Read A Wee Dose of Death for Free Online Page B

the ordeal of getting his broken leg splinted, but he knew the heat would begin to leach out—had already begun to, in fact. There’d be a fire. Surely the people who’d skied ahead of him would have started a fire there.
    He laid his head down on his gloved hands to catch his breath. Just a minute to rest. Maybe two minutes. Then he’d get started.
    A long while later Mac raised his head and stared with bleary eyes at the snow sifting onto him. Had he fallen asleep? Something had woken him, some sound, but he couldn’t place it. At the top of the hill in front of him, he saw a blur of movement, something dark. He had the crazy—no, it was insane—thought that maybe it had been a person disappearing behind the crest. He called for help, but his voice came out more like a croak than a yell. Whoever it was couldn’t have heard him. He could have sworn he’d seen a knitted cap sinking out of sight. That was impossible. Whoever it was, if it had been a person, would have stopped to help.
    Mac’s eyes gradually cleared and he looked around him. He’d obviously been asleep. There was another inch of snow. For now, all he heard was silence.
    It wasn’t far, but getting to the top of the incline seemed to take hours. He peered over the rise and spotted the small cabin in the clearing. One set of skis stood propped up to the right of the door. He called out, but nobody appeared. There wasn’t any smoke from the chimney, so maybe one of the two guys whose trail he’d been following was out collecting firewood.
    Mac took a deep breath, noticing the almost buried tracks of the second skier who had moved off the trail a few yards to the right. Probably wanted to take a quick pee against one of those trees. Those tracks rejoined the first set of trackspartway down the incline. Mac could clearly see the outhouse on the far side of the clearing. Couldn’t the guy have waited that long?
    He shouted, but nobody came to the open door. He was probably hard of hearing. Mac was having trouble getting enough breath. Damn. This would be over soon, though. Once the guy in the cabin called for help, Mac would be okay.
    The backpack weighed four tons now. Even though it took him two tries to make it only one foot farther along the path, at least from here it would be downhill, and he wasn’t talking about skiing. He wanted a fire. He wanted shelter. He wanted help. And they were all just a hundred feet away. A hundred agonizing feet.
    *   *   *
    I turned from the window. “This snow looks too good to pass up.” I picked up a skein of neon pink yarn as I passed the table at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going skiing.”
    â€œI will go wi’ ye.”
    I turned on the bottom stair and looked him over. His sleeves were rolled up above his elbows. He had hand-knit stockings that came almost up to his—I had to admit it—gorgeous knees, but he probably didn’t have anything on under his kilt. I stopped that thought before it could progress. “Stay here. You’re not dressed for it.”
    He tilted his head to one side. His mouth was open. “Surely ye jest.”
    I slapped the newel post. “I’m not kidding, Dirk. It’s probably five below out there.”
    â€œBelow what?”
    â€œDidn’t you have temperatures back then?”
    â€œ
Temprachoors
? What would they be?”
    â€œYou know. Fahrenheit. Or did you use Celsius?”
    Dirk looked at me like he thought I’d lost my mind.
    I spoke slowly, as if he were five years old. “How on earth did you know how cold it was outside?”
    The kilt pin holding his plaid over his shoulder—it was made of antler—moved as he took a deep breath. “The snow was one indication. If ’twas melting, the day was becoming warmer. If ’twas like this”—he turned to look out the window—“we’d have a wee fire. Even a