Free Northern Exposure by Debra Lee Brown

about you?”
    â€œDon’t worry about it.” He grabbed the flashlight and flipped it off.
    In the close-to-claustrophobic space, even in the dark she could make out his movements. He settled down beside her, his head near the opening of the tent. She heard the crisp rustle of nylon and Gore-Tex as he pulled his jacket over himself for warmth.
    She knew this was the last place on earth he wanted to be—stuck in a tent in the middle of nowhere with a woman who, for a number of reasons, some valid, some not, disgusted him. But here they were, all the same, and the last time she’d checked, the temperature gauge on her anorak had read thirty-nine degrees.
    Swiveling around so they were facing the same direction, Wendy unzipped her sleeping bag all the way, and lay down next to him. “We can share it,” she said, and draped the open bag over them both.
    â€œIt’s not necessary.” He pushed it aside.
    â€œDon’t be silly, it’s freezing.”
    He didn’t protest a second time when she redistributed the bag to cover them. They lay there for awhile, awake. She could tell by his breathing and by the palpable tension between them that sleep wasn’t anywhere on his radar.
    She’d noticed, too, that he hadn’t taken his gun off. It was still in the holster secured to his belt, and poked her in the hip when she fidgeted. She was also aware that the camping spot he’d chosen for them wasn’t visible from the trail, and that he’d deliberately not built a fire.
    An odd recollection gnawed at her.
    Barely an hour ago, right before Joe had caught up to her on the approach to the pass, she could swear someone was following her. Not Joe, but someone else, dressed in dark clothes that blended right in to their surroundings. She’d only caught a glimpse of the person. She’d stopped and had waited to see if he would emerge onto the trail, but he didn’t. She wasn’t even sure if the person was a “he,” or if the whole thing was just her imagination.
    â€œJoe?”
    No answer.
    â€œThat rock slide…it was an accident, right?”
    He stirred under the goose-down bag. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow’s a long day.”
    Even if Joe were carrying a communications device—which he wasn’t—she knew there was no cell phone or two-way radio coverage this far from town.
    They were stuck.
    â€œWe can’t go back through the pass, can we?”
    He didn’t answer. She turned onto her side to look at him in the dark. “Joe?”
    â€œNo,” he said stiffly. “We can’t go back.”
    She’d studied the map and knew the gun-sight pass was the only way in or out of the reserve from theeast. Jagged, snowcapped peaks thousands of feet high surrounded them on three sides.
    Tension balled in her stomach. She had to get those photos. She had to be back in New York in less than three weeks. “So…”
    â€œThe only way out is down the valley, past the caribou habitat, right through the middle of the reserve.” His tone made it plain he blamed their predicament entirely on her.
    She refused to let him bully her. “How long?”
    Another silence. She felt his anger as if it were a living, breathing thing laying in wait between them. “Two weeks. That’s if you can make it at all.”
    She turned her back on him and wrapped her arms around herself—not for warmth, for Joe Peterson was generating enough body heat to melt a polar ice cap—but for courage.
    â€œI can make it,” she said.
    I have to make it.
    Â 
    Joe was used to waking up in the middle of the night, but for entirely different reasons than the one shocking him into consciousness now.
    Wendy Walters was cuddling him in her sleep.
    He lay on his side, turned away from her, one hand resting on the weapon strapped to his hip. Wendy was curled around him like a pretzel, one arm snaked around his torso, a leg