The farmhouse with the blown down tree was owned by a man named Don Raw. Turns out he'd known my father and was very surprised to find Joe Riley's daughter half frozen on his doorstep at three in the morning. He'd woken up to check on his animals and ended up saving us instead.

Now I sat at the edge of a hospital bed with a blanket over my shoulders, sipping microwaved hot chocolate and listening to the mysterious beeping sounds that pinged all around me, but my whole body was on edge. "Excuse me?" I called to a nurse who was hurrying past. "I'm looking for information on the man I came in here with?"

She immediately came over and checked my pulse. "You two really went through something tonight," she said as she counted the beats.

I pressed my lips together. "He saved my life," I agreed.

She glanced up my eyes. "You really love him, don't you?"

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak. The weight of what we'd just gone through - how Jonah had risked his own life to save mine, how he'd pushed himself to the limit to carry me to safety - made my breath catch in my throat. "I really do," I said.

She nodded and then gave a conspiratorial grin. "Come on. There's no reason why you can't finish warming up in his room."

I slipped off the bed and followed after her. Strange feelings of numbness were still present in my limbs, like little localized shots of Novacaine, but the doctor had said that would subside. I'd escaped the worse of the hypothermia by staying close to Jonah's body heat.

The way I figured it, staying close to Jonah was a good strategy overall. I was already smiling when I pushed the door open to see him, but my smile fell immediately when I saw him sitting there with heavy bandages on both of his hands.

He lifted his head and smiled softly when I came in. "Boy am I glad to see you," he said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm totally fine," I said, perching at the edge of his bed. But my heart was sinking rapidly. "You're not though," I said, gesturing to his hands. "Frostbite?"

"Well they didn't turn black and fall off." He shifted in the bed and grinned at me. "Finn told me I had the lamest version of frostbite ever. Just some blisters.

"On your fingertips?"

He nodded and kept the smile on his face but I could see a shadow of pain cross it, and instantly knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it too.

His fingertips. That he used to play guitar.

Waves of guilt crashed up against waves of love until I felt like I was being sucked down into a whirlpool. "If you hadn't been there - ." I started to say and then stopped.

The car had gone off into a steep embankment alongside the road. In the blinding white and pitch dark, it was like it was invisible. If I had been alone, and stayed there, the snow would have covered the car until it was one more indistinct lump in the snow. Maybe no one would have even come until the day time, at which point who knows what would have happened. "It was crazy to leave the car and go blundering through the storm," I said. "But doing the crazy thing probably saved both our lives."

He nodded tightly. "I have another crazy thing I'm thinking of doing."

I gingerly took his bandaged hand and rested it in my lap, stroking his arm up and down. "You're going to join Gabe on his TV show?" I teased.

His mouth twisted up in that natural smile I was seeing more and more often. "I mean he is leaving this week to go start shooting. Now is my chance."

I must have looked furious because he burst out laughing. "No, are you kidding me? First off, Gabe would kick my ass for trying to steal his spotlight. Second, I don't even want his spotlight. He literally just got his arm out of a splint, and now he'd going to go try and bust himself up again. I don't get it."

"I think you do. He feels alive when he's risking something. You feel alive when the spotlight is on you."

He shook his head firmly. "I feel alive when I'm with you."

I leaned into him. "Especially when we almost die?"

He chuckled and scratched his fingers along the back of my hair, making me want to purr. "I think I can forego almost dying for a while and just be with you."

I sighed happily as his words hung there in the air. With each heartbeat, the meaning of what he'd just said got clearer and clearer. Holding my breath, I turned to face him to see that he was watching expectantly. "Ah, there it is," he said with a grin. "I was wondering if you'd heard me."

"You're staying?" I breathed.

"I want to be with you," he said, pulling me closer. "And you're here. So I'm here too." He looked down and brushed my face with his bandaged hand. "Simple as that."