“.... And in local news tonight, there was an explosion at the Alkali Lake military compound. Sources indicate that it was caused by an overheated generator....”
Covering a yawn with the back of her hand, Marie turned off the TV and stretched her stiff joints. She was seriously beginning to regret her decision to follow through with her New Year’s resolution and go to the gym. She was exhausted. More exhausted than she had been after staying up for the three days straight it took her to drive from her home in Mississippi to the remote cottage in the Rockies that she now called home. It wasn’t as though she even needed to go to the gym. The five kilometer walk she took daily was more than enough exercise.
“Never again,” Marie grumbled, slowly easing herself out of her beloved overstuffed chair that she had bought at a second hand furniture store in town. It was a hideous shade of red, but Marie loved it anyway. It was her favourite piece of furniture.
Placing her hands on her hips, Marie leaned back, arching her spine. She twisted around some, trying to work the kinks out of her back. There was no way that anyone could pay her enough to go back to the gym. Granted, there were a lot of sweaty, mountain men who frequented the gym, but even the possibility of venturing into the spa with one of them was leverage enough to get her to go back.
Marie trudged through the cottage, locking all of the doors and shutting off all the lights. It wasn’t as though a thief would venture so deep into the wilderness to rob her, but Marie felt safer with the doors locked. Her guard dog, Boris, was a great help in that area, too. Ever since she had adopted the rottweiler pup two weeks after her arrival in northern Alberta, Marie felt so much better about living so far removed from civilization.
“G’night, Boris,” Marie murmured, stroking the dog’s head as she passed by him on her way to the bathroom. “Ah’ll call ya up in a few minutes.”
That was another of Marie’s must-do’s. She always had to sleep with Boris in petting distance. He gave her added warmth on those nights that her six blankets didn’t keep her warm enough. When you were born and raised in southern Mississippi it took a little while to get used to the cold. Sixteen months and Marie was still working on it. To keep herself warm every night, Marie wore underwear, thermal underwear, boxers, sweat pants, a tank top, t-shirt, long sleeved shirt, sweat shirt and a pair of thick wool socks. The ironic part was that by morning Marie always ended up in her underwear and the tank top.
Face washed, teeth brushed and dressed in her normal night time attire, Marie headed to the top of the stairs and called down, “Boris, time t’ go ta bed!”
At first there was nothing. Silence reigned supreme in the cozy little cottage. In the time that it took Marie to count to three that all changed. Boris, in the form of a slobbering tidal wave, let out a loud bark and flew towards the stairs. Smirking in his direction, Marie turned and went into her bedroom. It was more like a loft considering it was the only room upstairs and didn’t have any walls or doors to separate it from the rest of the house. That might prove to be a problem if anyone ever came to stay with her, but in the sixteen months that she had been living in the cottage Marie and Boris were the only ones who had set foot inside of the house except for the group of men who had helped her move in. The rugged men of the Canadian north weren’t any more immune to her Southern charm than the boys back home had been.
While Marie snuggled under her thick cover of blankets, quilts and comforters, Boris waited patiently beside the bed, his tail thumping rhythmically on the wooden floor. Once Marie’s head touched the pillow he hopped in and snuggled against her back.
“Sleep tight, Boris,” Marie whispered, snaking her hand out momentarily to stroke his back. After a bit more shifting and tugging, the only part of Marie that was visible was her pale face and a few strands of dark brown hair.
Two minutes later she was out like a light.
Ever the faithful alarm clock, it was Boris who woke her up the following morning. Like he did every other morning that Marie slept past the time he wanted to go outside, Boris planted himself in front of her bed and began licking at her face with his wide, wet tongue.
“Ah’m up.... Ah’m up....” Marie mumbled, feebly waving her hands in front of her face to ward of Boris’s tongue. “Ah’ll let ya out, Boris.”
Boris let out a happy bark and trotted down the stairs towards the front door. Knowing that she had only three minutes before he came back up, Marie quickly pulled her socks, sweat pants and sweat shirt back on. Gathering her nearly waist length hair up in a sloppy bun, Marie stumbled down the stairs towards the kitchen and turned the coffee pot on. She had another chapter of her book due at the end of the week and needed all the energy she could muster to get it written. She had long ago gotten bored of writing cliché romance novels, but her publisher insisted that it was what the public wanted. That meant Marie had to write them. The only real perk was that the money she made writing had enabled her to buy her cottage in the Rockies when most people her age were still in college or university. At twenty-one, Marie had five books published and was about halfway through her sixth.
A head butting against her thigh informed Marie that she had zoned off into another reality and had missed the three minute mark.
“Sorry, sugah,” Marie apologized, crouching down to give Boris a hug before letting him out the back door. Chances were it would be several hours before she saw him again.
After a cup of coffee and a bowl of Count Chocula cereal, a slightly more alert Marie trudged towards the bathroom so that she could wash the last vestiges of sleep away. In Marie’s opinion, showers were the most rejuvenating thing on the planet. No matter how awful her day was, after having a warm shower, Marie always felt a million times better.
“It was a Monday when mah lover told me, ‘Never pay the Reaper with love only’.......” Marie sang as she massaged the lilac smelling suds into her hair. That was something Marie loved about living on her own. She could sing as loud and as long as she wanted. Back home, there had always been someone shouting at her to stop singing and get out of the shower. Marie knew full well that she had an awful singing voice, but she still loved to do it.
Just as Marie was coming down from her room dressed in a pair of jeans and a thick black sweater, she heard the sounds of Boris’s frantic barking. Fearing that something had happened to her dog, Marie bolted towards the back door and threw it open. The blast of cold air made Marie shiver, but she ignored it as she scanned the snowy landscape for the large black dog.
“Boris! Boris, where are ya!” Marie shouted, stepping out onto the back porch.
There was still no sign of Boris so Marie rushed back into the house and yanked on her boots, coat, gloves and a hat. The fact that Boris wasn’t coming back to the house had Marie scared half to death. She loved the hyperactive dog to pieces and didn’t know what she would do if anything happened to him. He was still barking, though, which was a very good sign.
Marie followed to sound of Boris’s barking to about a hundred yards into the forest. He was bouncing around something that lay hidden in the fresh snowfall, sniffing at it every so often as he continued barking away.
“Boris, what on earth got ya so worked up?” Marie asked the dog as she staggered through the snow towards him.
The instant her eyes caught sight of the nearly blue arm, Marie stopped dead in her tracks. It took a moment for her to react and her mind to process anything, but as soon as it did, Marie jumped into action. She flung herself down next to the body and began brushing the light covering of snow from it. There were a few patches of blood on the snow but that didn’t worry Marie as much as the fact that the man wasn’t wearing anything more than a pair of black shorts.
“Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead,” Marie chanted as she labouriously flipped the man over onto its back. Removing one of her gloves with her teeth, Marie pressed her fingers against his chilled throat, searching for a pulse.
At first Marie thought that there wasn’t one. That it was a corpse she was holding in her arms. Just as she was about to give up hope, she felt a slight movement under her fingers. He had a pulse. It was very weak, but it was there nonetheless. Heaving a huge sigh of relief, Marie began the difficult task of getting him back to her cottage.
Hooking her arms under his, Marie clasped her hands in front of his chest and began to drag him towards the cottage. He was a lot heavier than he looked. Heavier than he should have been. Marie had a brother who was at couples inches taller than the mystery man and a little more built and she could drag him around easier than the guy who was presently in her arms.
Boris had quieted down almost as soon as Marie had reached the site and was now in the process of running back and forth between the forest and the cottage, going only as far away from the wooden building as she was.
Marie would never be completely sure how she managed to get the unconscious man into the cottage let alone up to her room. She would have brought him into the living room except she didn’t have a couch big enough to put him on and she didn’t want to lie him down on the floor. Once she got him cocooned under a pile of blankets, Marie scrambled down the stairs and removed her boots, coat and other stuff. After filling a large bowl with warm water, Marie grabbed a towel and headed back upstairs to her room where Boris was faithfully watching over the sleeping man.
Setting the bowl on the bed side table, Marie sat down next to the man and lightly brushed some hair away from his face. His skin was still chilled so Marie dipped the towel in the water and pressed it against the side of his face. Marie felt a huge wave of relief rush over her when the man weakly turned his face away from the towel.
“How on earth did ya get out there like this?” Marie asked the still unconscious man.
There was no response from him. Not that Marie had actually expected one.
It took Marie a few minutes to realize that, although she was getting his face warmer, the rest of his body was still cold. The blankets did nothing because there was no body heat for them to keep in.
“Momma would kill me if she knew Ah was doin’ this,” Marie said to herself as she began unbuttoning her jeans. “Ya need t’ get warm, though, an’ mah health teacher said that the best thing ta do is share body heat. So that’s what we’re gonna do.... Try ta cop a feel and Ah’ll let ya freeze.”