Dane's Storm

Despite the quickness of the kiss and the material being replaced over my mouth, I could still feel the pressure of his lips on mine like a tender bruise. I wanted to press on it with my fingers, to create the sensation again. I shook my head. “I couldn’t leave you there,” I whispered.

He stared at me for another moment, his eyes full of both warmth and softness, before he broke eye contact, reaching into his pocket. My gaze followed his movement and when he opened his palm, there were five squares wrapped in gold foil. I looked at him in confusion, and he grinned.

“Is that . . . chocolate?”

“Sure is.” His grin grew and he reached into his other pocket, bringing out a piece of beef jerky, wrapped in clear plastic.

I gasped. “Oh God, meat.” I wanted to grab it from his hands and stuff it in my mouth, but then what he’d just done hit me. He’d potentially put his life in danger for . . . beef jerky and chocolate. I wanted it with a hungry desperation I’d never known before, but we did still have food. It wasn’t like we were going to die of starvation today. I felt a small spear of ire as I considered the fear I’d just experienced for the past thirty minutes. “As much as I’m thrilled that we have chocolate and beef, and . . . reading material, do you really think it was worth the risk at this point?” I put

my hands on my hips, letting him know I definitely did not.

He unwrapped a piece of the chocolate and handed it to me. Despite my irritation, I only looked at it for a moment before snatching it from his hand. I bit it in half and then offered him one of the pieces. He shook his head. “Eat the whole thing. I’m going to eat one too. We’ll ration the other three pieces if we have to.”

I hesitated, but decided he was right. We could use the sugar and, God, please, we’d been up here for three days. Surely now that the sky was a little clearer, rescue was imminent. I pulled the material down, placed the chocolate in my mouth and moaned, my eyes practically rolling back in my head, when the sweet richness hit my tongue. “Oh, dear God,” I said between small sucks, the chocolate melting away far too quickly. Dane grinned again as he watched me, using his thumb to wipe what must have amounted to the most miniscule chocolate flake ever. But I wasn’t wasting a single flake and I sucked at his thumb, causing his smile to fade and his eyes to darken. I paused, time slowing as we stared at each other, that ever-present physical awareness flowing between us.

Even here, on an icy mountain, where we might slowly starve to death.

How is that possible?

He unwrapped his own thick square of chocolate, smoothing out the wrapper and putting the candy in his mouth. As he chewed, his eyes glazed over like I was sure mine had done, and I laughed softly. He smiled as his mouth simultaneously worked the chocolate until it had melted, reaching out to me and taking the wrapper in my hand. “I didn’t take the risk for chocolate, although holy fuck, nothing ever tasted so good.” He held up the two small squares of gold foil. “I took the risk for fire.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dane

We crested the hill, and though my head felt better, the ache in my leg had intensified with the strenuous use. I figured my stitches had probably torn a little—not enough that they’d opened up, but enough that I could feel a small trickle of blood under my loose pants. Walking through heavy snow felt like moving in quicksand.

Seeing the burned-out shell of the cockpit and knowing I’d been trapped in it, helpless and unconscious, had made me feel sick. If not for Audra . . . But I stayed focused on the purpose of the trip: chocolate and beef jerky.

Dustin had offered me some of his junk food stash the last time we’d flown to Tahoe, and I’d declined as he’d laughed and tossed it in the compartment on the door. The chocolate looked as if it’d melted in the heat of the fire, but the small space in the door panel had saved it from melting completely. It was only a bit misshapen. But it wasn’t really the chocolate I’d been after, though that was certainly a bonus. It had been the wrappers I’d wanted, and if this worked . . . Fuck, I didn’t want to hope too hard. But I was going to give it my best damn shot.

Audra came to a stop, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath, and I did the same.

Now that we were out of the valley, the wind felt sharper. I looked at the jagged peaks of the mountain high above us, where I could hear the brutal sound of the lashing wind and see the swirling gusts of frost. Thank God we hadn’t crash-landed at a higher elevation, where the high-altitude wind would be deadly and unforgiving, where there were no patches of forest in which to find shelter, only vast deserts of snow and sheer, icy rock walls. Yeah, things were bad, but they definitely could have been worse.

“I wanted to try to get some more pieces of carpet from the interior of the plane—or maybe a section of ceiling, but it was still attached and trying to shake it free felt too dangerous,” I said.

Audra nodded. “I thought the same thing. But I think we’ve done pretty well with what we have. It’s kept us alive anyway. How in the world do you plan to make a fire?”

I began turning toward the crop of trees where our shelter was, my mouth open to answer her question, when my eyes snagged on a small speck in the distance to our right. I halted, squinting as I turned back around. “What?” Audra asked, following my gaze. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Is that a plane?”

My heart seized and I clomped as fast as I could to the edge of the cliff, waving my arms and shouting as loudly as possible. Audra joined me, waving her arms and yelling, too. The plane in the distance continued to circle the spot where it was, and even as loud as we were yelling, I knew that the wind was snatching our voices. The plane could have been right in front of us, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear our cries for help, but we did it anyway. Instinct?

To preserve my energy, I stopped, but continued waving my arms, and Audra, likely having come to the same conclusion about not being heard, did the same. I continued waving my arms while Audra ran back and forth behind me, as fast as she was able in the deep snow, extending the scope of our movement. But after only a couple of minutes, the plane turned and began flying in the opposite direction, disappearing out of sight. I came to a halt, breathing harshly, the frigid air like knives in my throat, hope withering and dying inside my chest.

“Fuck!” I yelled to the sky. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I picked up a handful of snow and threw it into the vast nothingness in front of me, cursing again.

Turning abruptly, I saw Audra, standing still, a look of utter hopelessness on her face. It broke my heart. I recognized that look, and for the sliver of a moment it took me back. That same look—utter desolation—day after day as she’d sat rocking in a chair in what was supposed to be our baby’s nursery. I’d walked past the door, not willing to take her pain on when I was barely managing my own. How many times had our eyes met, hers beseeching, as I’d turned away? I squeezed my eyes shut in regret, wishing I’d been stronger for her, wishing I’d been older and wiser, wishing I’d had any fucking clue how to handle the unthinkable.

I watched her now, and this time, I moved toward her rather than away, taking her in my arms and holding her. “It’s okay. We’re in this together,” I murmured. “Don’t lose hope.”

She trembled in my arms, but clutched me, her head burrowed into my chest. She had always responded to physical affection, always melted into me when I’d comforted her that way. Sharp fingers of guilt clawed at my insides for what I hadn’t done then, combining with the stark disappointment of seeing that plane disappearing into the clouds.

“Fuck,” I murmured again, the word holding a world of weight.

After a minute, she looked up at me, so much sorrow in her eyes. “They flew away. They didn’t even get close to where we are. Why?”

I looked over my shoulder to the distant place the plane had circled, trying to recall the events leading up to the crash-landing, my eyes homing in on a lone cliff that I suddenly remembered had seemed to come out of nowhere. “Because that’s where the black box is,” I whispered, my voice deflated, knowing I was right. “That’s where the tail came off. And now it’s way back there, probably buried under ten feet of snow. And they think we are too.”