Jean Thomas - AWOL with the Operative

“You ready?” he asked. Eve had produced her own gloves from her coat pocket, wriggled into them and raised her hood. “Then let’s move. There’s nothing more here for us.”

Without waiting for her, he strode ahead through the trees. Snatching up her shoulder bag, Eve hurried after him. All right, she would admit it, at least to herself. Sam McDonough was a remarkable man. He could also be an exasperating one.

He might have lost his memory, but not the qualities that must have made him an exceptional FBI agent. Like leadership. Or had that simply been built into his character from birth? Either way, he took charge, and as long as he didn’t bark orders at her, Eve let him.

One thing was evident. Sam was in no way handicapped by either his injury or the amnesia it had produced. Except to check on her at regular intervals to make sure she was okay, he never faltered in his straight, southerly course through the forest, as if certain of their destination. Was it pure instinct, Eve wondered, or did the FBI train its agents in wilderness survival?

It had stopped snowing shortly after they left the site of the wreckage, which was an advantage as far as seeing through the failing light was concerned. But the fresh powder on top of the accumulation below was not so easy to navigate. At least it wasn’t for Eve, who welcomed the places under the thicker canopies of the evergreens where the white cover was thin.

The only sound was the crunch of their booted feet as they trudged through the snow. They talked infrequently and only in brief intervals, saving their wind for the trek. Even so, Eve was beginning to tire.

She was also starting to wonder if this whole thing was madness. Whatever Sam’s easy assurance, maybe they were hunting for something that wasn’t there. Maybe they should have stayed with the plane. Didn’t pilots file flight plans? Yes, of course, they did. And when their plane didn’t arrive at its destination, wouldn’t a rescue team come searching for it?

But we won’t be there when they find it.

Eve was about to tell Sam this. She didn’t, because she understood something else then. It could be hours before anyone realized the plane was long overdue and an air search was mounted. And days after that before they located the wreckage, if ever. Long before that, she and Sam would have died of exposure. He was right. They had to find shelter of some kind, even if it was a cave.

As miserable as tramping through this endless forest was, there was one thing Eve did enjoy. The sight of Sam in front of her with his steady, long-legged gait and erectness of body, almost military in its bearing. Not to mention his tight, sexy backside, what she could see of it, anyway, in that coat.

She tried to tell herself it didn’t hurt to look, though she knew her interest was a mistake. Another attraction she should be resisting. But she couldn’t seem to help herself.

Even that sight, however, was no longer entertaining when her legs started to ache and her weariness had her stumbling over half-buried logs and rocks. Fearing that darkness would overtake them out here, Eve was about to break their silence and ask him just how much farther he expected them to travel when he halted abruptly.

“Look,” he said, moving aside so she could see his discovery.

Light just through the trees! The last of daylight that seemed bright after the gloom of the forest. It had to be a clearing, maybe not natural, maybe man-made. And that could mean some form of civilization.

It did disclose itself as a form of civilization when they reached it a moment later. But it was no longer occupied and hadn’t been in years, probably even decades.

Eve could see in the fading light that the once-sizable clearing was being reclaimed by the forest. Young pine trees were everywhere in the tall, dry weeds that long ago had likely been a field and a garden. Subsistence farming, she thought, and it had failed. Not surprising out here in the middle of nowhere.

“I think I can make out a kind of track over there leading out of the clearing,” Sam said. “If so, we’re in business. It must lead to a settlement somewhere. But tonight…”

“We need a shelter.”

Not that she could see anything resembling one. There were the remains of a small log cabin and an adjacent outbuilding at one side of the clearing, but they offered no shelter. Their roofs had collapsed long ago, and their walls threatened to soon follow, leaving both structures wide open to the elements.

“Has to be something we can use,” Sam said. “Let’s look for it.”

The light was fast leaving them as they crossed the clearing, but Sam seemed to have the eyes of an owl. He found that something near the cabin.

“What is it?” Eve wondered, peering through the twilight at a snow-covered mound.

“I’m betting it’s a root cellar.”

He was right. There were crude stone steps leading down to a plank door that was still intact.

“Better let me go first,” he said, his booted foot scrubbing aside the snow piled on the steps as he descended to the door. “Could be some unfriendly animal has taken up residence down there.”

Not an impossibility, Eve thought, since the door at the bottom of the steps was ajar by a few inches. The door was sagging, which meant Sam had to put his shoulder to it to scrape it open. Eve waited nervously at the top of the steps as, head lowered for what was presumably a low ceiling, he disappeared into the cellar. Seconds later she heard his muffled curse.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just knocked my head against something hanging from a hook in the ceiling.”

Great. As if he needed another lump on his head.

“Hey, I think it’s a lantern. And it still has oil in it. There’s a tin of safety matches, too, on a ledge just below it.”

It had to be black down there. How could he possibly make out anything?

“Let’s see if they still work.”

They did. A moment later the lantern bloomed with light that glowed through the open door.

“Come on down,” he urged.

Eve joined him in the root cellar. The light of the lantern that Sam had placed on an overturned crate revealed a small room with a hard-packed earthen floor, the low ceiling she had anticipated and stone walls against which were ranged wooden shelves.

Sam was pleased with his find. “It’s okay, huh? Belowground like this, and with that mound over it, the temperature down here must never dip below freezing. The lantern puts out some warmth, too.”

“Home never looked better,” Eve agreed.

Sam found an abandoned can in one corner. He took it outside to fill with snow, which he intended to melt over the heat of the oil lantern. By the time he returned, Eve had placed two of the wide, loose shelves on the floor to serve as seats for them.

“Cozy, right?” Sam asked a short while later as they sat side by side on the boards, legs outstretched.

Eve couldn’t deny, with the door now tightly shut and keeping out the worst of the cold, that the cellar made a snug refuge for them. The snow had melted in the can. He passed it to her. She drank from it and handed the can back to him. It tasted flat, but it was water. She was grateful for that.

“Too bad,” Sam said after satisfying his own thirst, “they didn’t leave any food behind on those shelves. Not that it would be any good by now.”

“You hungry? I am, too, so…” Opening her shoulder bag, Eve produced two granola bars from its depth. “Like the Girl Scouts, I believe in coming prepared. Or is it the Boy Scouts? Doesn’t matter.”

She extended one of the bars toward him. Sam grabbed it with a heartfelt “Angel, you are an angel.” He started to tear off the wrapper and then stopped. “This is no good.”