by Cherry Adair
He put his full body weight into helping the dogs pull. The animals worked with him. They knew help when it presented itself. But they were wide-eyed with fear as their feet slithered and slid and they struggled to find firm footing on the constantly shifting ground.
With his help, they fought for each step as the earth continued to groan and rumble. Spumes of snow and rubble shot out as if the ground itself were trying to shake them loose.
He managed to help/drag them, inch by agonizingly hard-fought inch. His back screamed. The muscles in his arms begged for mercy, but he didn't let up. Couldn't let himself or the dogs surrender. And more by will than strength, he pulled them to the far side of the trail, as close to the left-hand side of the drop-off as he could get them. Protected some from the tumultuous fall of snow and rock, nevertheless they again slid back another three feet.
Four.
Six—
Derek held on for dear life, sliding along with them, skating on the snow as if wearing skis. "No," he shouted, digging his heels in, dragging furrows through the loose snow and rock. "Hike." Like they weren't trying? The dogs were giving it everything they had. Chests heaved, tongues hung out with exertion and their sides expanded and contracted like bellows, their breath mingling with swirling snowflakes.
Failure was not an option.
With almost superhuman strength he dragged the dogs forward again, reclaiming lost ground. Rio and Grady scrabbled up onto the path. He wouldn't let them go. Wouldn't lose Lily or the team. Wouldn't stand on the edge of oblivion and stare down at her broken body, by God.
Finn's and Arrow's front feet lifted completely off the ground as Derek pulled with every ounce of his strength. He felt each muscle and tendon do its job, and he thanked God for his physical ability and relentless training. He'd need every gram of strength today.
It took a precious five minutes for the earth to quit dancing enough for the dogs to be able to stand still. He had them. Safe. No more sliding.
Now Lily. Please, God, Lily.
"Extra chow for you guys tonight," he told the dogs grimly, releasing the line and pausing to make sure they weren't still being dragged backward. Satisfied, at least for the moment, he stepped back. "Hang tough. Stay."
There was a mandatory shovel on his sled. But he wasn't going back down the trail to fetch it.
Not a second to waste, he practically threw himself over the path's ragged edge.
Slithering. Sliding. Hands. Feet. Keep low to the ground for better balance. Where—A quick glance to get a bead on the position of the dangling, snow-loaded sled. He lowered himself over the side of the steep cliff. The only reason he did it with more caution than his screaming internal alarm required was that if he fell to his death, then so would Lily.
He meticulously maneuvered, crablike, until he neared the lump of snow indicating a sled and its precious human cargo buried in the hillside, a precarious forty feet above the gorge.
Ten feet away, he yelled, "Lily. Talk to me!"
On one of his first T-FLAC assignments many years ago, Derek and a small team had been inserted into the stronghold of a small terrorist cell holed up in a high-mountain retreat in the Andes. He'd been suitably scared shitless then, too. But he'd never experienced anything as close to pure terror as he was right now.
Fear for himself wasn't even close to the fear he had for Lily. It would be like comparing a tadpole to a killer shark.
Back then, the avalanche that had covered him and his teammates had killed three of the seven men, incapacitated one with frostbite and a broken leg, and given Derek a healthy and terrifyingly realistic knowledge of just how long Lily could survive covered by tons of snow.
"Lily?"
As he scrambled to her position, he gauged the texture of the snow covering her and the sled. Light and fluffy. She had a higher chance of survival because she'd be able to breathe. Heavy, wet snow, as some of this was, could lead to suffocation. He remembered not being capable of even flexing his fingers when he'd been buried. That was the first time he'd realized his own mortality.
God only knew, it sure as hell hadn't been the last.
He kept talking to her, shouting nonsense as he scrambled the last few feet. He needed to believe she could hear him, was plotting cutting comebacks to everything he was saying.
"You're going to a lot of trouble to slow me down in this race, Lily," he shouted, scanning for a sign, any sign of her. "If you think this is going to keep me from winning, you're nuts. I'm going to save you first, then beat your ass."
Nothing, damn it. Nothing. "I'm willing to give you a half hour to rest up, but after that, no more Mr. Nice Guy." Please, God, let me find her.
A speedy rescue was imperative. Most avalanche victims lasted about thirty trapped minutes before—"Answer me, goddamn it!"
"Maybe I would if you'd stop yakking away long enough to hear me!" Lily's muffled, annoyed voice responded in his ear without missing a beat.
Relief was a drug. It swept through his bloodstream and made his head swim and his heart leap up into his throat. He laughed. "That's my girl."
"Talk, talk, talk." Her voice was barely audible, but fierce. "Get me out of here, would you? I'm freezing my—I'm so co—Derek?" The bravado leaked out of her voice. "Please. Make it fast."
There was no word in the dictionary for cold like this. It burned and bit and clawed at her exposed skin; it sneakily seeped into every seam, every buttonhole, every crevice until she was shuddering so violently she couldn't tell if it was her moving or the sled carrying herself and the dogs to their spectacularly gory deaths in the canyon below. Somehow, she'd managed to curve her elbow over her nose and mouth as they fell, so at least she could breathe. But it was as mercilessly black and icy cold as a crypt—Oh, shit. Don't go there.
"Don't move, okay, kids?" she told the unseen dogs soothingly. Melba whined; Dingbat, confused as usual, gave his I-haven't-a-clue-what's-going-on bark. "We're going to get out of this mess," she promised them grimly, terrified that she couldn't hear the rest of the team. "And beat the pants off Derek and his team, you got that?" She hoped that sentence wouldn't go down in history in the category of famous last words.
"Don't waste air talking," Derek said calmly into her ear. "Everyone is clear except you and the wheel dogs. Hang tight. I know where you are. I'll have you out in a few minutes."
Her right arm was tight at her side, her left over her face. The blood wasn't pooling in her brain, so she figured she wasn't hanging upside down like a terrified bat in a black-ice cave. She wiggled the fingers of her right hand. See? she thought optimistically. It wasn't all bad.
Using her full strength she jerked her arm upward; it moved about an inch and a half. No point wasting time being terrified. Plenty of time for that later. She had to help Derek rescue her and the dogs. Oh, God. The poor dogs. Melba had been around the block a few times, she'd be okay. But Dingbat must be a quivering mass of terror.
"Damn." She tried to move her arm again. It moved up a few more inches. "Hang in there, kids. Things are looking u—Aaargh!"
Sled, dogs, snow… her, jerked down. Backward.
The dogs yelped in terror.
So did she.
Her heart jumped up into her throat and beat there like a trapped bird.
OhGodohGodohGod.
"Jesus Christ, Lily!" Derek's voice was muffled, but his tone was crystal clear. "Stop moving!"
"Not a problem," she whispered back without moving her lips. Were her eyes closed? She wanted them open, but she couldn't tell.
Derek was close. She knew without a shadow of a doubt he was digging her out as fast as humanly possible. And as independent as she was, there was not a darn thing she could do to help him or herself but wait. She wasn't good at waiting. No patience, her mom used to say.
Oh, great, Lily Marie! Think about Mom now, why don't you? Because the last time her mom had laughingly said that was the last time her mother had spoken to her.
Lily and her parents had flown i
n her dad's twin-engine plane to Billings to buy Christmas presents the year Lily turned eight. Her father was an excellent pilot, but he didn't take the family with him very often when he flew. The Cessna 172 was for veterinary business when it was too far to travel by truck. So this was a special occasion. She and her mom had dressed up in their best dresses, and then bundled up in thick down coats and heavy boots because of the cold. The snow had been especially pretty that year. Soft and pristine white.
Lily wanted a Barbie camper, and she was pretty sure it was one of the things they were going to be picking up in town.
Her mom smelled so good. She'd even let Lily dab on a little perfume for the trip. The inside of the small plane smelled of Carolina Herrera, and antiseptic from her dad's emergency medical bag, which was on the floor in back where Lily sat. There was also the faint stink of horse manure. Lily couldn't decide which of the three smells she liked the most.
She'd fallen off the roof and broken her leg the summer before and didn't like heights so much anymore. So when she felt the vibration of the plane as it taxied down the runway, Lily squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Ballerina Barbie riding in her new camper.
Her stomach did that weird dippy thing that made her want to throw up as the plane took off. Because she knew closing her eyes wasn't very brave, she forced them open and made herself look down on the red roofs of their house and outbuildings as they circled. Her stomach wasn't happy. But she did it anyway.
There was Cinnamon, a copper-colored blob near the barn. She should be inside where it was nice and warm, but her horse loved the snow for some reason. Holy camolie, they were high. Cinnamon got smaller and smaller as they rose.
Lily's eyes dried out because she was determined not to close them, not even to blink. Her eyeballs were dry, her mouth was dry and her heart was thumping really, really hard in her chest. Out of the corner of one dry eyeball she could see the lace on the front of her dress bounce up and down with her heartbeat as she tried not to panic at how high up they were.
She shifted uncomfortably in the seat. The lacy dress itched; she'd rather be wearing her favorite jeans, but they were going to a nice dinner after shopping and she was a girl.
Maybe the stupid price tag was sticking her neck; she tried to twist around to check, tangling herself in her coat and the seat belt.
"Sit still, honey." Her mom turned her head to smile back at Lily. "You have absolutely no patience, do you, Princess Pea? Well, I don't blame you, but we'll be there soo—Oh! What's that noise, John?"
The engine coughed and gagged like Piewacket with a hairball. Her father swore. Her father never swore. Lily's gaze shot from her mom's pale profile to the back of her dad's head. "Daddy?"
"Jesus," Derek said, scowling down at her through the opening he'd made in the snow. "Did you hit your head?"
Dazed and disoriented, Lily blinked. "What?"
"You just called me Daddy."
She scowled. "Did not."
It'd taken her eyes a moment to focus, but she appeared lucid enough. Derek bit back a smile. She looked like a ruffled baby owl popping out of her nest. But this was no time for levity. Her position was precarious as hell. The sled hung over the edge of the hillside, anchored, thank God, by a fairly sturdy-looking outcropping of saplings.
But that anchor could change in a heartbeat.
Digging his way through to her had been laborious and frustratingly time-consuming. He hadn't wanted to jar anything loose, and he'd had to dig with his hands while braced just as precariously as she was on an unstable hillside.
Narrow-eyed, he'd watched for the small telltale escape of steam to pinpoint exactly where she was under the pile of snow covering her, the sled and two of the dogs.
She was still buried shoulder deep. But other than looking a little dazed and confused, she was alive and well.
"Ready to get out of there, or are you enjoying the view?" The drop was spectacular, and hair-raising. She hadn't even glanced behind him to look; her eyes were fixed, to his very real amusement, on his crotch, which was at her eye level.
He would've enjoyed her position a hell of a lot more if her expression wasn't quite so glassy and scared and she wasn't neck deep in snow. "Lily, are you all right?"
She licked her lips. A quick swipe of a pink tongue over her mouth. A nervous gesture she'd deny emphatically. Nevertheless, heat shot to his groin.
"I will be when you get me out of here; my butt feels like it's in a deep freeze." Her answer was a little shaky, but vintage Lily. She wasn't blinking and kept her attention on him, not the drop, and he didn't have to wonder if her flying phobia affected how she felt about heights as well.
He made short work of clearing the rest of the snow around her. As soon as she had an arm free, she helped.
"Slow and methodical. Slow and methodical," Derek cautioned as she started bailing frantically.
"Yeah." She cast a worried look up to where she could hear but not see her team on the ledge above them. "Right. Are the others all okay?"
"Worried but maintaining," he said dryly. "Keep digging." Thank God her coat was Gore-Tex and waterproof; she was sensibly dressed for the terrain and climate. She'd be cold, but he'd fix that soon enough. "Can you shake off the rest of it?" he asked when he could see her lower body.
"You betcha, Bubba." She did just that, carefully kicking away the thick snow encasing her lower legs, and brushing away what she could with her gloved hands.
"Anything hurt?" He gave her a top-to-toe once-over.
"No," she said dismissively, her attention focused now just beyond the snow-covered sled to where the two dogs should be. "Let's get the kids now."
He held out his hand. Without hesitation, Lily grabbed it and used his leverage to climb from the back of the sled. The entire lump of snow, sled and dog, creaked and slid back several feet as she did so. "Oh, God."
He twisted both hands into the front of her coat to steady her, curling his fingers into the thick damp pile and jerking her flush to his body. She grabbed on to his coat to regain her footing, and for a moment they stood unsteadily together.
From above them came a long, sharp howl from one of the buried dogs. "Dingbat," Lily said, recognizing like a mother would which dog was calling. "Hang in there, buddy." Her brow pleated in a quick worried frown. "Get the snow out of the sled, I'll liberate the kids."
"Go up top and wait. I'll take care—" At her narrow-eyed look, he grinned and gave her a salute. "Yes, ma'am." She wasn't hurt, just scared and cold. Waiting for him to do the job wasn't going to change that. Freeing her animals would. He put a large hand on her butt to help her up the hillside. She yelled a disgruntled, "Hey!" but it didn't have much heat.
"Climb above them before you start messing with the snow," he told her unnecessarily. Lily knew what she was about. She wouldn't endanger the dogs any more than she'd endanger herself.
Listening to her talking to her animals in a quiet, calm voice, he put his back into unveiling the heavy sled, and considerably lightened the drag as he dumped yards of snow and rock from the sled bag with nothing but his cupped hands.
"They're cold and scared but okay!" Lily yelled down.
Not How are you doing, my hero? Derek thought dryly. It was all about the dogs. "Ready to hike?" he yelled up, giving the handlebars a shake to be sure everything was free.
"What about those little trees holding—Oh! Wow, how macho of you," she said with gratifying awe as he hefted 350 pounds of sled and equipment up and over the saplings holding it in place. They then served to stabilize it so it didn't slide downhill again.
He considered digging up the small trees that had saved her life, and having them bronzed. "Let's do it."
"Hike!" Lily yelled to the dogs, and, with happy yips and barks, all fifteen laboriously started pulling the loaded sled back up to the trail. It might be slow-mo, but it was progress nevertheless.
Derek climbed up to where Lily stood, one leg straight out behind her bracing her body, the other bent uphi
ll as she pushed and shoved the back of the sled to help the dogs.
Her face was pink with exertion and cold, her mouth a serious line. Admiration filled him. She didn't waste time feeling sorry for herself. Or giving into hysterics over being buried by an avalanche. She just got up, brushed herself off and kept moving. God. Was there any other woman in the world like her?
Now, if he could just get it into her thick head it wasn't Sean she loved—
Finally, finally they were up on the trail once again.
Derek reached up and brushed snow off her hat.
He captured her eyes with his. More gold than green when she looked up at him as if unable to look away. He cupped her face in his other hand, allowed himself the perverse pleasure of seeing surprised awareness before he crushed his mouth down on hers.
She gave a small ompff of surprise.
Thank you, he thought, spearing his tongue into the warm sweet cavern of her mouth. Thank you, God, for keeping her safe for me.
He wasn't gentle. Digging her out had taken that ability right out of him. He cradled her head in one hand to support her, and ravished her mouth, not taking time to savor her never-forgotten taste. No, this time was all heat and flash. Surging blood and pounding pulses.
Heat flooded Lily, banishing the bone-deep cold she'd experienced moments ago. The warning bells were drowned out by the thundering sound of the blood rushing to her head.
His hands—she swore she could feel the heat of his hands right through the thick fleece of her coat. His breath on her face felt warm. The pressure of his body aligning itself to hers felt hot. Steam was probably erupting from the top of her head.
"You idiot." Lily clung to him with her hands fisted in the front of his coat. "We could have fallen."
"But we didn't."
"Pure luck."
"Not a chance, honey. I worked too hard to earn that kiss."
"Yeah?" She smiled up at him, because damn it, he had earned it. "What'd I do to earn it?"
"Born under a lucky star, I guess."
"Egotistical ass," she said without heat.
"I know when a woman wants me." He looked into her eyes. "And I want you. I've never made any bones about that, Lily. I'm done pretending otherwise."