Luke carefully sliced her laces, then set down the knife in order to peel open her boot, wincing when she hissed again. “Easy now,” he crooned, lifting back the tongue of her boot. He slid one hand under her ankle, then grabbed the heel of the boot and slowly pulled.
“No, stop!”
He stilled, turning to see her take several gulping breaths before she gritted her teeth. “Okay. Do it.”
He held his own breath as he started pulling again, working as quickly as he could so he wouldn’t prolong her agony while being careful he didn’t do any more damage. The boot finally slipped free, taking her sock with it, and Luke closed his eyes. “I think your ankle is shattered,” he whispered. He looked over at her. “No blood, though. So I’ll just immobilize it as best I can. Then I’m digging out the sled, and we’ll get you to a hospital lickety-split. Where’s the closest house to here?”
She thought for a moment. “If we go down the tote road about ten miles, then cut across the bay, I think there are some year-round homes out on the point.”
Luke’s gut tightened. “Do you think the bay is frozen solid?”
“I-it should be.”
He glanced down at her ankle then back at her, and shook his head. “It’s not a life-threatening injury, Camry, as long as you don’t go into shock. So I’d rather not risk our drowning to save some miles. How far to your sister’s house? Doesn’t she live on this side of the bay?”
“Maybe eighteen or twenty miles from here.”
Luke gently laid her foot on the open leg of her ski pants and turned in the hole he’d been standing in the whole time. “If I can find the other snowshoe, I can get us there by midnight.” He got down on his knees and started rummaging around in the sled. He pulled out the sleeping bag and straw mattress, but didn’t see the rest of their gear. “The gear must have broken free,” he said, straightening with the sleeping bag, which he unrolled and laid over her. “I’ll try to find it. I’d like to at least have the headlamp for when it gets dark, and the first-aid kit.”
“How did you know where to dig for me?” she asked, helping him tuck the bag around her.
He grabbed the small mattress and tucked the corner of it under her shoulders. But before he lowered her head, he kissed her gently on the lips with a soft chuckle. “That damn transmitter started beeping, and Max and I followed the sound.”
She blinked up at him. “I don’t have the transmitter,” she whispered. “I-I threw it out onto the lake this morning, when I decided to . . . to see things your way,” she said.
“You threw it away? But I heard it. Max heard it, too. It’s how we found you!”
“That’s impossible, Luke.” She reached under the sleeping bag. “I don’t have it anymore.” She suddenly gasped, and her hand reappeared holding the transmitter. “Oh my God,” she whispered, holding it toward him. “H-how is that possible?”
Luke damn near started laughing hysterically when the tiny instrument suddenly gave a lively chirp. He took the transmitter from her and studied it. “This thing keeps turning up like a bad penny.” He looked at her. “It shouldn’t even have its own power source, so what in hell keeps making that noise?”
She turned her head away. “I have no idea.”
He gently turned her face to look at him. “Don’t try to live by my beliefs, Camry, at the expense of your own,” he softly told her. “I was wrong to pretend to go along with you and AuClair instead of telling you I thought it was all an act.” He held the transmitter up for her to see. “But this infernal thing,” he said with a crooked smile, “seems determined to make me believe.” He shoved it in his pocket, kissed her again, then climbed out of the hole.
He freed his boot from the snowshoe Max had found, sat down and put it on, then crawled over and lifted the edge of the sleeping bag off her right foot. “It’s still swelling,” he said, carefully covering her foot again. “I’m going to hunt for our gear before I immobilize it. I’d like to find the first-aid kit, because I tossed what was left of our pain pills in it. Are you comfortable enough?”
“I’m okay. Where’s Tigger?”
“She seems to be fully recovered, and is nosing the snow with Max. I’m giving myself twenty minutes to search, and then we’re out of here, gear or no gear. Just close your eyes and rest. I’m afraid you might be in for a painful afternoon.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you.”
He chuckled. “If you want to help, then picture our snowcat magically appearing while I go to work on my own miracle.”
Chapter Twenty
As “seemingly impossible tasks” went, Luke decided this one was a doozy. Getting back to civilization had appeared daunting enough when they’d both been hale and hearty, but getting Camry out of these woods with a broken ankle—without killing her in the process—might very well prove impossible.
Unless . . .
Luke shoved his hand in his pocket and touched the transmitter. How in hell did the damn thing keep turning up just when they needed it? He believed Camry when she said she’d thrown it away this morning—just as he had the other day, when he’d smashed it into that tree and watched it shatter into a hundred pieces. Yet here it was again, and they’d bothheard it chirping just now.
Max had heard it, too. And dogs didn’t know anything about miracles, did they?
Luke walked toward a dark spot in the snow and thought about Maxine’s determination to rescue both Kate and him at the expense of his own life. If the fact was that Maxine had shown up at the pound just hours before they’d taken Kate over to pick out a dog, or that a five-year-old had seen something in the mangy old mutt that none of the adults had, was that the beginning of a miracle, or merely a string of sequential coincidences?
But then, did it matter whatit was, as long as everything had turned out okay?
Well, except for Maxine.
Luke stopped suddenly and stared down at what looked like Roger AuClair’s large pointed hat lying in the snow. Where in hell had that come from? Had it been in the sled all this time, and he just hadn’t noticed? If Camry had found it, she certainly wouldn’t have shown it to him, now, would she? Not after learning what he thought of AuClair’s hocus-pocus.
Which she wholeheartedly embraced.
Maybe the question he should be asking was, If the magic really didrule science, could it be manipulated?
Even by a nonbeliever who was just desperate enough to try?
Luke looked around and saw Max and Tigger digging in the snow several yards away, apparently having discovered something worth salvaging. He looked at Camry and saw her lying quietly, her arm over her face to shield out the sun.
“How are you doing over there?” he called to her.
“I’m fine,” she called back, not moving, “as long as I don’t move.”
Luke dropped his gaze to the hat, took a deep breath, and picked it up.
Something fell out of it. He bent over again, and picked up what appeared to be the card Roger had left for him. He opened it, scanned what Camry had already read to him, then continued from where she’d left off.
If you’re harboring any dark thoughts that I had anything to do with the predicament you’re in, Renoir, then think again. Free will dictates circumstances, not the magic. Life is a fragile gift, and if you can’t embrace it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—then you might as well stop breathing, since this is an all or nothing thing.
So the answer to your question is yes; just like your numbers, the magic can be manipulated. I was telling it straight the other day, when I told Camry that everyone has the power within them to create.