Heart Of A Husband. Kathryn Alexander

He’s the only reason I found you. I could barely see your car down in this ditch from the road.” He put his arm around her shoulders for support. “Are you all right?”

      “Yes. I haven’t been out here very long.”

      “It doesn’t take long to freeze to death in this kind of weather, Joanna,” he responded sharply. “We’ve got to get home.”

      “But the car…” She glanced over her shoulder at the stranded vehicle.

      “We’ll take care of it tomorrow. Let’s go,” he ordered.

      The wind howled around her ears, and she gripped Jake’s arm tightly as they began climbing the embankment. Trudging through the snow, every step felt heavier than the one before it. The incline was only several feet high but very steep, and it loomed like a mountain before Joanna’s eyes. Gusts of frigid air whipped her face so that she could scarcely catch her breath, and she put her gloved hand over her mouth.

      At the top of the embankment, Jake stepped up onto the icy road and hauled Joanna up out of the snow. She lost her footing when her boot hit the slick pavement, and she fell against him. Reaching for the side of his car, Jake braced them from the fall as another fierce arctic blast rocked them.

      Jake pulled open the driver’s door, shouting over the raging wind. “Get in! Hurry up!”

      Joanna crawled into the small car, over the gearshift and onto the passenger seat. Her nearly frozen limbs restricted her to slow, awkward movements. Immediately, Jake climbed in behind the steering wheel and slammed the door to cut off the bone-chilling air. The motor was still running and the warmth from the heater filled the automobile, stinging Joanna’s fingertips.

      “Give me your hands,” he instructed, and she removed the soggy gloves, letting them fall onto the floorboard. Taking her hands in his, he rubbed them briskly. Jake raised them to his mouth to blow warm breath over them, and the friction gradually caused more feeling to return to Joanna’s fingers.

      “Better?”

      “It hurts,” she replied.

      “It will stop eventually. What in the world were you doing out in this storm?”

      “Going to work,” she responded hesitantly and pulled her hands away from him.

      “To work? I could have told you the only place you were going was right into the nearest ditch.”

      “But this is my first day, Jake. If I don’t show up, I might lose this job.”

      “Then lose it. No one can go anywhere in weather like this.” He turned on the windshield wipers and edged his car from the side of the road. “You’ve probably never driven on roads this icy before today. How could you expect to drive in an actual blizzard?”