“Ready?” he asked, as he slung a backpack over his shoulder. Lucy nodded and Will took off down a small trail she hadn’t yet noticed. She followed closely, loving how still and silent the forest was around them, the only sound the light crunching of their snowshoes against the snow.

“How deep is it here?” she asked after a few minutes, her voice low and quiet in reverence of their surroundings.

“The snow?” Will asked, turning back towards her.

“Yes.”

He stopped walking and looked around. He regarded the nearest tree, looking up at the trunk, then glanced at the other trees next to the trail. “Hmm, best guess is about four or five feet.” Lucy’s eyes widened in disbelief. Even when it did snow in Oxfordshire—or London for that matter—it usually melted before it could accumulate. In London, a few inches would be considered heavy snow fall. Five feet was mostly unheard of in England, except maybe in the north after a particularly bad storm.

Will grinned at her. “That’s why the snowshoes. Otherwise, we’d just sink into the snow.” The thought gave her the willies and she shivered. “Come on, it’s not far to where we’re going.”

“Oh, I thought we were just going for a walk.”

“No, I have a destination in mind.” He raised his eyebrows at her a couple of times and started off down the trail again. Lucy stuck close to him, intrigued and abandoning her grim thoughts about suffocating in a snow drift.

There was a burst of movement in the periphery of her vision, and she swivelled in that direction. There between the trees was a doe, standing stock still and watching them. “Will,” Lucy whispered. The sound of her voice carried, and Will stopped then followed the line of her gaze. “She’s gorgeous.”

“She is,” he agreed. The doe’s head flicked to the left and in a flash, she was off, running deeper into the forest. Lucy beamed at Will and he returned her smile. “Come on,” he said softly, and she started following him again.

They walked on and about ten minutes later, emerged into a clearing. In the middle sat a compact cabin, with windows either side of a wooden door, each glowing with light from within. Lucy looked at Will questioningly, but he just smiled, revealing nothing. They climbed six steps onto a tiny porch, and Will undid his snowshoes, so Lucy did the same, having to take off her gloves to manage the fiddly task. When she stood, he was smiling down at her. “Ready?”

She nodded, then he unlatched the door and pushed it open. “Oh, Will …” It was all she could manage to say before she stepped inside.

Chapter 29

Jules

The cab ride to Matt’s was long and costly, but Matt didn’t bat an eye when the fare came to ninety dollars. He just handed over two fifties and told the driver to keep the change. Maybe they’d given him some serious drugs at the hospital, and he was too high to care. Jules couldn’t remember ever paying that much for a cab ride and the Denver airport was nearly half a state away from Boulder.