The Bride (The Bride #1)(35)

Visibility was zero, but I wasn’t talking miles. The barn literally had to be a hundred feet in front of me.

But each step got scarier. The calf was no longer fighting me, but that might have been because she was getting weaker in the cold. I was moving in a total whiteout, and every time I reached my hand out to feel for the line, there was nothing.

Snow started to seep through my winter gear. I could feel it in the back of my neck and down my back. I stopped for a moment and once again tried to get my bearings. What if I was going in the wrong direction? What if I had gotten turned around?

Why didn’t I bing a compass? What if I let calf go? Would I have a better chance of making it on my own?

This was bad. This was serious.

“Jake! Jake!”

I was screaming. As loud as I knew how to scream, but there was no way he could hear me. Not over the wind and bleating cows.

“Jake! Jake!”

Another gust of wind pushed at me, so hard it knocked me off my feet. I could feel the snow at my back even as it covered my face. In another five minutes I might be fully covered by it.

I thought about my dad. I thought about how hard this all was. But then I thought about Jake and what it would do to him if he lost me this way. I was the only thing Jake had left.

I pushed myself up and I moved forward, dragging the calf behind me. I had no idea if forward was right or not, but it was the only direction I could think to go.



*

Jake



I got back to the barn and hefted the calf over my neck, my shoulders screaming with pain. I set it down and swatted it on the ass. I fell to my knees and dropped to my elbows and took a few breaths.

I didn’t want to think about it. I certainly didn’t want to say it, but I was pretty sure I was done. Mentally, I counted what Ellie and I had carried in my head. We weren’t close to filling the barn. Maybe only half capacity.

But it was getting too dangerous out there. Hypothermia was legit and could happen so damn fast. And Ellie was at least a hundred pounds lighter than me…

Ellie. I didn’t unhook around her. I came straight from the pen to the barn and I didn’t pass her. That wasn’t possible. Unless she was in the barn already.

I hopped up on my feet. “Ellie!”

Nothing but crying calves and horses. I took the goggles off my head and searched again. “Ellie!”

Think. Would she have gone back to the house? Without telling me?

It was so damn cold, maybe on her last trip she’d called it quits.

Ellie wouldn’t quit.

Right? I knew that much about her. When it was important, when it mattered, Ellie dug in. Hard.

Last I left her, I had taken a calf over the pen fence. She had the rope and was moving back. I got another calf and started back after her. Which meant if she had gone back to the house I might follow the line close enough to get a visual. I put my goggles back on, hooked myself to the line heading to the house, and started out knowing, full on knowing in my gut, this wasn’t right.

She would have waited for me at the barn.

Which meant somehow, at some point, she had unhooked herself from the line that led from the barn to the pen.

The damn calf got away. The calf got away and she unhooked herself and went after it.

That’s what she would have done. I made my way back to the barn, unhooked my line, and rehooked myself to the pen line. As fast as I could I moved against the wind and the snow.

“Ellie! Ellie! ELLLLLLIE!”

I waited and listened. There was nothing. Nothing but wind and…

There it was. A crying calf. Off to my right. I unhooked the karabiner and moved toward that sound. “Ellie! Ellie”

She was exactly ten feet away. I know because I counted.

She was facedown in the snow, the damn rope still wrapped around her hand. I lifted her up to sitting.

“Ellie! Ellie!”

I saw her body startle, my voice finally penetrating the cold. I hauled her up to standing and then dropped her over my right shoulder.

“Calf,” she moaned. “Calf.”

“Fuck this.” I took the rope and pulled the calf behind us. I made it back to the line, ten feet from where I left it. I hated wasting the time it took to get to the barn first, but I couldn’t be certain if I tried to head directly for the house I would make it.

I dropped the calf off, shut the barn door, hooked myself to the house line, and moved as fast as I could. I could feel her like dead weight on my screaming shoulder. I saw the house and almost cried out.

I got us both inside and shut the door. The warmth was almost too much. Not stopping, I moved us through the back of the house to the stairs. I took them two at a time and made my way to my shower. It was bigger.

I turned the hot water on and sat Ellie on the toilet seat. She didn’t fall, but she was out of it. I slapped her face a few times.

“Ellie, I need you to wake up for me. Listen to me. I have to get you in the shower.”

Her eyes drifted closed. “Jake. So cold.”

I started removing her clothes. All of it. Her mask, her coat. I got her on her feet to remove her snow gear, then sat her down to get her out of the boots. As damp as everything was, it was only helping to keep the cold locked inside.

Then her shirt, her sweatpants. Finally her bra and panties. I shoved her into the shower and she slid against the wall until her ass hit the tub. I undressed and followed her. Then I moved her so her back was to my front and the hot water was hitting her directly.