Silence, then Ben exhaled a hard breath. “You know he wouldn’t.”

“Exactly. So what’s plan B?”

Ben explained plan B twice to make sure when River hung up the sat phone, she knew what she needed to do. She just didn’t know how in the world she was going to pull it off.

“Remember when you and Ben said it was a bad idea to bivouac up here?” she told the semiconscious Easton, earning a slurred mumble in response. “I completely agree. And if I’m not bivouacking, you definitely aren’t. So try to wake up, because you are not a small man.”

Ben had said if he couldn’t walk and she wouldn’t leave, then the best thing to do was try to drag him. Semiconscious had turned to unconscious, which made tying her climbing rope around his torso and beneath his arms harder. With a determined grunt to get them going, River started to pull.

“You know,” she wheezed as she walked. “There should be a limit on weight up here. No guides over a hundred pounds.”

Dropping down to her knees in the snow, River gasped for breath. “No guides allowed to pass out either.”

Then she stood and started to pull again.

“You are so lucky I’m a cowgirl,” she told him. “You are so, so lucky you’re probably hot beneath the beard. And if you hadn’t had the fluffy white towels, you and I would never have been in this situation.”

Even as she spoke, River knew it wasn’t true. The day she had met Easton Lockett, she’d known instinctively that the man in the truck who wanted to help her was different. What they had was so different from anything she’d experienced, and River wasn’t ready to lose him, not yet.

“Falling down the mountainside was so easy.” She said when his boot caught on the ice. “Why is this so freaking hard?”

Finally, the campsite came into view. “Easton, I don’t care how heavy you are. You and I are going to get to our tent. We are going to get warm. And safe. And we’re going to get back down tomorrow. Because I’m not freezing on a mountaintop thousands of miles from home with a man who doesn’t even know my real name.”

“What’s your real name?” a masculine voice rasped.

“Now you wake up?” River could have kicked him if she weren’t so glad to see those warm brown eyes blinking up at her, finally able to focus on her. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“You’re not holding up any,” Easton replied.

“Good. You’re fine.” She dropped back to the snow, too tired to move even the short distance between where they were and the tent.

“What happened?”