Stranded with a Stranger

by Frances Housden

  “Chelsea, I always knew you had guts. Don’t worry, I’ll make inquiries and find you that helicopter. I know the French make the Alouette III, which is used in the Alps. Hell, the bureau might have one. If that comes up trumps, I’ll make sure it stands by at Shyangboche. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have any news, and you remember to keep me in the loop. No matter how small, if anything changes where you are let me know.”

  “I will if I’m able. This isn’t my phone. I’m hanging up now.”

  When the line went dead Mac turned to Jason Hart. “What do you think?”

  “I think our Chelsea is in heaps more trouble than she realizes. Money and power—they’re at the root of the world’s problems, and our job is to solve them. So get to it, Mac.”

  Mac had an odd compulsion to say, “Aye, aye, sir,” but then Jason’s orders always affected him that way. First things first, though. He’d just run a check on this Kurt Jellic to see if the guy was as trustworthy as Chelsea thought.

  Chelsea depressed the button and cut off her link with the place she’d called home for the past few years—Paris. It seemed like another world, and more than half a lifetime away. She had packed so much into the ten days since arriving in Namche Bazaar.

  Pushing up from her cross-legged position on the small folding stool a porter had produced, she heard Kurt call her name. “Chelsea, Ms. Tedman. You decent? We have a visitor.”

  A visitor? She heard the rough burr of voices outside her tent, one with a definite South African cadence, and she shuddered at the thought that Basie Serfontien had come calling. After her talk with Mac, she wasn’t in the mood for any of Basie’s hearty humor.

  “Chelsea, this is Paul Nichols. I’ve told you about him.”

  Paul was the antithesis of Serfontien—lightly built yet muscular, dark haired and olive skinned; his blue eyes caught her attention. He reached for her hand. “My condolences on your loss, Ms. Tedman. Bill and Atlanta were good people.”

  His accent wasn’t as strong or rough as Serfontien’s. “Thank you. I’m sorry to say I didn’t know Bill real well. I live in Paris mainly,” she said to excuse the omission.

  “I’ve felt terrible that I wasn’t there to help when it happened. You know how you start thinking maybe something I could have done might have prevented the tragedy. It makes me feel a bit of a wimp to admit that food poisoning kept me back in camp.”

  “What brings you here this time, Paul? I thought Kurt said you’d gone home.”

  Paul’s blue eyes regarded her sharply for a moment, though his reply was pleasantly modulated, almost cheery. “Only as far as Kathmandu. When I got back to Namche Bazaar, I ran into Kora, Sherpa Rei’s sister, in the marketplace. She told me Kurt had gone back to Everest, so here I am.”

  Chelsea looked from Paul to Kurt and back again. “And?”

  Kurt spoke first. “And Paul’s come to join us. We could do with another pair of experienced hands.”

  She took a sharp breath. “Oh.” Meaning Oh, you didn’t ask me if it was all right to bring a stranger among us.

  If only he’d arrived earlier she could have asked Mac to screen him. Maybe he would anyhow. She’d told him Nichols had been part of the team when the accident happened, but she hadn’t known he was South African. In fact, she’d taken it for granted he was English. The guy just had one of those names…

  Paul explained. “I’d like to finish what I started.”

  And just what did you start?

  Darn, her conversation with Mac had her seeing shadows out of the corner of her eye and spies behind every bush—make that every tent.

  She tried another angle. “I would have thought you’d team up with your countryman, Basie Serfontien.”

  “I wanted to last time, but he said he wasn’t equipped to cater for another climber, and then, lucky for me, I ran into Kurt. He said he had space in his tent. And the Chaplins didn’t object last time—”

  “Oh, well, if my sister didn’t object, why should I?”

  She could see now what Kurt was up to. He thought if he had someone else sleeping in his tent, she wouldn’t be tempted to sneak in and join him in that big sleeping bag of his.

  As if she would.

  On the other hand, she might have. She had just been too tired to think of it before now.

  She handed Kurt the phone. “Well, I’m sure Mr. Jellic has a lot to fill you in on, and you won’t need me.”

  She wouldn’t say anything to Kurt about the helicopter until she was sure it would be possible. “And since I have some spare time on my hands, I’m going to find some hot water and tend to my personal hygiene while it’s not too cold.”

  Let Kurt Jellic think about that while he was bringing the new member of their party up-to-date.

  The woman sure knew how to make a snit last, Kurt decided as he showed Paul where to stow his gear—which didn’t consist of much more than removing his sleeping bag from his pack and retrieving his favorite mug.

  “I thought you would have broken that thing by now.”

  Paul tossed the mug into the air, then caught it. “Guess it’s looking the worse for wear, but you know, it’s my favorite. Tea tastes better in it.”

  “Must be all that tannin coating the insides, but since you’ve got it handy, let’s see if we can find some of that hot water our lady climber mentioned and drink a cup while we talk.”

  Chelsea had looked chagrined, but Kurt was glad to have Paul back. It would take some of the pressure off being almost alone with Chelsea—if you could call it “alone,” with two Sherpas and a dozen porters around. But when he thought it over, he realized it wasn’t until the others had left them by themselves at the shack that he’d let down his guard.

  “I could do with some strong tea. All that talk about ladies seeing to their personal hygiene brought me out in a sweat.”

  “Tell me about it.” Kurt remembered his own first meeting with Chelsea. “Just keep in mind that she is the lady with the checkbook and treat her with respect.”

  “No chance of anything else. I can see she’s a woman with a mind of her own, and they always scare me. Did you notice she was taller than me?”

  Kurt nodded. Paul was only five foot nine and always measuring himself against everyone else. “I noticed, but there is no mistaking she’s a woman.”

  One of Paul’s best features was his wide grin. It split his face like a band of white against his tan. “I noticed, and that scares me, as well. I’ll bet she’s a tiger in bed.”

  Kurt couldn’t find it in him to blame the guy. Besides, getting uptight over the usual male camaraderie might give the game away. He settled for “Guess that’s something we’ll never find out.”

  It shocked Chelsea how quickly she had gotten used to rising three hours earlier than normal. She had surprised Kurt, too, when she was outside before him and Paul, waiting, already halfway through the protein bar and her mug of tea.

  They came out of their tent into the black of a Himalayan night, headlamps on, each looking like a Cyclops with a gleaming eye. “Good on you, Ms. Tedman. You beat us to it this morning,” Kurt congratulated her, but whispered in a low voice as he passed by, “Showing off to the new boy, are we?”

  What did he mean by that? she wondered. Kurt couldn’t possibly be jealous of Paul. In her eyes there was no comparison.

  “Why don’t you two men start calling me Chelsea? Soon we’re going to be like triplets connected by an umbilical cord, and if there is an accident waiting to happen, I’d rather you didn’t waste time by shouting Ms. Tedman, look out, when it’s quicker to say Chelsea, look out.”

  “Chelsea it is. Feel free to call me Kurt.” She hoped he was silently applauding her for slicing through one of the links in the chain of formality he’d been using to keep his distance. Each time he called her Ms., she wanted to grind her teeth. Wasn’t it enough that she was in that tent alone, missing the companionship they’d shared in the shack? She missed hearing about mountains he had climbed and adventure
s he had shared with her sister and Bill. Stories that made it easier to fall asleep.

  Now all she had was the rustle of the porters moving about and the murmur of Kurt and Paul talking in the other tent.

  She missed Kurt.

  And she hated having to lie in her sleeping bag with her thoughts going around in circles. She hadn’t heard from Mac yet, but nothing was ever easy. Maybe he’d call by the time they reached Camp Two, where they aimed to acclimatize for a couple of days before moving up to the next one. The plan was to climb up and down between the camps until they were no longer fighting for every breath. Once that was accomplished, Kurt said he’d establish a second base camp at the top of the Western Cwm. Then it would begin again, up and down, taking relief from the better oxygen levels before climbing back to the top of the Cwm.

  Kurt hadn’t said it would be easy, but then she’d discovered that nothing truly worthwhile was a cakewalk. The human condition was such that it thrived on challenge.

  Ang Nuwa had left before them with a string of porters, and others would follow them up—they didn’t have the same problem with thin air, having been born high above sea level.

  Kurt took the lead, with her in the middle and Paul and Rei behind. The ground beneath their feet was still the gray mountain rock they had been camping on, but by the time the sun rose they’d face the treacherous Khumbu Icefall.

  Then she’d see whether the work she’d put in was enough.

  To keep her mind off the ice ahead—ice strong enough to pop huge slices out as if they were pieces of toast and open up huge blue-green crevasses too deep to see down to the bottom—she sang out, “Kurt, you’ve been up Mount Everest a few times. Have you ever seen one of the fabled yetis?”

  “Paul heard all the tall tales last time—get him to tell you about it when we reach the camp. Until then, save your breath for climbing. You’re gonna need it.” So much for distraction.

  Behind her, Paul cursed as a rock spat out from under his boots, reminding her to take care.

  The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She pulled down hard on the bill of her cap, but it didn’t help. Maybe it was because of the stranger trailing her. For all the gossip they had slung around last night, she knew no more about him than she had yesterday when he’d arrived.

  His lean, tanned features and dark hair would automatically typecast him as the guy wearing the black hat in cowboy movies.

  Ahead of her the headlamps of other teams no longer stood out like bobbing yellow strands of thread in the darkness. Morning was a pale shade of gray tinged with pink at the top of the mountain where the sun rose on Tibet, making it simpler to see where she was heading. And what she was heading into.

  Her stomach clenched with excitement at the thought that she might actually achieve the task she’d set herself. But then, didn’t she always back herself to win?

  All she had to do was keep reminding herself that this was no worse than the first time she’d ridden her horse up to a six-foot hedge. The other side was just as unknown, but she had gotten over it then, and she would get over it now.

  It was a pity there was nothing she could do to prevent the little voice that had spoken to her in the dead of night coming back to ask, “But what if you don’t?”

  She consoled herself with the fact that if like her sister she didn’t make it back, at least Mac was all set to put a spoke in cousin Arlon’s wheel.

  Chapter 10

  How could anyone ever become used to the white, cold beauty of the icefall? Every time he started to climb it, Kurt was struck by the otherworldliness of the fall, as if he’d stepped onto another planet, or had suddenly been transported to one of the poles. No wonder most climbers regarded Everest as the third pole. Its landscape was equally bare. No plants clung to these magnificent slopes, no birds dared these frozen heights.

  It should have been a silent waste ground, but a war was being fought under their feet, a pushing and shoving, weight tipped against weight, until the groans of the struggle could be heard on the surface.

  Some blocks of ice they passed were five or six stories high. Any one of those giants could fall over and crush them. Those were the risks climbers took on the Khumbu Icefall.

  The wind of a few nights ago was nothing but a memory, and the other struggle played out against it, by him and Chelsea, would have to remain just that, a few moments in time never to be repeated.

  The scrape of their crampons on the ice sounded weak and tinny compared with the creaks and groans of the icefall. No one spoke, all saving their breath, apart from Rei. One reason Sherpas easily managed the thin air was that they breathed more rapidly.

  Behind him Kurt could hear Chelsea give the occasional soft cough like a baby seal, through lack of oxygen. Paul’s bark was deeper, more like a sea lion. He’d call a proper halt soon and give them all a chance to replenish their fluids. He remembered Paul having trouble adjusting the last time. Strange why he’d choose to come climbing when his body’s resources were clearly more suited to the flat tablelands of Africa. And though neither of them had mentioned it in that context, it could be that the stomach infection had saved Paul’s life.

  So why was Paul back, willing to go through it all again?

  Why?

  Maybe both he and Paul needed their heads banged together to let the message through. Damned if he knew what drove them to reach for the heights. Could be that their sensible gene was missing—the one supposed to warn the brain not to push the body beyond its limits.

  He tugged on the connecting line to warn Rei, who’d changed places with him at the lead an hour ago. “Time to take a break.”

  Rei came to a halt, leaning his backpack against a convenient block of ice until Kurt caught up, and by the time Chelsea and Paul came level, the Sherpa had lit a small kerosene stove to heat water. Chelsea unbuckled her straps, slipped off her pack and sat down on it. “Ooh, that feels so good.”

  His mind leaped back to the last time she’d uttered those words with heartfelt gratitude. Only, then he’d been deep inside her bringing her to climax, and he’d thought it felt damn good, as well. “Tired, are you?” he asked.

  “I thought you were never going to call a halt.”

  “We’ve done well,” Kurt said. “Made good speed. It helps that these first stages we have precut steps and fixed ropes. And by the time we attempt the Southwest Face, barring accidents, we should be in good physical condition to go on. Our breathing will get easier and we’ll have learned not to over-tax our lungs and our muscles.”

  With her backpack keeping her off the ice, Chelsea downed the dregs of her tea. Had anything ever tasted so good? she wondered. Mindful of Kurt’s story of Atlanta leaving one of their precious supplies of ropes behind, she had made sure they were still secured to the belt that took some of the pack’s weight off her shoulders.

  “Time to move on,” Kurt ordered.

  Paul straightened out of the hunkered position he favored for resting. “Right with you, man.”

  Chelsea saved her oxygen ration for something important and began to pull on her pack. Tired this time, she was struggling not to let it throw her off balance when Kurt came over.

  “Let me help you with that.”

  Kurt stood in front of her adjusting the shoulder straps so the padding on them sat more comfortably. He bent to fasten the belt at her waist, bringing his face close to hers.

  For days he’d kept his distance, and now this. “I can manage,” she murmured, breathless from the close-up, not the thin atmosphere.

  On the cold, crisp air she caught his scent and a flush raced across her skin. He stared into her eyes, and behind the lightly tinted lenses of his glasses she saw his pupils dilate. She felt so hot, she wondered if he could feel the heat surge through layers of thermal wear, anorak and the padded glove touching her waist above her belt.

  She put her hand above his and pushed it away. “I thought you said I had to learn to cope.”

  He drew back his shoulders, the
width of them hiding her from the others. “That’s when you were the student. Now you’re the client.”

  She tilted her chin, forced to look up now he’d straightened to full height. “I’m paying now—is that what you mean?” She kept her voice low but spoke quickly, her words tripping over each other in their haste to make her point. “Kurt…you can’t keep doing this. Either touch me or leave me alone. I need to focus my energy on the essentials if I want to survive this experience. You were right to pooh-pooh my climbing-wall boast.”

  She began to cough and covered her mouth with her hand. Her glove was as cold as the air temperature and was just the nudge she needed to finish what she’d started. She had to keep finding her sister and the key to the forefront of her mind, not let her body sidetrack her by putting its wants and needs first.

  She hungered for just one more taste of his lips, the feel of his body covering hers with its supple strength. But he’d been right when he’d talked about rumor and innuendo. It had been rife, sizzling in the air around them at Base Camp each time he introduced her to anyone who stopped by their site and they learned who she was.

  Time to nip sex in the bud.

  “No one who has never been in this environment can know what it is really like. No matter how fit one is—and believe me, I was fit—acclimatizing is never going to be fun. So just don’t help me. Unless I’m hanging halfway down a crevasse on my safety line, let me manage.”

  She watched him turn pale. He was angry and she didn’t blame him, but if her ploy worked, well and good.

  He stepped away, his mouth grim. “Don’t say anything like that, not even in a joke. And don’t worry—from now on, I’ll be sure to keep my distance.”