Painted Blind (26 page)

“Without the wind chill,” he added. The hair hanging out of his cap was cluttered with ice. We had only an hour of daylight left, then it would get even colder.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Haul your pack over here. I think I can unzip it now and find what we need.” First I found a hand warmer and broke it against my leg before dropping it between Titus’s shaking hands. Then I dug out our battery-operated cooking pot and a non-flammable heat cell. We discovered that all our water bottles were frozen. “What we need is a nice chunk of ice,” I said regretfully.

“I’ll get it,” Titus replied. He pulled his gloves back on and braved the storm again. While he was gone, I found the sleeping bags, some MRE packets and hot chocolate powder.

Titus unzipped the tent door and handed in a chunk of ice just large enough to fill our pot, then shook himself off as he came inside. “I put two more outside the door.” He zipped the tent closed with a shiver. “It does feel a little warmer in here.”

The heat cell would only last a few hours. After that, we had our sleeping bags to keep us warm and another cell to help us thaw in the morning. With some warm food and hot chocolate in us we were finally able to slip off our boots, coats and snow pants and climb into the sleeping bags.

The sleeping bags were rated to fifty degrees below zero, but I still felt cold. There was no way I was parting with my jeans or sweatshirt, despite the fact that I had long underwear underneath. I pulled the top of the sleeping bag over my head and sat up, like a caterpillar in a giant cocoon.

Titus stacked our packs atop one another and rested against them with his legs in his sleeping bag and his hands wrapped around a cup of rapidly cooling hot chocolate.

“Can I sketch you?” I asked.

“You draw?”

“Not very well, but I enjoy it. I have to warn you, though. Portraits aren’t my strong suit.”

“Go ahead,” he answered. “It’s not like I want to move anytime soon.”

I opened my sketchbook to a clean page. My fingers were half-frozen, and holding the pencil was difficult, but sketching helped take my mind off our suffering. When the light faded, we put a lamp between us, and I packed the pencil away. The shading would have to wait.

“So, you sketch often?” Titus asked.

“It’s a school assignment. My art teacher said I would never master still lives and perspectives until I learned to harness the chaos in my head. He assigned me to fill a sketchbook with my own personal therapy, and he would give me a good grade.”

This piqued his curiosity. “And that book is full of the things in your head?”

“Sort of. The process of drawing relaxes me.”

“Will you show me your drawings?”

I shrugged. “They aren’t anything great.” I moved beside him and looked at each page as he went through them.

Titus spent a great deal of time on the first few sketches—my many starts and stops trying to draw Eros and a few random scenes from the palace. Then he came to Eros’s self-portrait. “Wow. That looks just like him. You drew this?”

“No, he saw me struggling with the others, and he finally gave me what I was looking for. I colored it, because it wasn’t right without the violet eyes.”

Titus went through the rest of my sketches until he found the caricatures Eros drew for me the night before. When I explained what they were, Titus threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, I wish I could have seen it. I can imagine this scene perfectly.” He turned to me with a smile. “Your drawings are good, even the one of me,” he said.

“Not as good as these.” I turned to the back of the book and showed him the sketches Eros had done.

“He’s very well trained.” A smile tugged at his lips as I turned each page. “They’re all of you.”

“They’re all of me when I didn’t know he was watching.” I stopped when I reached the final sketch Eros showed me the night before. “So, there’s one more that he wouldn’t let me see last night.”

“Turn the page. Let’s look,” he prompted.

I wondered if it was a mistake to look at all, much less let Titus see it, but I turned the page. The drawing there was a close up of Eros and me. My head was tilted back and my eyes closed. His face was tilted down, his nose against my jaw and his open mouth kissing my neck. Our bare shoulders touched. “Oh…I… uh… didn’t pose for this.”

Titus threw me a glance, then studied the sketch. “It’s…” He searched for the right word and finally said, “hot.”

“Yeah.”

“And, look.” Titus turned the page and showed me ragged edges behind it. “I bet they got hotter. That’s why he took them out.”

“You could send him a text and ask him?”

“No,
you
should send him a text and ask him.” Titus set his empty cup aside and slid farther into his sleeping bag. “Tell him we’re camped for the night.” He closed his eyes.

I dug out the phone and composed a text:
There seem to be sketches missing from my book. Were they more revealing than the last?

The reply I received was a colon and parentheses smiley face. I expected as much, so I gave him our report.

We’re camped for the night. It’s stormy. It will probably be twenty below later
.

After dimming the light, I lay back and closed my eyes. If I were warm I would have fallen asleep immediately, but my whole body was cold. A moment later the phone beeped the receipt of a message. I opened Eros’s reply.

I believe Titus to be an honorable and trustworthy man. Use him if you must.

“What did he say?” Titus murmured.

“Nothing,” I replied. “He’s good at being evasive.”

I had lain perfectly still for hours, my body too tired to move and too cold to let me sleep. Titus hadn’t stirred either, but he was still visible, so I wondered if he was awake. The storm howled around us. It rocked the tent relentlessly. Our heat cell went out, and it was much colder. When I raised my face above the sleeping bag, the moisture inside my nose began to freeze after a single breath. I could never remember a time when I had been this cold, not even when Dad’s truck broke down in the mountains while we were hunting and we had to walk all the way back to the main road. It had been close to zero degrees that day, and I complained the whole way, but that cold was nothing compared to this. I understood the nature of winter well enough to know that when I stopped feeling cold tonight, it would probably mean I was dying.

“Titus,” I whispered. “Are you awake?”

He raised his head from under the sleeping bag. “Yes.”

“I’m still cold, even in my sleeping bag. How about you?”

“Freezing,” he replied.

Where was Eros when I needed him? Probably in Kathmandu in a luxury suite or at Apollo’s palace in Olympus with a roaring fire to keep him warm. I really did not want to blur the lines of my relationship with Titus, but what difference would it make if we were both frozen in the morning? “Do you want to share?” I said finally.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice a little shaken. “Please.” He unzipped his sleeping bag and ushered me inside. He was shivering, and his hands were icy. We each struggled out of our sweatshirts, unwilling to take off much, but knowing that the fewer layers between us, the better. When I snuggled in beside him, he wrapped his arms around me with a sigh. “Warmth. Finally.”

We pulled the other sleeping bag over the top of us and hoped that the double layer plus our body heat would be enough to keep us from freezing to death in the night.

Though it was awkward, I was grateful to be warm. “You know how you said you didn’t understand me?”

“Uh huh.” He was still shaking.

“I don’t understand you either.”

“I explained why I took an oath to serve you.” He forced a lightness into his voice. “But now wouldn’t be a good time to ask me if I regret it.”

“You said I was beautiful.”

“Aren’t you?”

“But, you’re not attracted to me.” If he was, I still couldn’t see it. We had been together two days, and the only time I saw a hungry glimmer in Titus’s eyes was when the waiter at the hotel laid a plate of spaghetti in front of him.

He raised his head and scowled at me. “That bothers you?”

“No, it’s just unusual.”

Titus let his head fall back and stared at the billowing tent ceiling. “You’ve never met a man who wasn’t attracted to you?”

“Not really.”

Now he seemed genuinely confused. “Even Aeas?”

I let out a snort. “Aeas is a Stoic. I can’t get him to smile half the time. He doesn’t count.”

“He does count, as much as me at least. I’m used to being around beautiful women who don’t belong to me. I can appreciate that you’re beautiful without wanting you for myself.” Titus shivered again, and shook me in the process. “And anyway, you’re not really my type.”

Curious, I asked, “And your type is…?”

“Dark hair, olive skin, generous curves.”

I laughed. “I’m
really
not your type.” But in all seriousness, I needed to know for sure. I propped myself up so I could see his face. “So, I’m safe with you?”

Titus looked directly into my eyes and answered, “Completely.”

Satisfied, I lay my head on his chest. “Thank you.”

He rubbed his hands on my back, still trying to warm them. “No, thank
you
for keeping me from freezing to death.”

The storm was still beating the tent when Titus startled himself awake. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he murmured.

I had been sound asleep and felt him jump. He started to push me away, but must have awakened, because I heard him sigh and felt his body relax. “I’m giving you nightmares,” I mumbled.

He pulled the sleeping bag tighter around us. “You’re fine,” he replied. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s morning?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re still pinned down by the storm. Sleep as long as you like.”

I planned to open my eyes, but I couldn’t because I was warm and still too tired to move. Without realizing it, I slipped back to sleep and resurfaced later to hear Titus talking softly.

“The wind has stopped, but it’s still snowing. If the trail is as treacherous as it says on the instructions, there’s no way we can attempt it in this weather. She’s going to have a hard enough time when it’s clear.” He waited for the reply before speaking again. “We have another day. You planned for bad weather. It should be fine.”

He was talking to Eros on the satellite phone. I pretended to sleep, so they wouldn’t hang up.

“She’s tougher than I thought she was,” Titus said. “I honestly didn’t think we would make it up here yesterday, but she wouldn’t quit.” He touched my hair softly. “Uh…” He stammered like he didn’t want to answer. “Yeah, she’s fine.” I felt him wince and wondered if Eros was digging for information that Titus didn’t want to give. “And if that were the case?”

He stopped breathing for a moment. “Of course.” There was a defensive note in his voice. “I’ll let you know when we’re moving again.” He disconnected the call and let out a slow breath.

“Did you tell him I gave you nightmares?”

“No, I left that part out.” He raised up on his elbows. “I’m glad you’re awake. I need to take a walk, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

I sat up and groaned in pain. Every muscle in my body ached. My shoulders hurt from carrying the pack. My arms and legs ached from climbing. My lower back hurt from sleeping on the ground. As Titus moved toward the door, I collapsed back on the ground. The ceiling of the tent was coated white with tiny icicles, the moisture from our breath that had frozen as it rose into the air and clung to the ceiling.

“What’s wrong with you?” Before going out, he put a hunk of ice from outside into our cooking pot.

“Aren’t you sore?” I replied.

“I’m immortal, Psyche. Any damage I did to my body yesterday healed over night.”

I rubbed my aching shoulders. “Lucky you.”

“When I get back, I’ll take care of that.” He ducked outside.

I found the first aid kit, but to my utter disappointment the only medicine it contained was a single package of acetaminophen. I swallowed them without water, since everything had frozen again overnight. I turned on the pot so we could have a warm breakfast. Without the wind, the temperature had risen to a whopping fifteen degrees. Still, it made a difference. Inside the tent it wasn’t as bitterly cold as it had been overnight. I set a couple of packets of scrambled eggs on top of the melting ice in the pot.

Before Titus returned, I moved into my own sleeping bag, which was cold. Now that our lives were no longer in danger, it was wise to put some space between Titus and me.

I had a headache. I wasn’t sure if it was the altitude or the strain I’d put my body through, but I felt miserable. I lay down, trying to find some position that didn’t hurt.

Titus came in shaking snow from his hair. He slipped off his boots at the doorway. In the pack he found some body wipes that were our only baths for the duration of our hike. He had to shake ice out of them before wiping down his hands and face. When he offered them to me I declined. I would rather be dirty than any colder.