by Meg Cabot
Then, as the darkness cleared, she became aware of another sensation. Something heavy on top of her. It wasn’t because of the smoke that she couldn’t breathe. It was because of this enormous weight….
And then the weight was being lifted, and she became dimly aware of voices. She could not tell what was being said to her, but as she blinked the grit and dirt from her eyes, and was finally able to see again—the bright blue sky above her had never looked so beautiful—she saw that faces, familiar faces, were gazing down at her and saying things…things she couldn’t hear because her ears were still ringing from the explosion.
And then, slowly, the things people were saying began to make sense. She even began to recognize the people who were talking to her. There was her dad, looking panicky. She had never seen her dad look panicky before, except the night her mom had died. And there was Eleanor Townsend. She was crying. And there was Sheriff O’Malley, yelling at someone on the ground.
But not at her. Sheriff O’Malley was looking down, and he was yelling, but the person he was yelling at was not Lou, because Lou was no longer on the ground. Even now, her dad and Paul Thompkins, the assistant director, were trying to pull her to her feet. She tried to stand, but one foot wouldn’t support her weight. She sagged in their arms.
And that’s when she saw Jack.
He was lying on his back in the snow. There was black soot all over his face. His suede jacket was covered with it as well. He was not moving. His eyes were closed. Sheriff O’Malley was kneeling beside him, shouting. Dimly, Lou was able to hear what he was saying.
“Jack,” the sheriff said. “Jack, wake up. Come on, Jack.”
And then Lou was crawling through the snow toward Jack’s prone body, tears streaming down her face.
“Jack,” she whispered. Or maybe she screamed it. She didn’t know. “Jack?” She reached him and put out a hand to touch his face. It was cold. So cold. “Jack?”
He still did not stir. She looked at his chest. It rose and fell, but slowly—so slowly. He was dying. She knew it. He was leaving her, leaving her alone, when they had only just found one another.
And then Tim Lord—Tim Lord, that bastard, that scheming, lying jerk off—was there, leaning over Jack and crying, in a desperate voice, “Jack! Jack, it’s me, Tim. Jack, come on, you can’t do this, buddy. You can’t die. You can’t.”
That was when one of Jack’s arms, which had been lying limply in the snow at his side, suddenly lifted. Lou watched, hardly daring to breathe as the arm rose into the air, until the hand attached to it grasped the thing that was nearest to it—the front of Tim Lord’s leather jacket.
And then Jack’s eyes opened—pools of blue in the middle of all that black soot—and his mouth opened, too, and he croaked, “I have no intention of dying, you self-righteous prick.”
On the word prick, Jack hauled back his other arm and sent a fist plunging into Tim Lord’s face.
Lou—along with just about everybody else who’d gathered around Jack’s prone body—sprang back, fearful of being caught by a stray knuckle. Tim Lord put up a valiant struggle, getting a blow in now and then, but all the spinning classes in the world can’t prepare a man for an assault by a livid action adventure star who’s trained for months in preparation for his role.
Everyone stood paralyzed as Jack sent first one fist, and then another, into the director’s head, mid-section, and sides. It was, Lou reflected in some small part of her brain that seemed detached from the scene before her, like watching a prizefight in which one of the contenders had simply given up from the sound of the very first bell. Lou hadn’t any doubt that if her father hadn’t stepped forward and put an end to the fight by wrapping his arms around Jack’s shoulders and pulling him away from Tim, they’d have had one dead Academy Award–winning director on their hands.
As it was, Tim broke down and, falling to the snow—now flecked not only with pieces of Mount McKinley that had come raining down on them after the blast but also with the director’s own blood—exclaimed, hysterically, “Why won’t you die? You’re supposed to be dead! You were supposed to have died four days ago. What is wrong with you? Why won’t you die?”
Jack, after shrugging off her father’s arms, replied, “Because I’ve got too much to live for.” Then he turned tiredly to Lou and asked, “Are you all right?”
Though she was still kneeling in it, Lou hardly felt the snow and ice beneath her. That’s because the glow in Jack’s eyes warmed her through.
“I’m fine,” she said, unable to tear her gaze from his soot-covered, beautiful face. “But how did you—how did you know? Where did you come from?”
Jack shrugged beneath the blaze-blackened shoulders of his suede jacket.
“I figured he was up to something,” he said, with a contemptuous nod in Tim’s direction. “It was so damned important to him that I went into the mine. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized…well, who else would have had reason to pull Vicky off the flight that first day? Then something he said to me…something about how I never worry about anybody else’s feelings….”
His gaze strayed away from Lou’s. Following it, she saw that he was looking at Vicky, who was staring owlishly at her husband, almost as if she had never seen him before
Jack’s face, beneath the soot, looked pale. “Well, anyway,” he went on. “I figured then that it was Tim. I saw the trip wire as I went into the mine…but I was looking for it. Then I just ducked out of a side shaft—this whole part of the mountain is riddled with them. I wanted to see if he’d actually come up himself and look for me when I didn’t come down. If he stepped over the wire—” Jack shrugged. “—I’d know it was him. That he’d been trying to kill me, I mean.”
Then Jack reached out and laid one finger, the knuckles of which were split open, on her cheek. “The last thing I expected was to see you come barreling up there. What were you thinking?”
Lou didn’t realize until Jack took his hand away from her face and there was a clean spot on his fingertip that she was crying. She reached up, mortified, to wipe the tears away with the backs of her hands, and said, “Vicky told me this morning. I got out here as fast as I could. I tried calling—”
“No relay stations,” Jack said, ruefully.
“Exactly.” Lou’s eyes were filled with love and tears. “I thought I was too late…. and when I opened my eyesand saw you lying there, I thought…I thought you were dead.”
Now he brought both hands down to cup her face. “No way am I going to die,” he assured her, “when things are just starting to get good.”
Lou smiled up at him, and he smiled back, his teeth startling white against the black streaks across his face. Her gaze was so riveted on his that she only dimly noticed Deputy Lippincott snapping handcuffs over Tim Lord’s wrists, then hauling him to his feet. She barely saw her father slip an arm around Eleanor Townsend, who was weeping joyfully into Alessandro’s golden fur. Melanie Dupre’s stomping off with a disgusted snort and a “That’s it. I quit!” barely registered. And though she noticed that Vicky Lord was sobbing fitfully into Sheriff O’Malley’s shirt front, it didn’t really seem to matter—any more than the fact that the sheriff had lifted one of his hands and was awkwardly patting Vicky on the head with it. All of her attention was focused on Jack, and his smile, and those blue, blue eyes.
“Want to get out of here?” he asked.
“More than you know,” she said. “Except…” She looked down guiltily. “There appears to be something wrong with my foot.”
“Not a problem,” he said and leaned down.
And, before she knew what was happening, Jack had swept her legs out from under her, cradling her easily in his arms.
Then, like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, he carried her away. The only difference, really, was that Jack Townsend was much taller than Richard Gere….
…and he hadn’t said he loved her.
33
Lou’s ankle was broken in two places, x-ra
ys revealed. She would be forced to wear a plaster cast for six weeks, then graduate to a foam brace for four. She would need to stay off her foot entirely for eight weeks.
How was it, she asked herself as she sat in the examination room she’d been wheeled into at Anchorage General Hospital, that heroines of movies—the ones who’d selflessly risked their lives in order to save others—always escaped with maybe a scrape or two, but real-life heroines, like Lou, ended up with spiral fractures to their tibia and had to get ugly casts put on their leg, and then had to hobble around like Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl, who was not exactly a sympathetic character?
Of course, Lou’s lack of resemblance to a movie heroine did not end at her injury. No, she also hadn’t got the guy. Heroines always got the guy at the end.
But not, apparently, Lou.
Oh, Jack had carried her down to Sheriff O’Malley’s four-by-four. He had stayed with her during the ride to the landing strip, and had even held her hand all during the flight back to Anchorage. He’d come with her into the emergency room, where he’d been immediately mobbed by patients waiting in triage, who’d wanted to know if he was Dr. Paul Rourke, and if so, could he please just take a look at their rash….
That had been the last Lou had seen of Jack Townsend before she’d been whisked off into the ER, where visitors were not allowed.
Now she was in her very own exam room, waiting for the doctor to return to do her cast. As long as she didn’t move, her ankle didn’t hurt. She lay on the examination table, staring out the window at the bleak view of the hospital parking lot. It had started snowing again, but she could still see Mount McKinley, rising gray and white and majestic behind a Kmart across the road. It seemed a million years ago that she had been lost on that mountain with Jack Townsend. In a way, she wished they were both back there, in Donald’s house. At least there, they’d been safe from scenes like the one at the film shoot a little while ago.
Who would have thought that Tim Lord, award-winning director and all-around megalomaniac, would ever have become so consumed with jealousy that he’d orchestrate such an elaborate scheme to get rid of his wife’s ex-boyfriend? Not Lou. She had thought Vicky and Tim’s marriage a perfectly happy one.
Which just went to show what she knew.
She was lying there, musing over her apparent lack of insight, when there was a knock on the door to her room. Thinking with a suddenly rapid pulse that Jack had come back at last—but knowing deep down that he wasn’t the type to knock—she called out, “Come in.”
She was more surprised than she could say when the door opened to reveal Vicky Lord standing there, looking pale and thin and used up, like a tissue.
“Lou,” she said faintly.
Lou stared at her best friend. She couldn’t help it. She had never seen her looking so…old.
“Vicky,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“That’s what I came here to find out about you,” Vicky said. Then suddenly, her face—still pretty, in spite of the pain and sorrow etched there—crumpled, and Vicky launched herself at Lou, throwing her arms around her and jostling her broken foot very badly.
“Oh, Lou, Lou,” Vicky sobbed. “I’m so sorry! Will you ever forgive me?”
“For what?” Lou wanted to know. It was sort of hard to talk, as waves of pain were shooting all up and down her leg. But she managed. “Vicky, you didn’t do anything. It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” Vicky cried, her tears wetting Lou’s hair. “If I had just kept my mouth shut…if I had just thought before I said anything. I never should have told Tim about Jack. I don’t even know anymore if it was really true. That I still love him. I mean today, when I saw him hitting Tim like that, I was…well, I was more worried about Tim than I was about Jack. Which means I must care more for Tim than for Jack, doesn’t it?”
“Well,” Lou said a little drily. “I should hope so. Tim’s your husband.”
“Not for long,” Vicky said, releasing Lou and stepping back with a sigh. “They’ve arrested him. I don’t think even Johnnie Cochran’s going to be able to get him off for this one. And I…well, I can’t be married to a convict. I mean, I might as well move right back to the trailer park I crawled out of to get here, if that’s going to be the case.”
Lou winced. “Oh, Vick. I’m so sorry.”
“It’ll be all right.” Vicky must have been feeling better, since she reached up and finger-combed her hair. “Be sides, I sort of…well, do you think that sheriff guy is kind of sexy?”
Now Lou was convinced she’d heard everything. “Vicky!”
“Well, I can’t help it,” Vicky said, with a shrug. “He’s got that big…gun. Anyway, I just wanted to see if you were all right. And say I’m sorry. Now I’d better go.”
“Vick—” Lou held out a hand to keep her friend from going. “Look, there’s something…there’s something I’ve got to tell you. About me and…me and Jack.”
Vicky blinked back at her from the doorway. “Oh,” she said. “You mean about the two of you spending last night together?”
It was Lou’s turn to blink. “How did you—how did you know?”
Vicky rolled her lovely blue eyes. “Lou, everyone in the entire hotel knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned up in Us magazine next week.”
Lou bit her lip. “Do you…do you mind?”
“Mind?” Vicky shook her head. “Lou, you’re a big girl, like you said back at the hotel. You can take care of yourself. Just—” Here Vicky’s voice caught, just a little. “—just do me a favor, and don’t get your heart broken, okay?”
And without another word, Vicky left the examination room—left it before Lou could call after her, “Too late.”
But Lou wasn’t left alone long enough to process what she’d just heard before the door opened again. Expecting to see the doctor, who’d been gone a pretty long time for someone who’d only gone to hunt up some plaster, she was surprised to see her father lay a finger to his lips. Then he and Eleanor Townsend came creeping into the room, looking conspiratorial.
“They said no visitors except for fifty minutes after the hour,” Frank said when he’d closed the door behind them. “But we snuck past the guard while that Melanie Dupre was distracting him. Apparently she got a piece of Mount McKinley in her eye, or something, when the mine blew.”
“Oh,” Lou said, looking from her father to Jack’s mother bewilderedly. They looked, she had to admit, as giddy as a couple of kids. “Well. Nice to see you.”
“We brought you something,” Eleanor said, and she fished from the depths of her Gucci bag a large box of chocolates and handed it to Lou. “Your father says you like candy.”
Lou looked down at the chocolates. They were the good, expensive kind. She noted with approval that several of them were filled with peanut brittly goodness.
“Wow,” she said. “Thanks.”
“It’s just a small token, really,” Eleanor said, looking embarrassed. “I mean, you risked your own life to try to save my son’s. Several times, from what I understand. I really don’t know what I can ever do to repay you. But I’d like to start by inviting you to come visit me on the cape. I have a house there, you know, and I would be so pleased if you—and maybe your brothers—would come out this summer and stay with me awhile.”
“I’m going, too,” Frank chimed in. It was only then that Lou noticed he and Eleanor were holding hands.
Lou felt a stab of something. It couldn’t have been jealousy. Jealous of her father finding happiness, after having lived so many years alone? No way. Not jealousy. Not over that.
But why was it so simple for her father and Jack’s mother? They liked each other, they held hands. There was no second-guessing the other’s motives, and worrying that next week, one of them might leave the other for Cameron Diaz.
No. Lou had to get a grip. She had to learn to live like a heroine. She had to trust her instincts, take a risk….
It was as she was thinking this that she noticed
a large bulge coming out of Eleanor Townsend’s handbag. A second later, the bulge disappeared.
“Um, Mrs. Townsend,” Lou said. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this, but your bag is moving.”
Eleanor looked down with a laugh. “Oh, that’s just Alessandro. They don’t allow dogs in this hospital, can you believe it? I must say, I prefer the European attitude for dogs than the American one. Alessandro is really quite cleaner than some of the children I’ve seen running around here.”
Lou gave her a wan smile. Then Frank leaned forward and, patting her on the arm, said in a low voice, “Kiddo. You done good out there. I couldn’t have been prouder. I only wish your mom could’ve still been around to see it.”
Tears sprang to Lou’s eyes. Oh, great, she thought. Now I’m crying. Real heroine-like behavior.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said in a muffled voice, dabbing at her face with her sleeve.
“Oh, look what you’ve done, Frank,” Eleanor said, looking concerned. “Dear, are you all right? Have they given you any pain medication? You know, I know the Alaskan surgeon general. Do you want me to give him a call? It isn’t right they just stick you in here without even a Tylenol—”
“No,” Lou said, smiling at them through her tears. “I’m all right. I…You wouldn’t happen to have seen Jack anywhere around, have you?”
Eleanor and Frank exchanged glances. “Um,” Eleanor said. “Why, no, dear.”
It was so transparent a lie, Lou did not even bother acknowledging it. So they’d seen Jack, but didn’t want to tell her where they’d seen him, or what he’d been doing. Which could only mean, of course, that whatever it was, they didn’t think Lou would approve.
Well, what had she expected? After all, he had already pursued and won Lou. The challenge was over. The blush was off the rose. The guy was on to greener pastures.