Soldier's Christmas (Wingmen Warriors 8)

She just wished she could fully benefit, that they both could.

He deserved an explanation. But why did it have to be now? Although something about this stark, ends-of-the-earth landscape echoed the rawness inside her.

Josh's silence left her fidgeting until finally she blurted, "He didn't assault me sexually, if that's what you're thinking. You can relax."

"Relax?" He shook his head slowly, still not moving otherwise. "I don't think so."

What was he thinking? She forced words up her throat, each one scraping like icy shards. "He was...be yond upset. But somehow I still didn't see the first punch coming—"

A rustling sounded from behind her, and how she welcomed the distraction as a chance to gather her thoughts. Her instincts kicked in, and survival thoughts took over.

Josh's head jerked up. He shoved past and ahead of her, predictably protecting. Rather than argue, she decided to watch his back. The man needed it whether he realized it or not.

She dipped her hand inside her parka to pull her flare gun from her survival vest. Steps stealthy, they dodged larger drifts, minimizing the crunching of snow as much as possible.

Her heart pounded in her ears, pumped in her chest so hard surely her jacket must be pulsing. Branches swayed and crackled ahead.

"Down," Josh ordered in a whisper.

She dropped to her stomach beside him. Birch boughs swept wide. She tensed, hand gripping the gun.

The ground trembled under her.

Caribou raced into sight.

She exhaled a gust of relief. The small herd loped past, kicking up a cloud of dusty snow behind them.

Tension seeped from her. Rolling to her side, she steadied her heart and studied her husband.

Oops, not the best way to steady her heart, but still she couldn't help but stare at him to reassure herself he was whole and not seconds away from meeting some illegal miner's rifle. "Josh? Are you okay?"

"Look." He pointed to the gaping tunnel formed by broken branches.

Dragging her eyes from him, she looked ahead, squinting. Slowly, the fragmented landscape came into focus to showcase a small clearing.

And shelter.

A rusty metal Quonset hut filled the area, apparently abandoned. Leaving her with no other excuses to avoid the rest of her discussion with her husband.

Josh rechecked his newly fashioned lock on the door inside the Quonset hut. Not exactly the Hilton in

Hawaii, but more welcome.

He wedged a piece of wood against the door, which was pounded by battering winds and sheeting ice that picked up force and speed with each passing minute. He'd managed the best he could with security and was fast running out of tasks to keep his mind off Alicia behind him preparing to wash. Taking off her ice-caked clothing and draping it over fishing wire strung across the lone room.

Focus on survival, not the sound of rustling clothes and water trickling into a metal basin.

Padding along the wood floor in his bare feet, he surveyed the twenty-by-ten-foot metal shelter, which looked more like half a rusty metal cylinder dropped onto the ground. But it blocked the howling snowstorm kicking back up full force. The single door also made guarding their backs from intruders a helluva lot easier, not that anyone would be coming their way until the renewed blizzard passed.

The woodstove already snapped with a fire, cranking the temp inside up to a balmy fifty degrees while melting a second basin tub of ice. The open grate allowed the flames to cast a low haze of light through the room, along with dwindling sun through the thick Plexiglas window in the door. They would be able to conserve their flashlight batteries.

Luckily law enforcement and other government agencies kept such buildings stocked with rudimentary survival supplies, a routine part of the state budget. Rarely were the places looted. There wasn't much to take, anyway, just a small box of dehydrated foods, a couple of aluminum washtubs, a woodstove

welded to the floor with stacks of wood beside.

And four sleeping-bag bedrolls.

He'd think about the bed part later.