Dane's Storm(68)

“Yes.” I let out a shuddery exhale. And because I had just pointed the finger at something he’d done without my knowledge years and years ago, so it was only fair that I acknowledge decisions I made on my own too. “And I should have talked to you before I signed that prenuptial agreement. I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have done that without you knowing.”

Dane pressed his lips together, regarding me for another long moment. “We make decisions together or not at all.”

I nodded jerkily, feeling better about us, but still feeling panicky and angry and scared and a dozen other emotions I couldn’t even put my finger on about the risk he’d taken. “Were you on the plane when it started to slide?”

I watched Dane’s face and saw when he considered lying, then when he dismissed the idea. “Yes.”

“How’d you get out in time?”

“I threw the chair out and jumped. Like I predicted, it took the plane several minutes to go over once it started to slide.”

I shook my head. “I should kill you myself.”

He gave me a repentant look, the one no woman on earth could resist, even if he hadn’t eaten, shaved, or taken more than sponge baths in weeks. Bastard. But without my permission, my stupid heart softened.

I attempted to look away, but one side of my lip quirked up into a half smile. He grinned, still looking slightly woozy.

I sighed. “Come on, it looks like that stunt zapped your energy. You need to be resting, and I’m going to look at your leg.” I turned, starting back for the camp.

“Hey, Audra?” Turning back around, I gave him a questioning look. “We’re going to make it out of here. And when we do, I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you like crazy.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Dane Townsend,” I said. And I would too. We didn’t hold each other to our marriage vows the first time. To love and support each other in sickness or health. But next round, I was going to hold on with everything I had.

“Need help with that?” I asked, nodding to the chair behind him.

“Nah. I got it.”

I watched as he dragged it toward me, noting that he looked shaky. I’d assumed it was mostly from the strenuous nature of what he’d been doing, but now I thought it was more likely that he was sicker with fever than I’d thought. A whisper of worry ghosted through me, but I couldn’t let myself dwell on anything other than Dane’s assertion that his body was dealing with the small infection, and all we could do was wait for his body to gain back control.

When we’d made it back to our campfire, Dane sagged down onto a rock, holding his hands out to the fire and closing his eyes as the heat met his skin. “God, that feels good.”

I handed him a bottle, filled halfway with water, and told him to drink the rest of it. I’d melt more snow later and re-stock our supply. Once he’d downed the water, I handed him two cattail stems, but he held up his hand, rejecting them. “Not hungry.”

I hesitated. Not hungry? Probably a side effect of the fever, still . . . “Force yourself, Dane. We need every ounce of strength we can get. This won’t provide much but something is better than nothing. Feed a fever, starve a cold, right?” Or was it the other way around?

Begrudgingly, he took the stems and began eating them.

“So what do we do with that?” I nodded over to the hateful chair, the reason Dane risked his life.

“Strip the leather and then cut it into strips—not so thin they won’t hold our weight, but thin enough that we can accumulate as many as possible. The longer our rope, the better.”

I nodded. “All right. Let’s clean ourselves up first, and I want to re-dress your stitches.”

He nodded, but the weary look on his face sent another frisson of worry through me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


Dane



We spent the day stripping the leather off the chair—relatively easy as it was only stitched onto the foam cushions in a few spots. But once we’d removed it, cutting it into strips proved more difficult than I’d thought with the small scissors from Audra’s mini sewing kit. It took more muscle than I’d anticipated, and it alarmed me how exhausted and bleary I felt after only fifteen minutes of work. Still, I continued on, cutting strips, one after the other until there was no more leather left to work with. This would have to do.

I’d woken up sick and shaky, lying there in the dark with Audra, and I had this burning feeling in my gut that told me I needed to do something to get us off this mountain—sooner rather than later. Now. I suspected my infection was getting worse, not better, and I needed to tell Audra because we’d just talked about not “sparing each other” and I meant to keep my word. I wanted to yell with frustration and anger at the way my body was betraying me. I refused to let Audra pick up the slack again as I lay useless beside her.

And so I’d left her sleeping while I’d hiked to the plane. I’d seen immediately that it had already begun to turn sideways as the tree it leaned against at the edge of the cliff had split wide open. It was hanging by a thread, so to speak, and for a moment I’d rejected the idea of getting on it and wrenching the seat out of its base, a task I wasn’t even certain I could accomplish. That fucking thing was likely bolted to it tightly. But this might be my last chance. Another day, maybe two, and that plane would go over the cliff and anything on it would be permanently out of reach. We needed that leather, two seats’ worth if I could manage it, but one at the very least.