Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  “I have some last-minute items in the bathroom to gather up, then I’ll be out of here. I’ll shut off everything, lock up, then, as agreed, drop off the key at the realtor’s office on my way out of town.”

  His misery was evident in his expression, his stance. He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t have to wait on me, Dutch. I’m sure you have responsibilities in town.”

  “They’ll keep.”

  “With an ice and snow storm forecast? You’ll probably be needed to direct traffic in the supermarket,” she said, making light. “You know how everyone stocks up for the siege. Let’s say our good-byes now, and you can get a head start down the mountain.”

  “I’ll wait on you. We’ll leave together. Do what you need to do in there,” he said, indicating the bedroom. “I’ll load these boxes into your trunk.”

  He hefted the first box and carried it out. Lilly went into the next room. The bed, with a nightstand on each side, fit compactly against the wall under the sloping ceiling. The only other furnishings were a rocking chair and a bureau. Windows made up the far wall. A closet and small bath were behind the wall opposite the windows.

  Earlier she had drawn the drapes, so the room was gloomy. She checked the closet. The empty hangers on the rod looked forlorn. Nothing had been overlooked in the bureau drawers. She went into the bathroom and collected the toiletries she had used that morning, zipped them into a plastic travel case, and after checking to make certain that she’d left nothing in the medicine chest, returned to the bedroom.

  She added the bag of toiletries to her suitcase, which lay open on the bed, then closed it just as Dutch rejoined her.

  Without preamble of any kind, he said, “If it hadn’t been for Amy, we’d still be married.”

  Lilly looked down and slowly shook her head. “Dutch, please, let’s not—”

  “If not for that, we’d have lasted forever.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I do.” He reached for her hands. They felt cold in his hot clutch. “I take full responsibility for everything. Our failure was my fault. If I’d have handled things differently, you wouldn’t have left me. I see that now, Lilly. I acknowledge the mistakes I made, and they were huge. Stupid. I admit that. But, please, give me another chance. Please.”

  “We could never go back to the way we were before, Dutch. We’re not the same people as when we met. Don’t you realize that? No one can change what happened. But it changed us.”

  He seized on that. “You’re right. People change. I’ve changed since the divorce. Moving up here. Taking this job. It’s all been good for me, Lilly. I realize that Cleary is a far cry from Atlanta, but I’ve got something to build on here. A solid foundation. It’s my home, and the people here know me and all my kinfolk. They like me. Respect me.”

  “That’s wonderful, Dutch. I want you to succeed here. I wish that for you with all my heart.”

  She did indeed want him to succeed, not only for his sake but for hers. Until Dutch had reaffirmed himself as a good cop, especially in his own mind, she would never be entirely free of him. He would remain dependent on her for his self-esteem until he was once again confident about his work and himself. The small community of Cleary afforded him that opportunity. She hoped to God it worked out well.

  “My career, my life,” he said in a rush, “have been given fresh starts. But that won’t mean anything if you’re not part of it.”

  Before she could stop him, he put his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. He spoke urgently, directly into her ear. “Say you’ll give us another chance.” He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head aside.

  “Dutch, let go of me.”

  “Remember how good we used to be together? If you’d ever let down your guard, we’d be right back where we started. We could forget all the bad stuff and return to the way we were. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, remember?” He tried again to kiss her, this time grinding his lips insistently against hers.

  “Stop it!” She pushed him away.

  He fell back a step. His breathing was loud in the room. “You still won’t let me touch you.”

  She crossed her arms over her middle, hugging herself. “You’re not my husband anymore.”

  “You’ll never forgive me, will you?” he shouted angrily. “You used what happened with Amy as an excuse to divorce me, but that’s not what it was about at all, was it?”

  “Go, Dutch. Leave before—”

  “Before I lose control?” He sneered.

  “Before you disgrace yourself.”

  She held her ground against his mean glare. Then, turning away quickly, he stamped from the room. He grabbed the envelope on the coffee table and snatched his coat and hat off the pegs near the door. Without taking time to put them on, he slammed the door behind himself hard enough to rattle the windowpanes. Seconds later she heard his Bronco’s engine start and the scattering of gravel beneath its oversize tires as he peeled away.

  She sank onto the edge of the bed, covering her face with her hands. They were cold and trembling. Now that it was over, she realized that she’d been not only angry and repulsed but afraid.

  This Dutch with the hair-trigger temper was not the disarming man she had married. Despite his claims to have made a fresh start, he looked desperate. That desperation translated into frightening, mercurial mood shifts.

  She was almost ashamed of the relief that washed over her from knowing that she never had to see him again. It was finally over. Dutch Burton was out of her life.

  Exhausted by the encounter, she lay back on the bed and placed her forearm across her eyes.

  • • •

  She was awakened by the sound of sleet pellets striking the tin roof.

  Go-rounds with Dutch always had left her exhausted. The tense encounters they’d had during the past week, while she was in Cleary to finalize the sale of the cabin, must have taken more of a toll on her than even she had realized. After this last one, her body had kindly shut down her mind for a while and allowed her to sleep.

  She sat up, rubbing her arms against the chill. The cabin bedroom had grown dark, too dark for her even to read her wristwatch. She got up, went to the window, and pulled back the edge of the drapery. It let in very little light but enough for her to see her watch.

  The time surprised her. She’d slept deeply and dreamlessly but, actually, not that long. As dark as it was, she had expected it to be much later. The low clouds enwrapping the mountaintop had created a premature and eerie darkness.

  The ground was now covered with an opaque layer of sleet. It continued to fall, intermingled with freezing rain and what meteorologists call snow grains, tiny chips that look more menacing than their lacy cousins. Tree branches were already encased in tubes of ice, which were growing discernibly thicker. A strong wind buffeted the windowpanes.

  It had been careless of her to fall asleep. That mistake was going to cost her a harrowing trip down the mountain road. Even after she reached Cleary, weather would probably factor into her long drive back to Atlanta. Having dispatched her business here, she was anxious to get home, return to her routine, get on with her life. Her office would be a bog of backed-up paperwork, e-mail, and projects, all demanding her immediate attention. But rather than dread her return, she looked forward to tackling the tasks waiting on her.

  Besides being homesick for her work, she was ready to leave Dutch’s hometown. She adored Cleary’s ambience and the beautiful, mountainous terrain surrounding it. But the people here had known Dutch and his family for generations. As long as she was his wife, she’d been warmly received and accepted. Now that she had divorced him, townsfolk had turned noticeably cool toward her.

  Considering how hostile he’d been when he left the cabin, it was past time for her to leave his territory.

  Acting hastily, she carried her suitcase into the front room and set it beside the door. Then she gave the cabin one final, rapid inspection, checking to
see that everything had been turned off and that nothing belonging to her or Dutch had been overlooked.

  Satisfied that all was in order, she put on her coat and gloves and opened the front door. The wind struck her with a force that stole her breath. As soon as she stepped onto the porch, ice pellets stung her face. She needed to shield her eyes against them, but it was too dark to put on sunglasses. Squinting against the sleet, she carried her suitcase to the car and placed it in the backseat.

  Back inside the cabin, she quickly used her inhaler. Breathing cold air could bring on an asthma attack. The inhaler would help prevent that. Then, taking no time for even one last, nostalgic look around, she pulled the door closed and locked the dead bolt with her key.

  The interior of her car was as cold as a refrigerator. She started the motor but had to wait for the defroster to warm before she could go anywhere; the windshield was completely iced over. Pulling her coat more closely around her, she buried her nose and mouth in the collar and concentrated on breathing evenly. Her teeth were chattering, and she couldn’t control her shivers.

  Finally the air from the car’s defroster became warm enough to melt the ice on the windshield into a slush, which her windshield wipers were able to sweep away. They couldn’t, however, keep up with the volume of freezing precipitation. Her visibility was sorely limited, but it wasn’t going to improve until she reached lower elevations. She had no choice but to start down the winding Mountain Laurel Road.

  It was familiar to her, but she’d never driven it when it was icy. She leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering through the frosted windshield, straining to see beyond the hood ornament.

  On the switchbacks, she hugged the right shoulder and rocky embankment, knowing that on the opposite side of the road were steep drop-offs. She caught herself holding her breath through the hairpin curves.

  Inside her gloves, her fingertips were so cold they were numb, but her palms were sweaty as she gripped the steering wheel. Tension made the muscles of her shoulders and neck burn. Her anxious breathing grew more uneven.

  Hoping to improve her visibility, she rubbed her coat sleeve across the windshield, but all that accomplished was to give her a clearer view of the dizzy swirl of sleet.

  And then, suddenly, a human figure leaped from the wooded embankment onto the road directly in her path.

  Reflexively she stamped on her brake pedal, remembering too late that braking abruptly was the wrong thing to do on an icy road. The car went into a skid. The figure in her headlights jumped back, trying to get out of the way. Wheels locked, the car slid past him, the back end fishtailing wildly. Lilly felt a bump against her rear fender. With a sinking sensation in her stomach, she realized he’d been struck.

  That was her last sickening thought before the car crashed into a tree.

  CHAPTER

  3

  HER AIR BAG DEPLOYED, SMACKING HER IN the face and releasing a choking cloud of powder, which filled the car’s interior. Instinctively she held her breath to avoid breathing it. The seat belt caught her hard across her chest.

  In a distant part of her mind, the violence of the impact amazed her. This had been a relatively mild collision, but it left her stunned. She took a mental inventory of body parts and determined that she wasn’t in pain anywhere, only shaken. But the person she’d hit . . . “My God!”

  Batting the deflated air bag out of the way, she released her seat belt and shoved open the door. As she scrambled out, she lost her footing and pitched forward. The heels of her hands struck the icy pavement hard, as did her right knee. It hurt like hell.

  Using the side of the car for support, she limped around to the rear. Shielding her eyes against the wind with her hand, she spotted the motionless figure lying faceup, head and trunk on the road’s narrow shoulder, legs extending into the road. She could tell by the size of his hiking boots that the victim was male.

  As though skating across the glassy pavement, she made her way to him and crouched down. A watch cap was pulled low over his ears and eyebrows. His eyes were closed. She detected no movement of his chest to indicate breathing. She dug beneath the wool scarf around his neck, beneath the collar of his coat, beneath the turtleneck sweater, and searched for a pulse.

  Feeling one, she whispered, “Thank God, thank God.”

  But then she noticed the spreading dark stain on the rock beneath his head. She was about to lift his head and search for the source of the bleeding when she remembered that an individual with a head wound shouldn’t be moved. Wasn’t that a strict rule of emergency aid? There could be a spinal injury, which moving could exacerbate or even make fatal.

  She had no way of determining the extent of his head injury. And that was a visible injury. What injuries might he have sustained that she couldn’t see? Internal bleeding, a rib-punctured lung, a ruptured organ, broken bones. And she didn’t like the look of the awkward angle at which he was lying, as though his back was bowed upward.

  She must get help. Immediately. She stood up and turned back toward her car. She could use her cell phone to call 911. Cell service wasn’t always reliable in the mountains, but maybe—

  His groan halted her. She turned so quickly her feet almost went out from under her. She knelt beside him again. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at her. She’d seen eyes like that only once before. “Tierney?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, then looked as though he was about to throw up. He clamped his lips together and swallowed several times, containing the urge. He closed his eyes again, then after a few seconds opened them. “I was hit?”

  She nodded. “By the rear quarter panel, I think. Are you in pain?”

  After a few moments’ assessment, he said, “Everywhere.”

  “The back of your head is bleeding. I can’t tell how bad it is. You fell on a rock. I’m afraid to move you.”

  His teeth had begun to chatter. Either he was cold or he was going into shock. Neither was good.

  “I’ve got a blanket in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  She stood up, ducked her head against the wind, and labored back to her car, wondering what on earth he’d been thinking to have charged out of the woods like that, straight into the middle of the road. What was he doing up here on foot, during a winter storm, in the first place?

  The trunk lid release on the dashboard didn’t work, possibly because of damage to the electrical system. Or possibly because the lid was frozen shut. She removed the key from the ignition and took it with her to the rear of the car. As she’d feared, the lock was glazed over.

  She groped her way to the shoulder of the road and picked up the largest rock she could handle, then used it to chip away the ice. In emergency situations like this, people were supposed to experience an adrenaline rush that imbued them with superhuman strength. She felt no such thing. She was panting and exhausted by the time she’d knocked away enough ice to raise the trunk lid.

  Shoving the packing boxes aside, she found the stadium blanket zipped into its plastic carrying case. She and Dutch had taken it to football games. It was for warding off an autumn chill, not surviving a blizzard, but she supposed it was better than nothing.

  She returned to the prone figure. He lay as still as death. Her voice rose in panic. “Mr. Tierney?”

  He opened his eyes. “I’m still alive.”

  “I had a hard time getting the trunk open. Sorry it took so long.” She spread the blanket over him. “This won’t be of much help, I’m afraid. I’ll try—”

  “Save the apologies. Do you have a cell phone?”

  She remembered from the day they’d met that he was a take-charge kind of man. Fine. This wasn’t the time to play the feminist card. She fished her cell phone from her coat pocket. It was on, the panel was lighted. She turned it toward him so he could read the message. “No service.”

  “I was afraid of that.” He tried to turn his head, winced and gasped, then clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. After a moment, he asked, “C
an your car be driven?”

  She shook her head. What she knew about cars was limited, but when the hood looked like a crumpled soda can, it was reasonable to assume that the car was disabled.

  “Well, we can’t stay here.” He made an effort to get up, but she pressed her hand against his shoulder.

  “You could have a broken back, a spinal injury. I don’t think you should move.”

  “It’s a risk, yeah. But it’s either that or freeze to death. I’ll take the gamble. Help me up.”

  He extended his right hand, and she clasped it tightly as he struggled to sit up. But he couldn’t stay up. Bending forward from the waist, he fell on her heavily. Lilly caught him against her shoulder and held him there while she repositioned the stadium blanket around his shoulders.

  Then she eased him back until he was in a sitting position. His head remained bent low over his chest. Fresh blood trickled from beneath the tight watch cap, eddied around the front of his earlobe, and dribbled down his jaw.

  “Tierney?” She lightly smacked his cheek. “Tierney!”

  He raised his head, but his eyes remained closed. “Fainted, I think. Give me a minute. Dizzy as hell.”

  He breathed deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth. After a time, he opened his eyes and nodded. “Better. Think that together we can get me on my feet?”

  “Take all the time you need.”

  “Time is what we don’t have. Get behind me and put your hands under my arms.” She released him cautiously and, when she was certain that he could stay upright, moved behind him. “A backpack.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “The awkward way you were lying, I thought your back was broken.”

  “I landed on the backpack. Probably saved me from a serious skull fracture.”

  She eased the straps of the pack off his shoulders so she could lend him better support. “Ready when you are.”

  “I think I can stand up,” he said. “You’re there to break my fall just in case I start falling backward. Okay?”