Carla Neggers - Cold Pursuit

Help me, someone. Please, help me.

She didn’t dare speak the words out loud. She wasn’t sure she could, anyway, but she didn’t want to make a sound.

I’m so cold.

She heard the crack of a branch somewhere behind her, maybe above her, and felt a painful surge of adrenaline. Tears poured down her raw cheeks and into her mouth. Her nose ran. She stiffened, trying to keep her teeth from chattering, in case whoever was out there could hear her.

Mom…Dad…I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…

“Nora. It’s Elijah.”

She sniffled, thinking she’d imagined his voice.

“I’m here to help you, okay?”

His voice was so gentle, yet strong, confident. She pictured him in front of the class and remembered his so-blue eyes when he’d looked at her and asked her why she’d wanted to go winter camping. She’d given him some dumb answer. The truth was that she’d wanted Alex and her parents not to think of her as a wimp anymore. She’d wanted them to be proud of her.

I am a wimp.

“Call to me, Nora. Throw some snow up into the air. Anything.”

Elijah sounded close. Her tears were flooding down her face now, snot running, her entire body shaking with relief and self-disgust and terror.

“Devin’s okay. He’s with Jo Harper. I’ll keep you safe, Nora. Trust me.”

Devin, Devin-oh, God! Thank you! Thank you, thank you!

Nora tried to speak, but she started to cry, and her body convulsed into shivers. She was so tired and tensed up, she couldn’t even pry her arms apart to grab snow. Instead, she sat back hard against the boulder and managed to kick a foot out, causing snow to drop off the lower branches of the tree in front of her. A clump of it fell onto her nose. She couldn’t even feel the cold.

She kicked again, and more snow fell, and then she couldn’t do anything but shiver and cry and pray.

“Hey, kid.”

Elijah eased in close to her. He was covered in snow but so strong and warm, and she suddenly imagined him bleeding in combat and felt horrible for how condescending she’d been about his military service.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He got down low in front of her. His hat was covered in snow. His shoulders. Nora squinted, trying to focus. How much snow had fallen? She didn’t even know.

“Nora. Look at me.” His voice was quiet and reassuring, but firm. “Let me keep you safe, okay? Will you do that for me?”

She couldn’t stop shivering. She thought she nodded, but she wasn’t sure, and she hated him seeing her like this, crying and scared and shivering.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He put a snowy, gloved hand toward her. “Can you stand?”

“I-I don’t know. I did everything I could to stay warm and dry.” Her words sounded strangled, unintelligible. Her mind felt fuzzy. Fresh tears flowed down her face. “Rigby found us. He had to have known about your dad’s cabin.”

She thought she saw Elijah falter, but she couldn’t imagine such a thing. He was so strong. She’d never known anyone that strong. But he said, “Let’s get you warm. Then we can go from there.”

“I think I have mild hypothermia. I can’t-stop-shivering…”

“I’m going to pick you up and carry you, okay?” He just scooped her up, as if she weighed no more than her stuffed penguin. She sobbed into his chest and for a second thought she’d throw up all over him, but she didn’t.

“If he’s still out there-” She got a death grip on his jacket and raised herself off his chest. “How did you find me?”

“Footprints, but they weren’t easy to spot. I spotted his, too, but they lead down off the mountain.” Elijah spoke calmly, clinically, as if he were discussing tracking a rabbit. “The weather’s our ally right now. It’s making us harder to find.”

“Devin warned me…”

“He’s hurt, but Jo’s taking good care of him.”

Elijah walked over the rough ground, not even straining under the weight of her and his backpack. He carried her up the steep hill onto the flat area where his father had built his cabin, where the Camerons had first settled in Vermont.

“There,” Nora whispered. Her teeth still chattered, but she wasn’t shivering as much as she absorbed some of his warmth and pointed. “Up by those evergreens.”

“Spruces,” he said, and she heard a smile in his voice.

She sank into his arms, vaguely aware of his movements and the howl of the wind, then the creak of a door and the smell of the cabin’s fresh wood as he set her on the floor. She didn’t want to be out of the protective cocoon of his arms, but she saw Devin curled up in a sleeping bag near the cold woodstove and almost screamed. He looked so awful. She crawled over to him, shivering and crying. “Dev, Dev. You saved my life. You did.” But he was half-asleep and didn’t respond, and she turned back to Elijah. “What can I do to help?”

Jo Harper answered. “Talk to him,” she said as she grabbed Nora’s backpack and got her sleeping bag and handed it to her. “Reassure him that you’re fine. And get yourself warm and stay warm.”

“I can do that.”

Her eyes stayed on Nora. “And tell me what happened.”

Jo was scarily focused, but pretty, Nora thought, fighting back tears. “I wish my dad were marrying you instead of Melanie.”

Jo looked shocked for a split second, then was back under control. Elijah didn’t comment, just went to the back of the cabin and checked the rear door while she got dry clothes out of her own pack and handed them to Nora. “Put these on. Can you manage on your own?”

“I think so.” The thought of Jo or Elijah helping her made her feel self-conscious. “Yes. I can do it.”

The wind picked up, whistling, beating fiercely against the cabin. But Nora decided the walls had to be solid, because any man who’d fathered Elijah would have insisted on building a structure that could withstand a Vermont storm.

She sniffled. “I shouldn’t have come up here.” Her fingers stiff inside her gloves, she unzipped her sleeping bag. Somehow she’d use it to create a little privacy as she changed, although she knew she had to be careful with her wet clothes. I’m such a dope. She sniffled again and said half to herself, “I didn’t mean to cause problems for everyone. Just help Devin. Please.”

“I’ll help both of you,” Jo said, “but I need your cooperation.”

Startled by Jo’s tone, Nora realized that in her own way Jo was just as big a hard-ass as Elijah.

He returned from checking the back door and touched Jo’s arm. “Rigby’s either waiting out the storm, or he’s already cut his losses and gotten out of here. Either way, it’s near-zero visibility out there right now. We’re not going anywhere.”

Nora saw something between them. A spark, a look. She wasn’t quite sure, but what it meant was obvious to her. Jo was falling for Elijah-and he for her.

“Elijah,” Jo said, “if Rigby comes back and tries anything, you know you can defend yourself, don’t you?”

He grinned at her. “Yeah, Agent Harper, I know.”

Nora got closer to Devin. “Avert your eyes while I change.”

He smiled weakly at her. “Sure, Nora.”

“Dev…you saved my life.”

“We’ll be okay,” he said. “Promise.”

She suddenly felt warmer, safer. Jo and Elijah would protect her and Devin.

They’d all be okay.

The storm had forced Melanie and Thomas back to the lodge. She washed her hands with Vermont-made goat’s milk soap in the ladies’ room. Thomas was getting on her nerves. He was so preoccupied with his daughter, never mind how irresponsibly she’d behaved. Melanie knew she needed to be understanding, but she hated Nora for all her dramatics.