Read Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2) for Free Online Page B

He was a cornerstone, a lifer, an integral part of this strange little family they’d managed to create for themselves.
    But her?
    She was just a helicopter pilot with a reckless streak. Valuable for the time being, but disposable once she no longer had anything to offer. She could only imagine what would happen if the FAA ended up grounding her.
    No. She could imagine it. That was the problem. Thanks for all your help, Carrie, but we can take it from here. It’s better if you don’t try to contact us again. We’ll remember to give Scott your love.
    Except for that last part, it was the exact message she’d received from the medevac company that brought her to this city in the first place. Without her pilot’s license, she ceased to have anything to offer. She ceased to matter. She ceased to be .
    She forced a smile—another one of those life skills she’d learned was instrumental in making the world believe you weren’t as desperate for love and attention as you seemed—and hoped Lexie wouldn’t look too much deeper. She wasn’t ready to lose her closest friend in Spokane yet.
    “It seems kind of anticlimactic, doesn’t it?” Carrie said, her voice falsely bright. “Just making the doll and walking away? I feel like we should do something more to make the spell hold.”
    “What did you have in mind?”
    Anything that would prolong this moment of bonding and help Carrie forget the underlying heartbreak. In other words, “Do you think we should perform a chant?”
    Lexie appeared pensive as she considered her response. That was one of the many things Carrie loved about her. No matter how ridiculous the question, she played into it as if it were as important as deciding whether or not to invade North Korea.
    “I don’t know any chants,” Lexie finally said, her head angled as she studied the doll. “But it seems like we have to do something more than dress him up.”
    Carrie agreed. “Hmm. Maybe a candle would work. Do you have some on hand? Like those ones that come in the jar with the saints painted on the outside?”
    “I have a cupcake-scented one I like to take in the bath with me,” she said doubtfully. “Would that work?”
    “I don’t see why not. I’ll get the lights. We need better atmosphere.”
    If she was being accurate, what they needed was a lot more than better atmosphere—probably something along the lines of hooded robes and communion with the dead—but there was something about the floral-bedecked house Lexie and Fletcher shared that precluded the dark arts.
    She flipped off the light switches in the living room in hopes of blackening the mood, but since it was barely noon and the piles of snow outside dazzled white, the entire world appeared swathed in diamonds instead. Closing the curtains didn’t help either, what with the sun shifting through the gauzy material in an ethereal way that made it look like God was trying to force his way in.
    Dammit. What did a girl have to do around here to put a curse on an ex-boyfriend?
    To make matters worse, Lexie appeared in the doorway, her hand shielding the flame flickering at the top of an oversized canning jar.
    “Oh, wow,” Carrie couldn’t help saying. “That smells amazing. It’s like a birthday cake exploded in here.”
    “I know, right?” Lexie grinned and set the candle on the ground next to their discarded art supplies and Voodoo Scott, who looked slightly like the Joker with his half-frowny, half-leering face. “Whenever I light it, I’m tempted to eat the wax. I tried dipping my finger in and giving it a quick lick once, but I don’t recommend it. I have a tub of frosting in the fridge in case the urge gets too strong.”
    Of course she did. Lexie was sweet and bubbly. Lexie had glitter glue and emergency frosting and God curtains. That was why her boyfriend quietly worshipped her instead of accusing her of caninicide.
    “Okay.” Carrie took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the scent of baked goods and