fact that she nailed his name for his grandmother on the first try.
Neither of them wanted to deal with the subject and it seemed she handled it the same way he did, by dropping it.
They followed the ambulance until the trail road met the main highway, and the engine temperature gauge finally began to move. Leo reached out and turned it up, blasting heat onto their feet.
The sound of the air hissing through the car was unmistakable and he watched as Jo leaned forward, putting her hands down toward the footwell, warming them up, too. She hadn't yet taken off her gloves. Neither had he.
They were in trouble. He knew the signs. They were both far too cold to be left alone. He hadn’t noticed it when they were out, but didn’t he always tell the searchers that’s why there are protocols?
And here he’d gone and run an off-book search. They’d both known it wasn’t protocol but both of them were cocky enough to count their training to make it okay.
Well, they were okay, at least so far. And they had found Jason. Both points in the favor of their dumb decision. But they weren't done yet.
Leo wasn't one to back down for much of anything. And he got the feeling that Jo Huston wasn't either.
“Listen,” he told her having no idea what she would decide in the end, but he wanted to give her all the options. Tell her what he was thinking. Despite the first incident with the harness, she was a good rescue worker with great technique and wonderful instincts. “I want to go back out and find Dalton.”
“You and me both.” Her reply was quick, but she still held her hands down in the footwell and the heat was barely on.
“Others will come out soon if the weather changes. And you and I are in no shape to go back out right now.”
She nodded along. At least she wasn’t pushing him to turn around.
“Do you think they can find him?” she asked. She didn't tack on the dreaded word alive.
Leo nodded. “I've seen rescues in worse cases.”
She nodded. She probably had too, that was probably part of why she hadn't given up.
“If we're going to go out and search again—” He didn't add together or in separate teams, “—then we've got to take care of ourselves right now.”
She nodded again. “We need a warm shower and about four hours of sleep.”
Not quite. “We need a hot bath—immersion is better. And six hours of sleep,” he said, neither of which was still as much as protocol would indicate.
She merely shrugged at him, as if to say he wasn't the boss of her. Though Leo wanted to add that he, in fact, was the boss of her, he couldn't make her sleep and he couldn't force her into that warm bath either. “We both need someone to watch us. We need to be monitored for the next several hours or until our body temperatures are up to normal.”
“Are you suggesting we follow the ambulance to the hospital?” Jo pointed ahead to the empty road where the ambulance had long since dusted them.
“No,” he sighed. This wasn't good, but he hadn't yet thought of an alternative. Any of the people he would trust to monitor him had other things to do. They'd be going out and doing the search if the radar held true and the weather turned better in the next hour.
So he took the plunge. “I know you've got your go bag in the back seat. I live right on the outskirts of Redemption. It'll save me half an hour of driving.” He didn't have to say it, she would understand that meant an extra thirty minutes of sleep. “There's a hot tub at my place … and a guest room.”
He tacked the last part on at the last moment.
“Neither of us is ready for a hot tub.” She held her gloved hands up, and finally peeled the polypropylene layers to show him her fingers. Probably not surprising to either of them, her nail beds were a pale, ashy blue.
“Agreed. Neither of us can hop right in. I do have one of those deep, old Victorian bathtubs,” he said. “Do you?”
“My apartment has a nice steamy shower.”
“That’s not immersion,” he countered. He sounded like he was trying to convince her to spend the night. And he was, but not like that. He wanted to get back out as soon as possible. Unless he got word that Dalton