How completely blinded they’d been by snow and wind; how they’d been laughing at the impossible job of shoveling the roof—and yeah, it had been physically taxing and freezing, but they’d still had fun. She’d been laughing, the way she hadn’t laughed in weeks. Then…That sudden paralyzing cold.The wind screaming in her ears.The fear so huge that she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.“It was like a demon, that wind. It sounded as if it were alive, personally attacking us….” Abruptly Emilie realized that she was the only one talking. She still didn’t have the strength of a pansy. When Rick started peeling off her wet, heavy outer clothes, she’d just let him.It really hurt when he first pulled off boots and socks, and her bare feet suddenly started to get sensation back. Her nose, cheeks and chin were all stingingly coming back to life again, too. As Rick yanked off her dad’s old snow pants, then unzipped her ice-crusted parka…she couldn’t have stopped him, didn’t want to.He was shedding her clothes.She was still shedding her fear.Nothing suddenly changed, exactly.
