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  Chopper had started pacing, he always sensed when something important was going down. I usually operated at a leisurely and steady pace, but tonight I was dressed and ready to go in less than two minutes.

  I debated whether or not to bring Chops with me, he would have a tough time in the deep snow, but as a retired resort avalanche dog, his sniffer could come in handy. I whistled through the face of my helmet and Chopper was up like a shot and out the door. He took his place on the front of my snowmobile and I attached the toboggan. My snowmobile started on the second pull, and the smell of premium gas filled the air. I knew that electric snowmobiles were on their way, and I would definitely get one, but I would miss the obnoxious brapp sound and fuel smell from my high-powered sled.

  I knew exactly where the car had gone off the road. Search and Rescue pulled cars out of that ravine on an almost weekly basis during the winter. I checked the time on my watch, I had about an hour before dark to find this guy.

  I made my way down the ten-mile trail to the highway. When I reached the road, it was clear that the plows hadn’t been by and it was covered in about a foot of snow. Instead of veering off to another trail, I blazed right up the middle of the highway at eighty miles per hour. With his thick coat, doggy goggles, and safety saddlebags, Chopper was in his element.

  Just before I got to dead man’s corner, the informal name for the hairpin bend in the road, I steered my snowmobile down the bank, maintaining my speed, surfing through the powdery snow. I could see where Search and Rescue had traveled and followed their tracks. It wasn’t long before I saw the crumpled roof of a red jeep. With the condition of the car, I was surprised that everyone had survived. I looked around for tracks with little luck. I could see SAR’s tracks, but the tracks of the missing man had filled in with blowing snow.

  I looked up at the ravine. If I had just crashed over this bank, where would I go? First of all, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere, but if I was an idiot, which way would I go? I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who was panicking. They would want to get back to the road as quickly as they could. They probably would’ve tried to climb the rocky cliff band, but unless they were an advanced climber with gear, they would’ve realized that wasn’t gonna happen. No, a panicked person would follow the cliff until they could climb up to the road. If they weren’t familiar with the lay of the land, they wouldn’t know that the road veered away at the corner, that they would only be getting further and further away from anything.

  I gunned the throttle and followed the ridgeline.

  There.

  That’s where someone would try to climb up – it was a narrow gap in the rocks wide enough for a climber, but not wide enough for me to get up in my sled. I mean, if I was twenty I probably would’ve tried, but today I knew better. I accelerated past the gap and half a mile further, turned and climbed up the embankment. My mountain sled has a long paddle track and climbed the slope like a billy-goat.

  When I got to the top, I stopped again. The guy would’ve gotten to the top and realized that the road wasn’t there. Would he have turned around? Would he have kept going? My gut told me that if he was stupid enough to try to walk to the road in the first please, he would’ve kept going. I looked at the topography. We were in an open clearing with a cliff behind us, and thick trees circled us in every other direction. I was stumped and then Chopper started barking.

  “You got something buddy?” I asked him.

  As if answering, he started barking more excitedly, “Go, go find him,” I said, pointing.

  Chopper enthusiastically leaped off the snowmobile and sank up to his neck in snow, but nothing was going to stop him. He made his way through the clearing with a combination of jumping and swimming through the deep snow, barking and baying the whole time.

  When his barks turned to whines and yips, I knew that he was onto something. I pulled my snowshoes off the side of my snowmobile and followed him to the middle of the clearing.

  I didn’t see it right away, but there was a face and an arm just about to be buried by the blizzard. The face was the gray-blue of someone who was not long for this world, that is if they were even still here. When I got close to the victim, I noticed that he was wearing a leather driving glove. Idiot. This guy was not prepared for the weather, I shook my head.

  I pulled off my glove and felt for a pulse. It was faint, but there. As Chopper excavated more snow, I was shocked to see the red coat. The victim was a woman and she was barely alive.

  Chapter 9 – Lucy

  I looked up to the sky, a bird, a huge bird was soaring and diving. Was it an eagle? Some kind of hawk? No, it was longer – and pink – a flamingo! I dug my feet into the warm sand and watched the graceful lanky bird soar past me. Sailboats were sitting in the cay, their sails luffing in the ever so slight breeze.

  I contemplated slipping into the warmth of the ocean but found too much comfort and contentment on the beach with these muscular arms wrapped around me. I leaned my head back into his chest and could feel his breath tickling my ear. I grasped his strong tanned forearms and closed my eyes, listening to the lapping of the water against the shore.

  When I felt the hair on my arms stand up with goosebumps, I lazily opened my eyes and saw dark clouds on the horizon, the wind picking up and frothing the sea. The arms were still wrapped around me and tightened protectively.

  I looked down at my embracer’s hands and realized that they weren’t slender and manicured. The hands around me didn’t belong to Lawrence.

  I tried to turn my head to see who had me in their grasp, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t turn my head. Then my hands and feet started to burn. It was like they had been shoved into a fire and I couldn’t pull them out. I was paralyzed.

  The calm I felt quickly dissipated and was replaced by sheer terror.

  I started thrashing, trying to get away from the fiery sensation and to find out who was holding me captive. The arms tightened like a vice in response to my thrashing.

  “Shhh. Shhhh. Shhh,” the man whispered into my ear.

  The sounds of the ocean ripped away instantly and were replaced by howling wind and a crackling noise. The sand on my feet started to feel slippery, like silk.

  My eyes flew open, my idyllic beach scene gone.

  Where was I? The light was dim and warm – a fire -- that was the crackling sound. The walls surrounding me were made of logs, and there was a buffalo skull on the wall. I tried to stretch my legs, but they were confined. I looked down and realized that I was encased in a sleeping bag, explaining the silky sensation.

  The beach scene was gone, but the arms were still around me.

  “Let me go!” I screamed.

  “I’m going to let you go,” a deep voice said calmly. He eased his grip on me and I immediately started punching at his arms.

  He grabbed my wrists.

  “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”

  “My name is Mick. You are recovering from hypothermia. I’m going to let you go, but you have to promise not to try to hit me again.”

  I was terrified, but for some reason, the smoothness of his baritone voice calmed me down

  “Ok. I promise,” I whispered.

  He let go of my wrists, but I remained tense. My hands were balled up into fists and I crossed my arms protectively across my chest. My naked chest. Why was I naked?

  “Get off me!” I cried.

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” the voice said again, this time a little exasperated.

  “I’m in the sleeping bag with you. I’m going to get out now.” He unzipped the mummy bag and I felt the pressure from his body disappear as he slid out. He reached down and zipped the sleeping bag back up and draped a patchwork quilt over top of me.

  I was confused, and my vision was coming and going. I didn’t know whether I wanted to look at him, and I didn’t know whether or not to be scared. I felt bandages wrapped around my left arm. Then the events of that day started coming back to me: the girls’ weekend, the
car, the cliff, the snow.

  I bolted upright. “The girls. Oh, my god. There was an accident – we need to get help.”

  I found the courage to turn and look at my captor. Rescuer? But he was gone. There was clattering coming from the other room and I heard the whistle of a tea kettle.

  I slid out of the sleeping bag, pulled the quilt around me, and tiptoed to the kitchen.

  The man was standing at the stove, his back to me. He had a huge broad back and was wearing a one-piece suit that looked like it was made of wool. His dark hair flicked out the bottom of a red wool hat.

  “We need to get help.”

  He jumped a little at the sound of my voice and turned. “It’s okay. Search and Rescue found your friends. Two of them are in the hospital in town.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered. Did that mean one of them had died?

  “No, no. That came out wrong.” He said quickly. “Everyone is alive and going to be okay.”

  I felt something wet on my fingertips and yelped in surprise.

  I looked down to see a black nose and heard the unmistakable sound of a lab’s tail whacking against the furniture.

  “Hi, you.” I leaned down to give him a scratch behind the ears.

  “That’s Chopper. You can thank him for saving your life.”

  That’s when it hit me. This man had rescued me. I took a closer look at him and realized that I was staring at the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. Even in his ridiculous outfit, he looked like a model. Not a runway fashion model, more like an Eddie Bauer model, like he should have a pick-ax in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.

  I gripped the quilt closer around me and fought the tears welling up in my eyes.

  “Where are my clothes?” I asked, and then whispered, “and why am I naked?”

  The man sighed. “I don’t want you to feel afraid or scared. You had hypothermia and your clothes were soaked. The best way to get you warm was with body heat and blankets.”

  “Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?”

  “Take a look outside,” he said, gesturing to the window.

  The bottom half of the window was blocked with a snow bank, and the snow was still falling heavily.

  “Your clothes are drying by the fire.” He gestured with his mug to the fireplace. “I set out some of mine for you to wear until they’re dry.”

  I tiptoed to the bedroom and saw a pile of clothes folded on the end of the big pine bed. I pulled on the wool work socks, sweatpants that were ten times too big for me, and a red-checked flannel shirt. I looked in the mirror and realized that I was also wearing wearing a knit wool hat, just like his, but blue…who exactly is he?

  Chapter 10 – Mick

  Once Chopper and I excavated the snow from around the woman’s body, I radioed for an evac, but the choppers were still fully grounded, the ambulances weren’t able to get through, and the snowmobile SAR was fully mobilized to an avalanche site.

  I had a decision to make. I could ride my sled down the paved roads, but, with the girl on the toboggan, it would have taken me at least three hours to travel to the hospital. I could get back to my cabin within the hour. She had a pulse, but it was slow, and she was still unresponsive.

  “I need to get her warm,” I said to Chopper, who tilted his head at me.

  If I got her to the cabin, I could start the process of getting her body temperature back up, and then fire up the chopper and take her to the hospital once the skies settled down.

  It was a split-second decision and one that completely changed my life.

  Once I got her strapped in, we made our way back to the cabin. Chopper snuggled into the sled beside the woman as if he knew that his little body could give her the warmth that she so badly needed.

  I didn’t think about it at the time but removing a woman’s clothing should’ve gotten me turned on. But, in that situation, a life and death scenario, all I could think about was getting the patient warm. I peeled off her frozen clothes and zipped her into my warmest sleeping bag. I filled up hot water bottles, wrapped them in towels and packed them around her body. I put as much wood on the fire as the stove could hold, got it raging, and closed the damper - that would get the cabin up into sauna-like temperatures. But, I hesitated with the last part of the first aid protocol for hypothermia. The best way to warm someone up is to use your own body heat. The girl was flitting in and out of consciousness, and it just felt wrong to crawl in naked beside her.

  Fuck. What if she dies and I could’ve saved her?

  This isn’t sexual, I told myself as a stripped out of my outer layer – but I couldn’t do it. How is she going to feel waking up to the feel of a stranger’s skin against her own?

  I felt her face: cold, and her lips were blue. She needs your heat Mick, I said to myself.

  But, instead of stripping completely naked I rummaged around in my dresser and found my wool onesie. It would have to do.

  Her hair was soaking wet, but short of throwing her in the fire, I had no way to dry it out. I pulled out one of my grandma’s wool hats, the kind with ear flaps, and secured the strings under her chin. I crawled in behind her and zipped up the sleeping bag.

  I wrapped her in my arms and held onto her tightly. She smelled slightly floral and felt cold.

  We stayed in that cocoon for thirty minutes before she started to come back to me. I felt her body start to twitch and she began murmuring. Either my body was getting colder, or hers was getting warmer because the contrast between the two of us was getting less and less pronounced.

  I wasn’t thinking about how good she felt in my arms. I was constantly scanning her body for signs of improvement and warmth. I couldn’t help but think about the irony of the situation: a sex addict, spooning a naked stranger, without getting any semblance of a hard-on. My cock didn’t twitch, not even once. It was as if the protector in me overrode the raw sexual animal in me.

  Then the moment I had been dreading happened. She woke up and freaked the fuck out. I mean, I don’t blame her, and I pretty much expected it to happen. She was way stronger than I anticipated and if any of her flailing punches had landed, I would’ve been black and blue for days.

  I knew that she would be confused, and as she started to wake up and fully grasp the situation, I tried to soothe her – but it didn’t work. I got her to calm down enough so that I could get out of the mummy bag. If she was warm enough to throw punches, she was warm enough to be in the bag on her own.

  I went into the living room to stoke the fire and put on some water for tea.

  I heard my bed creak and sensed her at the doorway to my bedroom, watching me.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  I turned. She was wrapped in one of my grandmother’s quilts, the wool hat still tied onto her head. It was only then that I got a good look at her. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as the hat, and now that the warmth had returned to her body, I saw the freckles on her rosy cheeks - she was gorgeous.

  “It’s um, it’s Mick,” I said and turned back to the tea.

  She was going to be okay, and the protector in me started raging a battle with the sexual animal in me. I felt my cock stir and kept my back to her. That’s the last thing that she needed to see. A stranger in a one-piece wool suit with a raging fucking hard-on.

  When she asked about her clothes I could hear the tears in her voice. I wished that I could turn around and explain everything to her, but because of the state of my pants, I pretended like I was fully engrossed in making a pot of tea. I kept my back to her and explained why she was naked and that I had laid out some dry clothes for her in the bedroom. She started to panic about her friends and asked to leave. I wished that I could take her. Get her out of my cabin right away – the sooner the better. But she was going to be stuck here until the weather eased up. Once she grasped what had happened, and that she and her friends were all going to be okay she seemed to calm down. She also seemed to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to murder her.

&nb
sp; She fell silent and I realized that I had eschewed all politeness to try to calm down my erection.

  “I’m sorry. What’s your name?” I asked. “And do you like camomile tea?”

  “I’m Lucy. And yes,” she said. I kept my back to her.

  “Why don’t you get on some warm clothes and come and sit by the fire with some tea,” I suggested, taking a deep breath. Not looking at her was helping the – um – situation.

  She disappeared into the bedroom and I let out a deep breath.

  Like the situation in my pants, having a gorgeous woman like that so close to me was going to be hard. Very hard.

  Chapter 11 – Lucy

  His clothes smelled like cedar and musk, so different from Lawrence’s expensive cologne. I pulled the drawstring cord on the sweatpants in as tight as it could go. The bottom of the pants bunched around my ankles, pressing against the wool socks on my feet. I’m not a short girl, but I swam in his clothes, I peered around the corner at the man. He had to be at least 6’4”.

  My hands and feet had felt tingly since I gained consciousness, and with his warm clothes, I felt like I was swathed in a protective blanket.

  I walked over to the fireplace and held my hands out in its warmth. The lab, Chopper, leaned against my legs and started wagging his tail so aggressively I was swaying with him to its rhythm.

  “Well, you’re a happy guy,” I couldn’t help but smile at the carefree pooch.

  “Happy? What?” the man said, not realizing that I had been having a conversation with his dog.

  I cleared my throat, “I was talking to your dog here,” I said, a touch embarrassed.

  Mick smiled. “He’s got two moods – happy and happier.”

  “Must be nice,” I mused.

  Mick passed me a cup of tea and I sat down in the massive log chair by the fire. He sat in the opposing chair and set his cup down on the side table.