He marches me through the forest, not a glance at his surroundings, not a glance at his compass, knowing exactly where to find the sled. He strong-arms me onto the back of it and then takes the front and clicks the ignition. The engine roars to life … and the snowmobile goes nowhere. He gives it gas. The tread spins.
I get words then. A string of expletives barely audible over the wind. He climbs off. I try to do the same, but his hand slams down on my shoulder, as if he might lose me again. I give him a look, lift his hand, and climb off the sled.
There’s at least two feet of snow on the path. Heavy snow from the earlier downfall with a layer of lighter stuff from the new storm. Our combined weight is too much to make it through that.
He turns the sled around to use the tracks he made coming out. We climb on, but the treads just grind deeper into the snow.
Dalton hands me the keys and points. I hand them back. He glowers. I shake my head. He reaches out, as if to put my ass on that sled, whether I want to go or not.
“It’s too slick,” I say, shouting to be heard over the wind. “I’m not a good enough sled driver, and I’ll ride right off the path and then we’ll be back where we started, me stranded in the forest in a snowstorm.”
He glares, knowing I’m playing into his fears. Then he looks up and down the path, hand shading his eyes.
“We need to find shelter,” I say. “It’ll be dark soon.”
He gives me a no-shit look, but I’m still not getting conversation. If he opens his mouth, he’ll want to ream me out for leaving Rockton against his orders, and that’s hardly productive.
Dalton keeps looking around. Assessing and comparing data to the map in his head. He’s got his hood pulled up, dark toque almost hiding his light hair. He normally wears it almost as short as Anders, but he’s been letting it grow out for winter, when every bit of insulation helps. He’s also letting his beard grow out from its usual can’t-be-bothered-to-shave-every-day stubble. Yet he keeps it trimmed, assessing my reaction. That’s the side of him most don’t see, the side that isn’t quite so fuck-you, is even a little bit self-conscious, making sure his lover likes what she sees.
There’s plenty to like. Dalton isn’t gorgeous. I’d say he’s pleasant-looking if that didn’t seem like damning with faint praise. But there’s something to be said for pleasant, for a face that’s easy to look at. Crow’s-feet hint at the corners of his eyes despite the fact he’s two months younger than me. Those wrinkles come from spending as much time as possible outside and not wearing sunscreen or sunglasses as often as he should. I bought a coconut-based sunscreen, and when he wore it, I may have commented on—and demonstrated—how good he smelled. I may also have let my gaze linger a little longer when he was wearing the Ray-Bans I bought. Yep, I’m playing him shamefully, but if it saves him from skin cancer, it’s worth it.
Dalton finds the direction he wants and, still without a word, unloads his saddlebags. He’d grabbed mine from the clearing before hauling me off, and now he stuffs his supplies in. I don’t offer to carry it, partly because I know he’ll refuse but also because offering seems like begging for his attention, his forgiveness.
We hike back to the clearing, and he starts gathering snow. While I have no idea what he’s doing, I say, “Tell me what I can do, Eric.” He doesn’t answer at first. Being pissy, though, isn’t going to get this accomplished. Dark is falling fast, and we need shelter.
He motions for me to help him pile snow layering the soft and the hard until we’ve constructed a massive mound. Then we wait. Dalton doesn’t say we’re waiting. He rummages through his bag and finds water and bars and makes me eat and drink while he keeps checking the snow pile. Finally he starts hollowing it out.
It’s dark by the time he’s finished. I won’t say he constructed an igloo. It’s more rudimentary than that, and honestly, when I see what he expects us to do, I hesitate.
I remember when my parents caught me digging out a snow fort with a friend, and I was grounded for a week and forced to read the medical file on two kids who’d suffocated in a collapsed snow fort. That was life with my parents—when I tried something dangerous, I didn’t get a lecture, I got coroner’s reports. Which put me in good stead for being a homicide cop, however much they’d hate to think they helped me into a career so obviously beneath me.
My parents were … difficult. That’s really all I can say. They died in a small plane crash a few years ago, so there’s no point in being angry or bitter. If a part of me finds a small irony in the fact that they’d died doing the kind of thing they’d warned me off … Well, I don’t dwell on it. I loved my parents in my way, and I think they loved me in theirs, but I’ll never know for sure, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
As for what Dalton wants me to do now, the question comes down to this: do I trust him? The answer is: unequivocally. When it comes to safety, he can be as paranoid as my parents, but he deals with that through education—not the kind that comes with coroner’s photos but the kind that says, If you’re going to build a snow fort, here are the ways to make it safe. When he sees me looking skeptically at his shelter, he finally does speak, grunting, “Roof’s only a foot thick. It collapses? You can dig out.”
We go inside, and he turns on the flashlight and motions for me to give him my hands. When he pulls off my gloves, I say, “They’re fine, Eric. I can feel them,” but he examines my fingers and then my toes, warming them with his body heat, careful not to rub. Then he checks my eyes, which feels like he’s checking a horse, pulling up my lids and peering in without a word.