It was Valentine's Day when my fiancé, Gavin Pierce, took me out to that survival course in the Catskills — him, me, and Riley Harper, the girl his family took in when she was fourteen, after her parents died.
I'd asked for a table at the Gramercy Tavern. He'd said he hated standing in line for a reservation, that he wanted to do something that actually got our blood moving.
So he booked the three of us into a couples' wilderness challenge — which should have told me something, right there, when the booking was for three.
The final round was a solo penalty draw. One of us would pull the short stick and spend ten minutes locked inside The Freezer.
Riley hooked her arm through Gavin's, half pouting, half flirting. "Gav, if I pull it, are you gonna come get me out?"
Gavin laughed. "Rules are rules, Ri."
She stuck her lip out in a sulk.
Beside her, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Then Riley drew the black stick, and her tears came instantly, like a faucet turning on.
Less than a second later, Gavin spoke.
"It's too dark in here. Drew the wrong one, didn't I?"
He slid the safe stick out of my hand and swapped it with hers — smooth enough that it took me a beat to understand what I'd just seen.
"You're up, Caro."
Riley's tears dried up on the spot.
Gavin turned and murmured close to my ear, "Come on. Riley has a thing about tight spaces. You're tough. Ten minutes. You'll be fine."
This wasn't the first time Gavin had dropped me the moment it counted.
I looked down at the cold already seeping through the soles of my boots, and the phone sealed in my waterproof pouch lit up.
It was the man my father had been quietly pushing on me for months.
[Valentine's Day, Miss Langley. Have you made up your mind?]
