Except she wasn’t.
Halfway through another drift, she stumbled and caught herself on one knee. Her breath came out ragged through the scarf.
“This is not the time to be falling.” She chuckled. Not that she found any of this funny. She closed her eyes and breathed in and had to focus. She refused to be like one of those characters in a horror movie. “There’s no one chasing you. Take your time. Keep going.”
She stood and stretched. It couldn’t be much longer. It hadn’t taken Eddie long to make it from the crash site to the cabin.
Something cracked in the distance. A sharp, clean snap.
Liana froze as her heart skipped a beat. Her gaze swept across the area near her, but she didn’t see anything.
“Eddie?” she called out. She raised her voice against the wind. “Eddie, is that you?”
Silence.
The wind shrieked, and she almost jumped out of her skin. For a moment, she thought she’d heard something else woven into the sound. Like an animal, but it sounded wrong. Her pulse spiked.
It’s just the wind and my imagination, she tried to convince herself. She pushed forward and continued on. She had to fight to keep her footsteps steady and even. She tried to keep her mind on something else—anything but the potential of a wild animal stalking her.
Of course, her thoughts went to Eddie.
The feeling of her strong body pressed to Liana’s.
The way Eddie’s voice changed when she’d whispered her name in her ear this morning to awaken her.
The way she’d touched her. Made love to her. Protected her.
Was Eddie truly real? Had all of this been a fantasy and she had just been wandering along, lost, ever since the crash?
A tear slipped down her cheek and froze almost instantly. No, she knew Eddie was very much real. There was no way that the universe would be so cruel as to make everything she’d experienced with Eddie be a fantasy.
Liana didn’t want to die out here. Not like this. Not when she’d found a woman who cared for her and made her feel alive.
The storm thickened. Flakes flew into her face, making it harder for her to see. She hunched deeper into her coat, one gloved hand shielding her eyes. The snow came in sideways now, a curtain of white noise. Her sense of direction vanished completely.
She had no idea where she was and if she was even headed in the right direction.
“Okay, girl. You got this. Just turn around and retrace your steps. The cabin is warm and waiting for you. Eddie won’t even know you’ve been gone.” She was trying to stay calm and notlose her shit. She spun around and glanced down. The bottom of her stomach gave way.
The wind had erased her tracks. Every mark of her boots was gone.
“Well, fuck.”
Panic clawed up her throat. She turned in a slow circle, trying to seek any landmark that would help her. She squinted to see if she might catch the silhouette of the cabin, but the world looked the same in every direction.
White, white, and then more white.
Her breaths came faster now. She tightened her scarf and tried to keep moving. The reasoning that the car had to be somewhere near kept her going. But the cold was starting to steal her thoughts. They drifted like the snow, surrounding her and landing everywhere.
She remembered the warmth of Eddie’s arms, the roughness of her palms on her soft skin. The languid rumble of her growl. The quietness of her in the aftermath of their lovemaking when she’d rested her head on Eddie and listened to her heartbeat slow down. The world had certainly felt safer then.
That memory was a lifeline. It kept her going. She would make it back to Eddie. She wasone determined woman, and if she knew anything, she would survive this.
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered. Her lips were beginning to feel numb. “Eddie will be pissed, but I’ll be fine.”
Her eyes stung from the wind. Her fingers burned under the gloves. She tried to keep her mind busy. She counted her steps, named all of the colors that she did see, but the howling of the wind in her ears drowned out everything.
Then came another sound.