She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.

  John climbed as fast as he dared, teeth chattering, grunting every time he put pressure on his right foot despite the intense numbness. A steady groan emanated from his lips. Every breath was agony, his lungs too small, his throat tight with panic, his chest on fire.

  But all his grunting and groaning did not wake her. She did not stir when he screamed her name. Maybe she was too far off to hear him; maybe the wind was still too strong. Maybe he was not making near as much noise as he imagined with his too-small windpipe. But she should have moved by now.

  Tears stung his eyes, but he didn’t dare lift his freezing hands from the rocks to swipe them away. One step, then another, the rail barely the width of a single shoe—sometimes less.

  His foot was killing him.

  He’d thought it was numb, dead, but it began to ache viciously as he made his way along the rail. Though he was favoring the other leg, he could not stay off it completely. The horrific grinding had returned with a vengeance, bone on bone, shards like rusty nails—torturous. Were the sharp ends poking through the sides of his sock? Tiny needlelike shrapnel making his foot look like Pinhead?

  Don’t think about that, John. But better that than⁠—

  He ground his teeth against the pain, the fear, and went on… at least as far as he could. The thin band of stone stopped fifty feet above his destination. It might as well have been five hundred feet. A series of precarious outcroppings might get him to the ledge where she lay, but he’d have to stretch to reach each one, put all his weight on his bad foot.

  Could he? He had to. What other choice was there? Jump like an acrobat, land on his good leg? He was not near that coordinated. Even if he managed the jump, he’d surely break his other foot, too.

  He could not afford to be any more broken. The woman he loved needed him.

  Stop thinking, John. Thinking is for decision-making, but there is no decision to be made here. You have no choice.

  He hissed an inhale deep into his trembling lungs. He grit his teeth. Then he gripped the jagged stone as hard as he could, shifted his weight down, down, down, and lowered his shattered foot to the toehold beneath him.

  John cried out in a way that was absolutely not masculine, a high-pitched squeal that echoed back off the mountain. He kept going, lowering himself closer to Anne’s body—not a body, she’s fine, she’s fine—clutching the icy handholds, dropping his left foot to the next rock, tears in his eyes as bone ground against bone.

  His left foot reached an outcropping beside his right. He pulled the pressure off his injured leg and craned his neck to look over his shoulder. Fucking hell, that hurts. Goddamnit.

  “Anne!” Tell me you’re okay, Annie. Tell me you’re alive.

  She did not respond to his voice. She remained still, facedown on the earth. Her hair was completely covered in white.

  He repeated the process, climbing, crying, calling her name instead of screaming. And then… he was there.

  He dropped onto the ledge where she lay, but he only made it a single step before his bad foot gave out; he landed hard on his knees. John crawled toward her instead, dragging his bad leg behind him, his eyes on the parts of her coat that weren’t covered in ice.

  “Anne!” Please don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.

  You can’t be dead, Anne!

  His fingers brushed her jacket. He turned her over to face the sky. Her eyes were closed.

  “Anne? Please wake up, baby. I’m begging you, just wake up.”

  For a breath, nothing moved. Then she made a noise like that of an angry cat. Her eyelids fluttered open.

  Relief exploded through his veins. Tears streamed down his cheeks. John reached for her face, touched her forehead with his numb fingers.

  Her eyes widened. “John?”

  He smiled.

  Then, the world went black.

  Chapter 32

  Anne

  “John?”

  Anne stared down at him under the cover of the blanket. He had not moved since he collapsed beside her, not even when she rolled him over and climbed on top of him, cocooning them in wool. But he was breathing—she knew he was breathing. She’d checked four times in as many minutes.

  “John! Wake up!” she tried again. “I don’t want to play Stay Puft Marshmallow Man with anyone else.”

  He did not stir. Shock—had to be. From the pain.

  She tugged the blanket tighter around them, pressing it to the snow on either side of his shoulders. Not so bad beneath the thick wool—she was glad he’d thought to toss it over the edge before he climbed down. Her blanket was still stuck on the cliff. Her knees were bruised and aching, her fingertips openly bleeding, but she was off that fucking wall.

  God, it was good to be off that wall.

  Once her eyes had adjusted, she found a few small holds in the stone to the left of the backpack—barely visible. Too small to grip while wearing John’s glove. The swirling snowflakes had hidden most of the notches like fog on a long road, which was why she’d missed them at first glance. Without the remaining glove, she’d managed to feel her way along, farther and farther, had slipped, and slid and almost fallen to her death half a dozen times. But she’d finally managed to make it close enough to jump.

  She’d covered herself with her coat as best she could, resting with John’s single glove beneath her face. Letting the wall of stone block the wind while she figured out what to do next—while she waited for the hazy sun to brighten the landscape. But she must have passed out; Anne didn’t recall deciding to sleep.

  And at some point while she was unconscious… he’d come for her.

  Anne stroked a finger along his cheek, the gloom from the blanket making the hollow beneath more pronounced. With this blanket and their body heat, the easing storm system, they might actually manage not to freeze to death.

  But she’d have to do something about his foot. He’d left a trail of blood from the far cliff to the spot where she’d been lying. Seriously injured. She’d tied her scarf around his calf, had wrapped another strip of blanket around his already bandaged foot, but it wasn’t working nearly as well as it should.

  It wasn’t a perfect fix. And they needed perfect. It would take days to get to civilization, and he couldn’t do it with one leg. She was nowhere near strong enough to carry him.

  She blinked back tears, eyes hot. What were they going to do? She couldn’t leave him—he wouldn’t survive out here long enough for her to walk to town and return with help. Could they fashion a crutch? Could he lean on her? Could she use the blanket as a sled, drag him along? How long could that last?

  She could barely breathe beneath the woolen blanket, yet she had no desire to move. Warm. So warm. But… they couldn’t waste time on comfortable. Not if they wanted to make it down this mountain.

  They’d rested long enough.

  Anne pressed her lips to his forehead beneath the edge of his hat. “John?”

  This time, John hissed an inhale. He moaned. “Are we dead yet?” His eyes blinked open—face-to-face in their dim cocoon.

  “Too soon, John.”

  “Or too late.” He smiled, but it was forced. He was in pain—a lot of pain. “When Desmond sent me off with you… I didn’t think it would end like this.”

  “I didn’t expect to be trapped in an avalanche either.” And this is not the end. But she couldn’t say the last part—couldn’t seem to form the words. Because she couldn’t be sure they were true.

  He might bleed out over the course of a day; he’d certainly die if she left him to get help. They still had two to three days’ worth of walking to go, likely more if the storm picked up again—thirty-three hours. Minimum. One way.

  John had a day, maybe two. But three? Gangrene would set in. Blood poisoning. Frostbite. He might rupture an artery. And bleeding out… he was already working on that. Slowly but surely, he was dying.

  Dying.

  Her lungs burned; her throat closed.

  “When we get back… I want to make a go of this,” he said, staring into her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her—tight. Warm heat from the affection in his gaze flooded her chest, softened the tightness in her belly.

  “A go of what?” she said.

  She was begging him to clarify—begging him to say it out loud. She wanted to hear it, just once. Once might be all they had.

  Her eyes stung more viciously, aching in her skull.

  John brushed his lips against her chin. “You. I want you.” He kissed her again, this time on the nose. “I love you, you know.”

  She knew what he was doing—the same thing she was doing. He was saying goodbye.

  For a single moment, she saw John as he had been moments ago, eyes closed, unmoving. But this time, she watched his skin go cold and blue in her mind’s eye. Watched the breath leave him.

  Her own breath hitched. No. She would not watch him die. Either they’d live together, or they’d die together.

  The fire behind her eyes burned through her cheeks, settling around the lump in her throat. The world outside the blanket had gone silent as if nothing else existed—nothing but them.

  “Not another word,” she hissed, her voice shaking. “I’m not ready to give up yet.”

  John blinked solemn green eyes. “I’m not ready to give up either. But life doesn’t always give us what we want. I just needed you to know.”

  A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye and slid over her jaw, slipped down her throat. Could he see it in the gloom?

  “Don’t tell me that again until we get off this mountain. In another month, if you still feel the same, you can get a jet to print it across the New York clouds. But for now… I will not tell a man I love him right before I bury him. Besides, I’m way too exhausted to dig a fucking hole.”

  Anne forced a smile, but his eyes were sad—so damn sad. She had only been kidding about the hole. He was allowed to joke at inopportune times, but she wasn’t?

  His expression did not change. She frowned. That face… something was really wrong. Was it something she’d said, or just the pain?

  His lip trembled. “So you already know I’m a hemophiliac?” he said.

  Her lungs spasmed. Was ice the only thing keeping him from bleeding to death? Were his wounds frozen? Her vision went watery. If John was a hemophiliac, he didn’t have a day. His wounds would never clot. He had hours, if that.

  In a few hours, she would watch the man she loved die in her arms.

  Her lip trembled; a sob tore itself from her chest. John chuckled and pressed his forehead to hers. Laughing. He was… laughing?

  A joke. Oh god, oh god, oh god. The relief was immediate, warm, but her fury was hotter still. The tears, until now obscuring her vision, all fell at once, pouring over her cheeks, half of them dripping onto his face.

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?” Her voice cracked. But she made no move to climb off of him.

  “I am. But… we are still on a mountain in Austria,” he said, winking. “We could have a good romp in the snow before I bleed out.”

  She snorted; she couldn’t help it. “Doesn’t your leg hurt?”

  “Not anymore.” He frowned. “That’s probably… bad.”

  “Yeah. It’s not great.” But her chest was already looser. Her spine pliable, no longer a single rod fused together by panic.

  “Kiss me anyway.”

  She blinked, scowling down at him. “Not sure I feel like it, John. I mean, what if the excitement causes you to bleed out faster?”

  “Please? I’m begging you, Anne. Please kiss me, please, please kiss⁠—”

  She did, his lips cold and chapped. But his tongue was warm. “I love you,” she said when she pulled back.

  “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to hire three skywriters. Maybe get a billboard. Tattoo your face on my penis.”

  Anne sighed. “Can’t you ever be serious?”

  John shook his head. “Absolutely not. If anything, I need to pull out the big silliness guns now. Otherwise, what jokes will you tell at my funeral? Probably something lame about nuns and Saint Peter.”

  Anne rolled her eyes. “Since we’re not ready to meet Saint Peter just yet…” She pushed the blanket off their heads.

  The cold bit at her nose. She braced herself for snowflakes, for wind, but the world outside was utterly still.

  Anne squinted at the hazy morning as she rolled off of John. He sat slowly, grunting with pain, but he went silent when he looked at the sky.

  “Is it over?” he asked, eyes narrowed at the clouds. “I didn’t expect the storm to pass so soon.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to, but…” She frowned. “Did we lose a day?”

  He nodded solemnly. “We must both have amnesia. Weathermen are never wrong.” So pale—he was so damn pale. “Hey, Anne… look at that.”

  He pointed, and she followed his finger. Three hundred feet beyond the ledge where they lay, a narrow but seemingly passable trail hugged the mountainside. It wove itself down the rocks and evened out maybe a mile further east. And in the distance…

  “Is that smoke?” she asked.

  But it was—it was. Plumes of charcoal gray curled into the sky from some spot behind the next ridge.

  John was already on his knees, his good foot on the earth. “Another cabin?” His eyes shone with excitement—with hope.

  Anne climbed to her feet, the breeze shuddering against her skin, but her heart was slamming too hard against her rib cage for the chill to bother her. “It might not be a house—maybe a campfire. But whatever it is, that area is currently inhabited.” She turned to him, grinning so wide her face hurt. “Do you want me to go ahead, get help?” Thirty-three hours would have been a stretch, but John would make it a few hours here, wrapped in the blanket, while she tracked down that smoke.

  “Fuck that,” he said, balking. “I’m not staying up here alone. There are bears in these mountains. Rabid wolves. And I hear they can smell blood like sharks. I’ll hop all the way down if I have to.”

  She nodded and offered her hand. “If you hop, you might fall off the edge. I can try to drag you through the snow on the blanket, but it’s not exactly downhill. The fastest way would be to tie your bad leg to one of mine.”

  John took her hand, grimacing, his other palm against his good knee for support. “The ultimate three-legged race, eh?”

  “Yup. And if you piss me off, I can just bite your other foot.”

  John’s eyes widened, but he grinned. “Too soon, Anne. Too damn soon.”

  Chapter 33

  John

  The world was a dark void, hazy at the edges. Voices drifted over him, then vanished. The only constant was the awful, steady throbbing in his lower leg.

  “Fuck, that hurts,” he muttered, but just getting the words out made his throat burn.

  Forced oxygen—he could feel the tube in his nostrils. Or was that dry ache from… anesthesia? Yes, he vaguely remembered women in white coats, a man lowering a mask over his face. Because… his foot. Shit.

  He tried to wiggle his toes. Pain exploded through his shin, clear up to his thigh.

  “I’m so sorry, John.”

  He jumped, and agony slammed through his brain like a semitruck made of razor blades. “Ahhhh, fuck.” John opened his eyes.

  He immediately closed them again. The fluorescent lights in the hospital room were blinding. Painful. His retinas were likely burned from days of exposure—sun and vicious wind. John tried again, squinting, seeking the source of the voice.

  Anne. He could barely make her out, but he was sure that silhouette belonged to the woman he loved. She sat beside the hospital bed between him and the window, her bandaged hands pressed flat on the mattress near his right thigh. How long had he been unconscious?

  His eyes adjusted slowly, but his brain was racing. What did she mean she was sorry? What had she done?

  Finally, though it made his head ache, he met her gaze.

  “I told them it was your right foot, John, I swear, but they took the left one instead.” Every word was pressured, rapid-fire, her voice trembling—all of her shaking. She swiped a tear from her cheek. “I tried, but…”

  For a moment, the words refused to sink into his groggy brain. And then they did.

  Oh no. No, no, no. John bolted upright, clenching his teeth against the fresh burst of pain that tore out of his lower extremities. If they’d taken the wrong foot, and the other had been obliterated by that bear…

  He snatched at the covers, yanking, trying to rip them off his lower half, failing, failing again. Why the hell were there so many fucking blankets?

  “I told them we were going to sue the shit out of this hospital, John. That we⁠—”

  “I have no feet?” The blanket finally ripped free of the bed. And… no, there was his left foot—his good foot. Intact and seemingly fine, save the purple bruises that ran along the top and the dark shadow near the tip of his pinky toe. Even his right foot didn’t look so terrible. It was definitely injured, wrapped tightly in an enormous white cast. Maybe a little smaller than the other beneath the wrapping, but the entire foot wasn’t gone. He had a heel, an arch, and from the pins sticking through the cast, they’d done extensive repair work on the bones. He hadn’t even lost one whole foot, let alone two.

  John jerked his face to Anne. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. Grinning now. Calm. She’d been…

  John laughed, even though it hurt. “Brutal,” he said, still chuckling, though his heart was a tight knot in his throat. He raised his hand in a fist bump posture and waited for her to bump it with her own. “Just wait until a bear screws up your foot, Anne. The jokes are going to be savage. Absolutely⁠—”

  “Looks like old tripod is awake.”

  They both turned to see Desmond stride into the room, his suit immaculate, his dark hair meticulous. But his tie was askew. And those purple bags beneath his eyes looked like they could carry a month’s worth of luggage. Finn followed close behind, towering over Desmond, his thick arms like tree trunks. The Hulk in a ten-thousand-dollar suit.

 

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