Page 7 of Cold and Bitter Snow

He powered on towards the building. As he reached the door he realized he needed to free one of his hands to be able to open it. He set Siena down gently on her feet next to the wall.

“Can you stand for a moment?”

She nodded slowly.

He pulled the door open and walked inside. He’d always found the garage to be chilly, but now it felt positively roasting, particularly since it put them away from the wind.

Siena stumbled in behind him, dropping to her knees by the entrance. The door closed behind them, shutting away the cold.

“Hello?” Conor shouted. “Is anybody here?” He already knew the answer to that, there was no reason anybody would be here between six a.m. and five p.m.

He went back to the wall and picked up the landline. He’d never touched it before, so he sent a small prayer before picking it up. For a second he heard nothing but, just as he was about to hang up, the dial tone started.

He could call the ski patrol, but that would take too long. He called his boss instead.

“Jonatan, it’s Conor,” he began. His French was good, but nowhere near as good as his boss’s English. “I need your help.”

Less than a minute later he hung up, knowing the ski patrol would be on their way shortly.

He walked back to the entrance where Siena was still on her knees. He raised her chin very gently, trying to gauge by her expression how she was doing. He didn’t need a medical degree to know that her constant shivers weren’t normal.

She wasn’t just cold, she was going hypothermic. He needed to warm her up.

He picked her up once again, holding her tight against his chest.

“The ski patrol are on their way, Siena. They’re going to get us off this mountain.”

“This isn’t very c—cozy,” she said. Her teeth were chattering so hard it was hard to understand her.

“They’ll be here in thirty minutes, maybe sooner. I trust my boss, he’ll get them here as quickly as possible.”

“That’s nice, that you trust him.”

He strolled purposefully towards the bathroom in a corner of the garage.

“What are you d—doing?” she moaned. “Let me rest for a bit …”

“I wish I could do that,” he said, putting her down carefully on the floor next to the shower. “We don’t have a bath, unfortunately, but you’re going to take a nice, warm shower.”

“I just want to sl—sleep.”

“No!” he said, more sharply than he intended.

Her listlessness scared him more than he wanted to admit. He went to the shower and turned it on, setting it to warm rather than hot.

“Stay with me. Help me get this jacket off,” he said sharply, looking for the zipper.

He’d never taken off a woman’s skiing outfit before and wished this were happening under any other situation. He struggled against the zippers, realizing the problem lay with his hands, which were frozen and not working as they should.

Working as quickly as he could, he uncovered layer after layer of clothes.

She’s really taken the layering advice to heart.

Finally he peeled off a layer of thermal underwear and left her in a black sports bra and panties that somehow managed to look sporty and sexy at the same time.

You lecherous bastard.

He shut down that part of him and picked her up again. Her skin was cold to the touch everywhere.