The Winter Man

by Diana Palmer

  “We’ll see you in San Francisco,” Jerry told her with a smile. “I have to go nursemaid these big, tough guys, so you make sure the pilot of your plane has all his marbles, okay?”

  “I’ll check him out myself,” she promised. “Take care of yourselves, guys. I’ll see you in California.”

  “Okay. Be good, babe,” Hank called. He and the others filed into the bus Jerry had chartered and Jerry hugged her impulsively and went in behind them.

  She watched the bus pull away, feeling lost and alone, not for the first time. It was cold and snowy, but she hadn’t wanted her coat. It was packed in her suitcase, and had already been put on the light aircraft. With a long sigh, she went back to the cab and sat disinterestedly in it as it wound over the snowy roads to the airport.

  Fortunately the chinook had thawed the runways so that the planes were coming and going easily. She got out at the air charter service hangar and shook hands with the pilot.

  “Don’t worry, we’re in great shape,” he promised Amanda with a grin. “In fact, the mechanics just gave us another once-over to be sure. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried,” she said absently and allowed herself to be shepherded inside. She slid into an empty aisle seat on the right side and buckled up. Usually she preferred to sit by the window, but today she wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing. One snow-covered mountain looked pretty much like another to her, and her heart wasn’t in this flight or the gig that would follow it. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  It seemed to take forever for all the businessmen to get aboard. Fortunately there had been one more cancellation, so she had her seat and the window seat as well. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and was hoping she wouldn’t have to sit by some chatterbox all the way to California.

  She listened to the engines rev up and made sure that her seat belt was properly fastened. They would be off as soon as the tower cleared them, the pilot announced. Amanda sighed. She called a silent goodbye to Quinn Sutton, and Elliot and Harry, knowing that once this plane lifted off, she’d never see any of them again. She winced at the thought. Oh, Quinn, she moaned inwardly, why wouldn’t you listen?

  The plane got clearance and a minute later, it shot down the runway and lifted off. But it seemed oddly sluggish. Amanda was used to air travel, even to charter flights, and she opened her eyes and peered forward worriedly as she listened to the whine become a roar.

  She was strapped in, but a groan from behind took her mind off the engine. The elderly man behind her was clutching his chest and groaning.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked the worried businessman in the seat beside the older man.

  “Heart attack, I think.” He grimaced. “What can we do?”

  “I know a little CPR,” she said. She unfastened her seat belt; so did the groaning man’s seat companion. But just as they started to lay him on the floor, someone shouted something. Smoke began to pour out of the cockpit, and the pilot called for everyone to assume crash positions. Amanda turned, almost in slow motion. She could feel the force of gravity increase as the plane started down. The floor went out from under her and her last conscious thought was that she’d never see Quinn again….

  * * *

  Elliot was watching television without much interest, wishing that his father had listened when Amanda had phoned the night before. He couldn’t believe that he was going to be forbidden to even speak to her again, but Quinn had insisted, his cold voice giving nothing away as he’d made Elliot promise to make no attempt to contact her.

  It seemed so unfair, he thought. Amanda was no wild party girl, surely his father knew that? He sighed heavily and munched on another potato chip.

  The movie he was watching was suddenly interrupted as the local station broke in with a news bulletin. Elliot listened for a minute, gasped and jumped up to get his father.

  Quinn was in the office, not really concentrating on what he was doing, when Elliot burst in. The boy looked odd, his freckles standing out in an unnaturally pale face.

  “Dad, you’d better come here,” he said uneasily. “Quick!”

  Quinn’s first thought was that something had happened to Harry, but Elliot stopped in front of the television. Quinn frowned as his dark eyes watched the screen. They were showing the airport.

  “What’s this all—” he began, then stopped to listen.

  “…plane went down about ten minutes ago, according to our best information,” the man, probably the airport manager, was saying. “We’ve got helicopters flying in to look for the wreckage, but the wind is up, and the area the plane went down in is almost inaccessible by road.”

  “What plane?” Quinn asked absently.

  “To repeat our earlier bulletin—” the man on television seemed to oblige “—a private charter plane has been reported lost somewhere in the Grand Teton Mountains just out of Jackson Hole. One eyewitness interviewed by KWJC-TV newsman Bill Donovan stated that he saw flames shooting out of the cockpit of the twin-engine aircraft and that he watched it plummet into the mountains and vanish. Aboard the craft were prominent San Francisco businessmen Bob Doyle and Harry Brown, and the lead singer of the rock group Desperado, Mandy Callaway.”

  Quinn sat down in his chair hard enough to shake it. He knew his face was as white as Elliot’s. In his mind, he could hear his own voice telling Mandy he didn’t want her anymore, daring her to ever contact him again. Now she was dead, and he felt her loss as surely as if one of his arms had been severed from his body.

  That was when he realized how desperately he loved her. When it was too late to take back the harsh words, to go after her and bring her home where she belonged. He thought of her soft body lying in the cold snow, and a sound broke from his throat. He’d sent her away because he loved her, not because he’d wanted to hurt her, but she wouldn’t have known that. Her last memory of him would have been a painful, hateful one. She’d have died thinking he didn’t care.

  “I don’t believe it,” Elliot said huskily. He was shaking his head. “I just don’t believe it. She was onstage Friday night, singing again—” His voice broke and he put his face in his hands.

  Quinn couldn’t bear it. He got up and went past a startled Harry and out the back door in his shirtsleeves, so upset that he didn’t even feel the cold. His eyes went to the barn, where he’d watched Amanda feed the calves, and around the back where she’d run from him that snowy afternoon and he’d had to save her from McNaber’s bear traps. His big fists clenched by his sides and he shuddered with the force of the grief he felt, his face contorting.

  “Amanda!” He bit off the name.

  A long time later, he was aware of someone standing nearby. He didn’t turn because his face would have said too much.

  “Elliot told me,” Harry said hesitantly. He stuck his hands into his pockets. “They say where she is, they may not be able to get her out.”

  Quinn’s teeth clenched. “I’ll get her out,” he said huskily. “I won’t leave her out there in the cold.” He swallowed. “Get my skis and my boots out of the storeroom, and my insulated ski suit out of the closet. I’m going to call the lodge and talk to Terry Meade.”

  “He manages Larry’s Lodge, doesn’t he?” Harry recalled.

  “Yes. He can get a chopper to take me up.”

  “Good thing you’ve kept up your practice,” Harry muttered. “Never thought you’d need the skis for something this awful, though.”

  “Neither did I.” He turned and went back inside. He might have to give up Amanda forever, but he wasn’t giving her up to that damned mountain. He’d get her out somehow.

  He grabbed the phone, ignoring Elliot’s questions, and called the lodge, asking for Terry Meade in a tone that got instant action.

  “Quinn!” Terry exclaimed. “Just the man I need. Look, we’ve got a crash—”

  “I know,” Quinn said tightly. “I know the singer. Can you get me a topo map of the area and a chopper? I’ll need a first-aid kit, too, and so
me flares—”

  “No sooner said than done,” Terry replied tersely. “Although I don’t think that first-aid kit will be needed, Quinn, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, pack it anyway, will you?” He fought down nausea. “I’ll be up there in less than thirty minutes.”

  “We’ll be waiting.”

  Quinn got into the ski suit under Elliot’s fascinated gaze.

  “You don’t usually wear that suit when we ski together,” he told his father.

  “We don’t stay out that long,” Quinn explained. “This suit is a relatively new innovation. It’s such a tight weave that it keeps out moisture, but it’s made in such a way that it allows sweat to get out. It’s like having your own heater along.”

  “I like the boots, too,” Elliot remarked. They were blue, and they had a knob on the heel that allowed them to be tightened to fit the skier’s foot exactly. Boots had to fit tight to work properly. And the skis themselves were equally fascinating. They had special brakes that unlocked when the skier fell, which stopped the ski from sliding down the hill.

  “Those sure are long skis,” Elliot remarked as his father took precious time to apply hot wax to them.

  “Longer than yours, for sure. They fit my height,” Quinn said tersely. “And they’re short compared to jumping skis.”

  “Did you ever jump, Dad, or did you just do downhill?” “Giant slalom,” he replied. “Strictly Alpine skiing.

  That’s going to come in handy today.”

  Elliot sighed. “I don’t guess you’ll let me come along?”

  “No chance. This is no place for you.” His eyes darkened. “God knows what I’ll find when I get to the plane.”

  Elliot bit his lower lip. “She’s dead, isn’t she, Dad?” he asked in a choked tone.

  Quinn’s expression closed. “You stay here with Harry, and don’t tie up the telephone. I’ll call home as soon as I know anything.”

  “Take care of yourself up there, okay?” Elliot murmured as Quinn picked up the skis and the rest of his equipment, including gloves and ski cap. “I don’t say it a lot, but I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too, son.” Quinn pulled him close and gave him a quick, rough hug. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll be okay.”

  “Good luck,” Harry said as Quinn went out the back door to get into his pickup truck.

  “I’ll need it,” Quinn muttered. He waved, started the truck, and pulled out into the driveway.

  Terry Meade was waiting with the Ski Patrol, the helicopter pilot, assorted law enforcement officials and the civil defense director and trying to field the news media gathered at Larry’s Lodge.

  “This is the area where we think they are,” Terry said grimly, showing Quinn the map. “What you call Ironside peak, right? It’s not in our patrol area, so we don’t have anything to do with it officially. The helicopter tried and failed to get into the valley below it because of the wind. The trees are dense down there and visibility is limited by blowing snow. Our teams are going to start here,” he pointed at various places on the map. “But this hill is a killer.” He grinned at Quinn. “You cut your teeth on it when you were practicing for the Olympics all those years ago, and you’ve kept up your practice there. If anyone can ski it, you can.”

  “I’ll get in. What then?”

  “Send up a flare. I’m packing a cellular phone in with the other stuff you asked for. It’s got a better range than our walkie-talkies. Everybody know what to do? Right. Let’s go.”

  He led them out of the lodge. Quinn put on his goggles, tugged his ski cap over his head and thrust his hands into his gloves. He didn’t even want to think about what he might have to look at if he was lucky enough to find the downed plane. He was having enough trouble living with what he’d said to Amanda the last time he’d talked to her.

  He could still hear her voice, hear the hurt in it when he’d told her he didn’t want her. Remembering that was like cutting open his heart. For her sake, he’d sent her away. He was a poor man. He had so little to offer such a famous, beautiful woman. At first, at the lodge, his pride had been cut to ribbons when he discovered who she was, and how she’d fooled him, how she’d deceived him. But her adoration had been real, and when his mind was functioning again, he realized that. He’d almost phoned her back, he’d even dialed the number. But her world was so different from his. He couldn’t let her give up everything she’d worked all her life for, just to live in the middle of nowhere. She deserved so much more. He sighed wearily. If she died, the last conversation would haunt him until the day he died. He didn’t think he could live with it. He didn’t want to have to try. She had to be alive. Oh, dear God, she had to be!

  The sun was bright, and Quinn felt its warmth on his face as the helicopter set him down at the top of the mountain peak where the plane had last been sighted.

  He was alone in the world when the chopper lifted off again. He checked his bindings one last time, adjusted the lightweight backpack and stared down the long mountainside with his ski poles restless in his hands. This particular slope wasn’t skied as a rule. It wasn’t even connected with the resort, which meant that the Ski Patrol didn’t come here, and that the usual rescue toboggan posted on most slopes wouldn’t be in evidence. He was totally on his own until he could find the downed plane. And he knew that while he was searching this untamed area, the Ski Patrol would be out in force on the regular slopes looking for the aircraft.

  He sighed heavily as he stared down at the rugged, untouched terrain, which would be a beginning skier’s nightmare. Well, it was now or never. Amanda was down there somewhere. He had to find her. He couldn’t leave her there in the cold snow for all eternity.

  He pulled down his goggles, suppressed his feelings and shoved the ski poles deep as he propelled himself down the slope. The first couple of minutes were tricky as he had to allow for the slight added weight of the backpack. But it took scant time to adjust, to balance his weight on the skis to compensate.

  The wind bit his face, the snow flew over his dark ski suit as he wound down the slopes, his skis throwing up powdered snow in his wake. It brought back memories of the days when he’d maneuvered through the giant slalom in Alpine skiing competition. He’d been in the top one percent of his class, a daredevil skier with cold nerve and expert control on the slopes. This mountain was a killer, but it was one he knew like the back of his hand. He’d trained on this peak back in his early days of competition, loving the danger of skiing a slope where no one else came. Even for the past ten years or so, he’d honed his skill here every chance he got.

  Quinn smiled to himself, his body leaning into the turns, not too far, the cutting edge of his skis breaking his speed as he maneuvered over boulders, down the fall line, around trees and broken branches or over them, whichever seemed more expedient.

  His dark eyes narrowed as he defeated the obstacles. At least, thank God, he was able to do something instead of going through hell sitting at home waiting for word. That in itself was a blessing, even if it ended in the tragedy everyone seemed to think it would. He couldn’t bear to imagine Amanda dead. He had to think positively. There were people who walked away from airplane crashes. He had to believe that she could be one of them. He had to keep thinking that or go mad.

  He’d hoped against hope that when he got near the bottom of the hill, under those tall pines and the deadly updrafts and downdrafts that had defeated the helicopter’s reconnoitering, that he’d find the airplane. But it wasn’t there. He turned his skis sideways and skidded to a stop, looking around him. Maybe the observer had gotten his sighting wrong. Maybe it was another peak, maybe it was miles away. He bit his lower lip raw, tasting the lip balm he’d applied before he came onto the slope. If anyone on that plane was alive, time was going to make the difference. He had to find it quickly, or Amanda wouldn’t have a prayer if she’d managed to survive the initial impact.

  He started downhill again, his heartbeat increasing as the worry began to eat at him. On an impuls
e, he shot across the fall line, parallel to it for a little while before he maneuvered back and went down again in lazy S patterns. Something caught his attention. A sound. Voices!

  He stopped to listen, turning his head. There was wind, and the sound of pines touching. But beyond it was a voice, carrying in the silence of nature. Snow blanketed most sound, making graveyard peace out of the mountain’s spring noises.

  Quinn adjusted his weight on the skis and lifted his hands to his mouth, the ski poles dangling from his wrists. “Hello! Where are you?” he shouted, taking a chance that the vibration of his voice wouldn’t dislodge snow above him and bring a sheet of it down on him.

  “Help!” voices called back. “We’re here! We’re here!”

  He followed the sound, praying that he wasn’t following an echo. But no, there, below the trees, he saw a glint of metal in the lowering sun. The plane! Thank God, there were survivors! Now if only Amanda was one of them… He went the rest of the way down. As he drew closer, he saw men standing near the almost intact wreckage of the aircraft. One had a bandage around his head, another was nursing what looked like a broken arm. He saw one woman, but she wasn’t blond. On the ground were two still forms, covered with coats. Covered up.

  Please, God, no, he thought blindly. He drew to a stop.

  “I’m Sutton. How many dead?” he asked the man who’d called to him, a burly man in a gray suit and white shirt and tie.

  “Two,” the man replied. “I’m Jeff Coleman, and I sure am glad to see you.” He shook hands with Quinn. “I’m the pilot. We had a fire in the cockpit and it was all I could do to set her down at all. God, I feel bad! For some reason, three of the passengers had their seat belts off when we hit.” He shook his head. “No hope for two of them. The third’s concussed and looks comatose.”

  Quinn felt himself shaking inside as he asked the question he had to ask. “There was a singer aboard,” he said. “Amanda Callaway.”

  “Yeah.” The pilot shook his head and Quinn wanted to die, he wanted to stop breathing right there… “She’s the concussion.”