Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“This is the best smell,” I find myself saying, and Reed glances at me, his brows raised. “Fresh snow.”
“Yeah, it is.” He watches as I bend to sweep up a handful of powder, smash it between my gloved palms, and hurl the clump at a tree. “Are you itching for a snowball fight?”
I sniff derisively. “Snowball fights are something you do with friends, not your sworn enemy.”
“You’d prefer to fight with your friends than an enemy?”
“Of course. Friendly fights are the best.”
“Are they?”
“They are. Because you know a friend won’t hurt you on purpose. So instead of a fight, it becomes more of a battle of skill or wits. Or just pure fun.”
“Fun? I should probably warn you of a battle I’m fighting, then. I”—he pauses until I turn my head to look at him—“am going to make you laugh. Or smile.”
“Do you like losing? Is that why you’re flinging yourself into a battle that you can’t possibly win?”
He shrugs. “I’ve never lost a challenge before.”
“Never?”
“Never. And I won’t start today.”
So arrogant. I roll my eyes. Then I plow ahead of him, because I might smile. I might. “How far is your snowmobile? I’m assuming you came by the road.”
But there’s no sign of the machine yet. I don’t expect to see any tracks, but the snowmobile itself should be visible, even if it’s covered by snow. The forest is mostly clear of underbrush between the trees and the ground is even, so a snowmobile-sized heap will stick out.
“I did come by the road. It can’t be far.”
It is far. At least a mile, which is a ridiculous distance in the snow. And even with the snowshoes, trudging through the powder takes its toll. By the time I spot the tree branch that must have whacked him, Reed’s limp is more pronounced. I’m sweating, and my lungs and leg muscles burn.
“There.” I point to a tree on the side of the road. Near its base is a snowy heap. Red and silver show through the white where the wind scoured the snow away.
While Reed begins digging out his pack, I look farther down the narrow lane. The limb that fell on him is still partially attached to the tree and hangs down into the road. It’s no small branch. At least four or five inches thick where the limb cracked—and to break like that, the bough must have been additionally burdened with a substantial amount of snow.
And all that weight crashed down on him.
“You were really lucky,” I tell him seriously. Not just surviving the impact but then finding his way through the blizzard to the cabin.
He’s looking at the broken bough, too. Something in his face tells me that he hadn’t realized how large it was or how far from the cabin he’d been. Then he glances at me. “It’s worse than that.” He gestures to the large hiking backpack now strapped to the sled. “My keys are in there.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “So if I hadn’t been at the cabin…”
“Maybe I could have broken in, but the state I was in? Maybe not.” He shakes his head—and seems to shake away all the morbid thoughts. “Anyway. Let’s go get your tree.”
I’ve caught my second wind, so I’m ready to. I’m not sure he is. “Are you doing all right? Your head, your leg?”
“I can keep going.”
That doesn’t answer how his head and leg are doing, and the evasion tells me they hurt like hell. “Do you want me to pull the sled?”
The look he gives me is an emphatic, Not a fucking chance.
So we keep heading down the road. I don’t know why I thought there’d be little trees everywhere. But I suppose any tree shorter than three feet is covered in snow. Though there’s a dearth of medium trees, too.
Now that we’ve got Reed’s pack, though, we can search away from the road. “Harris said the best place to look is near the crag. Do you know where that is?”
“I do.” His huff of laughter emerges on a frozen breath. “It’s about a mile on the other side of the cabin.”
Shit. Well, I’m not going to make him walk that far. Not for this. “Let’s keep looking here, then.”
“We can head to the crag, if you want.”
“It’s fine. Besides—” A Christmas miracle. “Look there. That one.”
Reed frowns. “Which one?”
“That one. Right where I’m pointing.”
He drags the sled closer to me, as if to make sure he’s got the same view through the trees. “That skinny one with only four branches?” he asks doubtfully.
“Yep.”
“You’re sure? We can head to the crag. No need to settle for that one. Unless you want a Charlie Brown tree.”
My stomach knots. “If I wanted a perfect tree lot tree, I could have brought one.”
“And if you’re choosing this one because of my leg, it’s fine. We can keep looking.”