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“Caleb?” she asked. “Oh, thank God!” She hugged him, totally ineffective in all the layers of clothing.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted again, clasping her shoulders, and backing her up just a few inches.
“It’s Mel! She went out to the barn—for the generator—but she never came back.”
His heart did a little spasm in his chest. “How long?” he shouted.
“Almost two hours!”
He didn’t like it. Damn, Mel out in this for two hours? Why the hell hadn’t someone gone out after her sooner?
“Go back to the house,” he yelled. “I’ll find her.”
Kara shook her head. “Not without my sister!”
He started to get mad, then remembered the faint light he’d seen before. It hadn’t been Kara’s. It had been further out than that. He patted Kara’s shoulders. “Wait here!” Then he dragged himself back out to the dozer, where Tom Cooper waited. “Turn off the lights and come with me.”
Cooper cut the lights, clambered down, and the two of them hunched their backs against the storm and made their way through the snow once more. When they reached Kara, Caleb said, “I think I saw her. I’m going out. You two stay right here. If I’m not back in ten minutes, Cooper, you take this girl back to the house, whether she wants to go or not. It’s at the other end of her rope.”
Cooper nodded. Kara argued, but Caleb didn’t take time to listen. He started out through the drifts, praying to God he would see that little beam of light again.
And then he did. Ten feet from the barn, with an inch of snow already covering it. He raced closer, dropped to his knees, and pawed the snow away rapidly, digging out the light, and the gloved hand that clung to it. Mel’s hand. Then her arm, shoulder and the rest of her. Lifting her upper body, he shook her. “Melusine! Mel, come on! Talk to me!”
There was a very slight movement of her lips. Maybe a moan, but if so, it was lost in the wind. At least he knew she was alive. He gathered her up into his arms, turned and started back the way he’d come. He homed in on the glow spilling from the upstairs window and trudged with everything he had.
He reached Kara and Tom Cooper with what felt like the last ounce of strength in his body, so cold he couldn’t even feel his hands or feet anymore.
Cooper took Mel from his arms, turned toward the house. Caleb took a step toward it, as well, and Kara put a hand on his chest to stop him. “We still need the generator,” she said.
Cooper turned back. “Don’t walk it, Caleb! Take the dozer. No one out there to run over by accident now!”
With a sigh of relief, he nodded. “Get back to the house, Kara. I’ll be in with the genny in a few minutes.”
She looked him in the eye and said, “Hurry, Caleb. We need you in there.” Then she turned and trudged away.
In only seconds she was swallowed up by the storm. Drawing himself up, Caleb started toward the dozer.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
He hadn’t thought about how he was supposed to get the generator to the bulldozer. The thing was huge, and it would have taken two or three men at the very least, to pick it up. But he discovered chains on the back of the dozer, attached them to the machine, and even thought to make sure it had gasoline in its tank, so he wouldn’t have to make this trek again to syphon some from one of the cars. The tank was full, though, so he remounted the bull-dozer and ground it into motion. And he thanked his lucky stars Tom Cooper hadn’t just handed it over earlier tonight or he’d never have gotten here. He’d been watching for five miles, and he still just barely managed to make it go where he wanted. There was a definite knack to this thing.
He dragged the generator right up to the front door, then shut the dozer down, got off, and, finally, after what seemed like an endless, freezing journey, he stumbled on frozen stumps into the house.
Cooper met him at the door “I’ll start the genny and get her plugged in the second I get thawed out here. You’d best get out of those things. You’re needed elsewhere.”
He thought of Mel and rapidly, clumsily, started tugging at the snow-encrusted scarf and mittens. The parka’s zipper was frozen, and there was so much snow frozen to his legs that he could barely tell where the boots ended and the overalls began. Snow scattered everywhere, but eventually he got shed of most of the layers and limped into the living room on numb feet.
Mel lay on the sofa, her clothes on the floor, her body wrapped in blankets. Kara and Selene worked fiercely, rubbing her hands and feet. Mel’s hair was wet but thawed out. The fireplace burned full blast, giving off blessed heat that began to make his own hands and feet burn as the feeling came back to them.
“How is she?” he asked, leaning over the other two.
Mel’s eyes opened. Her teeth were chattering and her body shaking, but she managed a weak smile. “I’ll b-b-be fine. Thanks t-t-to you.”
“Hey, that’s what brothers-in-law are for, isn’t it?”
“Caleb…I…need to tell you something.” Mel was so cold her teeth were chattering. “I…the photograph. It…was me. I sent it.”
He leaned closer to her, looked right into her eyes and said, “Then I know who to thank, don’t I?”
