Page 108 of One Last Stand

“I think so. Or I could make us a snow cave. Remind me to tell you how I saved Colt’s life in a snow cave during a blizzard.”

“Apparently that’s your MO.”

He laughed. “I guess so.”

“So that’s what Colt meant by ‘we’re even’ when he found us.”

He’d been testing out the poker, holding it one hand, then the other. “When?”

“When his Ranger team dug us out of the cabin. He said—‘Now we’re even.’”

“Huh. Yeah, maybe. Okay, I think you’ll have to go down on my lap.”

“Say again?”

He had crouched. “Climb off and come around me.”

She did so, stepping on the ground. The cold breath of the cave had made her socks damp, but now, stepping into the wet and snow, they turned downright soggy.

“You’d better find that cabin, or my feet just might freeze off.”

“I’d prefer you with feet.” He sat down on the snow, legs up, pushed off, and slid a ways, then he slammed the poker into the snow. “It’ll turn me, but to stop us—” He rolled over and plunged the straight end into the snow, holding on. “Yep, this will work, but now let’s talk about you.”

He was born for this. The sense of it burst through her, took hold as he explained how he’d sit, legs flat, and she’d sit on his lap, her legs on top of his, her shoulders secured with the harness suspenders, “And if I suddenly stop and roll over, I won’t crush you—but I’ll need to dig my feet in, and you’ll hold on to the straps with everything inside you. This will work, London.”

She met his eyes. “I trust you.”

He swallowed, and something hollow—maybe fear—entered his eyes. Then he blinked it away. “Okay.”

He sat down and held his legs out, and she climbed onto his lap, put her arms through the harness suspenders.

Settled her legs on his.

“You gotta hold them there. Be strong. Don’t scream.”

“I don’t scream.”

“You should. Like when someone is, say, trying to kidnap you.”

More joking?“Right.”

“Craziest glissade ever. Okay, here goes.”

He pushed them off into the snow. The fall was steep, but at first they didn’t move.

Then, snow started to sift up at her, over the tops of his boots, dusting her face, her mouth. She closed her eyes, feeling them move faster. He slowed them down with his boots, his legs like timber below him. They bumped, faster, faster, his headlamp illuminating the snow flying at them like pellets.

He was a toboggan, and she clutched the harness and clamped her mouth shut.

Especially when their bodies lifted from the snow, took flight.

Then, suddenly, his arm went around her waist, and they were turning, scrubbing into the snow, sliding now on their sides, out of control.

She screamed.

“Roll!”

He pushed over her, and then, just like that, slammed the poker into the snow, his feet slamming into the hillside as they jerked, slid, and jerked again.