He could make her out struggling in the water, and then she finally said, “I’ve got it! Pull me out!”
“Not yet. Wrap it around your waist a couple of times. You won’t be able to hold it tight enough.”
He watched her struggle some more while he slowly inched closer on his belly to distribute his weight.
“Okay. Pull me out!”
Jack took up the slack in the rope and gave a tentative pull to see if she would come with it. “Stay on your back,” he commanded. “Keep kicking, but gently.”
Inch by inch, second by interminably long second, Jack reeled her in. He watched her slowly rise up onto the ice, only to have it break beneath her. “Don’t struggle! You’ll eventually reach solid ice. Keep kicking softly.”
She broke through two more times before the ice held.
“That’s it, you’re doing great, sweetheart. I’ve almost got you. Stop kicking now,” he told her when she finally came fully out of the water. “I’m going to pull you away from the hole, but I have to keep us apart so we don’t stress the ice. Just lie still and let me do the work.”
“I-I’m s-so cold,” she cried in a whisper, her voice still muffled by her helmet. “I-I can’t feel my hands anymore.”
“I’ll have you warm in just a few minutes, I promise,” he said, scooting backward and dragging her with him.
The moment he felt the ice was solid beneath him, Jack stood up and dragged her another fifty feet out onto the lake. Only then did he run to her, drop to his knees, and lift her shoulders up to his chest. She was crying uncontrollably and panting heavily, violent shivers interspersed with heaving coughing. He fumbled with the chin strap on her helmet, pulled it off, and pressed his face against hers.
It felt like he was holding a block of ice, which was fast becoming a reality now that she was out of the water. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, holding her tightly. “You’re okay, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”
She tried to say something, but her gasping sobs and wracking shivers made her unintelligible.
“Shhh, don’t talk,” he told her, standing and scooping her up in his arms. He only made it a few yards before he had to stop and strip off her wet boots and snowsuit because they were weighing him down. He continued plodding through the deep snow to the main shoreline, since the peninsula had outcroppings of ledge dotting its length. He needed to get her someplace he could build a fire. He glanced at his snowmobile on the way and saw it was stuck in the slush up to its hood. It was no use to them now; he’d be lucky to get it out of there before spring.
It took him ten minutes to reach shore, and he set Megan down under a spruce tree where the snow wasn’t deep. “Can you stand?” he asked, holding her under her arms to keep her steady. “We have to get you out of these wet clothes.”
She tried helping, which only made it more difficult for him. He brushed her hands away, pulled her sweater, turtleneck, and long johns off over her head, then took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around her. Keeping one hand on her arm for support, he wrestled out of his own ski pants and set them on the snow.
“Okay, so far so good. I’m going to pull down your pants and set you on my suit. Then I’ll pull yours all the way off and slip your legs into my ski pants, okay?”
He wasn’t expecting an answer and didn’t wait for one. Jack pulled her pants down to her knees, set her on his suit, and then stuffed her legs inside, zipping the bib closed up to her chin. He then stripped off his outer shirt and wrapped it around her wet head several times before hunching down in front of her.
“You’re okay now, Megan. The worst is over, sweetheart, and you won’t get any colder. I’m going to leave you long enough to get wood to start a fire, okay? Nod if you understand.”
Hugging herself and shivering violently, her face ghostly white in the moonlight, she nodded. Jack kissed her cold cheek, then stood up and pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt. He headed into the woods to gather material for a fire, thanking God and his ancestors that he’d gotten her out in time.
He had a roaring bonfire going in less than ten minutes, and five minutes later Megan was showing signs of thawing. Jack took his first painless breath in thirty minutes, and the knot in his gut started to loosen. But only a little. Because they were without transportation in the middle of nowhere, and had no phone, no food or shelter, and only one set of dry clothes between them.
The food and shelter he could deal with readily enough; it was the transportation that bothered him. Though he could keep Megan warm and even comfortable, he would prefer to get her home sooner rather than later.
“Oh my God. The baby,” she whispered.
Jack looked up from stoking the fire to see her hugging her stomach. “Are you having cramps?” he asked, unzipping the ski bib. He reached in and splayed his hand across the bare skin of her belly, relieved to discover she was no longer dangerously chilled.
“N-no. But what if…what if the cold water hurt the baby?”
He crawled behind her so that she was sitting between his thighs facing the fire, placed his hand on her belly again, and pulled her back against his chest. “The cold didn’t hurt the baby, Megan. He’s very well insulated, and you weren’t in the water long enough to bring your core temperature down that far.” He rested his cheek against hers. “Besides,” he added with a forced chuckle, “with his genetic heritage, he probably just considered this a refreshing dip in the lake.”
“You can’t keep calling it a him,” she said, relaxing against him with a deep sigh. “I don’t want to get used to the idea that it might be a boy.”
Jack also sighed, knowing she was going to be okay. “Even if I have a hunch that it is?”
“There’s a 50 percent chance you’ll be disappointed.”
“Naw,” he whispered against her cheek. “My hunches are at least 90 percent on target.”
They fell silent after that, staring into the fire, soaking in its life-sustaining warmth. Jack felt as if it had been a hundred years since he’d held Megan like this. He was loath to move, partly because he was so damned relieved she was going to be okay, and partly because he was in no hurry to head back onto the lake. But they really did need the survival gear in the saddlebags.
“I have to leave you for a few minutes. Will you be okay?”
She tilted her head back onto his shoulder to look up at him. “Where are you going?”
“To get some of our stuff.”
She turned in his embrace to face him. “It’s too dangerous. Wait until morning, when you can see what you’re doing.”
“We’re twelve hours away from daylight, and the temperature’s going to drop below zero tonight. We need the survival gear on your sled.”
She clutched his shoulder. “My sled’s under water, Jack!”
“It’s probably only nine or ten feet deep next to that ledge. And I noticed that your survival gear is in a dry sack. I’m betting there’s at least one sleeping bag in there, some food, and possibly a radio.”
“One frozen person is enough for tonight. You can’t take care of me if you’re a block of ice yourself.”
“I’ll strip off and be in and out in two minutes flat. I’ve done it before. If I have dry clothes to put on, I’ll be fine.”
“No.”
Seeing that she was recovered enough to argue with him, Jack peeled himself away from her and stood up. He walked over and pushed the two half-rotted logs he’d dragged from the woods deeper into the fire. “Any other suggestions, then?”
“Yes. We sit right here, keep the fire roaring, and we wait. Trust me, they’ll be looking for us before daybreak.”
“Not here. We’re still four or five miles north of where we should be.”
“They’ll use a plane to scour the lake, and they’ll see our smoke.”
“You’ll be well on your way to developing pneumonia by morning if I don’t get you settled into a sleeping bag in some sort of shelter.”