by Ann Gimpel
“It wasn’t a hallucination,” she hissed. “Look.” She shucked both jackets and rolled up her left sleeve. A jagged scar ran six inches up the inside of her forearm. “A normal cut wouldn’t look like this.” She traced white, ridged edges that resembled out of control scar tissue. “I doused it with disinfectant and bound it that first night. Didn’t have energy for much else, and I had to stop the bleeding. I tried to put stitches in the next morning but the edges were too tough for my suture needle. It wouldn’t puncture the skin.” A corner of her mouth turned down. “Made it harder to delude myself the whole thing hadn’t happened.”
Craig’s green gaze zeroed in on her. “It’s right out of mythology. I saved you, so you belong to me now.”
Her chest was tight. Her skin crawled. She shrugged to loosen things up. “Yeah, not so different.”
He nodded. A muscle twitched in the set line of his jaw. Craig pushed to his feet and placed his arms around her. He kissed her forehead and moved away. Handing her jackets to her, he helped her into them. “I believe you, but it sure stretches the edges of credibility.” He poured more water from the pot into his cup, followed it with scotch, and sat back down. “What happened then?”
“Next day I went back to Estancia Una and tried not to think about any of it.” Tina snorted. “Did a pretty good job until a month ago when my supernatural buddy showed up in my bedroom and almost suffocated me to remind me of my debt.”
A whistling intake of breath told her more than words. “Is there anything else?”
“Isn’t what I’ve told you enough?”
“Probably. But you know me, I like to be thorough.”
“One of your more stellar traits, actually.” She glanced at him. He had the beginnings of circles under his eyes. “You need to get some rest.”
“I will. Once we come up with a plan.”
“Well, we can’t very well make one until we see if Gunter shows up.”
“Sure we can. We can come up with Plan A and Plan B. What happens if you just go back to Colorado?”
“He’ll show up like he did the other morning, except next time he’ll kill me.” Heat rose to her face. “I mentioned suffocate, but I didn’t elaborate about him pinning me to the mattress and cutting off my oxygen.”
“No, you didn’t. Any other small, insignificant details you left out?”
She winced. “I deserved that. No. You know everything now.”
“What do you suppose he does with his captives? And how about those other lords you mentioned? Wasn’t Illimani one of them?”
She nodded. “Yeah, Lord of Water.”
“Well, do you think he’d be willing to help? Or Illampu. What was he lord of? Light?”
“Good memory.” She shrugged and drained the rest of the liquid in her cup. It was stone cold and beginning to freeze. “How the hell do you ask a mountain spirit for help?” She slipped her gloves back on.
“We’re brainstorming here, Tina. Let’s get all our ideas out on the table. Surely we can come up with something better than you offering yourself up to Mururata, or whatever his name is, like a sacrificial goose. If that’s your best plan, you could’ve stayed in Colorado and let him kill you there. It would have been easier and much less expensive.”
She snorted. “Expensive for whom? Remember, you’re paying me.”
He furled his brows. “Didn’t you offer to come along pro bono if I’d already hired another doc?”
“Yes, but—”
“Tina. I’m teasing you. Listening to what happened to you seven years ago was painful. It probably wasn’t any easier for you to tell than it was for me to hear, but we need to move beyond feeling shell-shocked, if we’re going to be effective strategizing solutions.”
Tina dropped back onto her stool. “You always had a way of cutting right to the heart of things.”
“My pleasure.” He inclined his head. “What were you thinking you’d do once you got here?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Engage him in hand-to-hand combat? Spit in his face? Tell him to find some other patsy?”
“That’s my girl. You weren’t going down without a fight.”
“Would you?”
“Hell no. Help me think here. Maybe there’s some way to beat him at his own game. If he were any good at this, the mountain would be littered with corpses.”
“Maybe it is, and they’re all hidden in crevasses.”
“Now there’s a cheery thought.” He snapped his fingers; they didn’t make any sound since he had gloves on. “I have an idea. What if he targeted you because you’re female?”
“What if he did?”
“If you could lure one of them, sweetie, maybe you could enlist one of the others to help.” His gaze tracked the length of her body. “You’ve never appreciated how stunning you are.”
“Oh, bosh.” She waved a hand in the air.
“Humor me. There’re still a few hours of dark left. Come back behind the boulder pile where we talked earlier. I’ll go with you. Take off enough outer layers so your, um, assets are visible, and ask Illimani and Illampu for help.”
“Christ, Craig, I thought—”
“Do you have a better idea?” he countered. Getting to his feet, he held out both hands to her. “We have to stop thinking like twenty-first century humans. If the thing that has you in its gunsights in as ancient as you believe, we need to think more like him.”
“Got it.” She stood, sucked in a weary breath, and walked out of the mess tent with Craig right behind her. She was willing to try just about anything if it would free her from Mururata’s clutches.
Chapter Five
Craig’s brain raced a million miles an hour. He’d kept a neutral expression, but Tina’s story made his guts clench in horror. Not much had that effect on him. For a fleeting moment, he considered offering himself to the hostile mountain god, but Tina would never accept his sacrifice.
He could hear her say, “Got myself into this mess. It’s not your problem.” Besides, if his theory about gender held water, he was the wrong sex.
They all took risks when they went to the high places of the world. From what it sounded like, Tina would be dead if it weren’t for whatever had intervened, and all because she hadn’t stocked extra headlamp batteries. As he followed her another idea took shape.
He angled his body into the wind. Spindrift blew into his face, the small pieces sharp as shrapnel against his bare skin. He pulled up the hood of his parka and zipped it so his chin was covered.
“Only for you would I do this.” Tina’s voice drifted back to him. “Weather’s a real bitch.”
He caught up with her. Fortunately, the large boulders provided a windbreak. “Yeah. No one will climb anything until it clears. And maybe not then, if it dumps enough snow to avalanche. I’ll hold those.” He extended a hand for her jackets and held both close. Next came her down vest. He added it to the pile in his arms. The clothing smelled like her. A wave of longing so intense it startled him hit him in the solar plexus.
“Do you think this is enough?”
He looked at her with a critical eye. The full curves of her breasts were visible beneath her form-fitting long john top. She wasn’t wearing a sports bra. His hands itched to curve around those wonderful breasts again, but he restrained himself.
“How about if you take off your hat and let your hair down.”
She pulled off her wool cap. Long, red hair cascaded around her torso. “Now what? Can’t stay like this long. I’m freezing.”
“Call for Illimani and Illampu to help you. Beg them. I won’t be listening, so don’t worry about sounding like a fool.”
“Last thing on my mind,” she muttered through chattering teeth.
The drone of her voice—seductive but laced with desperation—rose and fell around him. She even raised her hands like a supplicant. Her hair twisted like a live thing in gusts of wind that made their way around the boulders. Dear God if she didn’t look like the statues he’d s
een in Greece and Rome, timeless and gorgeous. His groin tingled, and he realized a full-blown erection pressed against the front of his climbing pants. What an incredibly sexy woman she was.
He told his body to stand down. He still didn’t know why she’d dumped him. They’d never talked about it. All she’d said was she couldn’t live in anyone else’s shadow. He’d protested he wasn’t asking her to, but she’d said she couldn’t take a chance.
Tina covered the few feet separating them and held out her hands for her clothes. “Can’t think of anything else to say. Brrrr.” She shrugged into her things. “Thanks for holding them next to your body. There’s still some warmth in the down.”
“Best get into your sleeping bag.” He heard the raspy undertone of desire in his voice.
She heard it too. “Want to join me?”
He sucked in a breath. “I’d love to, but no.”
She turned to face him. “You made me a promise. All the sex I can tolerate.”
“It’s one I intend to keep. I—” He bit back the words. He’d almost told her he still loved her. This wasn’t the time. “Let’s get out of this mess first.” Bending toward her, he kissed her ever-so-gently. “I hope we did some good out here tonight.”
Craig walked her to her tent. The rest of them were doubled up for warmth. If there’d been another female on the expedition, Tina would’ve shared her tent. As it was, she had a two-man tent to herself. “Will you be warm enough? I bought a couple extra bags.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ve got the minus forty one with me. Thought it was overkill when I packed it. Now I’m glad I did. Thanks for asking. See you in the morning.” She leaned against him for a moment and then ducked to unzip the tent fly so she could crawl inside. “Whoops.” She straightened.
“What?”
“I’m going to check on Brice and Joe one last time.”
“I could do that for you.”
She tapped his arm as she walked past. “Nah. If something didn’t look right, you’d come get me, anyway. Once I’m in my bag, I want to stay there.”
Craig knew what she meant. Pulling cold boots on was a hassle. Easier to only do it once—in the morning. He detoured off to one side of the camp to relieve himself and then let himself into his tent. Gunter would have shared it, but the German had taken all his gear with him, adding fuel to Craig’s suspicion the German was headed toward Illimani’s summit.
He heard Tina’s footsteps crunch through the snow and the screech of a frozen zipper as she got into her tent. He smiled, glad she was safe—at least for tonight.
Since he’d been unsure about when Gunter would return, Craig had tossed the extra sleeping bags into his tent. He was glad to have them. He layered one over his foam pad and tucked his own bag into the other extra one. It still took a while to get warm. He shut his eyes and willed his breathing into the slow pattern that let him drift into sleep. It didn’t work. A vision of Tina, naked and straddling him, danced behind his lids. All her amazing hair hung over his chest like a curtain of living flame. His cock throbbed, hot and hard where it lay against his stomach.
He wanted Tina. Ached for her. Maybe he should’ve taken her up on her invitation, but it hadn’t felt right. People in life and death situations fucked to remind themselves they were still alive. He knew all about that because he’d done it a time or two. Nameless bodies swathed in layers against the cold on peaks he could barely remember. Only two body parts were required to get the deed done. It was easy enough to finesse. Craig winced. He didn’t want it to be like that between him and Tina. He needed her to choose him for himself, not as a hedge against the void.
His cock twitched. It didn’t care about philosophy. It wanted release. Craig clicked on his headlamp and grappled in his pack for a towel. He lay back down, doused his light, and made a neat package of his cock wrapped in the towel. Dipping beneath its soft layers, he wrapped a hand around himself. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he took the edge off his lust for Tina.
He closed his eyes and visualized her taut breasts pushing against the thin fabric of her long underwear. Pebbled against the cold and wind, her nipples had been fully visible. He’d never forgotten what they looked like, strawberry circles tipped by wonderfully sensitive points. He’d made her come just by suckling her many a time.
He pumped his shaft, moving fast and sure. His breathing quickened, and his heart hammered against his chest. Her pussy with its red curls filled his mind. He pretended he was pushing into her, feeling the heat of her close around him, inhaling the musk of her arousal... His cock pulsed hard in his hand. Craig imagined her muscles clenched tight around him and stroked himself until the last jets erupted.
He lay against the down and nylon of his bag, panting. The towel had caught the worst of the mess. He tossed it out of his sleeping bag. The damp parts would be frozen long before morning, but it didn’t matter. This time when he closed his eyes, he slept.
* * * *
Wind woke him. No longer satisfied with just howling, it had risen to a screech, which would’ve roused the dead. The light filtering through the yellow tent fabric was gray. He tilted his wrist to look at his watch. Six. Time to see how everyone had survived the night. It was pretty clear they weren’t going anywhere but down today. He was grateful they weren’t far from Estancia Una. Much closer than they would’ve been if the clients had been more like normal ones and able to make the usual location for high camp.
Gunter.
The thought crashed into him. It was obvious the German hadn’t returned during the night. Craig grabbed the two-way radio and called him again. All he got was static.
Nothing I can do about that right now. He tossed the dice and wasn’t very lucky...
He struggled into his clothes, keeping as much of himself in his nest of sleeping bags as he could. It was bitterly cold. Well below zero.
“Hey, you decent?” Tina’s voice sounded from just outside his tent.
“Yeah. Have you checked on everyone? I was just about to do that.”
“They’re all fine. Brice still has a headache, but it’s manageable. Joe’s lung sounds aren’t any worse. The weather’s sort of like it was last time I was here. Can’t see five feet in front of me.”
“I’ll talk with the twins. Maybe I can offer them free passage on another trip in exchange for this one not working out. Or maybe we could still pick up Sajama after you and I are done, uh, hunting for Gunter.” Craig was all too aware the others could probably hear their conversation. The wind had a strange way of magnifying things.
“That would be nice. They’re the only two mountaineers in the group. They understand we need to retreat. Both of them said as much not five minutes ago.”
“Did anything, uh, unusual happen after you went to bed last night?”
He heard her snort. “If that’s a roundabout way of asking if I had any unexpected visitors, the answer is no.”
“I had another idea. We’ll have time to talk about it after I’m up.”
“Okay. I’m going to boil water for oatmeal. Want some?”
“Sure.” Craig smiled. Oatmeal and coffee had been their staple breakfast in the mountains all the years they’d climbed together. It felt right somehow. Just like being with Tina felt right. She was still a part of him. He’d forced himself to keep going without her, but there’d always been an empty place.
Craig scrambled into the rest of his clothes. He wore all his layers, but he’d still be cold until he got moving. He cursed as he shoved his feet into his frozen glacier boots. He’d considered bringing boot heaters, but even if he had them, he’d never have bothered with them on a rinky-dink climb like this one. No, they would’ve been with the gear he left in La Paz. He blew into his mitts to warm them, slipped his hands in, and unzipped the tent and fly.
Wind hit him full in the face, along with a mouthful of blowing snow as he fought to close the partially-frozen tent zipper. Crap! Tina hadn’t been kidding. He reached into a pocket and pulled out goggle
s, settling them around his head. The lenses were orange to improve visibility in low light conditions.
If I were superstitious, I’d believe this trip was cursed.
He stopped by each of the tents and told his charges to put on everything they owned. He also told them they’d be returning to Estancia Una where he’d either see them settled on a bus or in taxis to make the drive to La Paz. He explained he wouldn’t be returning with them because he needed to try to find Gunter. To his relief, no one seemed upset.
“How about breakfast?” Ted asked.
“Hot water’s in the mess tent. You can have hot cereal, dried fruit, and tea or coffee.”
“No pancakes?”
“If you want to try to cook them, go for it. I think we should clear out of here before things get any worse.” Craig made an effort to sound cordial. What he wanted to tell Ted was it wouldn’t hurt him to miss a meal or two.
Don’t antagonize the clients. One of his Alpine Attack teachers told him to pretend it was a logo stenciled on his soul.
“I have to check on the mules. Best thing you can do is to finish dressing, eat something, and get your personal gear packed.”
Without waiting to see if Ted came back with a snarky rejoinder, Craig turned toward the area he’d hobbled the mules. They brayed reproachfully at him, and he dug oats and their nose bags out of their partially buried pack frames. He couldn’t finesse what he needed to do with his thick alpine mitts, so he pulled them off. By the time he was done, and the braying had mutated into contented crunching, his hands were numb. He stuffed them down his pants and stifled a shriek as they came in contact with his stomach. Blood returning to his fingers created a small agony of its own. Once it was manageable, he put his mitts back on and headed for the mess tent.
“There you are.” Tina glanced at him. “Your oatmeal was freezing solid, so I gave it to one of the clients. Let me mix you up another bowl.”
“Thanks.”
“Sheesh. You look like the abominable snowman. Your face has rime ice on it.”