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“You okay?” He reached for her and she nodded, face hot.
“Let’s just keep going,” she muttered.
“Going” was a slow process. The storm had raged for more than twelve hours, and Melinda had to lift each foot high for every snow-logged step. Drifts of snow resisted her steps and cold air bit her nose and lungs. They both breathed heavily as they stomped forward.
Yesterday she had been trapped in a hotel, trapped in a plane, trapped in a car, trapped in a cabin. She snorted. This morning she was trapped in limbo. But this moment was better. Outside was better.
If you must be kidnapped, be sure it’s in a winter wonderland,she advised her readers in her next mental blog. What was the food parallel to a winter wonderland? Cotton candy? Not cold enough. Sno Cone? Not fancy enough. She stopped to close her eyes. Something with meringue.
Baked Alaska.
Success burst from her lungs in a huff and bloomed into a grin. She’d put it in the blog if she made it home alive.
To their left, a muffled snapping echoed through the trees, and Grant caught her eye. Melinda nodded her understanding. They trudged on. The snow-covered meadow extended further than she’d supposed. After about a quarter-mile, Grant stopped.
“We shouldn’t go too much further...When was the last time you built a snowman?” His smile was wide and open, his chest lifted with exertion.
In spite of herself, Melinda burst out laughing, and the sound rang through the quiet. “Probably two or three decades ago,” she admitted.
Dark eyebrows climbed Grant’s brow. “Well then, you’re way overdue,” he said. “Let’s get rolling.” He bent at the waist to clap handfuls of snow together into a ball, which he delicately and artfully rolled into a larger and larger sphere. “Get a move on, Blogger.” Grant jutted his chin at the snow between them. “I’ll make the legs but the stomach won’t paunch itself.” Melinda laughed again and did as she was told.
“You know when I last built a snowman?” Melinda packed snow into an approximation of a belly and Grant looked up from sculpting. “I had to have been around eight. It was with my dad. We got into a fight because I wanted to make a snowwoman and he refused.” She smiled ruefully. “He didn’t want to mess with the anatomy. What upstanding accountant wants to make snowboobs for all the suburbs to see?”
It had bothered her for years afterward, though. What father wouldn’t support his daughter in such an innocent way? What kind of man was so scared of keeping up appearances that he squashed his child’s innocent dream? A weak one. One who lets his family fall apart. Melinda pounded her section of snowman. Too hard, it would seem, as a chunk gave way and crumbled to the ground. Weak! she shouted silently.
Unaware of the bitter pain in Melinda’s chest, Grant laughed and patted more snow on the sphere in front of him. Twenty minutes later a passable snowman stood between them.
“So where are we going to find a carrot?” she asked. “And what about poor Stanley’s buttons and hat?”
Grant paused in the act of smoothing the base.
“Stanley?” Mock indignance widened his eyes. “I think you mean Fergus. And Fergus’s outfit is going to have to wait, unfortunately. The snow’s starting again.” The eye crinkles were in effect but this time they came with a furrowed brow. Melinda followed his eyes to the sky, which was beginning to fall around them.
She grimaced. “Don’t be a quitter. He doesn’t even have arms. I see some twigs sticking out of the ground over there. I’ll grab a couple.” The denied child within would get her snowman arms, darn it. Otherwise Stanley was just a precarious pyramid.
Grant looked uneasy. “You never know if those are attached. Come on, let’s go back and finish Stanley later.” He held out a hand, but she was already halfway to the sticks she’d spied and she sure wasn’t giving up now. Melinda gave the twigs a yank, but they were caught on a rock.
“Come on,” she coaxed, and braced her foot against the tree to yank again.
“Melinda, I don’t like this. That tree looks pretty dead,” Grant called. She heard the crunch of his footsteps as he started toward her. “The wind is kicking up. You’re cranking on that tree, which is a bad idea with all the snow it’s carrying. Could you please—Mel!” he yelled, then everything went black.
~
Snow sucked at Grant’s shoes like quicksand, every step made heavier with the weight of his burden. Blinding wind whipped his face as if the storm had never broken. Melinda’s head sagged against his shoulder and his own ragged breathing abraded his ears. He longed to run, but knew he’d twist an ankle and then they’d both be dead.
How could he let this happen? Grant clutched Melinda’s limp body more tightly to his chest and silently begged her forgiveness.
He was lucky they’d stopped when they did. Visibility was no more than ten feet and he could still barely trace their footprints back to the cabin. He’d taken her on a pleasure cruise in the eye of a hurricane.
Just when she was starting to trust me. Could I be any more stupid? Thank God she was still breathing. He’d checked for a pulse. There was hope.
Snowflakes pasted themselves to his eyelashes, stringing frozen curtains across his vision. Had they really been laughing together mere minutes ago? Grant lengthened his strides, his feet slamming through the snow to reach the ground, clouds of snow crystals exploding around him. He was a Clydesdale in a testosterone-driven commercial selling beer, only much less graceful and infinitely more desperate.
There! The back of the cabin phased into view like a lighthouse in a sea of fog. Grant veered left, past the raised deck at the back, to avoid the slippery slope. He tightened his arms around Melinda and ducked under tree limbs, skirted the low wall of stacked logs, and hustled past the garage. Numb fingers twisted the handle and pushed the front door wide. Warm air hit him square in the face and he offered thanks to whatever deity was looking out for them. The firewood he’d collected earlier waited by the fire, another saving grace.
Grant kicked the door shut and made straight for the couch. He lowered Melinda as gently as he could and propped her head on cushions. He checked her breathing again: shallow but steady. He brushed snow from her body onto the floor, ignored her boots, and yanked blankets across her motionless form. Outside, the wind howled, angry to have lost its prey.
It made him sick to leave her, but they needed heat. The coals had cooled while they’d been outside. Careless! his mind yelled. He flung his gloves to the ground.
