Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 35001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
One final glance back to Bradford and she breathed a bit more easily to see him still sleeping. She figured he needed as much rest as possible, given what he’d been through.
“Let’s go, boy.”
Out in the main area of the house, she tugged on her mittens over her gloves as she made her way to the front door. At the last minute, she took them off and returned the mittens to the room Bradford slept in. He may need them.
She squinted out through the blowing snow at the thin sliver of light coming from the morning sun. The weak morning sun.
“Next time we head out for Christmastime, we’re picking a place with actual heat and functional indoor plumbing.”
Her faithful companion leaned against her leg ever so briefly. With a final glance behind her, reassuring herself the door to the only semi-warm room remained closed, Iris took a deep breath and stepped out into the cold of the Rocky Mountains morning.
The path she’d worked down on the porch earlier had been covered again and her boots crunched as she sank through the hardened crust of the gathered snow.
“No arguing its beauty,” she said as they made their way down the three steps. She didn’t dawdle as she took care of her own needs, wiped her hands with a cleansing cloth and put it back in the bag she always carried.
Once her gloves were on, she turned up the collar of her extremely warm coat, tugged down her blackberry wine-color spray-splattered pom beanie over her fleece-lined headband. She was warm, but even so, she didn’t want to be out too long. She simply needed to get a crisp walk in for her sanity.
After confirming she’d put the proper collar on Piros, they struck out, wind blowing fallen and falling snow around them. Even though this was nothing but a nice wandering walk, she continued to keep her coordinates so she didn’t get lost.
As they went, Piros occasionally vanished to do his own thing, but he never went far. Before too long Iris found herself on the edge of the meadow that the crash had been on the opposite end of, down the decline.
She didn’t want to go back there but she couldn’t resist taking another look, just to make sure she’d not condemned someone to spend the night there. Hands in her pockets, she lengthened her stride to make it over the large field.
I could do so much with this space. Horses. Dogs. Camp for kids to help them learn about being outdoors, tenting, survival and that kind of thing.
Her mind whirled with the endless possibilities. She allowed a slow grin to tug up her lips as she neared the end of the meadow. This was feasible. With a sharp whistle for her dog, she watched him come streaking out of the woods and running over the snow, his coat a vivid contrast to the blinding whiteness surrounding them.
The decline down to the wreckage shone like a glossed sheet of ice. She took a deep breath, cursed the cold once more, then angled to the side and headed down, Piros following behind using the snow she broke through.
Her gut churned as she realized what the corpses had been subjected to with her having left them here. The animals had done what they do, but she could see here and there that there were parts of the people left.
Trusting Piros to alert her if any predator was nearing, Iris began poking around in the wreckage. Maybe I can find something on who these others were. Who he is or something more for him to wear. I can’t drive him anywhere, and he needs more than just those sweatpants.
For both of their sakes.
She didn’t see any luggage to maybe find him some clothing that would help, and neither did she find anything which would be of any form of assistance. Piros entered the body of the plane behind her and lay down on the carpet that hadn’t been covered in snow or burned up in the flames.
“I don’t see anything here, Piros. We should get back.”
A low growl slid from him, and she whipped to the door in time to see a ruddy-faced man with snow in his hair and scruff step up, blocking the jagged hole that had been torn in the side of the jet.
Bradford.
An unfair blend of concern, anger and relief spread through Bradford as he found his elusive savior. The bed, makeshift though it was, had been empty of her lush curves and body heat when he’d awoken. The fire had been burning and the room had been warm, relatively speaking. At least compared to the rest of the building.
After dressing and making sure the zippered hoodie’s hood was up, he’d tugged on the mittens as he headed to the front door. He still had shit shoes but couldn’t do anything about that. In the daylight the building was beautiful. At least the bones of it were. She did have a lot of work ahead of her if she was keeping it. Regardless, there was no denying how it would look finished, if they fixed instead of demolishing and rebuilding new.