by Meg Cabot
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Eleanor Townsend.”
“And Mr. Calabrese?” The sheriff shifted his gaze towards Frank, who, despite what he felt sure was coming, had to hand it to the guy. He’d wanted to give them the news himself, rather than foisting off what was always an unpleasant duty to the departmental chaplain. Frank had to respect the guy for that.
“I’m Franklin Calabrese,” he said, and was surprised that his voice did not sound like his own. It sounded like the voice of an old man, not the voice of Frank Calabrese. Sure, Frank might have been past his prime, but sixty-five wasn’t really all that—
“Sheriff Walter O’Malley,” the tall man said evenly. “I’ve just come from the crash site of the R-44 your daughter and your son, ma’am, were on yesterday morning. I thought I’d better be the one to inform you that it appears both Mr. Townsend and Ms. Calabrese survived the crash.”
“Survived?”
A woman’s voice rang out. But it wasn’t Eleanor who’d spoken. The voice came from the opposite side of the room. Frank turned his head and saw a tiny woman, in a pair of gray silk pyjamas, her blond bob heavily mussed, standing in what appeared to be the doorway to an adjoining bedroom. On her impossibly pretty face was a look of complete and utter joy.
“Do you really mean it?” the woman asked, bounding forward on a pair of prettily pedicured bare feet, until she’d reached the sheriff’s side, at which point she reached out and laid both hands upon his arm, hugging it to her. “They’re alive?”
Walter O’Malley looked uncomfortable. He was evidently not a man used to having strange young women press their breasts up against his arm.
“Um,” he said. “Well, ma’am, there was only one body in the wreckage, and that belonged to the pilot. We’re combing the area, of course, looking for Mr. Townsend and Ms. Calabrese. It appears that they must have wandered away from the crash site, perhaps in search of shelter—”
“You’ve got to find them,” Tim Lord said, firmly, coming up beside the young woman in the pyjamas, then putting his arm around her. “Don’t let cost be an object, either. The studio is fully prepared to pay whatever it takes to get those two back here safely.”
Walter O’Malley looked down at Tim Lord with some distaste on his face. So the sheriff, too, had a bullshit detector, Frank reflected.
“It’s not cost that’s interfering with the search,” the sheriff said, successfully managing to extricate his arm from the blonde’s grip. “Quite frankly, it’s the weather. We’ve got planes in the air—the FAA is working on getting some more—but there’s another storm front moving in. We can expect to get hit again with another blizzard tonight—”
“Oh, no.” Eleanor Townsend, who had stepped away from the table with the floral arrangements on it, sank down onto the couch beside Frank as if her legs could no longer support her. She reached out blindly, as if for his hand. He closed his fingers around hers, as Alessandro anxiously lapped at her chin.
“If they managed to live through last night’s storm,” the sheriff said, “there’s a good chance they’ll live through this one, as well. It’s expected to be only a little more severe—”
“Oh, God!” The blonde in the pajamas raised a hand to her face, as if she couldn’t bear to hear more.
The sheriff glanced at her briefly, then turned his attention back to Frank.
“What Deputy Lippincott and I came here to find out,” Sheriff O’Malley said, “was whether or not the two of you were aware of either your son, Mrs. Townsend, or your daughter, Mr. Calabrese, having any sort of wilderness survival skills.”
Eleanor blinked at the sheriff blankly. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, whether or not you’d think either of them would know what to do in a situation like this,” Sheriff O’Malley said politely. “For instance, Mr. Townsend. Is he a hunter, at all? Maybe used to the outdoors?”
“He has a ranch,” Eleanor said. “He keeps horses on it. But it’s in Salinas. It doesn’t snow in Salinas.”
Sheriff O’Malley nodded. Frank could see he was disappointed.
“What about your daughter, Mr. Calabrese?” the sheriff asked. “Has she had any sort of experience at all in the arctic that you think might help her know what to do in a situation…well, like this one? I’m only asking, you see, because it might give us some clue as to where to start looking. There’s a lot of space out there for our planes to cover, and if you think your daughter might know, for instance, how to find her way without a compass….”
Frank carefully considered what the sheriff was saying. Lou, as far as he knew, had never been camping in her life. She had never been a very outdoorsy girl. As a kid, she’d spent most of her time curled up with a book. Or in front of the television. It had been hard, in fact, to drag her from the screen, she loved it so much.
Helen hadn’t helped discourage this sort of behavior, either. In fact, while Frank would never have accused her to her face, it was partly Helen’s fault that Lou had had that little weight problem growing up. Instead of encouraging the girl to go outside and ride a bike, she had let Lou watch all the TV she wanted, because, as Helen used to say, “She loves it so. And who is it hurting? Her grades are good.”
Lou’s grades were always good, even in the days before they’d been able to afford a VCR, when Helen had routinely called Lou’s school and informed them that she was sick in bed, when really, Helen had just wanted to make sure Lou didn’t miss the channel eleven afternoon movie, if it was one she particularly thought their daughter would enjoy—generally anything starring Jimmy Stewart, or that actress with the skinny neck, Audrey something.
Thank God by the time Lou turned twelve Frank had finally been able to afford a VCR, or the girl might never have graduated from high school.
It was as he was thinking this that it hit Frank. No, Lou had never been a very outdoorsy girl. She disliked camping, and would hike only through the mall.
But she had seen every movie ever made. Of that, he was certain.
And so he said, “Movies,” and looked expectantly at the sheriff.
Who seemed, unlike everyone else in the room, to understand him.
“She’s seen a lot of survival movies?” O’Malley asked.
“Every damned one,” Frank said. Then added, with a glance at Eleanor, “Sorry.”
But Eleanor seemed untroubled by his slip. “Movies,” she said, thoughtfully.“I wonder….”
But Frank didn’t. Wonder, that is. Because he knew. If there was a movie about surviving in the arctic, Lou had seen it. The only question, of course, was would that be enough?
15
“Jesus, Lou,” Jack called over one of those impossibly broad shoulders—those shoulders that Lou would have liked to hurl darts at, if she’d happened to have any handy. “Come on.”
Lou pushed a long, stray lock of red hair from her eyes and pried her foot from the drift into which it had sunk. Even though she had stopped a long time ago and tucked her pant legs into the tops of her knee-high boots, snow still seemed to get down them, trickling slowly to her frozen toes.
“Come on, Lou,” she muttered to herself. “Hurry up, Lou. Easy for you to say. You try walking through four feet of snow in two-inch heels and see how fast you go.”
She took a cautious step forward. In some places, a layer of ice had hardened over the top of the snow, and she could occasionally walk across it without sinking into the deep white powder.
Not this time, however. Down, down, down went her foot, until she could not see it anymore, or any of her leg, for that matter, from the knee down. Damned stupid snow. There was a reason she’d moved to California, and it hadn’t just been because Barry had insisted they move there in order for him to pursue his acting career. No, she’d been happy to move there, because it meant she’d never again have to wade through knee-deep—
“Snow.” She looked up, blinking, at the gray sky. No. It wasn’t possible. It simply couldn’t be.
But it was. It was snowing. Again. The sky was filled with flakes, falling fast, and not looking likely to stop any time soon. Damn. Damn! As if things weren’t bad enough—
“Lou,” Jack called from where he stood twenty feet away. “Pick it up. I’m telling you, we have to make that rise before nightfall.”
“Why?” Lou demanded crankily. “What the hell do you think we’re going to find behind that rise? A damned Sheraton?”
“It’s just a goal,” Jack explained, sounding like a man who was coming close to the end of his rope. Well, if so, he’d put himself there. Lou certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were stranded in the Yukon with armed killers after them. “Haven’t you ever been on a run before? You pick landmarks and you say to yourself, I’ll keep going until I reach that tree. And then when you reach the tree, you pick another one, and that one becomes your goal.”
“I don’t run outside,” Lou said flatly. “I run until the end of Judge Judy, and that’s it.”
Jack didn’t look very impressed. “You can’t build up any kind of stamina on a treadmill.”
“I’ve got plenty of stamina,” Lou said. “And you can’t trick me into thinking there’s going to be anything that great beyond that rise. Except more of the same. Snow. Trees. More snow. And then, guess what? Oh, maybe some more trees and snow.”
“What would you like me to do, Lou?” Jack wanted to know. “Lie to you? Tell you there’s an In and Out Burger over the next hill?”
“It might be nice,” Lou said. “It might inspire more confidence in your leadership abilities. Certainly I haven’t seen anything too impressive so far.”
Even through the now thickly falling snow, she could see his look of disbelief.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “I kept us from being shot, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” she said, with a snort of disgust. “But how do I know we’re not walking out of the frying pan and into the fire? You don’t even know what direction we’re going. You know, Tony Hopkins, in The Edge, made a compass out of a paper clip and a leaf. I haven’t seen any brilliant innovations like that from you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a paper clip on me,” Jack said, the look of disbelief disappearing. “And if you see any leaves, you let me know. Because all I see are pine needles. And snow. Sorry, but I didn’t play MacGyver, remember? It was that other guy. You need to be intubated, though, I’m your man.”
“Ha,” Lou said. “As if I’d ever let you put something down my throat.”
Then, realizing belatedly how that sounded, Lou added hastily, “I think this new snowfall is getting serious. We ought to think about finding a place to hole up until it blows over. I saw this episode of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ where they built an igloo. Maybe we should—”
But Jack wasn’t about to let her off that easily.
“You’re blushing again,” he pointed out.
“I am not,” Lou said stiffly, not meeting his gaze. “I’m just cold, that’s all.”
“Why, I wonder, would the idea of me putting something down your—”
“It’s just windburn!” Lou shouted. Because of the falling snow, her voice didn’t carry very far. He heard her, however.
“Sure it is, Lou,” Jack said.
She was close enough to him now that she could plainly see him through the thickly falling white stuff. To her very great consternation, he was smiling.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” she said exasperatedly. “Okay? When I said that about putting something down my throat, I was talking about an intubation tube—”
But Jack didn’t seem to hear her. Instead all he said was, “What kind of name is that, anyway? Lou? Isn’t that a guy’s name?”
“It’s a nickname,” Lou said, stopping to shake snow from her boot top. “It’s not my real name.”
“Really?” Jack sounded incredibly interested. Though why he should be so, when he’d never expressed the slightest interest in her before now, she could not imagine. Unless it was because she was the only female within a hundred miles. Not counting moose. Or elk. Or moosettes, or whatever female moose were called. “What’s your real name?”
Lou muttered it as she took her next step, but the sound of the snow breaking beneath her weight swallowed the word.
“I beg your pardon?” Jack said.
Yanking her foot from the drift, she said, through gritted teeth, “Louise.”
“Louise?” He hooted. “Louise Calabrese?”
“Oh, that’s very mature, Townsend,” Lou said tartly. “Make fun of my name. Go right ahead.”
He sobered at once. “Sorry,” he said. Still, the smile crept back across his face. She could see it, even with the snow. “What were your parents thinking?”
“They weren’t, all right?” Lou snapped. “Louise was my mother’s mother’s name. And besides, you don’t pronounce it Calabreeze if you’re Italian, it’s Calabraizai, and so—”
“Whoa,” Jack said, holding out both gloved hands. “Easy there, pardner. You act like you’re the only one who ever got her name made fun of in school.”
Lou said, with some bitterness, “Oh, right. Like the name Jack Townsend is so full of teasing potential.”
“It can be,” Jack pointed out. “I went to an all boys’ school, remember. And guys aren’t particularly inventive. All they did was add an off after the Jack….”
Lou had to think about it for a second. Then she went, “Oh,” and realized she was blushing harder than ever.
Fortunately this time Jack did not appear to notice. That’s because at the same time she started blushing again, she put her foot down into another particularly deep drift of snow, sank in all the way to her mid-thigh, and nearly stumbled.
She would have landed right on her face if Jack hadn’t reached out and caught her by the shoulder.
“All right,” he growled, when he’d got her perpendicular to the earth once more. “That’s it. The laptop’s gotta go.”
Lou looked at him like he was demented—no easy feat with snowflakes sticking to your lashes.
“Wh-what?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve hauled this thing around long enough,” Jack said, reaching for her computer bag. “It’s no wonder you can’t keep up, it weighs a ton. Come on.” He tugged on it. “Say buh-bye to the laptop.”
Lou laid both hands on the bag’s shoulder strap and started backing away from him. “Are you crazy? This is a two-thousand-dollar computer. I’m not leaving it in the middle of the woods.”
“So you’ll buy a new one when we get back to civilization,” Jack said, not releasing the bag, and following her, step for step. “You can’t tell me you’re hurting for cash, Lou, I read in Variety that you got seven figures for Copkiller IV. So hand it over. It’s making you top heavy and slowing you down. It’s gotta go.”
“No way,” Lou said, still moving backwards. “You don’t understand. I have stuff on here. Stuff I don’t want to lose, okay?”
Jack stopped moving. He just looked at her like she was nuts.
“You don’t back your stuff up?”
“Of course I do,” Lou said, taking another step backwards. Only he didn’t move with her, so she stood there with the bag’s straps stretched out between them. “There’s just this one new thing I put on it the other night that I don’t have on disk, all right? And I’m not going to lose it. It’s very important to—”
“Lou.” Jack, even with two days’ growth of beard on his face—maybe especially with two days’ growth of beard on his face—looked impossibly handsome. “We’re talking survival here. Do you understand? The laptop’s just making it harder for you to get through the snow. Leave it here. We’ll come back for it—”
“Oh, right,” Lou interrupted with a humorless laugh. “And how are we going to find it? Computer-sniffing dogs?”
“I mean it, Lou,” he said, giving the bag a tug. “Let it go. It’s not worth it. We could die out her
e. Some stupid screenplay tends to pale in comparison to death by hypothermia…”
“It’s not a stupid screenplay,” Lou said, yanking on the bag’s handle. “All right? And it isn’t too heavy for me. My boots are what’s slowing me down, okay? Not the computer. Now let go—”
On the word go, Lou tugged with all her might—not realizing until it was too late that Jack had got hold of the bag’s zipper. In one neat motion, he’d unzipped the bag all the way around. Then it was just a matter of tearing the computer from its Velcroed safety harness, and, magically, he had the laptop, while all she was holding was the empty bag.
Stunned, Lou stammered, “D-don’t you even think about it—”
But it was too late. He’d thrown it, as hard as he could, in the direction of the rise he’d kept going on about.
Then he brushed his gloved hands together, as if to say That takes care of that.
“There,” he said. “Now get rid of that bag, and let’s go. We should make a lot better time now. You won’t have half so much trouble getting through the really deep stuff….”
His voice trailed off, possibly because he’d gotten a good look at Lou’s face. It had, she was sure, gone as white as the snow around them. She could not remember ever feeling quite so angry—except maybe the day that Barry had announced that he hadn’t felt quite ready, after ten years, to commit.
She reacted now the way she’d reacted then. With white-hot, uncontrollable rage.
“You!” she shrieked, launching herself at Jack Townsend.
Jack looked startled. He took a quick step away from her—well, as quickly as the deep snow would allow, anyway. And then another.
“Now, Lou,” he said. “Look. Be reasonable. That thing weighed a ton. It’s of no use to us out here, and it’s just holding you back. We’ve got to—”
But he didn’t get out anything else, except for an oof as Lou sank her shoulder into his midsection, bringing him down to the snow as neatly as her brothers, who had thought tackling an important part of any girl’s education, had taught her. Once she had him down, she swung a leg over his waist and sat on him, then pinned his shoulders back with her hands, just like Nick had showed her.