half-laughed, half-sobbed. “Thank you,” she said, holding him even more tightly. “For being honest.” She spoke in a fake-cowboy drawl—at least that’s what he thought it was meant to be. “Don’t you worry your pretty lil’ head lil’ lady, everything’s gon’ be jus’ fine. Thank you for not making me stab you with the shards of a peanut jar for saying something exceedingly annoying like that.”
He laughed. “I think maybe doing John Wayne impressions is a white-boyfriend thing. It lives in the same Venn diagram intersection as red-plaid pajama pants.”
Tasha lifted her head to look up at him, her face wet with tears, even though she was laughing a little, too. “Pants!” she said. “Or rather...” She pulled free from his embrace to use both of her hands for air quotes. “Pants.”
She wiped her face as she left the utility room, clearly on a mission.
Bemused, Thomas followed her out into the living room to watch her vanish into the bedroom, and ah, right, she’d told him she’d used up all the thread sewing him some...
“Pants” indeed.
Tash laughed at the expression on his face as she came out of the bedroom, holding them up for him to see. She’d used another of the dark blue fleece blankets—similar to the one he’d left back in the cave.
They were gigantic and fugly—and would be so much warmer than the thin plaid flannel he’d been wearing. The amount of time and effort she’d spent sewing this, by hand, was mind-blowing.
She held them up to his waist. “I figured too big was better than too small,” she told him. “We still have to figure out some kind of drawstring belt or suspenders so they stay on. Oh, and I also cut one of the white blankets into smaller pieces—I figured you could use them as socks, to keep your feet warm.”
“Thank you,” Thomas said, leaning down to kiss her. “This is... Thank you.”
She smiled, but it was forced—tears were back in her eyes. “At least maybe this way we won’t freeze to death.”
“This is going to be hard,” he told her quietly, “but we’re gonna fight to make it.”
Tasha nodded. “I know. I just...” She took a deep breath and started over. “Fighting and... and trying not to die is all well and good, but... Thomas, I’m sorry, I’m just feeling really stupid and desperate. Like, I’m trying to manage my burning need to live a lifetime with you in a single night, while still respecting your burning need to take this—us—slowly. And I know I said I wouldn’t push, and God, I don’t want to push, but what if this moment—right now—is all we get? I keep trying to convince myself that we’re gonna be okay—please God—and yes, you’ll read my book and tell me that you like it even if you don’t, and we’ll... we’ll... eat burgers and watch lots of movies at Werewulf’s, and we’ll have all the time in the world to—”
Thomas kissed her—not specifically to shut her up, although ending her panicky rant was a bonus. He kissed her because she was right. What if this moment—right now—was all they were given?
And right now, they had hours before dawn. Hours that he’d planned for them to spend sleeping, resting before attempting an arduous, dangerous journey. He had maybe fifteen minutes, tops, of prep left to do before they were ready to leave.
Tash’s torrent of words turned into a soft noise of pleasure as she melted against him, and his rush of pleasure and joy felt so damn right that he knew, without a doubt, that this wasn’t just for her.
Life was too damn short, and he’d already wasted too much time.
Thomas stopped thinking and planning and lost himself in kissing Tasha.
“If you were the twenty-three-year-old crown prince of Ustanzia,” Dave mused, as Rio pulled the SUV back onto the state road, “and you were heading to your family’s mountaintop ski lodge to rescue your...”
At his hesitation, Rio filled the word in for him, “Girlfriend. They’re not engaged yet.”
“Right,” Dave said. “No. But...” He cleared his throat. “Okay. Yeah. You’re Tedric and you borrow your... friend’s phone, and you convince him—Jeff—to pretend to be you and fly Daddy’s private jet at a time when doing that can get you into some real trouble even if you really are a crown prince—all of which Jeff had to have known.”
“Kayla said the prince tried to get him to come with,” Rio pointed out. “To storm a mountainside filled with hostiles with a single