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TWELVE

Cullen heard crying as he finished the song. His voice was raspy and his entire skeleton felt cracked, but his soul caught fire.

Crying. Two people crying. Proof of life. Kit and Tot.

Both. Thank you , God.

Head spinning, he was attempting to get himself to a seated position when Kit crawled awkwardly over the seat with baby Tot bundled in her arms.

She landed half on his shins and promptly kissed him full on the mouth.

“Cullen.” Her voice was breathy with tears, the baby wriggling between them.

Sparks danced up and down his agitated nerve endings as she kissed him again, on each cheek and once more on the mouth. “You’re alive.”

He forced himself to push words past his clouded brain. “Never has my singing been so appreciated,” he managed.

She laughed and cried, blushed, and scooted over so he could straighten on the seat.

His head pounded and his vision spun, but he steeled himself.

No way was he going to conk out again. Her chin was smudged with soot, her swollen eyes red from crying.

But she was smiling, and there was a world of emotion in that smile, including a genuine fondness.

Or maybe it was simply her relief that she wasn’t stuck in an ATV with a corpse. Or simply his own hallucination.

Positive thinking , Landry. What if she actually cares about you?

He was so happy to see her and Tot that he had to force the goofy grin off his face.

Not the moment for it, surely, considering the circumstances.

He cleared his throat. “How ... are you? Hurt?” He held out his arms and willed them not to shake as he took Tot.

Kit wiped her eyes. “No serious injuries that I can tell. Tot certainly hasn’t lost any of her spirit. But you ...” She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “You were out for hours. Are you ... wounded somewhere?”

More like everywhere. But he joggled the baby, melting as she snuggled herself under his chin, and considered what to tell Kit.

“Shoulder’s kinda messed up and everything hurts, but I can move my arms and legs, and I’m breathing.

Don’t see any blood on the seat, so I guess that’s a good report, considering. ”

She offered a shaky nod. The confusion in his skull was clearing slightly.

He babbled to the baby, filling up the silence, giving Kit time to steady herself since she wasn’t the kind to air her emotions.

His own stomach turned into a mass of knots as he looked past the baby to the ruins surrounding them.

Nico and Simon weren’t the most significant problem anymore.

If he and Kit couldn’t figure a way out, those two would never be an issue again.

And what of Archie? Her swollen eyes told him she’d probably considered that too. Best not to bring it up. An orange glow caught his attention.

“Is that ...” He peered out the window. “Is that a fire?”

Kit nodded. “Made it with Doritos.” She explained her plan for keeping warm.

He shook his head.

“What?” she demanded.

He looked at her silhouetted there against a backdrop of pure catastrophe that would have overwhelmed many other women and probably most men too.

Yet she’d tended to a screaming infant, taped over the windows, and made an actual campfire.

“You are the bee’s knees, Kit Garrido. Archie would be proud of you, and I am too. ”

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away, her lips trembling. He couldn’t tell if he’d pleased or embarrassed her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Pleased. She was pleased, and that pleased him, but not enough to dispel the worry.

There was no way they were going to drive the ATV out of there.

And minimal chance they’d be spotted by any search and rescue teams. It was as if they were blockaded by the tumbled logs framing the edges of the lumber mill that had saved their lives.

Trapped, sure as anything.

Could they hike out? He didn’t think so, but he’d reserve judgment until he got better eyes on the situation. Tot squirmed against him. He felt her hands and feet. She was cold. Kit, too, by the looks of her pink nose and the way her breath turned to visible vapor.

His arms were too full to consult his phone. “What time is it?”

“Almost 2:00 p.m.”

Practically a half day he’d lost. “Got any more masks? I think Tottie girl needs to warm up at the corn chip fire.”

She provided a large one for him. With another she managed to knot the ear loops and slide it over Tot’s mouth, which did not please her but at least it muffled her outrage.

Kit took her while he unfolded himself and stepped out.

His muscles spasmed so strongly he almost collapsed, but he balanced himself with a palm on the roof, and the worst of the pain passed.

Together they made their way to the soft glow.

She rocked Tot and gave Cullen the bottle, which he held close enough to the flames to take the chill off.

He didn’t mind the warmth on his face one bit.

Tot still cried too loudly to afford any conversation, which gave him space to try to think of an escape plan.

He scanned the shifting logs that still moved like a wooden river down and around the slope, diverted only by the sturdy walls of the mill.

No driving out. Check. Hiking? It would be like trying to navigate a minefield.

There was no way they could avoid broken limbs or worse with the unsteady pile all around.

Wait for it to settle? Then they’d somehow be able to climb over the massive logs and not sink into unseen holes and gaps.

Kit was watching him, so he kept his expression neutral, though his heart was plummeting with each passing minute.

The steel beams of the mill had somehow kept most of the walls intact and deflected the flow.

Otherwise, the whole structure would have been swallowed by the landslide.

Funny how old craftsmanship could withstand what modern buildings couldn’t. Archie would have enjoyed pointing that out. He prayed his friend had somehow gotten clear.

Archie’s gravelly voice replayed in his memory.

“Used to pretend I was one of Snow White’s dwarfs when I’d pop out from behind the waterwheel and scare the workers.”

The tunnel from Archie’s childhood that connected his hometown to the mill ... Was that even a possibility?

“You’ve got an idea,” she said over Tot’s outrage. “What?”

He decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

No sense disappointing her with an option that was as flimsy as paper.

But when she cocked her head and looked at him in that way that got right inside him, he knew he wouldn’t disrespect her strength.

Not after what she’d done, how she’d pounced like a lion on their difficulties instead of turning tail.

Kit patted Tot, who continued to wail, and waited for his explanation.

He stowed the bottle, took Tot, and pointed back to the ATV.

Their boots crunched over the stone floor, accompanying the sound of Tot’s screaming.

Kit sat in the front seat, turned with her elbows over the headrest, and watched as he contained the flailing limbs long enough to change the diaper.

Two dozen or so remained of the stash they’d taken from the store.

Tot didn’t appreciate the cold air on her exposed tushy, but he completed the mission and offered the warmed bottle.

She clamped on, grabbing the bottle with both hands and sucking with all her might.

He chuckled and so did Kit. “Way to work that bottle, Tottie. Don’t let a little thing like a landslide slow you down.”

“You’re really getting good at the bottle and diaper thing,” Kit said. “I think you should be given the job full-time.”

“It’ll look good on my resume.”

Her smile vanished, and he knew she was waiting for him to share his plan.

If it even was a plan. “Archie said that as a kid he played in an underground tunnel that the workers dug between the town of Twinfork and the mill. They used it to get to work without having to drive around the mountain, remember?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes.”

“He said he’d get in trouble for popping out from behind the waterwheel.”

She brought out the map. “Twinfork is here, or it used to be. Maybe it’s far enough east that the landslide didn’t take it out. If we could get there, find help...”

“Or even shelter, a phone signal, a working vehicle...” Pretty much anything would be an improvement over their current situation.

He loved the spark kindling in her expression, and he dreaded the thought of it being snuffed out again. “There are a lot of variables. The entrance might be sealed over or blocked. Even if we find it, the tunnel could have collapsed or the other end become impassable, and—”

“A dicey escape plan is better than no escape plan at all,” she said firmly.

He couldn’t argue with that, unless it got them dead quicker. “Soon as Tottie is done with her bottle, I’ll go have a look.”

“I’ll help. We can take turns on baby duty.”

“You’ll be safer in the vehicle.” He immediately recognized his mistake. “But you’re in this as much as me and you cooked up the rockstar corn-chip fire, so why don’t I treat you like a fully vested partner and not the babysitter?”

“Exactly.”

The way her mouth lifted at one corner reminded him of Daniela. Two determined women, tough and self-sacrificing. He drifted into the past, to a moment when he’d been laughing and joking with his partner.

“Because I’m the best uncle , ” he’d said. “And one day I’m getting Mia a pony.”

“You ’ll have to run that by my husband. He doesn ’t even want a house plant.”

“Okay. Compromise. I’ll keep the pony at the ranch I’m going to buy someday. She can come ride whenever she wants.”

“Done . And you scoop the poop.”

He realized Kit was looking at him. “Lost in a memory?”

“Oh. Yeah. My partner had ... has a baby. Not a baby anymore. She’s going on two now. I used to be real close, sort of an honorary uncle.”