Page 43 of Sanctuary

There’s something inside me—a deep, ever-hidden softness of my heart—that knows beyond questioning that Aidan will always return to me.

7

Aidan leavesat midmorning and tells me he’ll probably be back by the middle of the afternoon but not to worry too much if he’s later. If the building has been damaged, it may take longer to dig through the wreckage.

Since the church building has survived intact for so long, I’m hoping the resort buildings will be in similar condition, but there’s no predicting what could have happened, especially at this altitude.

There’s been a lot of melting over the past two days, so there’s only a few inches of snow on the roadway now. The wind has finally died down, so it’s not gusting the snow around in wild flurries. It’s a reasonable morning to make the short trip. There’s nothing visibly unsafe about the conditions.

Aidan takes my big backpack since trying to bring his cart up will slow him down. I feel kind of sick and kind of excited at the same time as I watch him start out, hiking uphill. His figure is tall, lean, confident. He’s not wearing a cap or a hood today, so his hair is loose. Blowing in the breeze. Glinting like gold in the morning sunlight.

He turns back around as if he can sense I’m watching from the front steps of the church. I can’t see his face clearly from this distance, but he gives me an insouciant, two-fingered salute that makes me smile.

I wave back and then go inside.

It’s going to be fine. I believed him when he promised to return. He’s not going to snatch the win and run off, abandoning me here on my own.

After our history, maybe I have no strong reasons to trust him like that, but I do.

He cared more about saving me than winning our competition. Than saving himself. Than holding on to his possessions. He opened up to me for real. He made it safe for me to open up to him.

I wasn’t entirely wrong about him before. He had hardened himself, closed himself off from feeling. But that hardness wasn’t his nature. It was his armor.

And I know all about that kind of armor.

I’m not fool enough to hope we’ll fall into some kind of epic love story, but Aidan and I understand each other now. We aren’t enemies anymore. He can change.

And so can I.

I’m anxious but hopeful as I go through the morning, puttering around in the church, breaking up another chair since our wood is getting low, and dozing for a while since I don’t have anything else to do.

I’ve slept more in the past few days than I have for ages. Maybe that’s another reason I feel a lot better.

Occasionally, I go outside to see what’s going on and to stretch and test my bad leg. I keep track of the sun in the sky, and when it’s around three in the afternoon, I start looking for Aidan to return.

There’s no sign of him for a couple of hours, but I don’t let it bother me too much. It’s probably taking longer than expected for Aidan to find the wine.

He knows what he’s doing. He’s one of those resilient survivors who can always manage to make it through hardships that would destroy someone softer, sweeter.

I’m another survivor. I know how to recognize them.

He’ll be just fine.

The sun is getting low in the sky when I start to worry.

He really should be back by now.

If he couldn’t get to the wine by now, he would have simply turned around and come back to me. We could have returned and tried again when I was there to help him.

He wouldn’t work all day at a lost cause. He’d never endlessly run into a brick wall. He told me so himself. He never does that. He’s more practical than stubborn.

So I start to wonder if he got injured. Hurt. Something to forcefully prevent him from returning.

For all I know, he might be dead.

That thought upsets me so much I can’t even entertain it. I don’t believe it. A much more likely alternative is that he fell or something collapsed on top of him. And he’s trapped up there somewhere in the snow.

He’s not dead yet, but he will be soon if I don’t go find him.

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