‘You’re right,’ he’d answered, running his hand along her cheek. ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’
She had turned away then, upset as much by the knowledge that he had deliberately engineered what had happened as by her reaction to it.
Chad hadn’t stopped her as she slipped past him. Instead, he’d followed her down the snowy main street of the ghost town, watching in silence as she snapped off a roll of film. The cold air and blowing snow had cleared her head, but soon her fingers and toes felt numb and she’d glanced at her watch.
‘I’ve got three minutes to spare,’ she’d said. ‘But I’m going inside now.’
He had smiled politely. ‘Good idea.’
They’d spent the rest of the afternoon at a companionable distance, sitting in front of the fire, playing a lopsided game of poker with a mouse-nibbled deck of cards that was missing a queen of hearts and an eight of clubs.
Neither of them had referred to what had happened but it had changed things between them.
They were both short-tempered, and during the night, the darkness in the little cabin had been filled with their awareness of each other. She’d heard Chad arrange and rearrange his tarpaulin on the floor near the fireplace. She’d been awake when he slipped quietly outside, awake still when he’d come back into the little cabin a long while later...
The skillet fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. She bent and picked it up, and she thought of how quickly things could change.
A few days ago, she’d never have imagined wanting a man like this, not just wanting him but needing him…
Something banged loudly against the cabin window. Jessica spun around and looked across the room, heart pounding. The hermit? she wondered. Chad had said he was long gone, but still...
She laughed shakily. It had been a branch, she realized, brought down from the lodgepole pine that stood like a sentinel just outside the cabin. The weight of the snow must have broken it off. There was a loud, snapping sound: another branch, she thought, and then, suddenly, there was a roaring noise in the chimney. She leaped backwards as a deluge of snow and ash tumbled into the hearth, smothering the fire and filling the cabin with sooty smoke.
Dear Lord, what was happening?
She grabbed her sweater and wrenched open the door.
The snow crunched sharply underfoot as she stepped outside. A large pine branch lay on the roof; she could see at a glance what had happened. The snow had broken a heavy branch and it had fallen on the chimney. Only a couple of bricks had been knocked off the top, but the branch had disgorged its snowy cargo down the chimney. Jessica ducked back into the smoky cabin and stalked to the fireplace.
What a mess! She squatted before the hearth and stared at the tumble of snow and wood. The cabin was chilling already; without the blazing fire, the cold air that found its way through the chinks in the logs had free reign in the little room.
Well, there was nothing to do but clear the hearth and rebuild the fire. And the sooner she got to work, the better.
By the time she had finished, her arms and back were fierce knots of pain. But the hearth was clean; she had emptied it of ashes, wet wood and snow and now it awaited the laying of a fresh fire. That should do it, she thought, arranging the last bit of kindling and wood.
And just in time; even with all the heavy work she’d been doing, she was beginning to feel the cold. Jessica got to her feet and reached to the table behind her for the matches. She could hardly wait for the first tiny leap of flame, the first curl of smoke...
‘Damn!’ she said aloud, turning towards the table.
Where were the matches? In her pockets, perhaps? No, not there. On the floor, then?
‘Damn,’ she said again. That was where they were, all right ... soaked, limp, and useless as they lay in a melted puddle of snow.
She picked them up and tossed them aside. There had to be another book of matches somewhere. But a methodical check of all their supplies and clothing turned up nothing. Well, at least she knew where the balance of their precious hoard of matches was. They were in a waterproof container in Chad’s backpack—and the backpack was at the creek with its owner.
She pulled on her last remaining sweater and buttoned it. Its warmth was fleeting and within seconds, she was shivering.
Keep the fire built up, Chad had said, and now they didn’t even have a fire. She clapped her icy hands together and two-stepped around the room like a demented ballerina. By the time he got back, she’d be a lump of frozen flesh. And he’d be chilled to the bone after all this time down at the creek, expecting to be' greeted by a warm, roaring fire...
Well, there was a simple solution. The creek was barely a five-minute walk away. Chad had described its location to her the first day. She hadn’t been there—the first few days, her ankle had hurt too much. She hadn’t dared suggest it yesterday, not after their run-in about her getting sick if she got wet and cold...
Ten minutes, he’d said, she could be outside for ten minutes and no longer, which meant he couldn’t very well scold her for going after the matches. The whole thing would take no more than that. And besides, she told herself, marching towards the door, what choice did she really have? She could either go out there and freeze her nose off, or sit here and freeze her bottom off.
She hesitated as she closed the door behind her. What had he said that first night? A rule of survival, he’d called it. Know where you’ve been, know where you are, know where you’re going. And she knew all three. The creek was due east of the cabin, and there were Chad’s tracks. All she had to do was follow them.
It was cold, of course, but the kiss of the sun was pleasant on her face. Her ragtag outfit seemed warm enough, although she could feel the occasional sharp bite of the wind through it.
The snow crunched loudly under her feet as she walked along Main Street.
Lord, it was so quiet! The sagging doors and windows of the empty ghost town seemed to watch her accusingly as she trudged through the snow.
Chad’s footsteps stretched ahead like signposts along a highway.
She hunched down into her sweater, picturing his reaction to her arrival at the creek. He’d be surprised, that was for sure. He might even be annoyed, but only until she explained what had happened. Would he want to move to another cabin? No, she thought, he’d picked this one because its roof and walls were intact, as was its door and both its old glass windows. The chimney was still functional, as far as she could tell. And there didn’t seem to be any other branches hanging over the roof.
Jessica glanced up at the sky and a shudder ran through her. There was a cloud moving over the sun and without its brightness, the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees.
Where was that creek, anyway? Five minutes east, Chad had said, but she’d left the town behind at least that long ago and there wasn’t any sign of a creek or a pond or anything larger than the icy puddles she kept stepping over and around. And into, she thought with a grimace. It had become impossible to follow his footsteps; the wind had sculpted the snow into curves and ridges and obliterated them.
She halted and tucked her cold hands into her armpits. No wonder he’d warned her about staying outside more than ten minutes; her feet were like ice and her fingers felt as if they were falling off.
Had he... could he have said the creek was west of the cabin? She remembered that he’d pointed towards a ridge line, and she’d noticed how rounded it was. Shivering, she glanced behind her at the soft lines of the mountains to the west.
‘OK, dummy,’ she said with a sigh, ‘it looks as if you walked in the wrong direction. But you still know where you are and where you’ve been. As for where you’re going, it had better be back towards the cabin.’
She took a deep breath and started back the way she’d come, surprised at how tired and out of breath she felt. But the snow made walking difficult, especially now that her sneakers were soaked.
Her spirits lifted as she spotted the cabin dead ahead. For an instant, she was tempte
d to go inside and simply wait for Chad to return. But then she thought about how chilled and wet she was, and the more she thought about it, the less intelligent it seemed to sit for who knew how long in the freezing cold when she could find the cowboy, get the extra matches and start a warm fire.
‘Keep moving, Jessie,’ she said aloud, trudging past the cabin. ‘You’re almost there now.’
But she wasn’t.
Her footsteps lagged; she stopped and stared around her. The cabin was behind her and out of view and there still wasn’t anything resembling a creek in sight. She shifted her feet uncomfortably; they felt leaden and numb. She had a fleeting image of the heavy wool coat hanging in her cupboard back in New York. Boy, she could certainly use it now, she thought, wrapping her arms around herself.
She’d never felt this cold, not in her whole life. Her face felt as if it might crack if she touched it, and the chill wind seemed to cut through her layered sweaters as if they weren’t even there.
But she couldn’t give up now; she was probably only a few hundred yards from the creek. Maybe she’d gotten a bit off course. Maybe that hill to the right was the one she should be heading toward.
‘Last try, Jessie,’ she said aloud, trudging off again. ‘If you don’t find it this time, give it up.’
It made sense, she thought, digging her cold hands into her jean pockets. Even someone who did all her walking on the streets of New York knew it was dumb to wander around in the woods alone. Not that this was the woods, exactly. This was almost a meadow—there were trees, but not too many, and...
‘Whoops!’ Jessica swore under her breath.
She was tripping over her own feet. Well, why not? For one thing, the ankle she’d twisted days before had begun to hurt again. And it was getting hard to see; the sky was getting greyer all the time.
The sun was almost hidden behind the mountains—it was a ball of glowing orange, but she was too cold to appreciate it at the moment. And there was definitely no creek in this direction either, she thought suddenly, coming to a halt. There was nothing but snow-covered landscape ahead, stretching as far as she could see.
‘That’s it, kid. Back you go,’ she said aloud, turning and trudging across the valley. There was a tiny knot of fear in her chest and she fought it back. Where was that damned cabin? She couldn’t see it, not anywhere, not ahead or to the side or...
Don’t panic, she thought. Take it easy. Take some deep breaths.
Great idea. But you couldn’t take deep breaths when you were panting and your lungs ached from the icy air.
OK, then, concentrate on something. Think about explaining all this to Chad. He’d probably be at the cabin by the time she got there and he’d have a few choice things to say. But she hadn’t violated his rule of survival—she knew where she was. Obviously, it was the cabin that had got lost.
She laughed aloud at the thought. God, but that was funny! She’d have to remember that line. She could tell that to Chad when he said... when he said...
When he said what? Wasn’t that crazy? She had been thinking about something, and it had just slipped away from her. Of course it was crazy!
Her footsteps slowed. Where had that stand of pines come from? Coleman’s Creek was situated among lodgepole pines, not these gnarled, twisted trees. Chad had pointed out that the lodgepoles were straight and tall; he’d told her that was why they’d been given the name, because the Indians used to cut them down and use them to construct their lodges.
A gust of wind sighed through the trees, tumbling a dusting of snow from the branches overhead. It landed lightly on her shoulders.
She raised her hand to brush it off but her fingers didn’t seem to want to obey. She spread her hand before her face and stared at it.
How could those fingers be hers? They didn’t feel like hers— they felt thick and clumsy. She smiled. Wasn’t it remarkable, though? Her hands didn’t feel cold any more.
No part of her did, now that she thought about it.
She laughed softly. Wait until she got back to the cabin and told Chad how foolish his warnings had been. The wet and the cold wouldn’t make you sick. All you had to do was adjust to the weather. If only she weren’t so damned tired.
Night was coming on, but that was no problem. The cabin was out there somewhere; she’d taken a wrong turn or made a wrong step or something. All she had to do was keep walking towards the rounded mountain...
Was that right? No, she thought, no, the rounded mountain was where the creek had been. But the creek hadn’t been anywhere. Neither had the cabin. Well, she’d find the cabin and if not the cabin, then she’d find the creek and it didn’t really matter which she found first, did it?
She laughed again. It was a riddle. Did the creek come first or did the cabin? It was like the chicken and the... the chicken and the... the something... It didn’t really matter. She felt so good, so relaxed—like the way she’d felt at her high school graduation party, light and floaty and giggly. That was the time two of the guys had spiked the punch and no one had known anything about it until the next day when everybody was sick to their stomachs and then she remembered thinking, so that’s what it is to be drunk ...
Her feet slipped out from under her and she landed on her rump.
Her laughter died suddenly and tears filled her eyes. She was so clumsy. It was terrible to be like that. And she was so tired...
At least it was comfortable sitting here. Maybe she’d just lie down and rest for a while.
‘Jessie ... Jessie!'
Chad’s voice floated to her on the sighing wind. For a second, she struggled to open her eyes and answer, and then she frowned and shook her head. No, she thought, he’d be angry because she’d made a mess of the rules. She was supposed to know something but she couldn’t remember what it was...
‘Jessica, where are you? Please, Jessie, answer me.’
She whimpered softly. She wanted to go to him, even if he scolded her, even if he told her she’d been dumb. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him... tell him...
‘Jessie? Oh, God, Jessie!’
A shadowy figure knelt beside her. She narrowed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the figure’s face, but it took so much effort.
‘Chad?’ she whispered.
‘Thank God,’ he murmured hoarsely, lifting her into his arms. He held her against his heart for an instant and then touched his mouth to hers. Fear caught at his gut. Her skin was cool, her lips tinged with blue. There was a strange, almost unearthly quality about her...
Hypothermia.
He had seen it once before, in Alaska. One of the men he was working with had fallen into an icy stream. They’d pulled him out before he drowned, but not before his internal temperature had dropped rapidly.
A couple of minutes later, the poor bastard was acting like a drunk. He could barely string three words together or stand up, much less walk back to their Land Rover.
And they’d almost lost him, Chad remembered, while fear knifed through him again. It had been touch and go.
His arms tightened around Jessica and he rose to his feet. ‘You’ll be fine, Jessie,’ he said fiercely. ‘I swear it, love, I swear it.’
Whispering assurances as much to himself as to her, he started towards the cabin at a trot, slipping and stumbling in the drifting snow.
Slow down, O’Bryan, he told himself, slow down, or neither one of you will get there.
‘You’ll be fine, Jessie,’ he said again, almost crooning the words into her ear.
She made a sound midway between a sob and a laugh. ‘I am fine,’ she mumbled, her voice thick and furry. ‘You’re not the only wilfer—wilter—wiln’ness expert, Doctor.’
‘Where the hell were you going?’ he demanded, even though he knew the question was meaningless to her, that she was past logical thought and reason.
‘Don’t be ...’
He bent his head to hers. ‘What is it, love? I couldn’t hear ...’
‘Don’ be angr
y,’ she whispered drunkenly. ‘I was... I was looking for you. The cabin ...’ She fought to remember what had been so important about the cabin, what she’d set out to tell him, but it was impossible.
‘Yes, love, yes,’ he whispered, ‘we’re at the cabin now.’
He kicked open the door and stepped into the little room. It was chilled and damp. There was no fire in the fireplace, only a stacked batch of fresh wood and kindling.
Chad deposited Jessica tenderly before it and covered her with the motley assortment of torn blankets and musty scraps of fabric they’d collected from the other cabins. She was so pale, so cold...
It took less than a minute for him to dig out the matches from his pack and start a fire, and then he went back to her. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow.
A terror unlike any he’d ever known filled him. With trembling fingers, he began to ease the cold, wet clothing from her limp body.
CHAPTER NINE
Chad brushed a tendril of hair off Jessica’s forehead.
She sighed in her sleep and turned away from his hand.
It was such a natural, simple action that it made him smile.
Hell, he thought, a couple of hours ago he’d been afraid she’d never do anything that normal again.
She’d been like a rag doll in his arms, limp and senseless while he took off her wet clothing and then dried her chilled body.
Carefully, fearful she might choke, he’d spoon-fed her some warm bark and berry tea, constantly talking to her, urging her to live, scolding her for having left the cabin and then telling her it was his fault, that he should have warned her about hypothermia, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.
But talking had kept him sane. He hadn’t stopped until the glow began to return to her skin and she fell into a deep sleep, not into the coma that would have led to death.
‘Thank you,’ he had whispered, and then he’d cradled her in his arms and watched her as she slept.
Another storm had moved in during the past couple of hours. He could hear the high-pitched howl of the wind as it rushed through the trees, but it was warm and comfortable in the cabin.
Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set Page 12