.
“Two?” she asked. “One will be okay, don’t you think?” Sommer didn’t want to be alone. She wasn’t ready to leave Gabriel’s support quite yet.
He looked at her for a long moment. “One then,” he said, a smile tracing over his lips.
Sommer honestly didn’t register the ride to the hotel, their check-in, or how she found herself standing in a hotel room’s bathroom with the shower water running.
She’d been standing there for a while because the mirror was already fogged.
Hot water and cleanliness would feel so good. Sommer hadn’t cleaned herself since Tuesday night.
She stank.
She wasn’t sure how Gabriel could stand it when they were in the car on the way here.
Sommer crossed her arms and reached for the bottom of her shirt. Halfway off, with her face covered in fabric, her shoulders protested with pain and refused to let her move up or down.
“Gabriel?” Her call was muffled by her shirt.
His voice was right outside the door. “Yes?”
“Help?” she yipped.
Out of necessity, Gabriel ended up undressing her.
It wasn’t sexy.
She wasn’t sexy and was too tired to give a shit.
Gabriel had her clothes off and held her hand and elbow as she painfully lifted her foot over the tub. There, Sommer decided the safest bet was to sit on the floor with her scented hotel-bottles of shampoo and liquid soap.
Gabriel stood there at the end of the tub, looking through the space in the curtain. “Can you manage?”
Sommer sighed.
Knees to chest, if she ducked her head forward. At least that put her head under the stream of water. If she stayed there like that, she’d get clean-ish, eventually.
Gabriel undressed and got in with her, washcloth in hand. He straddled her with his long legs, and she balanced by putting a hand on his bent knees.
He started with her hair, then gently and methodically washed her, head to foot.
For her part, Sommer breathed in the herbal scents of the soap and watched as the blood that had coagulated on her many cuts and the filth of many days on the trail ran down the drain.
Afterward, Gabriel leaned forward, turned off the water, and got out.
Sommer missed his arms as soon as he stood.
Crouched by the tub, he dried her off and draped a hand towel over her wet hair and another over her shoulders as she sat there immobile.
He kissed her shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Stay there.” As if she had a choice.
Nope, Sommer didn’t have an ounce of “go” left in her body. Not even a teaspoonful. She contemplated scooting down in the tub and just sleeping there.
A moment later, Gabriel was back, a towel wrapped around his waist. He bent by her side and pulled one of his T-shirts over her head.
“Mmph,” she mumbled. It was supposed to be a thank you. She assumed he knew that because he smiled, then kissed her lips. She got the impression that he found this charming.
It was a weird word to think under these circumstances.
After treating and bandaging her cuts, Gabriel scooped her into his arms.
Sommer protested, of course she did.
But since the words were only in her head, Gabriel didn’t heed them.
“Sorry,” she managed when he laid her on the bed and pulled the blankets over her.
“Not sorry,” Gabriel said.
He kissed her again, and all she could think was “yes, please, More, please. With a background beat of, “It’s been days since you brushed your teeth, Sommer.” She’d make space to be mortified later.
After tucking her in, Gabriel went back to get himself cleaned better.
But that was lost to her.
She passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Sommer had never slept so long or so deeply.
When she woke up, Gabriel and Whiskey were gone.
Everything hurt.
Every muscle.
The hair on her head.
Her pillow was damp with drool, and when she lifted her phone camera in selfie mode to check how she'd woken up from her beauty sleep, she discovered deep creases from the linens pressed into her cheek, and her hair, left damp, had dried in frizzy waves.
She glanced over to the bedside table to see what time it was, and there was a glass of juice, two pain pills, a fat cinnamon roll, and a note:
Whiskey needed to find a bush.
We’ll be back in a few minutes.
Sommer grinned as she scooted up in the bed. Tipped back the meds and took a bite of the most delicious roll she’d ever tasted.
In a second, she’d get up and make some coffee.
Then she’d call the hospital and see if Marna and Abbie had put her on their call list and she could get an update on their status.
But for the moment, she’d bask in the relief of everyone being off the mountain.