Chapter 2: Less than Zero
As they were lying down by the fire, Liz was suddenly wide awake. She was still so tired but she'd woken up because of her knee hurting like crazy. She was also still shivering and she felt Red doing the same thing next to her.
She actually liked that she was awake so she could savour this moment. She hated to admit it but she loved the fact that Red was curled up next to her, his arm wrapped around her in an attempt to get warm. She felt his breath on her temple and even though it was warm and felt great, it also gave her goose bumps.
She shivered again and felt Red's arm tighten around her. From his breathing she could tell that he was fast asleep and even though she really wanted to stay awake a little bit longer, she fell back to sleep again….
Liz woke up the second time from feeling cold and when she opened her eyes she saw that the fire had almost died. She had pushed away the blanket to get up to put some more logs on the fire when she saw it. Her eyes caught a glimpse of some wood, but not the kind you'd put on the fire.
She saw a huge bulge in Red's pants and the sight of it made her flush. Oh my god, it looks so….big, Liz thought. She caught herself staring and quickly looked away. As she got up, hopping on one leg, she heard Red stir and he asked where she was going.
She replied, "Just putting some more wood, er, logs on the fire". Liz had her back towards Red and she closed her eyes, cursing at herself. Nice one Liz, she thought. Red chuckled softly at her words and covered himself with the blanket.
Liz came back to bed and had trouble keeping a straight face as she lay back down next to Red. "Did you get any sleep?" Red asked. "Yeah, I think I slept for a while. Not sure how long though" Liz answered. "My knee is killing me. It's throbbing and aching so badly".
"Let me have a look" Red said as he carefully took her leg and put it over his.
He rolled up her trouser leg above her knee and took a closer look.
"Oh, this really doesn't look good. It's very swollen" Red ascertained. "Hold on" he said as he got up and walked over to the kitchen where he grabbed a clean cloth. He went to the door, opened it and grabbed a few icicles that were hanging from the porch's roof.
He broke them into a few pieces and wrapped them in the cloth. He then smashed the cloth against the worktop in the kitchen, so the ice was smashed into small pieces.
"Ok, this will do. Sorry, but this will be very cold" Red said as he carefully placed the cloth on her injured knee.
"God!" Liz yelped but soon she felt the heavy throbbing fade and she was grateful for Red's inventiveness. Red had started to slowly caress the area just around her knee and it was a lovely feeling. She couldn't believe how sweet and gentle Red was being and got a bit tearful.
Red kept stroking and softly massaging her leg and she closed her eyes in quiet enjoyment. A soft moan slipped from her lips and Red immediately stopped what he was doing. "I am so sorry…. did I hurt you?" he asked sweetly.
"Eh, just a little…but it's ok" Liz said.
She hated to lie to him and let him think that he'd hurt her, but she didn't want him to know that the moan he heard was from pleasure, not pain. "Maybe it's too early to be rubbing your leg, it's too sensitive, I'm sorry", Red said as he carefully put her leg down.
Dammit, Liz thought, I shouldn't have said that he hurt me; I loved the feeling of his hands on me.
"Just stay here and let the ice do its job", Red said, giving her a smile as he got up. "I'll go make myself useful and fix us some breakfast".
He walked over to the kitchen area and started to give the cupboards an inspection to see what he could prepare for them. Thinking about breakfast suddenly made Liz's stomach rumble. They hadn't had a proper meal for well over 12 hours except for some beans the night before so she felt famished.
Red decided on making pancakes. He found some long-life milk and pancake mix and after finding all the supplies he needed, he started to work his magic. Liz probably has no idea that I can actually cook, Red thought to himself with a smile.
He mixed the milk with the pancake mix and made a few perfect, golden pancakes. He plated them, three for Liz and three for himself, and made his way back to where Liz was still sitting near the fire. He went back to get some sugar and syrup that he had found and went to sit with Liz to enjoy their breakfast.
Liz couldn't help but be amazed at the pancakes she had in front of her. She wasn't a big fan of pancakes, but didn't have the heart to tell Red. Tom always made them for her, but she never really enjoyed eating them. These looked delicious however and they smelled so good.
As she took her first bite, Red was watching her every move. He knew he was a good cook and was delighted to be able to show Liz. To be fair, these were only pancakes, but very good ones at that. And he was sure that he would be able to show more of his skills later on.
"Oh-my-god!" Liz said, "These are the best pancakes I have ever had!".
Red beamed at her. "I am glad you like them", he chuckled, before they ate the rest in silence.
Liz ate all three of them in record time and she felt so much better afterwards. She gave Red a big smile, "Thank you so much for that, they were heavenly".
"You are very welcome", Red said while giving her a playful wink. He was getting up, holding the plates, "now, I really want to go out and see if I can find a phone signal in the area".
He put the plates in the sink and looked outside, holding the curtain. "Hmm, I really need some more clothes before going out". He started to go through the closet in the bedroom, where he only had a quick look yesterday, while looking for blankets and pillows.
He was lucky, because he found a nice, warm sweater and a thick coat, a woollen hat and some gloves. "Ok, this should do".
He started to put on everything he found and went looking for his phone. Liz had to giggle at the way Red looked and she would have given anything to be able to take a picture of him. He looked ridiculous with all those layers of clothes on. Although, he looked kind of cute as well to be honest, she thought…
"So, I will see how far I'll get in this weather. If we're lucky I'll find a signal nearby", Red said while putting some boots on. "You just stay here, sit tight and I'll be back as soon as I can, ok?".
Liz nodded, "Just be careful out there, I don't want to end up alone in this cabin and I can't come looking for you", she said in a worried tone. Red turned around and walked towards her, "Don't you worry sweetheart, I won't go far…".
He had to suppress the urge to go to her and hold her. To hold her head between his hands and look her deep in the eye and tell her that everything was going to be ok. To lean in to kiss her gently on her beautiful lips… Stop it! Red told himself; this is not the time or the place to be thinking things like that. He turned and went for the door. "Bye", he said, without looking back.
Opening the door caused a cold wind to sweep through the cabin and Liz shivered involuntarily. Once Red was outside, he pulled the door closed and looked around. All he could see was trees and white.
He tried to figure out which way to go first, but since he had no idea, he went left and just hoped for the best. The moment he took a step off the porch of the cabin, he was knee-deep in the snow. Damn, this was going to be hard to get through he thought.
As he ploughed his way through the snow he was already breathing heavily after taking only about fifteen steps. It was also a lot colder than he had anticipated and even though he was covered in several layers he could feel the cold creeping in. He looked back and saw that he was still quite close to the cabin.
He took out his phone, hoping that he was lucky but unfortunately there was no signal. He kept going and kept checking his phone every now and then but he found no signal. He decided to go back so he could walk in the other direction, but when he got near the cabin he was already exhausted.
He didn't want to give up though, so he gathered his strength and energy and walked the other way, to the right of the cabin.
After being outside for over an hour and not being able to find any signal he decided to go back. He couldn't feel his fingers and toes anymore and it got harder and harder to breathe.
The closer he got to the cabin, the more it dawned on him that he and Liz were in quite a situation. No one knew where they were and they had no way of contacting anybody. They had plenty of food so they could stick it out for a while, but he wasn't sure what to do at this point.
The moment he stepped back into the cabin he could hear Liz let out a sigh of relief. "How did it go?" she asked, "I got really worried, you were gone for so long".
Red started taking off his cold, wet clothes "Well, no luck on the signal I'm afraid. I went both ways but couldn't find anything. Can you please throw some more logs on the fire, I am freezing", Red said while taking off the last of his wet clothes and going for his dry ones.
He quickly went to sit down by the fire, in an attempt to warm up. He started flexing his fingers and toes, hoping to get the blood flowing.
He started blowing warm air in his hands.
Liz took his hands between hers "Here, let me. I have warm hands". Red was taken by surprise but didn't complain.
Her hands felt warm and soft and Red felt his whole body respond and warm up immediately. She gently rubbed his hands until she felt them warm up under her touch. "There you go", she said as she released his hands and gave Red a shy smile.
"Thank you, that's much better", Red returned a smile, "but I just realised that I should have gotten some more logs from the shed; our pile here is shrinking quickly".
He got up and proceeded to put on his sweater, jacket and boots again. "I think I'll go and chop some more wood while I'm at it as it looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while".
"I wish there was something I could do", Liz said. "I hate the fact that I'm just sitting here being useless and you're having to do everything".
"You just get that knee better first before you start doing things around here. I'll be fine sweetheart, don't worry" Red assured her.
He went outside to the side of the cabin to get some more logs to put on the pile inside. After doing that he went out again and soon found the axe he was looking for.
In the shed he found big pieces of wood that were there, ready to be hacked into smaller pieces. He saw a wheelbarrow and loaded a few pieces of wood into it and went to the chopping block he'd seen earlier.
It took him a few tries before he got the hang of it but after that he was on a roll.
After a short silence Liz started to hear chopping sounds and carefully got to her feet. Curiosity had gotten the better of her and she just had to see Red handling an axe.
She smiled to herself at the mental image she got and slowly made her way to the kitchen window. She carefully pushed the curtain aside and peeked out.
She saw Red in full action mode. Holding the axe with a tight grip and chopping the wood into pieces like a pro. He then picked up the smaller pieces, threw them in the wheelbarrow and got a big piece to put on the chopping block again. She watched him repeat this process a few times.
She realised she was getting all hot and flushed just watching him. Especially once she noticed how he had gotten sweaty from this hard labour because of the many layers of clothes he was wearing.
Red was wiping his forehead with his sleeve and had to take a break for a second. Man, it was freezing outside and yet he was sweating like crazy. Just as he picked up the axe to start chopping the last few blocks of wood he saw the curtain move.
What was that? Was Liz watching him? He decided not to pay attention to it and to finish his work so he could go back inside as quickly as possible.
By the time Red came back inside it was already getting dark again. He decided to take a shower after all the sweating he had done. As he went to the small bathroom and started to take his clothes off, he wondered whether he should ask Liz about watching him.
Why would she do that? Or did he see something that wasn't there? Did he subconsciously want her to watch him? He decided against asking her and stepped into the welcome, warm spray.
Red wanted to prepare a nice dinner but he was too tired after the busy day he had. "I hope you don't mind having some canned food again? I am just too exhausted to prepare something good right now", Red asked Liz. "Sure, no problem! Anything will do", Liz said with a smile.
After making them a quick dinner, they were sitting in bed, Liz listening to the many stories Red had to tell. Every story seemed to be straight out of a fiction novel, one story stranger than the other. He told her about his adventures in all kinds of countries around the world whilst being the "Concierge of Crime". Liz loved every second of it and was enjoying spending time with Red without being on the job.
After a while they laid down as Red continued to talk. Without even thinking about it, they snuggled close to each other as Red finished up his last story. "Well, that's it for now, the rest of my stories will have to wait" Red whispered in Liz's ear.
He couldn't believe she was snuggled up in his arms and not protesting about it. He closed his eyes and could feel himself drift off almost immediately.
Liz felt Red's arms around her and heard him whisper in her ear. Mmmm, she could lie like this forever, she thought to herself. "Goodnight Red", she said.
"Goodnight darling". They dropped off to sleep just before midnight again, the grandfather clock chiming away reassuringly.