In their weakened state, it took an excruciating long time to dig Nash out from underneath the snow where he'd been pinned by the snowmobile. But instead of being frustrated by the way the snowmobile hindered their efforts, Harper was thankful for it. If she hadn't seen the blades, she wouldn't have known where to even begin looking for Nash. If she hadn’t found him, he’d be dead right now. She was sure of it.
But she had found him. She couldn't imagine what she’d do if she hadn’t.
They rested just a little before they made the trek back up to the cabin. It wasn’t easy walking up the mountain. They had a long way to climb. But once they reached the road, they walked in the snowmobile tracks.
Eventually someone would come to plow the road. One of the rangers at a nearby summit would have seen the avalanche. She was glad she’d told the chief that Nash was up at the cabin. Hank would eventually bring a team up here to check on him after the roads below were cleared. If the storm was as bad as she suspected it was, then the entire town was busy digging out. It would take a few days for them to swing around here with enough equipment to clear the road.
After hours of climbing and walking and feeling she was frozen to the bone, the cabin came into view. Thank God, she’d found him. She couldn’t imagine having to walk inside that cabin without him. As they took each painstaking step up to the cabin, Harper shuddered to think of what she would've done if Nash had died.
It was insane. She’d just met him. They’d known each other three days. But it felt as if she'd known him forever. She’d never believed in love at first sight. That was something for the storybooks and movies. But she couldn't explain away the intense emotions she had walking side-by-side with Nash as they reached the end of this harrowing day together. And she couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else.
* * *
He'd almost lost her. Nash thought he was going to die this time. When he’d been buried under that snow and gasping for breath, unable to take in enough to keep him from getting dizzy and losing consciousness, he actually thought this was his end. Not Carol this time. Not Harper. Him.
He could handle that. But it made him crazy to think that Harper could've died.
When he'd seen her car roll down that embankment, even from a distance, the memories of seeing Carol fall was as stark as a knife’s blade and hard to ignore. Harper wasn't Carol. They were two different women in two different situations.
But he could've lost Harper today. And the thought of it made him paralyzed with fear. The cabin came into view and it was like manna from heaven. He was so cold and he knew she was too. She was already battered from her accident. Nash prided himself on being physically fit. But even he felt like he'd gone through a washing machine and been spit out. He could only imagine how Harper felt with all her bruises and aches. And still, she'd survived.
And she’d been the one to save his life.
He shuddered to think of how it would've been for her if she'd found him dead in that snow pile. She wasn't in love with him. Not that it was the same thing as when he'd found Carol. But he knew how it affected her when her parents died and she'd received the news that they were gone.
People didn't recover from things like that. The idea that time healed all wounds was bogus. He knew that personally. Time didn't heal anything. It just covered it up with a thicker scar that made it easy to bury the hurt in order to get through the day.
As soon as they walked to the door of the cabin, he slammed the door shut and they both collapsed to the floor.
“We need to get these wet clothes off and get into a hot bath. You take a shower first. Get yourself warm and then I'll take a shower after you finish,” he said.
“I love that you're being a gentleman. Trust me, it's one of the things about you that is most appealing to me. But you were the one buried so deeply in that snow. You almost died, Nash. And I know this water tank can’t possibly be fully heated. I won't take all the hot water and let you freeze.”
“Stop it,” he said, hearing a bit of anger in his voice. “This is survival. You need to do what you have to do to survive.”
She lifted her chin and her voice rose up just a notch to match his. “This is your survival, too. It's not just me anymore.”
He sighed and slumped back to a sitting position on the floor. “I just want to hold you,” he admitted. “I’ve never been scared the way I’ve been since you've been here. Well, not in a long time anyway.”
“Me too,” she said softly.
“I don't like being scared. I don’t like being scared for someone else. That's why I like to be alone. I only have to worry about me and what might happen to me.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “But you're not alone, Nash. I'm here with you.”
“That's what scares me the most. You almost died.”
She smiled up at him. “But I didn’t. You said yourself it wasn’t going to happen and it didn’t.”
He bent his head and looked into her eyes. His face was just inches from hers. He could feel her warm breath against his cold cheek.
He couldn't take it anymore. He had to taste her lips. It had been driving him crazy ever since he'd walked into the dispatch office and saw her sitting there at her desk. There was absolutely nothing special about what she was doing aside from sitting there with those headphones on. And yet, his eyes had focused on her lips and he'd wanted to taste them.
He’d resisted all this time and now it was too much. He had to know. He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. To his surprise, she didn't pull back or seem shocked that he’d kissed her. That both thrilled him and terrified him.
He wanted her to pull away. He wanted her to be stronger than he was because right now he had no strength to fight against the feelings that were coursing through him.
When he pulled back he saw that her eyes were filled with desire and it made things all the worse. How do you walk away from something like that? Something so beautiful and innocent and intoxicating?
“Just hold me, Nash. We’ll warm each other up by the fire and stay there. It's okay. I want this too.”
He kissed her again, this time with more passion than he'd allowed himself to feel in years. He liked being in control, even in the world that seemed uncontrollable. And maybe that was why he was so drawn to Harper. He felt safe when he wasn't in control with this amazing woman.
He got up from the floor and stripped off his jacket. Then he reached out his hand for hers. He marveled at the way her small hand slipped so easily into his larger hand. When she was standing beside him, he peeled off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. They rid themselves of the boots and walked over to the wood stove that was pumping out warmth because he'd stacked so many logs inside of it before they’d left earlier. Now it was burning strong.
He grabbed one of the folded blankets from the sofa and spread it out on the floor in front of the wood stove where he'd slept these last few days. Harper crawled across the blanket like a cat and then curled into a ball with her face toward the fire. He grabbed another blanket and pulled it with him as he fell to the floor beside her. Then he wrapped his arms around her and covered them both with the blanket.
It had been a long time since he'd had a woman spooned up next to him, warm and soft and desirable. And yet it seemed so right with Harper to just lie there together and not push things further. He kissed her behind her ear and then whispered, “Are you warmer?”
She made a soft sound, and then said, “I was warmer the moment I met you.”
* * *
Nash was still sleeping when Harper heard commotion somewhere down the mountain. She got up and ran outside to the porch, listened, and then ran back in.
Nash lifted his head from the pillow. “What is it?”
“I'm not sure, but I think there's some activity down the mountain. I think the plows are here to clear the road.”
“That means one of the officers from the department will be there. If they manage to get through all that snow today, one of them should be able to get you home.”
She looked down at herself. She was still wearing Nash's sweats. “I need to get changed.”
“You’re not going down there yet. It could be dangerous,” he said, lifting up from the floor. His dark hair was sticking up on one side with bed head and his eyes were still squinty with sleep.
“What do you mean? I’ve got to get their attention.”
“I’ll go. I can take the truck.”
“But the radio was lost when the snowmobile got buried in the avalanche.”
“I can get their attention somehow. It’s not rocket science.”
She chuckled. “I guess you’d know since you’re a scientist.”
He nodded as sleep still made him groggy.
“Will you be able to get down with the truck and get back up?”
He nodded. “The snow is still high, but the snowmobile tracks are compacted. I’ll keep it in four-wheel drive and stay in the snowmobile tracks. I should be okay. Just get yourself ready for when I get back. I shouldn’t be gone too long.”
“What about coming back up the mountain? How will I know if you get stuck?”
“I should be able to get back up following the same path.” He smiled. “I'm pretty resourceful.”
She gave him a smirk for his teasing. “I've seen that.”
“I'll be back as quick as I can.”
“Are you sure you don't want to wait and just have me go with you?”
“I don’t’ want to bring you out in this if there isn’t anyone there. If I do get stuck on the way, I don’t want you out there again. You’ve been through enough adventure, don’t you think?”
* * *
Just walking out to the truck made Nash thankful he made Harper stay behind. She was going to have to venture out eventually, but at least he could test how bad the road was with the melting snow.
He climbed into the truck and gunned the engine. The cab was already warm from the sun shining on it, something that he welcomed because it meant he didn't have to spend time to warm the engine to get heat. He’d take it slow until he reached the point where the Avalanche landed on the road. From his estimation, the road was covered for about a quarter of a mile and would make it difficult for anyone to plow them out. But if he managed to get someone’s attention, at least they’d know both he and Harper were alive.
Traveling down the road even in four-wheel drive proved to be challenging. Nash focused on keeping the tires in the ruts the snowmobile left, the path that he and Harper had walked up after the avalanche had hit. He needed to keep his eyes on the road to keep from swerving off the side. The risk of another avalanche was still high and it would be for a few days as the accumulation from the storm started to melt and compact.
As he approached the big wall of snow that had fallen over the road and down the embankment where he’d turned and tried to outrun the avalanche, Nash rolled down his window and listened. And then he smiled. Whoever Harper had heard from the cabin was still there.
He approached the big wall snow and stopped the truck, killing the engine. Then he beeped the horn three times. He waited a few seconds and then beeped again in the hopes that someone had heard him the first time and would give him a signal that he’d been heard.
He heard the sound of a long deep horn blow, and he chuckled. They had heard him.
He quickly climbed out of the truck and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello there. Can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” someone called back. They were still a distance away, but closer than Nash had expected. They must have been working on the road all morning and Harper had just heard them.
“I'm Nash Webber,” he called out. “I'm renting the cabin at the top of the mountain.”
“Daphne Madison's place?” the person asked. He sounded a little closer. Nash looked up and squinted his eyes to see if he could figure out where he was coming from.
“That's the one. I have her granddaughter staying at the cabin with me.”
Somebody let out a whistle. “Now that's fantastic news to hear. We were worried about Harper.”
So was he.
“She rolled her car a few days ago at the beginning of the storm. I manage to get her out of the car. It's buried somewhere down the embankment beneath all this snow.”
“We found it. We tried her phone and got worried when no one answered.”
“It got smashed in the accident along with my snowmobile that also had my radio. We planned on contacting someone as soon as the storm let up but we couldn’t get a signal.”
“I see your truck. I just don't see you,” the man said.
Nash looked up at the big pile of snow in front of him. Then he turned back to his truck which was fifteen or twenty yards behind him. He sprinted back to the truck and then turned back to look at the top of the snow mound.
“There you are,” the man said.
Nash smiled. “What’s your name?”
“Officer Zeb Lincoln. I work with Harper. Everyone has been real worried about her, especially her grandmother.
Nash couldn't be sure but it looked as if Zeb was holding onto something. Nash took a few more steps back and realized whoever had come up the road had a tractor and the officer was now standing inside the bucket looking over the big mound of snow between them. That explained how they’d been able to clear the road so quickly.
“I'm sure glad you found us, Officer,” Nash said.
“Have you met Mrs. Madison?” Zeb asked.
Nash shook his head. “Just her granddaughter.”
“Well, Harper is a pretty persistent woman, just like her grandmother. In fact, I think her grandmother might be a little bit more so because she's been calling the station every hour on the hour to make sure someone went up to rescue her Harper. She’s going to be thrilled to know we found her.”
“I guess feistiness runs in the family.”
“That's for sure. How's Harper doing? Was she hurt in the accident? I know that's the first question Mrs. Madison will ask when I call into the station.”
“Bruised from her tumble down the side of the mountain. But she's doing okay, especially after yesterday.”
“Wait, you weren’t caught in this, were you?”
“I'm afraid so. We were lucky. My snowmobile wasn't. I’ll let Harper tell you all about it.”
The man whistled. “I’ll call Mia. She's a paramedic on duty at the fire station. She can check you both over when we bring Harper home.”
“I’m fine. Really. Harper probably should have someone take a look at her. I'm guessing you know she probably won't.”
“She will if Chief Lucas tells her to.” Zeb laughed. “But only because he'll insist on her being checked over before she can return to work. I’m sure glad she’s okay.”
“Harper has been really worried about her grandmother,” he called out.
“You tell her Mrs. Madison has been very well taken care of,” Zeb said with a chuckle. “I do believe that just about everyone at the police station has checked in on her. She even spent a few nights at Lucy Perini’s house. Sweet is a neighborly town. We take care of our own.”
Nash nodded.
“I appreciate you taking good care of Harper though,” Zeb added. “We missed her down at the station. She likes to tell us how indispensable she is and we give her grief for it. But the truth is, she was missed.”
“I get why. She's…” What? Amazing? Was he really going to tell one of Harper’s coworkers something like that? “Resourceful,” he finally said.
Zeb chuckled. “Yes, she is.”
“How long are you going to be working here?”
“As long as it takes. How is your four-wheel drive truck handling that road?”
Nash looked at the rutted tracks behind him. “I managed to get down here. I’m not so sure how much luck I'll have getting up but I know Harper is anxious to get home.”
“If you want to give it a go and get Harper, we will be here. If you don't come back by the time we’re done we’ll continue plowing up the road until we reach the cabin.”
“Sounds good.”
Nash walked back to the driver side of his truck and opened the door, wishing he hadn't taken the radio out and mounted it on the snowmobile. It didn't matter anymore because the snowmobile was gone. He wasn't going to need it again until next season seeing how it was so late in the season. But the radio was necessary.
“Hey,” he called out before climbing into the truck.
Zeb turned back to look at him.
“Where's the best place around here to buy a radio. Something that will work up at the top of the mountain.”
“You may need to go to the city for that. The hardware store might have something but I’m not sure what the range is.”
“Thanks.”
Nash climbed into the truck and carefully maneuvered it so it was facing in the right direction to go up the hill. He took his time and stayed in a low gear as he followed the tracks from the snowmobile and the tracks he’d made with the truck coming down the mountain. As he expected, it took longer for him to make the climb back up than it had for him to go down the mountain.
It gave him time to think. And he hated the conclusion he’d come up with. Last night holding Harper had been amazing. But she was murder to his focus. He’d come here to work and ended up doing nothing for days except notice every little freckle on Harper’s nose and study every contour of her beautiful face. How the hell was he going to get any work done?