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“Trail is back that way.” He gestured toward the pine trees from which she fled.
Looking back at them, irritation quickly replaced sadness. Jay Colby stood waiting somewhere behind those trees. Lifting her foot from the ankle deep snow, she nodded and followed him back.
He wasn’t in the small clearing that housed their shelter for the night, but had already wandered out of the forest of pine trees and back to the trail. They saw him waiting there, arms crossed and looking upset. Erika had already made the decision to treat him as if he wasn’t even there and swept past him with her nose firmly pointed high.
It wasn’t until she was standing alone on what was supposed to be the trail, that she realized it was gone.
“Where’s the trail?”
Jay glanced at Ryan and she thought she detected the slightest look of worry. “Last night’s wind cleared any sign of the wagon’s tracks.”
Ryan’s jaw dropped, then he ran his hand over his mouth before asking, “But you can find the way back, right?”
“Of course he can!” Erika declared, not liking the look in Jay’s eye. “You’ve come this way before. The sister’s said as much.”
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Not nearly enough to memorize landmarks. Hell, out here everything begins to look the same. It’s a vast countryside.”
“Jay,” she said, adding just enough tone of reprimand to her voice. “This is not the time to talk foolishly. You’re beginning to scare me.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, Erika.” He definitely was being serious and Erika felt her insides churn horribly. “Hell, there’s no sun to even help keep us pointed west and with the compass lost with the wagon I have no real indication the direction we should be headed.”
“So, what do we do?” Ryan asked, looking almost as upset as Erika felt.
“We have no choice,” he said. “We start walking.”
Erika felt as if he had punched her instead.
“Is that wise?” she implored, panic definitely edging her voice, but at this point, she didn’t care. “I mean, what if we get lost? Maybe we should just wait for someone to come and find us.”
He spun around on her suddenly. His eyes blazing. “What if another snow storm blows in? What if temperatures drop far below zero? I don’t even have a damn weapon if we were attacked by animals. We were simply lucky last night, but I wouldn’t go pushing that luck.”
She recoiled from the fierce expression darkening his face and the harsh tone of his voice, and thought they could add Jay Colby to their list of dangers. Glancing at Ryan, she willed him to object. Perhaps come up with a better solution. Instead, he simply looked with resignation to the ground.
“Let’s go,” Jay ordered and took the lead.
Ryan went next and Erika had no choice but to follow. However, what she sincerely wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs, so great was her bitterness. She could hardly believe this could be happening to her. She lived such a mundane life.
Nearly on the brink of tears, she bit her bottom lip hard and tried to think of something else to keep her mind off the bitter cold. However, there wasn’t anything she could do to help keep her terror of the situation in check.
Lifting her skirts, Erika plowed through the five inches of snow at her feet. It was crisp and appeared untouched just as it did after a snowfall, making it that much more difficult to walk through. Already she could feel the damp coldness creeping in between her delicate boots. Somehow, she had to force herself to keep going. There was still plenty of country to cover.
The dull sky stayed with them as they trekked their way through unending wilderness. Though the warmth of the sun would have been appreciated, Erika was at least relieved its blinding reflection off the sparkling white snow was not burning her eyes and blurring her vision. As she pushed onward several hours later, however, she soon realized that was the only thing she had to be grateful for. Though the throbbing in her hip had subsided to an aching awareness, her feet were the complete opposite.
Her boots were proving for the umpteenth time, a bad choice in footwear. The further she walked, the greater her feet hurt. Several times she stumbled over them and would have fallen to the ground if not at the last moment she grabbed hold of a tree. She considered stopping and complaining, but with Jay glancing back now and then, she pushed on.
They finally reached a small meadow where no trees were available to aide her painful walk. Looking ahead, she saw a large uprooted tree lying across the center of the field. With pins and needles attacking her tender feet, she forced herself forward. It was a miracle when she actually reached it, and with a huge sigh of relief dropped down on top of it.
Ryan noticed and stopped to rush back. “Erika? Are you all right?”
“I just need to rest,” she said, releasing a huge gust of exhaustion from her lungs.
Jay had stopped walking as well and followed Ryan back to her side. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t think she can go any further.”
She thought about objecting, but the truth was, Ryan was right. There was no way she could move another foot. Perhaps if she waited there while they went and fetched help. No matter how much she hated the idea, she simply couldn’t take another step. They had to be close to home by now.
Jay dropped down in front of her and grabbed one of her boots. She yelped in pain and felt tears spring to the back of her eyes. He frowned, then gently undid the laces before easing the boot off her foot. She heard him curse.
