“Cort—”
“Not now.” He cut Kaylie off, not wanting to hear more lies from someone who would betray him. Instead of dealing with her, he checked in with Max. “Tell me what’s going. I’m feeling a lot of wind.” He gave his coordinates and his destination.
“Bring it home,” Max said. “It’s a no-go for the next twelve hours in that area.”
Cort listened grimly as Max filled him in with talk about a front that had formed off the coast and was closing fast. Snow mixed with ice, gusts of wind too high for his plane to take. Seventy miles south and moving quickly, gearing up for a head-on collision with the place they were going.
But they were only about ten minutes away from Bill’s property. No point in turning back now. Cort needed answers. He needed to get this damn mess figured out and get the hell away from Kaylie and the way she reminded him of Valerie. Away from all this shit. Get back to his life and just focus on flying.
“You know anywhere to land on Mann’s property?”
“Are you crazy?” Max asked. “You’ve got to turn around.”
“Do you know a place?” Cort ignored Kaylie watching him. The wind was tossing the Cessna around now, howling with a ferocity he didn’t like. His skin began to itch, a sure sign the danger level was getting beyond what he could manage.
“Dammit, Cort,” Max yelled, his voice barely audible over the wind screaming around them. “Don’t be a damn fool. Get the hell out of there.”
Cort didn’t back down. He wasn’t going back. “Tell me where I can land, or I’m just going to put her down and hope I remembered to pay my dues to the Grim Reaper this month.”
“Jesus, man.” There was silence for a minute as Max pulled up the charts. “Yeah, okay. On the north side, there’s a clearing. It’s small, but if you come in just right and the weather’s perfect with good visibility, there’s a slight chance you could land without crashing.”
“That’s all I need. Thanks.” He got the coordinates and then signed off.
Kaylie was clenching her harness. “Turn around. Now. I know you’re pissed about Valerie and me, but that’s not a reason to get us both killed.”
He didn’t answer. His brain was hammering at him to go back. This was more than he had a right to do. It pushed his boundaries. He was smarter than this. Abort.
But Cort didn’t turn the plane. Kept on going. Right into the storm. He could handle it. A few more minutes. That was it.
“Cort! Dammit! What is wrong with you?”
He hunched over the controls, felt the little plane buck harder. She was straining, fighting him hard.
“Cort!”
Valerie. His son. Murder. Old Tom.
If you let her leave Alaska, she won’t come back.
Jackson. His parents. Kaylie’s truck seat. His son. Murder. His wife.
Murder.
“Cort!” Kaylie hit him hard in the shoulder, and he jerked back to the present. The nose of the plane was too low, gravity taking over.
“Shit!” He fought the controls, swearing as he tried to sweet-talk his plane into coming back to him. Something dark flew by the window, and he realized it was a tree. Below tree level already. “Come on!”
He brought her up hard, the plane twisting and lurching as the dark shadows of trees skimmed just below his wing lights. Too much. He had to bring her down. Now.
Kaylie was silent beside him, and he looked ahead, saw a break in the darkness below. The clearing that Max had mentioned?
It better be.
“Hang tight.”
He brought the plane down hard and fast, the wind buffeting her ruthlessly. The wheels hit, bounced, the right wing came up.
Just like before.
With Valerie.
Kaylie grabbed the dash and sucked in her breath, and the sound brought his focus reeling back. He jammed the controls and pulled the plane back. The left wing caught the dirt, jerking the plane, and then it stopped.
They were down.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The silence was overwhelming.
After the screaming winds, the roar of the rain, the shriek of the plane as it fought the storm, the silence was shocking.
Kaylie closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. “Dear God,” she whispered. She tried to peel her hands off her harness, but her fingers wouldn’t release it. She gradually became aware of other sounds. Of the rain pounding against the plane, of branches screeching across the metal, of the creak of the plane as it shifted under the buffeting wind.
Of Cort breathing hard, utterly still beside her.
“How close…?” Kaylie swallowed, her mouth too dry to speak. “How close to dying did we just come?”
He didn’t answer.
Slowly, she peeled her eyes open and peeked at him. His hands were still on the controls, and he was still staring out the windshield. His hair was slick with sweat, his face pale in the dashboard light.
Okay, so it had been close.
Or, given who he was, it was probably the conversation, and not the flight, that had him looking like that.
“Cort?”
He still didn’t look at her.
Kaylie pried her hands off the belt, and attempted to unbuckle herself. It took three tries, because her hands were shaking so badly, but she was finally free. She crawled across the seat and touched Cort’s shoulder. “Hey.”
He turned his head, his face haggard, eyes dead. “Simon.”
Not the flight, then. God, were his nerves made of steel or what? “Simon?”
“Simon Wilson McClaine. Named after Valerie’s dad. It was supposed to be Simon Huff McClaine, after both of our dads, but when she was in the hospital, she filled out the birth certificate without me and changed it.”
Kaylie gently brushed the sweaty hair off his forehead. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I truly am.”
“Valerie wore diamond earrings. All the time. No matter what. Her way of reminding me and all my friends that she was better than we were. That she didn’t belong. That her daddy could buy us all up in an hour and destroy us with the snap of his fingers.”
Kaylie touched her earlobe, understanding now. “I’m not her,” she said evenly.
His hand went to the back of her head, fisting in her hair. “Why do you wear them? All the time, like she did.”
Kaylie winced at the tug in her hair, but she didn’t pull his hand away. “I wear them because my mother always thought it was a waste of money and completely impractical.”
He scowled, and his grip on her hair tightened. “You did it to piss off your mother?”
Kaylie recalled how he said Valerie had hooked up with him just to annoy her dad, and winced. “No, I just…I don’t want to be a climber. I don’t want to be like my family, and I was forced into it for so many years. When I finally couldn’t take it anymore, my goal was to become someone as different as possible from who they were. To wipe out all influences they had ever had on me and become the person I wanted to be.”
His gaze went to her mouth, and there was something hungry in his eyes, something that had her belly tightening. “And did you succeed?” He pulled her closer until his mouth was a mere breath from hers. “Did those diamonds make you into the person you want to be?”
“Yes,” she whispered, even though she wasn’t sure it was the truth anymore.
He stiffened. The he dropped his hand. Turned away.
“Wait!” Kaylie grabbed him. “I’m not Valerie! For God’s sake, Cort, I would never betray you like that! If I married you, if I gave you my word, I would never betray you! I’ve been completely honest with how I feel about everything. I never lied to you!” Tears started to form, and she blinked them back as he reached into the back for his coat, ignoring her. “Damn you, Cort! Damn you for making me care about you, and your son and—”
He grabbed her and pulled her against him, slamming his mouth down over hers.
She froze for an instant, too startled to react.
He broke the kiss immediately, but didn’t let go. Instead, he stared down at her with the darkest of eyes. He said nothing, but his grip tightened on her, the intensity of his gaze holding her immobile. There was such pain in his expression. Heartache and grief and loneliness. Things she knew…all too well.
She laid her hands on either side of his face. “It’s because of my grandpa,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, but his eyebrows raised slightly.
“When I was sixteen, he took me climbing for my birthday. My parents had gone off on another climb that was too rigorous for me, so it was only my grandpa. We were up on the mountain by ourselves, and I was so miserable. I wanted a sweet-sixteen party with boys and dancing and a ruby ring, and instead I was freezing cold with my grandpa on a mountain. For my birthday, my parents gave me a backpack, a carton of oxygen tanks, and a five-day excursion on a barren mountainside in Nepal.”
His hand went to hers, thumbing over her bare fingers. No ruby ring for him to find.
“Two days in, there was an avalanche.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “We were falling, getting tossed around. There was all this snow and branches and rocks, and I couldn’t breathe.”
Cort squeezed her hand, and Kaylie opened her eyes, focusing on his face, the intensity of his gaze, to keep the memories from consuming her.
“I was so scared. I thought I was going to die, to suffocate to death on that mountain. When the avalanche stopped, I was buried. I freaked out—I mean, completely freaked out. But by unbelievable luck, I was barely covered, and I got out. But when I saw where I was…” She started to shake, remembering that feeling. “There was just an endless expanse of snow. My grandpa was gone; all our equipment was gone. It was just me, up on this mountainside, with a broken ankle. It was so much worse than when I’d been left behind when I was eleven, because that time I knew my parents would be coming for me. This time, there was no one.”
Cort’s fingers glided over the back of her neck, rubbing the tension out while he studied her. Listening. Not interrupting. His expression was inscrutable, and she dropped her gaze, reaching out to fiddle with the pocket on his shirt.
“I crawled around for hours, searching for my grandpa. I found him right as the sun was setting. His right hand was sticking out of the snow. I was so excited, I started crying, started to dig him out. His fingers…They were stiff…cold…frozen.” She could still feel that desperation, that hope. “But I kept telling myself it was just frostbite, that he was still alive under all that snow. I dug and dug; my hands were freezing. It took all night, and when I finally got him out…”
Cort’s hand tightened around the back of her neck and she looked up at him.
“I’ll never forget that moment,” she whispered. “Holding my dead grandpa on that mountain, I was so sure I was going to die. I was so alone, and I was so scared, and I was so angry, so mad that I was going to die at age sixteen doing something I didn’t even want to do. Such a stupid way to die. Such a stupid way to live. I promised myself at that moment that if I got off, if I survived, I would never set foot on a mountain again. That I would live the way I wanted, and no one would ever force me to risk my life again.” She closed her eyes. “That I would never let myself love anyone who would die for a high like that. And I would never trust anyone like my parents again.”
Cort’s lips feathered over her forehead, and she lifted her face to his, still not opening her eyes. Just embracing the comforting warmth of his lips brushing over her skin.
“My grandpa left me,” she whispered. “He died, leaving me alone. My parents were off climbing, out of calling range. No one knew what had happened. No one to check in. They all just left me there.”
Cort’s arms went around her, and he pressed his lips to her left eyebrow, and then her right. She leaned into him, let the strength of his body wrap around her. “I was dragging my grandpa’s body down the mountain behind me, and I couldn’t walk anymore. I knew I would die if I stopped. I couldn’t feel my hands, and then I couldn’t even crawl anymore. I just stopped, lay there in the snow, so unbelievably mad that this was the way I was going to die, so angry that the people who were supposed to be taking care of me weren’t there.”
Cort’s hands tunneled through Kaylie’s hair. His touch grounded her, and he kept the nightmare from consuming her as it always did. Cort kept it distant enough for her not to fall apart, though the fear, the loneliness, the pain were all still present. Kaylie could feel the anguish as if were happening now.
“Then I heard this voice. A man. I thought it was God. Or an angel. But someone picked me up and I opened my eyes, and this man, this most beautiful man ever, was looking down at me. He smiled this amazing smile, and he said, ‘I’m going to take care of you, little one.’ And he did. He carried me the whole way down to his camp. Never let go of me. Not even for a minute. Not until the helicopter came.”
She opened her eyes, saw Cort’s face. Real. Alive. Unlike the man who’d saved her, Cort was real. Not a memory, a figment of her imagination. She touched his cheek and ran her finger over his cheekbone, across the ragged growth of a beard. “The man who saved me is the face I see in my dreams. The person who was there for me. Who held me when no one else did.” She touched Cort’s earlobe. “He had a diamond earring in his left ear. A diamond. On a mountain. So impractical.”
Cort cupped Kaylie’s chin and lifted her face, and then he kissed her. A gentle kiss, with soft, warm lips. “I never went on a mountain again,” she whispered against his mouth. “I’ve never been in a real snowstorm since. Not until I got here. Not until we got out of your plane at Sara and Jackson’s cabin.”
Cort trailed his lips along her jawline, to her earlobe.
And then he kissed her diamond earring.
Tears filled her eyes at the gesture, and he pulled back. His eyes were hooded, still haunted. His strong hands spanned her face, and he turned her head slightly, kissed along the right side of her jaw and pressed his lips against her other earring. “Do you remember?” His voice was a whisper against her ear, his breath warm as it teased across her skin.
“Remember what?” She shivered, her belly tightening as he caught her around the waist, pulling her closer.
“Do you remember when I said”—he kissed her earlobe again, then worked his way down the side of her neck—”that the next time we made love, it would be without those earrings?”
Her belly tightened up, and her breath caught. “I remember.”
“You can keep the earrings on.” Then he caught her face between his hands and kissed her.
Cort felt Kaylie’s hesitation as he kissed her. Her body was stiff, her hands still on his shoulders. But she wasn’t pulling away. Not yet.
Cort hooked his arm behind her back. He hauled her close and took control of the kiss. Deeper. Harder. God, she tasted good. Like spring, like flowers, like life.
She was so wrong for him. But when he’d heard her story, something in his chest had broken for that sixteen-year-old girl.
Because that had been him at fourteen, alone at the wreck of his parents, all the blood and—
He swore and broke the kiss, released her, and leaned back against the seat. “Shit.”
Kaylie was still perched on the edge of her seat, staring at him. “Why—why did you stop?”
He turned his head, saw the fullness of her lips, the flush of her cheeks. “God, you look good.” He knew he should get of the plane. Go to Bill’s. End this shit.
But Bill wasn’t going anywhere in this weather, and he couldn’t stop thinking of what Kaylie had been through. So, instead of opening the door of his plane, he caught a lock of Kaylie’s hair and tugged gently.
She allowed him to pull her closer, her eyes uncertain.
“You and me…” He twirled her hair around his finger. “We couldn’t be a worse match. You have a legit beef with my lifestyle. I don’t blame you for hating what I do, for how I live.”
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A small frown puckered between her eyebrows. “I don’t hate you,” she said quietly. “I wish I did. It would be so much easier.”
He lifted his hand to touch her face, then dropped it. “I can’t change. I’m always going to fly. In bad weather. In highrisk situations. A lot.”
She shook her head. “I can’t handle that. I can’t stay here. I have to leave.” She hesitated. “Like Valerie did.”
“I know. I understand that now.” He hesitated at the guilty look on her face. “You—you’re not like Valerie. I get that.”
“Thank God.” Kaylie smiled, a brilliant smile that made something inside his heart ache.
God, that smile. Despite all Kaylie had been through, she still carried a fire Cort hadn’t seen in so long. One he hadn’t felt inside since…shit, too long. “How can you be so alive?”
Her smile faded. “What are you talking about?”
“You.” He turned sideways in his seat, setting his knees on either side of hers, boxing her between his thighs. “You’re a groundie. You’re indoors. You hide from life. But somehow you’ve got more spark than anyone I’ve ever met.”
She shook her head. “Don’t make me into something I’m not. I’m so tired of everyone wanting me to be what I’m not. Can’t you just accept what I am? Just ordinary. I’m not this font of life, of energy. I just want to curl up on the couch with a book and a blanket. I want to be at peace and—”
“No.” He lifted her legs, set them across his thighs, on either side of his hips.
Her eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. “No, what?”
“You’re not ordinary.” He grabbed her butt and hauled her onto his lap, crushing her pelvis against his erection. “I can’t sit back and let you undercut yourself. Yeah, maybe you like to curl up with a book and read. That’s cool. But that doesn’t make you ordinary or weak.” He palmed her back, sliding his hand under her jacket. The wind howled past the plane, and he didn’t give a shit.
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