She couldn’t put this off a moment longer. Wouldn’t. It was time.
Oliver made her heart swell with want and her soul feel safe.
She just hoped that revealing all her rotten secrets wouldn’t scare him off.
After dinner, they cleared away their plates and returned to the fire. Oliver refilled their glasses and sat at the opposite end of the lounge, his knee up so he faced her. The spice of his cologne drifted between them and she inhaled his fragrance. She’d come to love his scent. She’d come to love a whole lot more about him too. The curl of his lips just before he smiled. The crinkles next to his eyes that deepened when he laughed. The intensity in his eyes when he looked at her. And he did look at her—really truly look at her, like he was reaching into her mind.
“Thank you for a wonderful day.” He placed his hand on her leg. “I haven’t had that much fun in years.”
Her heart did a little dance. “I was thinking the same thing.” She curled her foot up and rubbed her toes beneath her sock, trying to get some feeling back in. Since the accident, she’d had trouble with circulation in her left foot.
“Here, let me.” Oliver put his glass down, and she had no time to pull away as he reached for her foot.
Before she knew what was happening, he began peeling off her sock. If he noticed the scar on her ankle, he didn’t indicate, but she braced for the moment he saw her toes. However, at the same time, she knew this was the moment she’d been waiting for.
He gasped and his eyes flicked from her foot to her face. “My god. What happened?”
She too stared at her foot. Even after all these years, she couldn’t get used to the absence of two toes.
Oliver reached up and placed his hand on her upper thigh. “Amber, I can tell there are things you don’t want to talk about, but I’d like to know everything about you.”
Little butterflies danced across her stomach at the sincerity in his eyes. “I don’t want to ruin our perfect day with my shitty story.”
“It’s not going to ruin our day. I promise.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, finally ready. “It’s a long story.”
He reached over her thigh and grasped her hand. “Lucky for us then. We have an entire night. Not to mention loads of alcohol and a lovely fire.”
He was right; there may never be a better time. Oliver released her hand and gently ran his knuckles up the instep of her foot. It was a caring sensuous movement and she sighed from his touch. It took a couple of thumping heartbeats before she found her voice. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He tilted his head but remained silent. The time had come, and although she’d been dreaming of telling him for months, she still didn’t know where to start. She decided to get one of the biggest shocks out of the way. “Have you ever heard of Milton Ashcroft?”
He frowned, but also nodded. “His name’s familiar, but…”
“He was my fiancé.” She waited for his reaction, but there wasn’t one, so she continued. “Four years ago, Milton and I, and his son Kane, took a helicopter flight over the Canadian Rockies. The helicopter crashed—”
“Oh, that’s where I know his name from. I remember now. It crashed into a crevasse. Only one survivor.”
She nodded. “Me.”
The green in his lovely irises darkened but he remained silent.
“I fell from the helicopter and landed on a ledge in the crevasse. Milton did too…” As she fought the dimpling in her chin, Oliver continued to massage her foot in silence, displaying extraordinary patience.
“Kane also fell from the helicopter, but he fell so deep into the crevasse I never saw or heard him again.”
“Was Milton alive?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. He was on the other side of the crevasse, about fifteen feet away, so I couldn’t reach him. He didn’t move, though, and there was blood on the snow.”
“Oh jeez.”
“You know what his last words to me were?”
Oliver frowned and shook his head.
“He asked me if I was having fun.” She shook her head.
Oliver looked like he was as pained over Milton’s last words as she’d been when he’d said them.
“But I wasn’t,” she clarified. “From the second I sat in the helicopter, I had this terrible feeling something bad was about to happen, but I couldn’t say anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because…death follows me, Oliver.” She blurted it out.
“What do you mean?”
“Death follows me. My whole life I’ve been surrounded by it. When I was four years old my little brother was born, but he died three weeks later from SIDS.”
“Oh, Amber, that’s not—”
She cut him off. “My dad died when I was nine. In a workplace accident.” She inhaled long and deep, ready to divulge the rest. “My best friend in college died in a freak Jet Ski accident. Even my first pet, Romper, died as a puppy.”
Oliver reached for her hand and squeezed. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
“Then Milton and Kane, and then my mother. See? Death—”
“Your mother?”
“Mom died when I was in the coma.”
“You were in a coma?”
She sighed. It was obvious she wasn’t explaining herself very well. She took a big gulp of champagne and huffed out a breath. “Sorry, there’s a lot to take in. I’ll start again.”
“Hang on, let me grab that bottle. We need a top off.”
He pushed off the couch, then bent over and kissed her on the lips. “Thank you.”
She blinked up at him. “For what?”
“For telling me. For trusting me.” A lovely smile curled his lips. “For being you.” He turned, and as she watched him stride to the fridge she tried to catalogue all the retched events in her life into something that would make sense.
He returned with the bottle and topped off the glasses. “I can’t believe you can rock climb without two toes.”
She chuckled. “It’s not that hard.”
“I bet it’s not easy either.” He resumed his positon on the couch and reached for her foot again. “Tell me about the crash.”
She nodded. He’d obviously wanted some sort of order to her story. “Milton had decided that we’d do a mountain picnic.”
“Sounds romantic.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hardly. We had his son with us. He was seventeen and a spoiled brat.”
“Seventeen?” His eyebrows bounced upward and she knew what he was thinking.
“Milton was twice my age.”
When Oliver didn’t comment she carried on. “Milton paid the pilot a ridiculous amount of money to take the helicopter to the western face of Whiskey Mountain so we could watch the sunset while we picnicked. It didn’t matter that the pilot said no one had landed a chopper there before. Milton just paid him more.”
“That’s right. I remember there being a huge uproar about how stupid the pilot had been.”
“Huh, was there?”
He frowned at her. “You don’t remember?”
“I was in a coma, but I’ll get to that. So we took off and flew for just over half an hour, but while Milton and Kane looked to be having the time of their lives, I was petrified.”
Oliver massaged her feet and toes. If he had any apprehension about her amputated digits, he didn’t show it.
“We passed between these two rock towers.” She used her hands to demonstrate the pillars. “But the second we crossed to the other side, the wind hit us. The pilot couldn’t hold it and we fell from the sky like a brick. When we hit the ground it opened a giant crevasse and the helicopter fell into it.”
“Jesus, Amber. I can’t imagine it. What happened then?”
“Kane fell through
the windshield. I can remember his screams like it was yesterday. But then I fell too. I thought I was dead, you know.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“No, I guess there aren’t too many people who would.”
“You were so lucky.”
Lucky? It was a thought-provoking word. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have been in that helicopter crash.
She went on to explain where had Milton landed, and the fire in the helicopter, and how the pilot’s screams were so piercing they echoed through the chasm. “I covered my ears; I couldn’t stand it. That’s when the helicopter exploded.”
“Shit!”
In minute detail she spoke about finding Milton gone, and when a tear trickled down her mutilated cheek he nudged forward and pulled her to his chest. She sobbed in his embrace, and it didn’t seem at all strange that she was crying for another man.
When she couldn’t cry anymore she pushed back and offered a lopsided grin. “So there you go.”
He blinked a few times. “That’s not the end. You haven’t told me about how you got your scar and lost your toes, or how you were rescued.”
She chuckled. “Haven’t we had enough misery for one night?”
“Not even close. It’s time for port. Do you drink port?”
“I’ve never tried it.”
“Perfect. I like that I’m showing you something new.” While he went to the kitchen, she took the opportunity to go to the bathroom and check her eyes. She’d done her fair share of crying and knew exactly how bad she looked after it. Today was no exception. She washed her face, holding a cold cloth to her closed eyes for a few moments. It made very little difference. She dried off with a towel and when she returned, Oliver was placing another log on the fire. He’d also put a box of chocolates onto the table, with two port glasses that he’d filled to the brim. He raised a glass to her as she approached. “Here, try this.”
She inhaled its sweet berry aroma, then sipped. “Yum.”
“I know. It’s even better with chocolate.” He held the box forward and she plucked one with intricate gold swirls across the top.
They settled back on the sofa, facing each other, and sipped their port. “Okay,” she said. “Ask away. What do you want to know?”
He ran a hand through his damp hair, then settled his palm on her thigh. His touch was as warm as the blazing fire. “I still don’t understand how you got the burn scar.”
“A piece of the burning helicopter fell onto my cheek. I flicked it away, so it was probably only there for a second or two.” She touched her cheek, remembering the moment she’d been hit. She’d been lucky she was wearing gloves at the time. “But it was long enough to burn through three layers of skin.”
“It must’ve hurt like hell.”
She shrugged. “Not as much as some of my other injuries.”
“Tell me about them.”
“When the helicopter crashed, so much was going on that I barely even noticed my injuries. But after the explosion, when Milton…vanished, that’s when the pain started to set in. I broke the ulna in my left arm.” She held it up and indicated where the break was, between her wrist and elbow. “Broke two fingers, middle and ring.”
“Shit. So you’ve hurt three fingers on that hand now.”
“Yep. I broke my eye socket.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t work out why I was blind in my left eye. Thought it was blood at first, but it was so swollen I couldn’t see.”
“Jesus. Anything else?”
“Yes. Fractured my left ankle and had cuts all over, including my left cheek, which—thank god—didn’t scar, or I’d look like something from a B-rate horror movie.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d still look beautiful.”
Amber’s heart fluttered, and she could barely contain the smile shaping her lips. She sipped her port and, for the hundredth time, questioned how Oliver could possibly be interested in her.
“It’s a wonder you survived.”
She resisted telling him how many times she’d wished she’d died on that ledge. “The doctors called it a medical miracle. Oh, I nearly forgot. I also had two fractured ribs and a partially collapsed lung.”
“You forgot about your toes too.”
“Oh no, that didn’t happen in the crash. Apparently that was frostbite.”
His brow furrowed. “Frostbite? How long before you were rescued?”
She huffed. “According to the report I read, we crashed about four o’clock in the afternoon, and I was pulled from the crevasse about three o’clock the following day.”
His eyes bulged. “Twenty-three hours! Holy shit. You must’ve been going out of your mind. Why so long?”
“Because remember I said the pilot wasn’t supposed to fly there? Well, apparently he didn’t register the exact flight path, so they didn’t know where to look. Fortunately the explosion left a heap of debris on the surface, so a spotter plane saw it. But then it took a long time for a rescue party to reach the crevasse.”
“How’d you survive?”
She huffed. “I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since. Dumb luck, I think. I had one of those safety blankets down my jacket. Milton had given it to me as a joke, so I’d be warm during the picnic.” Her survival had been predicated on so many miracles, it was no wonder people had trouble believing her story.
“Jeez. Were you conscious the whole time?”
She nodded. “I can recall every single second, until I heard the rescue party shout out if anyone was alive. I don’t remember anything after that. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital in Seattle eight months later.”
“Eight months! Good god.” His eyes widened. “Your mother…”
She let out a breath. “While I was in the coma, Mom developed pancreatic cancer. The last time I saw her she was happy and healthy. She died five weeks before I woke up.”
Oliver hugged her to his chest again. But her tears didn’t flow this time—she’d already cried a lifetime for her mother. It was time to tell Oliver about the bodies in the ice, and the thought terrified her. She’d lost lifetime friends over it. Three of them. They’d all thought she was crazy—as did some of the so-called experts who’d treated her.
But she wanted Oliver to know. No—she didn’t just want him to know.
She needed him to know.
Pulling back, she looked into his eyes. “There’s something else.”
His shocked expression was justified; she’d already overwhelmed him with too much. “Okay.”
“When the helicopter exploded, it dislodged the ice shelf Milton had been lying on. But what I didn’t realize until I rolled away from the ledge was that the explosion had also sliced off a chunk of ice near where I was lying. In doing so, it exposed… In the ice were…” She closed her eyes, and the image of the frozen couple appeared as if they were right in front of her.
Oliver placed his hands on her thigh. “It’s okay, babe, you can tell me.”
It was the first time he’d called her babe, and the wonderful connotation broke down the final barrier she’d been fighting.
She opened her eyes. “There were two bodies, frozen in the ice.”
“Holy shit. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Neither was I. Believe me, they scared the crap out of me when I first saw them. I wondered if I’d lost my mind. But I was stuck there with them so long I had time to debate whether or not they were real. The ice kept them in perfect condition, to the point where I half expected them to wake up.”
“Jesus. Were they mountain climbers?”
“No, that’s why it was so strange. They were a man and a woman—a couple, I assume—and they had their arms around each other. The woman wore a full-length fur coat and a matching fur hat. She had a red woolen scarf arou
nd her neck that matched her red lips and nails. She didn’t even have gloves on. Her shoes looked to be fine leather, and were trimmed with gold. They’d be hopeless in the snow.”
He frowned. “That’s weird.”
“I know. The man was in a long brown leather trench coat. He had a black woolen scarf and his hat was a black felt trilby. His shoes were normal evening shoes, and looked to be made of crocodile skin. I was near enough to touch his right foot. It took me a long time before I did, but I had to know they were real.”
She looked into Oliver’s eyes, searching for the look she’d received from her friends that implied she was crazy. But, to her relief, Oliver didn’t show that at all. His wide inquisitive eyes implied he was fascinated.
“How long do you think they’d been there?”
“I know how long.”
“You do?”
“I know who they were, Oliver.”
She told Oliver everything she knew about Angel and Frederick. She described how she found out about them and how sad Frederick’s mother Dorothy looked over the accusations that Fred had kidnapped Angel. To bring it into perspective, she also told him about Victoria’s never-ending accusations that she’d killed Milton.
“She sounds crazy. Why on earth would she think that?”
“Because I was the one who convinced them to go on vacation.”
“Well, shit, it’s not like you planned the crash.”
She shrugged. She’d been playing the what-ifs through her mind since she boarded that helicopter.
Oliver shuffled over and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for telling me.
“So you believe me?”
He pulled back with a jerk. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because the people who rescued me never saw the bodies—at least, if they did they never mentioned it, so no one ever believed me. And it was eight months after the accident before I even had a chance to tell anyone. Everyone thought I’d lost my mind.”
“I don’t think you’ve lost your mind. You’re a little crazy sometimes, but not in a bad way.”
“You might change your mind in a minute.”
“Oh god. Don’t tell me there’s more.”
Out of Mind Page 17