by Dale Mayer
Steve walked with them but had slowed down; it was getting harder and harder for him to lift his feet. Finally Anders stopped, turned and took a look at him. “How bad are the feet?”
Steve sent him a hard look. “They’re starting to go numb,” he admitted.
Anders didn’t say a word but bent down, scooped up Steve, tossed him over his shoulder and said, “Work your toes. Move them, twist the ankles, get your life’s blood back into them.” And Anders never slowed his pace.
Swearing, Angelica fell into step behind him. There really wasn’t much choice now. Not that there ever had been, not when all were linked together by ropes. But now Hannah had Angelica really worried. Twenty minutes later, Hannah took a faltering step and almost fell. Angelica called out to Anders, “Stop. Hannah is in trouble.”
Anders stopped, looked at Hannah and nodded. He stood Steve on his feet and asked, “How does that feel?”
Steve kind of danced around a little and said, “I can feel my toes again.”
“Keep dancing,” Anders said. “Just dance your way down that hill.” And he picked up Hannah in his arms as if carrying a small child and kept on walking.
Angelica stared at him, shocked by the absolute stalwart force of nature he was in his own right. And then she had no choice but to follow behind or get dragged. She didn’t remember him being so determined, so steadfast. In fact, she’d deliberately blocked out everything to do with him. Maybe because he had been such a powerful presence, both physically and energetically.
She wasn’t sure she could handle that. He’d blown into her life a year or so ago in England. He’d been over on some mission, and she’d never been interested in somebody off doing dangerous things all his life. Besides, as she kept telling Anders, she was engaged.
What she hadn’t dealt with was the fact that, even though engaged, she’d been very interested in Anders. He was right. She shouldn’t have felt about him the way she did if she were truly in love with Mark. The thing was, she’d been blown away by Mark, swept off her feet, glammed with the life he offered. He’d been extremely attentive, basically a girl’s dream, constantly bringing her gifts and presents. She’d only learned afterward that most of them had been offered out of guilt. He’d admitted to having slept with other women in the year they were together.
It had been not just a blow but a shattering of her self-confidence. Had she been so lacking that he’d had to go to other women? He’d laughed and said he was a lover of all women and didn’t see why he should stick to just one. She understood that in theory, but it wasn’t the world they lived in, and it sure as hell wasn’t the lifestyle she wanted. It had taken her weeks, if not months, to pull her self-confidence together, to finally realize that he was the one with the problem and that he hadn’t cared enough. What she had seen as a betrayal was actually, in fact, a man who didn’t really love her.
And she’d come to admit that she hadn’t loved him either, not if Anders had caused her to stop and to reassess. At the time, she wouldn’t explore her feelings for this man. There’d been a swift hot instant attraction, but one she wouldn’t take any further because her own morals wouldn’t allow her to. And that was one of her defining moments when she realized her inner compass had stopped her from having an affair with Anders, not because she wasn’t really interested in him.
The fact that she was interested meant she shouldn’t have been with Mark. She was just as blind to her own reasoning, as Mark had been. Even now she wasn’t sure what had made her accept his marriage proposal. Except maybe that having turned thirty and not having a husband and children had been something she had worried about. It was a poor excuse, and she couldn’t even convince herself of the validity of any of it now.
Keeping her mind on her relationship with Mark had helped her to ignore the cold. Determined to get from point A to point B as fast as possible was now a slow and determined plodding. There was no stopping—that was out of the question. And, for Nate’s sake, she hoped he was already down below, in the helicopter, and off to safety.
That they would get to the next cabin on their own was something else she wasn’t quite ready for. But, as soon as she made it to the cabin, she knew her thoughts would turn positive again, and they could rest. Then tomorrow they’d make the final trek down the mountain. It was a nice hike, one she normally really enjoyed, even if it came with a certain amount of sadness. These trips had a lot going for them, but they were also hard physically, and always she left with such unhappiness. She felt a kinship to the majestic mountains and glaciers behind her, but it was almost impossible to live a life so close to them.
And the type of work she did meant she had to be at the universities and at the research centers around the world for conferences and updates, as everybody collected their data and pooled their resources and knowledge. There wasn’t enough of that going on in the world as it was. She’d spent three months in Iceland last year and another couple months in Greenland.
Additionally she’d, in the last five years, spent four months in the Arctic and Antarctica. She had been fascinated and also quite devastated as she had watched and had studied the snowcaps retreat and the oceans rise, and the polar bears fight for food sources as the seals and fish numbers shifted with the change in temperatures. If this was all due to global warming, the whole world was in for a shock coming soon.
“We’re almost there,” Anders called out. He talked with Hannah, intermittently laughing and speaking out loud.
Angelica shook her head. How could he carry Hannah, take this snowy trail at their accelerated pace and still have breath to talk? Angelica again shook her head as she considered this. She and Steve walked almost side by side, with one of the pair slightly ahead, but as close together as they could so they could keep an eye on each other.
Both of them were more or less dragged forward by Anders and his never-ending powerful force. Only at this point, without the rush to get Nate to safety, it was total drudgery. It was hard work, their heads down, trying not to think about what they were doing and where they were.
As she took yet one more step, the rope at her waist pulled taut. She spun around to see Steve once again on the ground. She moved toward him because Anders had the rope taut in front of her. She gave the rope a shake and said, “Come on, Steve. We’re almost there. Just another fifteen minutes.”
He groaned. “I didn’t mean to fall,” he said, “but my feet are frozen.”
“I can’t carry you like Anders did,” she joked. “That would end up with both of us down.”
He flopped on his back, staring at the sky, the snow falling on his face. “Why is it that we like the snow and ice so much?” He bent his legs so his feet could get the blood moving down there faster, kind of like how they had been with Steve over Anders’s shoulder.
Anders, meanwhile, had stopped, turned to look at them and said, “You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Steve rolled his head in the snow to stare at him. “Are you always this hard a taskmaster?”
“I’m nothing compared to Mother Nature,” he reminded him. “The longer you stay out here, the lower your body temperature drops.”
“I’m just so tired. It feels like the cold has settled into my bones,” he said, slowly standing up.
“Jumping jacks right now,” Anders ordered.
Steve stared at him. “Hell no.”
“Jumping jacks gets the feet moving, gets the blood moving. Right now. One, two, three, four.”
Steve stood there until Anders took a step toward him. Something about the look on his face must have induced Steve to start his jumping jacks. Very quickly he was okay. “How is sweating good for me?”
“Too much sweating isn’t good for you,” Anders replied, his gaze on Steve’s face. “But you have to keep the blood moving. Once you get into this stagnant routine of one foot in front of the other, it’s pretty easy to get into a stupor, and the cold settles into your brain. This is just to wake up your system. Ten more,” he said.
>
Steve wore a resentful look, but he obeyed. When done, he fell into step behind Angelica and said, “Is he always like this?”
Her laughter rang freely across the hills. “I have no clue. When I say he blew into my life and then blew out fast again, I wasn’t kidding.”
“He’s kind of a force all on his own, isn’t he?”
“He sure is. But what I don’t doubt is our health is his first concern.”
“Maybe,” Steve said, half dancing at her side. “But his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.”
“He’s one of those special ops kinds of guys,” she said in a whisper. “They really don’t need much to be arrogant and to sound high-handed.”
*
Anders heard her and grinned. “I don’t need to be special ops to be that way. Besides, you do remember me from last time—whether you want to delve into that hot memory or not.” He couldn’t see her face to confirm if she flushed or not. But, when the snow hit the back of his head, he laughed out loud. He glanced at Hannah to find a big grin on her face. “How are you doing?”
She kicked her feet and said, “Can still wiggle my toes and my fingers so I’m doing just fine. But all of this is on you. You’ve got to be sweating something awful.”
“I’m used to it.” He shrugged. “Winter sports are definitely more fun than this though,” he said with a chuckle. “But I haven’t been blessed to carry such a lovely lady in a long time.”
At that, Hannah laughed. “Oh, you are a flatterer.”
He just grinned and kept going.
“So do we get any of the details about this hot and heavy memory she doesn’t want to delve into?” Hannah asked.
Behind them came a yelp. “No!”
His shoulders quaked as he held back the laughter. Given the circumstances, he shouldn’t be anywhere near as happy, but he was so damn grateful to be here with her. He’d known her as Angel, but he hadn’t realized who her father was at the time. No way in hell would he let her walk out of his life again. Sure, he’d been the one to walk last time, but that was because she’d shown him the door and had given him his marching orders. But he’d been right. She should never have even considered marrying that ass. And obviously, she had figured it out for herself.
“I like your nickname for her. I don’t know anyone else who uses it,” Hannah said.
“That’s how she introduced herself. So that’s how I remember her,” he said. “She was trying to hide her identity, I presume.”
“I was not,” Angelica said, but her voice was nowhere near as heated as before.
Maybe that persona took her away from being the only daughter of a Minister of Parliament who was always in the news and was always in trouble for the things he said off the cuff. He got himself into a lot of trouble with the press. But this time it seemed like the trouble had extended to his daughter. Anders could imagine hers wasn’t an easy childhood. She wasn’t the first MP’s daughter he’d met. Poor Stone, he was still dealing with his beautiful partner’s political family. And that was just the way life was. You lucked out sometimes, and sometimes you didn’t.
“She is lovely though,” Hannah said in a low voice. “Nobody’s in her life right now either. She says she’s avoiding all men after her fiancé’s betrayal.”
Anders tilted his head to the side, but he could hear Angel and Steve talking behind him, so Anders knew Angel hadn’t heard the conversation between himself and Hannah. He shifted Hannah in his arms and said, “Good. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You’re not letting her get away a second time, are you?”
He slanted his gaze her way, and the corners of his mouth kicked up. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think she’s got a clue what’s coming,” Hannah said in delight. “And I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.”
He thought about that, realizing how much respect and admiration were in Hannah’s words. “She hit me like a ton of bricks last time,” he said. “It was devastating to find out she was already engaged.”
“Well, if she had even one-tenth of the reaction to you that you had to her, she had no business being engaged.”
“Sure enough,” he said, “but it still takes time to become disengaged, and you have to see what you’re doing first in order to even understand what a mess you’re in.”
He liked that. He loved that Angel had made a nickname for herself, even if her name wasn’t as he first thought. She would always be Angel to him. He hadn’t told the guys about her. When you find the perfect woman and then realize she’s already taken, it’s a hard blow. They’d known something was up but had given him space to work it out by himself.
Up ahead he could see the cabin coming into view. “The hut is just ahead,” he called out.
“Thank God,” Steve said, his voice suddenly perky. “I might survive this after all.”
Angelica chuckled. “It’s not that bad,” she protested.
“Hell yes, it is,” he said. “I sure hope Nate got off safe.”
“We’ll find out soon,” she said. “And then we can relax, and tomorrow we can return to town.”
Steve made a war whoop of joy. “And then I’m hitting the bar and having a couple drinks. I can’t wait for my flight to go home.”
“Then what will you do?” she teased. “The minute you’re in your apartment for twenty-four hours, you’ll be bugging me as to where we’re going next.”
Anders listened to the two of them kibitz back and forth with a smile. “How much traveling does she do?”
“Probably about as much as you do,” Hannah said. “I think she’s done seven or eight trips this last year.”
He nodded. “I’m glad she loves her job.”
“Almost as much as you do.”
He glanced down at Hannah. “But, for the right woman, I’d stay home.”
“Well, she is the right woman,” Hannah said. “But she has no intention of staying at home. And neither do you.”
He grinned as they approached the side of the hut. He slowly lowered Hannah to her feet, unhooking her from the ropes, and said, “Stomp around a little bit and see how your blood circulation is.”
She took several steps and nodded. “They still feel a bit like two-by-fours with blocks on the end, but I can feel them, and they’re warm. I’m just so tired.” She stepped forward, opened the cabin door and walked inside.
He waited for the other two, disengaging the ropes they’d been connected by, and hung them up on the wall.
The huts, all small and cozy, were meant for outdoor gear to be stacked in a small anteroom. With everything carefully hung up to dry, the ropes alongside the other gear, he entered the small hut to see a fire already going, and Angelica had a pot on the stove.
She motioned to the small counter and said, “Here’s a note for you.”
He read it. As he expected, the helicopter had been here. “The helicopter took Nate down just fine,” he said.
There was a palpable release of tension as everyone realized their friend would probably survive after all.
“Any chance of it coming back for us?” Steve asked hopefully.
With amusement, Anders shook his head. “Not likely. More than a few thousand dollars for that trip.”
Snow crunched outside. Anders was at the door, behind it. Everyone else froze, staring at the door as it slowly opened.
Kicking off more snow from his boots, Dezi stepped inside. He glanced at Anders and said, “Looks all clear out there.”
Anders nodded to him and introduced him to the others. “Any word on Harrison?”
“Only that he got off safe and sound.”
“Is he coming back up?”
“I would imagine he’s hunting down below. I’ve been keeping watch,” Dezi said. “A lot of huts are up here. Just because we’re in one doesn’t mean someone isn’t in another.”
“Two men?” Angelica’s voice was sharp.
Dezi walked to the little fire, holding his han
ds in front of the hot stove and nodded. “We spotted two men. Both carrying sharpshooting rifles.”
“But only one shot was fired?” Steve asked.
“Correct. But we didn’t see them on the same side of the ice field. One was lower down. Maybe as a backup. We’re not sure.”
“Do you think the intention was to hit Nate, or were they trying to kill me?” Angelica asked.
“I doubt they were trying to kill you. What I suspect is, they were trying to take out your companions, leaving you alone, so they had less to deal with. Then they could have come in, snagged you and left the others to die in the snow.”
A stark silence filled the small cabin as each one contemplated their intended end.
“That’s pretty cold,” Hannah said. “Three murders to just grab her?”
“Sure. Less baggage that way,” Dezi said.
“Where’s Reyes now?” Anders asked.
“First watch.”
Anders nodded. “I’ll take second watch then.” He stepped forward, made himself a cup of instant coffee and a second one for Dezi. Anders would prefer to make a pot, but it took too long for right now. Hence the emergency rations of instant coffee.
“Where is he standing watch?” Angelica asked, staring out the window. “It’s almost impossible to see anything.”
“Right. So wouldn’t he be better off to come in here, so he can hike down the mountain with us tomorrow?” Steve asked.
“If it’s so difficult for you to see our man on watch out there,” Dezi said, “then it also means you can’t see an enemy attack before it happens.”
Steve just stared at him. “We don’t live like that,” he announced. “We live in a world where we measure ice. The most dangerous thing out there is Mother Nature. But we don’t have to worry about two-legged predators.”
“You do on this trip.” Anders’s tone told them that he wanted no arguments.
Steve got up and grabbed his pack, opening his sleeping bag. He pulled out more socks and sat in front of the fire with his bare feet, trying to warm them up. He gave himself a good foot massage. “I have to admit. This trip hasn’t been the same as the others.”