She didn’t argue. With her can-do attitude, she must be in worse shape than he thought.

He tightened the cord around his hood and stepped out of the shelter. The rocks blocked most of the rain. Danny rooted around until he found some nearly dry pinecones and twigs under a fallen tree. Using the knife blade of his Leatherman tool, he scraped dry timber from the underside of the tree and stuffed everything into the backpack to keep it dry. He scouted under rocks and logs for moderately dry wood and gathered an armload before heading back to the overhang.

When he was shipped off to Iraq, he’d thought the training exercises in the woods had been a waste of time. Finding dry stuff and keeping warm hadn’t been an issue over there. Now he was grateful the army had prepared him for survival in multiple environments.

Danny dumped the dry bits from the pack in the rear of the shelter. “We’ll start with some of that. Make the fire small so we can keep it going. Build it at the edge in case the damp stuff smokes.”

“I got it.” Mandy knew what she was doing. She rummaged in her pack for matches and fire-starter sticks. Danny left her to it while he scraped the wet bark from the wood he’d gathered and stacked it out of the rain. By the time he’d finished, a tiny flame was dancing in the center of her timber pile.

Mandy rubbed her hands over the small fire. Her teeth chattered loudly enough to carry over the sounds of wind and rain lashing through the surrounding woods.

“How wet are you?”

“Not very. J-just cold.”

Danny pulled out their sleeping bags and unzipped both. There was just enough room between the fire and the back wall to squeeze them in. He spread one out and laid the other on top. The rock around and above them was trapping the heat from the fire nicely. He stripped off his wet jacket and tossed it over a boulder to dry. Underneath, his T-shirt was damp around the neck where rain had leaked in. Danny removed his shoulder holster, then pulled the shirt over his head and spread it on a warm rock. The thighs of his fatigue pants were wet, but they were made to dry quickly.

He fished in his pack and came up with another shirt. Next to him, Mandy was fumbling with her jacket.

“Let me help you.” He unzipped her nylon shell and tugged it off. Her fleece sweater, like her pants, was made of synthetic material that didn’t hold water. He put a hand to her neck. Her skin was freezing. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this cold?”

He tugged off both their wet boots and pulled her toward the sleeping bags.

“Didn’t want to s-slow us down.”