Page 22 of Echoes of Twilight (Dawn of Alaska #4)

22

B ryony had never felt so mortified before in her life. She was lying in her bedroll, dressed only in a pair of dry undergarments and pressed tightly against her very warm father, who also wore nothing but a pair of dry undergarments.

On some level she supposed she should be thankful that she had undergarments on, because Mikhail had insisted she strip down to nothing at all before climbing into the bedroll with her father. But both she and her father had been determined to preserve a modicum of privacy.

They’d had that argument right alongside the argument about whether Heath or her father should climb into her bedroll at all. At first they’d both refused, seeing how Mikhail had insisted she wear so little. So then Mikhail had said he would lie with her if neither of them were willing.

That had gotten her father to agree, and Mikhail insisted Heath take off his wet clothes, put on dry undergarments, and climb into a bedroll with Dr. Ottingford, who also stripped down to his underwear, since neither he nor her father had gotten wet.

Even now, as she lay beside her father, bundled in blankets, her mind kept circling back to the morning’s chaos—the cold shock of the river, the roar of the rapids, the feeling of the water closing over her head as the current pulled her under. Once Mikhail had carried her ashore, she’d spotted Heath on the other side of the river, soaked to the bone, wading in the river to drag the canoes past the worst of the current.

He’d dragged their canoe to shore first, beaching it on the opposite bank of the river before going back for Mikhail’s canoe, which had still been wedged between two rocks, thanks to her father.

Heath had needed to brace himself against the rocks to pry the hull loose. Once he freed it, he guided it to the calmer waters outside the canyon, and then they paddled the canoes across the river, where Mikhail was already building a roaring fire. The moment their supplies arrived, he’d dug her bedroll and pack out of the canoe, then ordered her to strip down while he prepared her bedroll.

The ordeal had left her father and Dr. Ottingford as the only two dry people in their group, but Bryony had to admit, as mortifying as it was to lie beside her father in her underwear, she’d woken up from her nap warm. No more shivering, no more chattering teeth, no more sluggish thoughts that she could barely form while her brain had turned into frozen mush.

She was quite simply warm. Her hair was still wet, but even that was drying beside the blazing fire.

She blinked at the large flames, then at the pile of wood beside it. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, only that when she drifted off, Mikhail was wandering around the beach, trying to find more wood for them to burn despite the shivers racking his body.

She’d intended to stay awake until he climbed into his own bedroll, but in the end, she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes open.

Now he lay on the opposite side of the fire, near where Heath and Dr. Ottingford were snuggled together in Heath’s bedroll. But was Mikhail warm enough? His face looked rather pale.

She started to shimmy out of the bedroll.

“What are you doing?” Her father’s sleep-roughened voice whispered from beside her.

She stilled for a moment, peering over her shoulder at her father, who was frowning. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just want to check on Mikhail.”

Her father glanced in Mikhail’s direction. “Why on earth would you check on him? He’s sleeping.”

“Because he didn’t have anyone else’s body heat to help him get warm. What if he’s too cold? What if hypothermia?—”

“The man practically lives in the wilderness,” Heath said from where he was climbing out of his own bedroll. “If anyone can survive a plunge in an icy river, it’s him.”

Bryony wriggled the rest of the way out of the bedroll and stood. “But hypothermia can still?—”

“Good heavens, daughter!” Her father slammed his eyes shut. “Have some decency.”

She felt her cheeks grow warm as she reached for the dry parka Mikhail had draped over her bedroll and wrapped it around herself. Then she headed the few feet to where her pack sat at the edge of camp. It had remained mostly dry, with only a few splashes of water hitting it while the canoe was being spun around.

She dug out her extra clothes but didn’t bother to put on a skirt, just the trousers she typically wore under her skirt. She was tired of fighting the thick fabric of her skirt each time she moved, and if she hadn’t worn a skirt earlier, it might have been easier for her to swim.

Once clothed, she headed straight for Mikhail’s bedroll and knelt beside him. “Mikhail?” She reached out and shook his shoulder. “Are you warm enough?”

Mikhail shifted beneath her touch, then muttered something unintelligible, his eyes staying closed.

She reached out and rested a hand against his cheek. It was freezing, the same temperature as the air. She felt his neck next, then slid her hand beneath the woolen blankets of his bedroll and felt his collarbone. That was cold too, even though he was smothered in blankets.

“What are you doing?” Heath asked from behind her. “The last thing we need is for you to go getting feelings for Amos.”

Bryony yanked her hand out of Mikhail’s bedroll and twisted around to find Heath staring straight at her. He’d pulled on a dry shirt and trousers and was crouched beside the fire making coffee, but his attention was on her, not the kettle he’d just set in the flames.

“I’m not?—”

“Heath is right. You might need a husband, but Mikhail Amos isn’t the man for you.” Her father came around the fire toward her. Even though the skin beneath his eyes was dark and shadowed with fatigue, his eyes were as sharp as ever.

She wanted to ask why her father would say such a thing, but she already knew. Mikhail was gone every summer, leading expeditions into the deepest, most dangerous, most unexplored parts of Alaska. Of course he wasn’t in the market for a wife.

But if he ever wanted to settle down, to stay in one place, would he consider marrying someone like her?

The thought caused her cheeks to feel warm all over again.

Mikhail wasn’t ever going to settle down like that. He had too important of a purpose for his expeditions. He went on each and every one so he could do the very thing he’d done that day for her—save a life.

And sometimes not just one life but two or three, or maybe even half a dozen.

Who was she to get in the way of that?

She licked her lips, then moved her gaze from her father to Heath and back again. “I just want to make sure Mikhail doesn’t get hypothermia. He seems too cold, especially considering how close he is to the fire. And he’s sleeping really deeply, but he’s usually the first one awake. Will one of you crawl into the bedroll and lie with him for a bit, just to make sure his body warms up?”

Heath stood from the fire, every muscle of his body stiff. “Richard’s death is going to cause all kinds of problems for us, so excuse me if I’m not too keen on helping him.”

She shot to her feet. “He saved your life. Or have you forgotten how you almost slid off the side of a mountain?”

“Stop it, both of you.” Her father waved his hand in the air. “Richard’s gone, and while I don’t particularly blame Amos for it, your brother’s right, and that means we need to be practical about our situation. The president will appoint someone else when Secretary Gray retires. We need to do our best to stay on the new secretary’s good side so we can continue to get funding for our research. That’s all either of you should be thinking about.”

Funding. She clenched her jaw. Of course that’s all her father cared about.

“Isn’t that what I just said? Maybe the new secretary will be a widower, and you can marry Bryony off to him instead of Richard.” Heath shoved a hand her direction. “She’s in the market for a new husband now, and we need to do something to make up for the fact that the man she was supposed to marry just died.”

She glared straight at her brother. “How dare you.”

“What? You know that’s the game Father was playing with Richard. He wanted you married to the next secretary of the interior so the man felt like there was no way he could say no to any of his future funding. And I can’t say it’s a bad plan. It would certainly help me if you married the next secretary of the interior too. I see no reason for the plan to change unless the new secretary already has a wife.”

“I don’t want to be married to the next secretary of the interior,” she snapped. “But if one of you won’t climb into the bedroll with Mikhail, then I will.”

“You can’t.” The tips of her father’s ears turned red. “It will ruin you.”

“Watch me.” She opened up her parka and unfastened the top button of her shirt, then moved her hand to the next button. “Perhaps word of my impropriety will spread back to Washington, DC, and ruin any chance you two have of marrying me off to your next boss.”

“I’ll warm him up, Miss Wetherby.” Dr. Ottingford cleared his throat and sat up in the bedroll he’d been sharing with Heath, the covers pressed tightly to his chest.

Dr. Ottingford. Of course he’d be the one willing to help. He was kind that way—when he wasn’t busy with the long list of things her father was always giving him to do.

She’d forgotten he was there, listening in on a conversation she would have much rather kept within her family. But then, the man had overheard a lot of their private family conversations over the years, and he’d never breathed a word of them to anyone.

“Thank you.” She sent him a smile, even though it felt a bit tight. “I appreciate it, but I’m sure Mikhail will appreciate it more.”

“Do you mind turning around, Miss Wetherby? So you don’t... er, that is...” Dr. Ottingford’s face turned red. “I’m not dressed appropriately.”

Bryony felt her own cheeks flush, which was strange, because they hadn’t been hot when she’d threatened to climb into the sleep sack with Mikhail herself.

But the thought of Dr. Ottingford being undressed caused instant embarrassment to course through her.

She promptly turned her back, listening for the rustling of the bedroll behind her before Dr. Ottingford said, “It’s all right now, Miss Wetherby.”

She turned around to find Dr. Ottingford stuffed into the bedroll with Mikhail. “How does he feel? Is more than just his face and neck cold?”

“Yes. He’s quite cold. It’s a good thing you noticed. Perhaps you can warm some rocks by the fire, and we can use those to bring up his body temperature as well.”

Rocks by the fire. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She bent to pick up a few of the round river rocks littering their campsite.

“When are you going to start lunch?” Heath snapped. “I’m famished.”

She was hungry too, but warming up Mikhail was more important. “I’ll start on that as soon as I’ve finished gathering rocks.”

“Since we have some extra time, I’m going to take some notes about the flora along the river here.” Her father headed back to the canoe, where he likely intended to grab one of his journals from the trunk.

Bryony followed him to the shoreline, gathering as many rocks as she could carry. She didn’t know how many she’d end up using, but she’d rather have too many than not enough.

After she set them near the fire to warm, she started on the biscuits. Her hands worked methodically as she mixed the flour and water and lard, then plopped the misshapen blobs into the frying pan.

She’d made biscuits beside a fire so many times that she didn’t even need to think about her actions. But that only gave her mind more time to wander back to Mikhail and recall how his strong arms had wrapped around her at the very moment she’d been sure the river current was going to pull her under for a final time.

To remember the hard look in his eyes as he negotiated her release with the Tlingit warriors in the forest the day before.

To remember the way he’d held her against his chest when she’d wanted to cry afterward.

He had saved her life not once but twice in less than twenty-four hours.

And yet now he lay beside the fire cold and unresponsive.

It was time for someone to care for him the way that he was always trying to care for everyone else. She was more than happy to do it.

As long as she didn’t have to think about how they’d both go their separate ways after they returned to Sitka.