“Was that a rabbit?” I almost topple over into the snow as I twist around to catch the tail end of a squirrel bounding over to a tree.

“No.” Sawyer holds his jaw tight and keeps trudging forward.

“Isn’t it weird we haven’t seen any yet? We’ve been out here a while.” I look up at the sky as if I’d have any clue what time of day it is by looking at the sun. Instead of guessing the hour, I just get bright spots in my vision that won’t blink away.

“No, it’s not weird. The snowshoe hare molts and grows white fur for the winter, so they’re damned near impossible to see. Even brown rabbits are smart enough to hide under brush and around the base of trees. They know how to survive better than we do.” He keeps his voice hushed as he looks around the forest.

“Well, better than I do. You seem to be doing just fine,” I smile.

“You adapt to your surroundings. I didn’t start out my first year as a natural woodsman. It takes patience, a lot of it.” He admits.

“It sounds boring,” I shrug. “Don’t you ever get tired of how long it takes to do everything? I mean, don’t you miss having a microwave or just ordering take-out food?” I try to imagine what his life must be like. Preparing food and keeping things working must take up nearly all of his time. A few days ago, that would’ve sounded like the seventh circle of hell. Right now it still doesn’t sound appealing, but not like the torture I thought it would be.

“No, I don’t miss it. Sometimes it’s hard work, but sometimes I sit and read all day. Or I go fishing. Or I paint. The work is harder, but there’s less of it than when you live in the city and you spend ten hours of your day either getting ready for work or punching a clock. Besides, I spend most of my days in nature, growing or hunting for the organic food you spend a fortune to get at the grocery store. I don’t need to spend my time coming up with woodworking projects for a hobby, my whole life is a Pinterest project.” He scoffs.

“You know about Pinterest?” My mouth drops open. I don’t know why, but I expected Sawyer to be too removed from modern life to know about girly internet pages.

“I choose to live in the woods, Ashley. I wasn’t born there. I still know about things going on in the real world, if you want to call it that.” He looks at me and rolls his eyes exaggeratedly.

“Oh.” Of course, he knows about websites. He’s not completely shut off from society. I mean, when he saved me he was heading into town.

“Do you think we’ll find a rabbit soon?” I bring my focus back to the reason we’re marching knee-deep in an endless sea of white.

“Not if you keep talking, chatty Cathy,” he smirks.

“What’s a chatty Cathy? Is that a show or something? Or just an expression?” I peer up at him and he sighs.

“I don’t know, I think it was a doll that never shut up and scared away rabbits,” he twists his lips downward and looks around the glistening forest.

The silence is eerie. I can’t hear anything except for our breathing. It’s a far cry from the endless buzzing of the city. The roar of the traffic. The chatter of friends. The constant dinging of people’s cell phones. “When you’re hunting rabbits, you have to be like Elmer Fudd, remember him?” He ignores my blank stare, “You have to be vewy, vewy quiet.”

I can’t help but laugh at the bad impression. “How old are you again? Chatty Cathy? Elmer Fudd? That’s before my time there, old man,” I giggle.

“I’m not old, I’m wise,” he smiles. I feel like I just took a sip of hot cocoa topped with marshmallows, all warmed up from my forehead to my toes.

Sawyer looks at the sky and the smile slips from his lips, “The storm is going to roll in really soon,” he looks back over the trail we’ve left in the snow, then back to the sky. “This old man is wise enough to know that we’re not going to make it back to the cabin before this gets bad.”

“What do you mean?” I bend my head back and stare at the snow tumbling down from the sky. “We have to get back,” I try to push down the panic rising in my chest. Did he save me just so I could freeze anyway?

“No, we need to build a shelter,” he answers firmly and shrugs free from his hiking bag, placing it at his feet.

A shelter? “Like, do you mean an Igloo?” I’ve seen pictures of them, but never seen one in real life.

“Not really,” Sawyer pulls a small spade out of his bag and yanks on the handle, extending it out. “You see that huge drift there?” He points the retractable shovel at a thick mound of snow.

“Yeah,” I nod.

“We’re going to hunker down inside that. I’m going to make a snow cave, it’s easier than an igloo, trust me.” He walks over to the snow bank and begins to carve out his plan while I stand and watch the sky darken and the flakes intensify.

Trust him. That’s what he said. It’s funny how, in reality, he’s still a stranger. I don’t know that much about him, really. If we’d met under different circumstances, we wouldn’t have given each other the time of day. And yet, I do trust him. I trust his judgement and I trust his character. Now, if I could only learn to trust my own heart as much as I do him, maybe I could figure out a way to keep him in my life.