Chapter Nine

Victoria

They ate breakfast, an odd combination of food they found in the pantry, protein bars and preserved pears, pudding and bottled water. The children grumbled about the selection, but Clay reminded them how lucky they were to have found the cabin. Sydney and Ross grumbled again when Clay told them they needed to help him create signals to alert search planes.

Before they left the cabin, Clay spoke to Victoria.

“You stay in the cabin and plan lunch and dinner. There’s a pump in the wash room. I think the water’s clean but to be sure, I want you to boil it.”

She nodded. “How long?”

“At least a minute. Three would be best, do you have a watch?” He rolled back his cuff. “Do you need mine?”

The watch was the type of watch that had extra dials and looked like the type divers wore.

“I have one in my bag. You think it might be a while before they find us?”

“We should assume that.”

The cabin sat on a rise, tucked amidst a grove of spruce, and when Victoria looked out the window she could see them working below. First, they built a giant “Help” sign out of saplings they dragged from the forest. Next, they piled wood for a bonfire, she assumed they would light that night if help still hadn’t arrived.

While they worked, Victoria boiled several pots of water. She searched the pantry and decided on pasta for lunch. There were dozens of packages of noodles and jars of spaghetti sauce. When Clay and the children came inside, she had lunch ready.

They devoured everything she made along with several bowls of popcorn. Trudging through the snow, hauling saplings and firewood, had worn the children out. After lunch, Clay told them to go rest for a while. Ross told him he wasn’t tired and when Clay put on his boots and coat and went back to work, the boy followed along with Charlie.

The day passed without a single airplane passing overhead. Victoria tried her best to comfort Sydney as she grew increasingly distraught.

That night at dinner Clay talked about looking for a road, or town.

“If help doesn’t come tomorrow, I’m setting out to look for a town or road,” he told her after dinner.

“Can I go?” Ross asked.

Clay shook his head. “I’ll go by myself.”

Ross frowned. In a day’s time, the boy had started to regard Clay with respect, even awe.

No one spoke for a long moment and the only sound in the cabin was the crackle of the flames in the fireplace. The logs shifted, sending a shower of sparks, hissing up the chimney. Victoria’s chest tightened. Clay might leave them? Set out on his own. The idea filled her with cold dread.

“How far would you go?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“I don’t want you to go.” Her voice cracked. “It’s a bad idea.”

“You can’t leave us,” Sydney added. “What if they come when you’re not here? What if you get lost or something attacks you or there’s a storm.”

Her voice rose as she spoke and her eyes widened with terror. “We’ll do whatever you say, Follow your orders. But you have to stay with us.”

The corner of Clay’s mouth twitched. He sighed. “All right. I won’t leave. Not for now.”

Later that night, as Victoria lay in her bed, and Clay in his, she whispered into the dark. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

“I promise.”

For the next week, they waited. Ross and Clay worked outside gathering wood. They kept the fire in the den burning all the time. Clay discovered a house at the edge of the lake which appeared to be meant for seaplane. This made Victoria wonder how far from civilization they were. If the owners came and went by plane, the nearest road or town might be a hundred miles away or more.

Victoria tried to keep busy inside the cabin. Clay made breakfast every morning, usually pancakes and tinned ham, and she prepared lunch and dinner. By the end of the second week, she mastered bread making. When Clay and the children came in the door, they always marveled at the wonderful aroma of the freshly baked loaves.

She started a list of the supplies she used from the pantry. Somehow, when they left the cabin, she’d find a way to replace what they’d consumed.

One day slipped into the next. During the day, they acted almost like a family, she and Clay playing the parents to Sydney and Ross. They worked to keep the bonfire by the lake lit at night. They’d have to start all over after a heavy snowfall. At night, when she crawled into her bed and he into his, she felt his presence a few feet away. Sometimes they’d talk about the day or their lives back home. He never said anything flirtatious. Never made any move.

One night, when the children trudged off to bed immediately after dinner. Clay told them they were allowed an hour of reading and then he’d come for the candle.

“And you,” he said to Victoria. “Are coming with me.”

“Where?”

He took his coat from the rack by the door and lit a lantern. Charlie got to his feet and looked at him expectantly, wagging his tail. Clay slipped the collar on and smiled at her.

“It’s a surprise. Get your boots and coat on.”

The warmth in his eyes sparked a response inside her. She did as he told her and followed him out into the dark night.

He walked down a path towards the woods. It was worn with the boot prints of Clay and the children’s boots and led along the trees. She’d never walked on the path and couldn’t imagine where they were going. Usually he didn’t go outside at night. Walking ahead of her on the narrow path, he held Charlie’s leash in one hand, the lantern in the other and the rifle slung over his shoulder.

Shortly a pool of water came into view. An odor, a slightly acrid smell, hung in the air. Lifting from the surface were small tendrils of steam.

“A spring,” she said with surprise.

“We found it today. I made the kids keep it secret so I could surprise you.”

The spring was small, no bigger than a backyard swimming pool. Rocks surrounded the water. Even in the scant moonlight, Victoria could see the bottom of the pool since the water was crystal clear.

“I made Ross take a bath. He was smelling a little ripe,” Clay muttered. He gestured to a flat rock that held a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and a pile of towels.

Victoria smiled. The cabin had a primitive bathroom a few steps off the back door. The washtub used water heated on the stove in the kitchen. The tub spanned two feet, at most, and Victoria had to stand to wash. Shampooing her hair was such a chore.

What would it be like to sink into a warm pool of water? She moaned softly.

Clay coughed and cleared his throat. “By now both of us would have been in Napa, if the plane hadn’t crashed. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” she said softly.

He wandered away to give her privacy.

A pang of sadness stabbed her heart. Getting by day-to-day, in a cabin that had no electricity or other modern comforts, kept her busy, but she still had a lot of time to think about her life back in Napa. She had friends from school and friends who worked at the hotels her mother owned, but she mostly imagined her mom and how she would be beside herself with worry. Grieving for a daughter who still lived.

She worked for her mom and they locked horns plenty about design and interior. Superficial stuff, now that she thought about it. She wished she could somehow tell her she was okay. And that when she got back, they wouldn’t squabble about silly things like dining chairs, or chandeliers.

Clay had a family too and his step-father was ailing. How hard that must be for him to be stranded, not knowing if the man lived or died? Clay talked about his sisters, Lauren and Vanessa, all the time. He told her about losing his mom at fourteen, but he didn’t say much about his stepfather. She knew there was more to that story.

The man ran the cabin with discipline, getting kids out of bed early. Making them work outside, mostly to supply wood for the fireplace, the kitchen stove and the bonfire. He insisted on regular mealtimes. Insisted on people following the rules. But at the end of the day, he held all of them together, offering words of encouragement when needed and a subtle correction when warranted.

And she was grateful. He was a gentleman. Kind to her and the children. Her chest warmed and she suddenly wished she had the confidence to wrap herself around him, coax him down for a kiss, or even slip into the water with him.

He wandered off, taking Charlie and the lantern with him. She bathed, quickly so as not to keep him waiting long. The warm water soothed and refreshed her, and she dreaded getting out. The night air was freezing but, thankfully, there was no breeze.

When they got back to the cabin, Clay went to the children’s room to confiscate the candle. Usually, Victoria heard complaints, especially from Sydney, but this time there wasn’t a single word of argument.

Clay returned a moment later, frowning. “They’d fallen asleep with the candle burning.”

A jolt of alarm ran down her spine. The risk of fire always lurked in the recesses of her mind. They’d been very lucky to find the cabin and if a fire started and burned it down, they wouldn’t survive a single night.

“My God. The kids could have been asleep and a fire could have started. With them sleeping. In the…” She babbled and then suddenly couldn’t say a single word. The blood drained from her face.

He shook his head. “Don’t freak out, Victoria. We won’t leave them at night again. If you want to take a bath in the spring, you’ll have to do that during the daytime.”

She nodded. “Yes. Fine. We can’t leave them again.”

He grimaced. “You can bathe with Sydney.”

And just like that he made her smile too. He teased her as they got ready for bed, both undressing in the darkness of their room, telling her that he was going to hold a contest for the worst-smelling inhabitant of the cabin.

“Everyone likes to blame poor Charlie for being smelly,” Clay grumbled. “I think it hurts his feelings. Poor guy.”

She crawled into bed, her damp hair making her shiver. “I’m freezing. I can’t even feel my toes.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Your sympathy is overwhelming.”

“You can have my socks if you want to. I’ve already got them warmed up.”

“I don’t know about that. How long have you been wearing them?”

“I put them on just before dinner. They’re yours if you want them.”

She sat up in bed and peered into the darkness. He’d been teasing her since they’d gotten home and discovered the children asleep with a lit candle. The teasing was his way of getting her to think of something other than possible catastrophes, but his tone now sounded different. While he gloated about his socks, his voice held a rough edge she hadn’t heard before.

“If you want them, you have to come and ask me for them.”

A breath whooshed from her lungs. Her skin tingled. If only she could see his expression, she might be able to guess what he meant.

She swung her legs over the bed and sat on the edge. “Ask you?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Can I have your socks?”

“Come here and ask me.”

Moving slowly in the dark, she reached for the edge of his bed and crawled toward the sound of his voice. “Where are you?”

“Here.”

She stopped. “May I-”

“No. I was going to give them to you, but I changed my mind.”

“You rat.” She laughed softly.

“Sucker.”

“I’m going to get frostbite and you don’t even care, do you?”

“Maybe a little. You do have cute toes.”

“Clay, I’m desperate.”

He chuckled, low and sexy. “I like you desperate.”

“What do you want for those socks?”

“Well I could tell you exactly what I wanted and have you would run like a scared rabbit, or I could let you make me an offer.”

She gave a breathless laugh. “I don’t know what to say.”

He tugged her down to the bed so she faced him. “First of all, why don’t you tell me what’s got you so frightened?”

She felt him shift, and in the shadows, could make out that he was sitting up. A moment later he put his socks on her and it was such a simple gesture, but it made her defenses weaken. This man could be the most infuriating beast or the sweetest teddy bear. He lay beside her, lying on his side, propped on his elbow.

“It’s just a dumb thing. I can’t explain it. I get these panicky feelings that come out of nowhere.”

“Like panic attacks?”

“Not exactly. More like a feeling like something’s about to happen.”

“Do you get them here?”

“No. Mostly in crowds. They started when I got mugged. My mother and I were in New York, on the subway. I was ten.”

“You got hurt?”

“No, but my mother did. He hit her. She fell. I kept screaming, hoping someone would do something, but everyone just backed away. He was huge. He grabbed her purse and disappeared.”

“Baby,” he said softly. “That’s terrible.”

“Nobody helped us. I remember seeing the blood on my mother’s blouse. She was unconscious. An ambulance came and we went to the hospital. She didn’t wake up for the longest time. I kept wondering what would happen if she died. When she woke up, she didn’t remember anything about what happened. We left New York I guess. She never talks about it and I don’t know if she even remembers. But I do.”

She paused, taking in the quiet night, the sound of Clay's slow, steady breathing.

“I feel better here in the cabin than I have since I can remember.”

The realization came over her almost as she said the words aloud. She did feel better. Their life was in a precarious balance. Just that evening she’d realized the danger of a single, unattended candle. Every day held danger and uncertainty. Yet she moved through her days with a calmness that seemed entirely new.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.”

His voice was gentle and soothed her in a way she hadn’t expected.

“It’s dumb to still get so freaked out by something that happened over ten years ago. My roommate at school was a brilliant artist. A painter. She was a refugee. All she’d known her whole life was war. When she told me what she’d lived through, I couldn’t believe how she could even function and not only did she survive, she thrived.”

He sighed heavily. “People are wired differently. I saw plenty of that in the military.”

“Like you?” she said quietly.

“I guess I’m wired differently. I don’t know.”

“You seem pretty even-keeled. Crash-landing a plane and acting like it was no big deal.”

“Yeah, I went through so much training, stuff like that just puts me into a zone and I do everything automatically. But I saw enough shit while I was in uniform that I have situations I can handle, but don’t like. That’s for damn sure.”

“Like what?”

“Crowds. That’s a big one. Too many people. That’s why I like the outdoors. There are no crowds in the Alaskan wilderness.”

She rolled over to face him. “Is this crowded?”

“The cabin?”

“No, the bed. Should I go to my bed?”

“Stay here, Victoria.”

“Here in this bed?”

“Next to me. I promise not to bite. And I promise I’d never hurt you.”

“I know. I’m starting to think you’re a good guy.” She closed the distance between them and let him pull her close to him. She lay her head on his shoulder and shivered from the warmth coming from his body. The warmth spread through her, melting the tension from her shoulders. Her eyelids grew heavy and soon she fell fast asleep.