“Any chance there’s another route?” I ask, though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“None I’m willing to take,” Gideon says. He takes his knit hat off, runs his hand through his hair, then puts it back. “If you want to hike out, there’s a couple trails we could take, then call for a ride once we’re at the bottom,” he says. “It’s a good ways, though. And we’d need an earlier start so we couldn’t start until tomorrow.”
I don’t miss the fact that he says we, but I also don’t bring it up. Of course, Gideon assumes that he’d be escorting me to safety on a bad ankle and then hiking alone back to the cabin on that same bad ankle, and I’m not even going to acknowledge that.
“It’ll probably melt in a few days,” I say, because this is my first winter back in Virginia in a very long time, but isn’t that how it works here? It snows, and instead of dealing with it everyone just waits seventy-two hours for the snow to melt?
“I’m willing to bet the road’s out,” he says, still looking out at the mass of snow and debris, arms crossed. “Even once the snow melts, it’s gonna be…”
“Once the snow melts, we can go the back way,” I say, which elicits no reaction from Gideon. “The way you got to the mine site where you found me?”
“You mean the way where we already ran off the road once?”
“It was dark and actively blizzarding,” I point out.
“And in a few days it’ll be muddy and slippery or muddy and frozen over,” he says. “I wouldn’t go that route unless I really had to. Pretty dangerous for vehicles.”
Now he tells me, and there’s twist of guilt somewhere behind my ribcage.
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize more.”
“Did I apologize at all?”
“Only about twenty times that night,” he says. “And a couple times since then.”
I blow out a foggy breath toward the trees still over us and the sky above them. The avalanche tore a window through them, so even though we’re still standing in forest, it’s lighter than it would otherwise.
“Then I un-apologize and I’m not sorry for making you drive that road and get your truck stuck,” I say, because Gideon is being difficult and I can also be difficult, dammit. “I’m proud of my actions and I’d do it again.”
That, at least, gets a snort and the tiniest smile out of him.
“At least don’t do it on my watch,” he says. “I can only lose so many years of my life to the stress.”
“Noted,” I tell him.
After a hair-raising twenty-point turn in the snow on the side of a mountain that involves a lot of shouting and more than a little bickering, we head back to the cabin, because what are our other options? Gideon claims it’s got enough supplies to last out the winter, and while I’m not sure I completely believe him, even I can tell the pantry has enough cans for a pretty long time.
“Home sweet home,” I declare when we step through the front door. “Cabin, I missed you.”
“Keep moving, you’re in the way,” Gideon grumbles. He’s holding the frame pack he wouldn’t let me carry and trying not to look amused.
“Do you want me to track snow into the house or do you want me to move?” I ask, untying my laces. “It’s up to you.”
“How much longer do I have to put up with this?”
“I think you mean to say how much longer do I get to luxuriate in the pleasure of your company,” I correct, standing up again in my sock feet. “Go ahead.”
Gideon’s faintly pink, probably from the excitement of the drive and the sudden warmth of the cabin. “I’m not saying that,” he tells me, shifting the frame pack as he toes off his own boots.
“C’mon,” I say, blocking the path to the rest of the cabin. “How much longer will I have the pleasure—"
“Is that tent still in here?” he asks. “Can I go live in that?”
“I can’t believe you’d rather move out than admit my company is kind of okay.”
He’s pinker now, and trying not to smile.
“Fine,” he says. “Your company is kind of okay. Can I come past the doorway now, please?”
Gideon is on the phone for a million years, so I take his sweater again and try not to start worrying. All the same, I have visions of the snow piling up over the door frame, the two of us completely stuck in the cabin for god knows how long. At worst we’ll hike out in a few more days, once Gideon’s ankle is healed enough, and someone will come collect the truck at a later date.
Meanwhile, I’ve got nothing to do—like, truly nothing, which feels bizarre—so I grab Tender is the Storm again. I didn’t get very far last night, but there’s a naked man on the cover, which seems promising.
I’m on page six when Gideon marches into the room and holds his phone out at me.
“For you,” he says, which turns out to mean a phone call from a number that looks vaguely familiar.
“Andi!” my aunt Lucia says as soon as I answer. “Good, you don’t sound like you’re freezing to death.”
“You talked to Rick and Dad?” I say as Gideon nods once, then retreats to the kitchen.
“I just got done answering twenty questions about what kind of insulation I thought a remote Forest Service cabin might have,” she says. “I told them I had to go before they could start asking how well I thought the floors might be sealed.”
I look down at the floor. It’s a hardwood floor that’s seen better days.
“Fine, I think,” I tell Lucia, who laughs.
“More interestingly, I got to answer a lot of questions about Steve Wheeler,” she goes on.
There’s a brief silence. I make a face into it.
“Yeah?” I say, determined not to give anything away.
“Oh, they want to know everything,” Lucia goes on cheerfully. “Whether he’s from here. Where he went to high school. Whether he went to college. Who his people are, because Blake and Rick couldn’t place a Wheeler clan, but they did move away ages ago, so their memories might be at fault with that one.”
“I… can ask?” I say, even though it’s pointless, because Lucia clearly knows I’m lying.
“Is there a particular reason you didn’t tell them you’re up there with Gideon Bell, or is it the same reason you haven’t wanted anything to do with him the last couple months?” she goes on, sounding determinedly casual. I can practically see her leaning over a houseplant and subjecting the poor thing to her scrutiny while she skewers me via satellite phone.
I let my head drop back against the arm of the couch, bodice ripper falling to the floor.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Sweetheart, it’s literally front-page news,” she goes on. “Below the fold, but still. ‘Forest Service Employee Enacts Daring Rescue.’”
“I didn’t want them to worry,” I tell the ceiling. “More, at least.”
Lucia sighs dramatically, the way only a southern sixty-something woman who has Seen Some Shit can sigh.