Fuck. My coat was caught on something inside the footwell. I couldn’t pull my arm out. And I didn’t have a free hand to unfasten my coat and shrug it off.
Beckett’s head appeared over the edge of the cliff. “She’s out! Climb up!”
God, she was so beautiful. But I’d got what I’d wanted. What I deserved.
“I can’t,” I told her. “I’m caught.”
The car slid slowly forward... taking me with it.
31
Amy
I FUMBLED for my flashlight and shone it so that I could see him without blinding him. He looked up at me with a strange sort of calm. “It’s alright, Beckett.” The car slid inexorably forward. “It’s okay.”
I knelt there staring down into those blue eyes. He’d always been going to go out like this, risking his life to save a patient. His path had been mapped out long before I’d ever met him. He was like some comet on a collision course with a planet, blazing across the galaxy with just enough drinking and jokes and sex to ease his pain until impact. He should have sped straight past me: I’d only been drawn into his orbit by chance. And it was ridiculous to think someone as tiny and insignificant as me could alter his trajectory.
“Get Sophie down the hill,” he told me.
I stared, tears coursing down my cheeks and melting the snowflakes that had settled there.
And I decided.
“No!” I snapped viciously. I wasn’t going to let this wonderful, big-hearted man go. I didn’t care how hopeless it was, or how dangerous it was. I grabbed Sophie by the shoulders and dragged her through the snow to the back of the car. “You press down!” I snapped, pointing at the trunk. “You press that thing down, no matter what!”
She nodded and put her weight on the back of the car. It kept sliding, but it slowed a little.
I put my flashlight between my teeth and took out a scalpel. Then I climbed back into the car through the rear door.
Corrigan saw what I was doing and came to life. “NO!” he roared. “No! Get out of there!”
By now I was wriggling between the front seats. I am not letting him die.
“BECKETT!”
I shoved my head and shoulders into the footwell. The movement made the car tip forward, sliding faster. “I can’t hold it!” yelled Sophie from behind me.
“BECKETT, GET OUT OF THERE!” Corrigan’s voice was raw and fractured.
My hands were shaking. The light from the flashlight was jerking and twitching as I panted, lighting up dirt and torn carpet and candy wrappers, twisted metal and—
There! Poking in through the mangled steel, a hand. I grabbed it and squeezed it.
The car lurched and tipped.
I saw the loop of orange fabric that was snagged. Slashed it free with my scalpel. The hand withdrew and was gone.
I twisted and climbed. As my shoulders pushed between the rear seats, it registered that I was climbing, clawing my way up a forty-five degree slope: the car had tipped right up and was going over. I kicked and twisted and scrambled, focusing on the open rear door and the moonlit forest that was moving horribly fast past it—
I fell out onto the snow, one arm and one leg hanging over the cliff. I rolled to safety as the car’s bumper slid almost silently past my head and the whole thing disappeared into the blackness. I looked around. Sophie was lying gasping in the snow. There were tire tracks where the car used to be. Nothing else.
A few heartbeats of total silence and then an almighty crash from below: shattering glass and tortured, screaming metal.
“Corrigan!” I clawed my way on my forearms to the edge, hoping, praying….
And looked down into his upturned face. For a few seconds, we just stared at each other. Then he got one hand up onto the cliff edge and I pulled and he heaved and he clambered up. As soon as he was there, he just grabbed me and rolled me into a full-body hug. He was on top of me and the whole of me was pressed against the whole of him, my face buried in the crook of his neck, his arms locked so tight around my back that it felt like he’d never let me go. I felt his words as hot rushes of air against the back of my neck. “That’s not what you do, Beckett! That’s not what you do, you eejit! You’re meant to be safe! Why did you do that?!”
I pulled back from him enough to look into his eyes. “Why do you want to die?” I searched his face for answers. “You’re good and a great doctor and I really like you!”
He stared at me and went silent. His eyes were imploring me not to do this, not to tempt him. I knew I was tearing him in two, but what was this blackness I was dragging him away from? What had hold of him so tightly that he was ready to let it drag him down to his death?
A noise shattered the silence. Distant and muffled by the snow, but recognizable: a car horn. The snow plow was here.
Corrigan got to his feet, his eyes never leaving mine. He reached down, grabbed my hand and hauled me up, but he didn’t let go of my hand. His strong fingers squeezed mine, over and over, and I could feel the tension all the way up his arm. He was a hair’s breadth from jerking me forward and kissing me. “Come on,” he said at last. “We have to get her down the hill.”
I nodded. But this wasn’t over and we both knew it. We couldn’t continue like this: the tension between us had ratcheted too high. Either he’d manage to break free of what was holding him back...or I’d lose him forever.
32
Amy
STRAPPED to the side of the medical bag was a folding backboard and we used it as a stretcher to carry Sophie. She’d passed out again, from the cold or the effort of helping save Corrigan, and her skin was frighteningly pale. Corrigan was right: we had to get her down the hill to the snow plow, now.
But carrying the stretcher through thigh-deep drifts was a frozen, heart-stopping hell. The snow was getting heavier and it blew into our faces, half-blinding us and numbing our skin. My scrubs were long-since soaked through and the snow felt as if it was pressing against my bare legs, turning my thighs and calves into lumps of concrete. I soon had no feeling in my feet and that made it impossible to get a sure footing. With the path twisting its way downhill, that led to some terrifying moments because, when one of us slipped, we didn’t have a hand free to stop ourselves. By halfway, my shoulders were on fire, my legs were screaming and my abdomen was burning from trying to stabilize me.
Corrigan was almost a silhouette in front of me: I could just see some of his black hair, shining in the moonlight, and the edges of his broad shoulders where the falling snow whipped past them. I could see the tension in him: he knew I was watching him. Every hundred yards or so, he’d look back to check I was okay and the need, the longing in his eyes was breathtaking. A battle was going on inside him and all I could do was keep shuffling forward and wait and hope and pray.
Finally, the snow started to turn amber as the glow from the snowplow’s lights trickled through the trees. I’d started to shiver and couldn’t stop, and my fingers were gripping the backboard so hard, afraid of dropping it, that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let go.
We emerged from the forest and there it was: a big yellow double cab pick up with a snow plow mounted on the front and emergency lights on the roof. Krista was riding shotgun and she and the driver jumped out when they saw us. Krista ran over, gently pried my fingers from the backboard and took my end. I wanted to hug her. I’ve never been so glad to see her in my life.
Between the four of us, we got the backboard into the bed of the pickup truck: it would be cold, but it wouldn’t take them long to get back to the hospital now that the roads were clear. Krista knelt down in the back of the pickup to keep an eye on Sophie. “I got this,” she said, waving me towards the cab. “You’re frozen, you take the cab.”
I eased my freezing body into the pickup. The warmth hit me like I’d stepped into a sauna. And the dryness, the simple pleasure of not having snow hitting my cheeks and forehead, for the first time in what felt like hours….
And then a second wave of warmth hit me, this time throu
gh my thighs and ass and I groaned. Heated. Seats. I seriously considered stripping my soaked pants off right there and then and the hell with modesty.
And then I looked up and saw that Corrigan, instead of getting into the rear of the cab, was about to close the door.
“I’ve got to go back for my car,” he said. “We might need it.”
I stared, open-mouthed. I knew exactly what this was: he couldn’t take being close to me, feeling like we felt. But that meant he was going to walk off into the darkness: two miles through the snow, alone.
He slammed the door and stepped back. The driver started to turn the pickup around. Corrigan backed away and then turned and headed back up the hill.
The driver got the pickup pointing towards town and the hospital. Home. All I had to do was sit tight and I’d be safe and warm. We began to accelerate. Outside, Corrigan’s orange parka had almost disappeared into the night….
“Stop!” I threw open my door. “Wait! Sorry! Stop!” The driver pulled up and I was out before we’d even stopped moving, stumbling in the snow, the cold even more of a shock after the few moments of warmth.
Krista shouted my name but I shook my head. “I’m going with him!”
And I raced after him into the night.
33
Dominic
CLIMBING UP THE HILL was even harder than going down it. I had to lean forward for balance, fighting for grip. The wind was getting up, whipping sounds away from me, and the parka’s hood blocked my ears but I thought I heard someone shouting and then—
Beckett arrived beside me in an explosion of snow and panting. My eyes bugged out. But I left her—
I spun around to see the snowplow’s lights fading into the distance. Shit! She couldn’t be out here with me! The temperature was dropping fast, it was dangerous. I’d have to call them back….
Then I remembered: no cell service. I cursed under my breath and glared at her.
She lifted her chin, resolute. “I wasn’t leaving you out here on your own.”
Damn you, Beckett! But it was myself I was mad at. If I’d just gone back in the snow plow with her and stuck it out, instead of running back into the darkness..... But I was ready to snap. Every time I looked at her, the pull towards her was almost more than I could take. What had happened on the cliff top had made everything jump into high-def, pin-sharp clarity. I was in love with this woman. I couldn’t deny it, but I couldn’t give in. I couldn’t do that to Chrissy and Rachel.
“Come on,” I muttered. “We’ve got to hurry.”
The snow wasn’t just falling anymore, it was blowing horizontally and falling more thickly. By the time we’d made it back to the cliff top, our tracks had been completely covered. I turned a slow circle, trying to figure out which way my car was. I could feel Beckett looking up at me and I knew she wanted to talk. But I picked a direction and set off instead.
The snow came thicker and thicker, the drifts shifting and changing until I couldn’t recognize anything. The temperature had plummeted and I’d started to shake, but I was more worried about Beckett: she’d gone pale and was stumbling as if sleepy, and I knew that meant she was dangerously cold. It felt like we’d been walking too long. Shouldn’t we have reached the car, by now?
Then my shin whacked into something hard. At first, I thought it was a fallen tree, but it was too smooth, too regular. I ran my hand over it. Metal.
As I saw the shape of it, stretching off to the left and right, realization slowly dawned. This must be the fallen cell phone tower. But Earl had said that was right up at the top of the hill. We’d overshot the car by half a mile. Dammit!
Beckett crouched down at the base of the tower, where it had broken. “Look,” she said, raising her voice over the wind.
I looked... and felt a slow, cold sickness rise in my gut. The metal was blackened and scorched. Explosives. It hadn’t blown down. Someone had deliberately cut the town off from the outside world.
I took Beckett’s hand and helped her up. But as she got to her feet, she wavered and almost fell. Fuck! She’d stopped shaking and that was a really bad sign. “Come on, Beckett!” I snapped, trying to sound angry to hide how worried I was. I hooked an arm under her shoulders and supported her, letting her lean against me as we stumbled along. Fuck! Fuck! You idiot, Corrigan! Why hadn’t I got in the snowplow with her? I’d failed to protect her, just like I’d failed to protect Chrissy. If something happens to her….
It felt like an hour before I glimpsed my pickup through the snow. By now, Beckett was just a dead weight, slumped against me. I wrestled her onto the back seat, jumped into the front and started the engine. I had to get her back to the hospital now—
The engine wouldn’t turn over.
I tried it again, but it was utterly dead. Either the cold had killed the starter motor or the gasoline had thickened in the tank. I thumped the steering wheel. Fuck!
I scrambled into the back seat and turned on the light. Oh God: it was worse than I’d thought. She was semi-conscious, barely stirring when I said her name, and her skin was deathly pale. I needed to warm her up, but it was barely any warmer inside than outside: I could see my breath and every surface I touched was freezing. I fired up the heater, but, without the engine running, it was a measly breeze of tepid air.
I lay down with her and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her on top of me. But there were too many layers: the insulation that had kept the cold out also kept my body heat in.
I stripped off my coat and then hers. Pulled her close again. Now I could feel how cold her body was and it scared me. She just soaked up my warmth with no movement, no sign of life. And her scrubs were making it worse, the pants were soaked through with melted snow. I dragged them down her legs and off, pulling her sneakers off, too, trying to ignore the glimpses of long, graceful thighs. When I took her feet in my hands, they were like blocks of ice. “Jesus, Beckett, come on,” I muttered. I could hear the fear in my voice, now. I’d done this. My weakness. I should have been strong enough to just get into the snow plow and resist her.
I started rubbing the circulation back into her with long, hard strokes, trying to get the blood moving in her calves and thighs. Then up her sides, through her scrub top, my palms rubbing the thin material over her waist, her arms, her shoulders. Over and over, working frantically at her, until at last I started to feel the tiniest hint of warmth creeping back into her. At first, it was only in her torso, her body still jealously guarding its heat, keeping it away from her extremities. But as I kept rubbing, as the car gradually warmed from my body heat, her color started to creep back. Her neck turned from white to pink, then her hips and her thighs. I wrapped her up in both coats, using them as blankets while I kept working on her legs. She stirred, then her eyes fluttered open.
“Are you okay?” I asked in a rush. I tried to keep my voice level, but it was useless: I was terrified.
She blinked. Frowned. Experimentally shifted her legs against the coats. “Where are my pants?” she asked.
I wasn’t ready for the wave of relief that hit me. It sliced through me, washing everything else away, then lifting me up and making me heady and stupid. “Oh, Jesus, Beckett,” I croaked. Her face was still so pale. I cupped her cheeks in my palms, feeling my warmth soaking into her—
And then, suddenly, I was kissing her.
34
Amy
I ALWAYS THOUGHT I knew how he’d kiss me. You looked at Dominic Corrigan and you knew how a man like that kissed: with those lips and that attitude, he’d kiss you and he’d own you. It would be brutal and hot, open-mouthed and panting, a kiss that melted your whole body.
But the first kiss wasn’t like that at all. It took me right back to my teenage days. Not to a kiss I’d ever actually had, but to the kiss I’d always dreamed of. That lift-you-up, heart-fluttering kiss that literally takes your breath away because it’s so sudden and impulsive, that kiss that makes you stagger, makes you reel, makes you swoon. He didn’t kiss me to own me, or dominat
e me, or show me how hard he wanted to fuck me. He kissed me because he couldn’t not kiss me.
He kissed me because he loved me.
Hard lips crushing down on mine, a mingled gasp of wonder, shock and need from both of us. Then twisting and moving, every tiny touch of his lips against mine sending a surge of energy through me, my heart racing, my face going hot under his palms.
“Wow,” I croaked as he pulled back to look at me.
“Yeah,” he said. Emotion made the Irish thick in his voice. “Well, it was a long time coming.”
The kiss had taken us both by surprise but it had broken the dam. He stared down at me. I stared up at him—
We fell on each other, him lunging down and me surging up from the seat to meet halfway, chests pressed together and arms tangled around each other. This time, the kiss was urgent and deep, drinking each other in. I was gasping, inhaling the raw spirit of Dominic Corrigan and he was panting down the essence of me. My hands were in his hair, fingers sliding through the thick black locks, luxuriating in them. Then they fell to his shoulders, palms circling on the heavy muscles: God, he was like a wall against me, so big, so solid: I wanted to cling to him, hang off him.
We twisted around each other like eels, unable to keep still. His hands went wild on my back, crushing me to him, exploring the shape of me through my scrub top. Then they found my rump through my snow-soaked panties and squeezed hard. I yelped and wriggled, a bolt of heat twisting through me, and he growled and started stroking my thighs and hips. I let out a strangled groan and kissed him even harder, unable to let go of his lips for more than a second.
The kiss was changing again, turning wild and sexual, turning Corrigan. He sought me out and demanded that I open, and I did... but I did more. I couldn’t be passive, not with this man. I couldn’t just be kissed. His kiss was like a drug that set me free: my hands grabbed at his shoulders, his back, his ass as my tongue met his.
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