The Bride (The Bride #1)(36)

It felt like a hundred little pin pricks all over my body. I knew it was the same for her because she started writhing in my arms and crying out.

“Hurts,” she cried.

“I know, baby. I know. But we have to get your temperature up.”

It was like holding a block of ice in my arms.

Finally, eventually the hot water did its thing. I could see her skin turning pink and her breathing was sound and even. Her head was on my shoulder and I knew I wasn’t going to lose her when she started crying. Soft cries that shook her whole body.

“You’re okay,” I crooned.

“I’m naked,” she sobbed.

Yeah, like that was important, but it was to her so I lifted her out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her and sat her back down on the toilet seat. I hadn’t taken off my boxer briefs to spare her that, but truly as soaked as they were I wasn’t hiding much.

I grabbed a thermometer from my vanity, rinsed it off, and stuck it in her mouth. It was an electronic one and after a few seconds it beeped.

95.7. Not great but probably better than she had been.

“We need to get some hot liquid into you. Can you stand?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

I left the bathroom, took off my wet briefs, found sweatpants, a sweatshirt and some socks. I got dressed and made my way downstairs. I needed sugar and heat. Hot cocoa. Instant. I threw the powder and water into a mug and put it in the microwave.

Our power was gone, but the generator was working. Normally I wouldn’t have wasted energy on the damn microwave but I needed fast. After a minute and a half it dinged. I took a sip, burned my tongue and figured that was a good thing.

As fast as I could without spilling it, I took it upstairs. She was still sitting on the toilet, only now she’d started to shiver.

Which was actually a good sign. It meant she’d gone from frozen to cold.

I got on my knees in front of her and slowly fed her sips. She was through about half the mug when the shivering stopped. Another few sips and she could hold the mug on her own.

I pulled her wet hair off her back and took the mug out of her hands when it was empty.

“You unhook yourself from the line?” I asked her.

“It got away from me. It was so close,” she said quietly. “A couple of feet.”

“You unhook yourself from the line?” I asked again.

She nodded.

A rage, unlike any I had ever felt, swept over me. Any lingering cold I had in my body was gone in that moment. She had unhooked herself. She had lost sight of the line. She had kept moving with the damn calf tied to her arm.

I pulled her off the toilet seat until she was also on her knees. My hands were tight around her arms and I wanted to shake her. I wanted to shake her so hard so she would never ever do anything as stupid as that again.

“I could have lost you,” I shouted at her. “Do you understand that? You could have DIED!”

Her lip was quivering, but I didn’t care. I had so much feeling inside of me, so much of everything all at once.

And then it happened. I couldn’t shake her. I couldn’t beat her. So I bent my head and I kissed her.

I took her lips and her tongue. All of it. I took every ounce of my anger and fury and I growled it into her mouth.

I was kissing her. I was kissing her and this was Ellie.

Fuck!

I don’t know if I pushed her away or she pushed against me, but suddenly we were apart. Each of us breathing hard, looking at each other, neither one of us knowing what to say.

“Jake…”

I stood up. I took the mug.

“Get dressed. Something warm. You’re going to be tired, lethargic, but you can’t go to bed. I need you to get to ninety-eight degrees before you can sleep.”

Then I walked out of the bathroom, walked downstairs, and threw the mug against the fireplace as hard as I could.

Watching it shatter felt good.

Cleaning it up sucked.





Fourteen





Ellie

March





So that happened.

Jake and I didn’t speak the rest of the night. I didn’t have the energy for it, and he was still really mad at me. The snow let up eventually, but the cold lasted another brutal three days, getting as low as forty below freezing.

Jake went out the next day to try and save more calves. He told me not to bother to ask to come with him, but the truth was I didn’t have it in me.

He came back three hours later with a grim expression.

We still didn’t talk.

It was now four days PK (post kiss). Jake was still sullen, only I’m not sure who he was more mad at, me or himself.

Today we were going to assess the damage.

He was standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew, when I came downstairs. He stared at me for a few minutes before asking, “Can you do this?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never had to do anything like this.”

Death on a large scale. Animal carcasses filling the pen. We were going to count up what was left, and then Jake said he would have to hire equipment and a large truck to get the dead cows out of the pen. Then another machine to dig a mass gave.

Filled with coffee and dread, we made our way outside.

I’m not going to lie, as we crunched our way through the snow I felt the anxiety of that day rushing up at me. I didn’t want to be anywhere near snow. I didn’t want to come close to feeling that cold ever again.