Stranded with a Stranger

by Frances Housden

  “Remind me to shave every day.”

  They were both chortling loudly by the time Paul caught up with them. “What’s so funny?”

  Kurt answered, still grinning, his teeth like a slash of the pristine snow they were walking on. “You had to be there.”

  Chelsea decided to take pity on Paul. She quite liked him despite Kurt’s suspicions of him. “We were talking about what some of my friends would think if they knew how bad I smelled before we hit the showers at Base Camp.”

  Paul gave a short bark that passed for a laugh. “Not to worry. I always thought you smelled sort of young and cuddly.”

  She felt Kurt stiffen beside her, and a quick glance told her the hairs on his arm were standing up like a dog’s hackles rising. Well, she had no intention of becoming a bone of contention.

  “You mean like a baby. I have to thank Kurt for that. He was the one who put me on to baby wipes. Even gave me his last box. I just hope they’re not all gone before we finish here.”

  “Maybe it won’t be too long now, Chelsea. I think we’re pretty right to go now. What do you say, Kurt? Do you think we have enough fixed lines and anchors out to reach that little couloir? It’s only a tiny corridor compared to the Hornbein Couloir.”

  “You’re right—hardly a squiggle on the map of Everest, but tough enough. As far as the lines go? Yeah, I think we’ve pretty much put out all the fixed line we can. The good thing about it is we only have to carry enough rope to take us from the couloir down to where Bill and Atlanta fell. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy climb. Are you sure you are up for it? No matter that we’ve taken all the safety precautions possible, climbing the Southwest Face is never going be anything but risky.”

  Kurt stopped talking. She heard him catching his breath to finish speaking. When Paul began to say something he waved him off. “The stakes for us taking risks are higher. Chelsea and me, well, we really need to do this thing. But you, Paul, don’t put your life on the line when at the end of it we won’t summit.”

  “I want to do it, Kurt. I need to. I’ve always felt if maybe I hadn’t got sick they’d still be alive. You’re pretty offhand with me sometimes, man. But I take that with a grain of salt, for I’ve a feeling you blame me, too. The Chaplins had become my friends, so I’d say my stake in this is higher than you think.”

  “Have it your own way. But don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  Chelsea slid her arm through each of the men’s and pulled them with her. “Enough with the serious talk. We were having fun and you’ve both poured cold water on it.”

  She could feel Kurt’s skin ripple where they touched, as if a growl ran under it. “Okay, we’ll leave it for now, but it was going to have to be said sometime,” he retorted.

  Chelsea slipped her arms away from the men. “Hey, look. Rei is waving at us. I can see the tents. Last one into camp gets the cold coffee.” She got ahead slightly, but she was never going to win. Kurt’s stride was too long. And even though Paul was smaller than she was, he had a slim, wiry build that moved easily through the thick snow. In the end, they all reached Camp Three together.

  The coffee was hot, but it couldn’t shift the burgeoning fear at the back of her mind. Not for their safety. It was the finality of finding Atlanta that scared her.

  Once they found her sister, Atlanta would really be dead.

  Seeing was believing.

  And that meant the problems with cousin Arlon would have to be tended to next. She had heard Mac had gotten her a helicopter, but not if it had reached Shyangboche. Communications were difficult—something to do with sunspots affecting transmission. And if she couldn’t tell Kurt they had a helicopter, how would they get her family down from the mountain? No matter how many Sherpas and porters Kurt had standing by, the task would be gigantic.

  Paul sat across the small fire from Kurt and Rei, watching them talk. Kurt had not given Paul an inch of slack since she had almost fallen down the crevasse. She had asked why, but Kurt wasn’t a man who opened up his emotions to close inspection. Not even to her, who had been as close to him as another person could be.

  But then, she had her own share of secrets, the helicopter being the least of them. So how could she blame Kurt?

  She had a sinking feeling she was falling in love with a man who would never share his innermost thoughts, even with the woman he loved. Was that something she wanted to live with?

  For the rest of her life?

  Kurt watched Rei nod in agreement, but could see the Sherpa wasn’t happy. Hell, he didn’t feel like laughing either. Retrieving the bodies was going to be dangerous.

  Chelsea didn’t know it, but among the supplies he’d had delivered to Base Camp—snacks, candy bars and other essentials that everyone had fallen on with cries of joy—were two body bags in extra-strong plastic. In some places, like the couloir, it was going to be impossible to carry the bodies. Instead, they’d have to drag them up behind the team or let them slide ahead.

  He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t see any other way around the problem. The couloir went straight down. Below it were a series of crevasses deeper than those on the icefall. The bodies had halted their downward rush on the rounded lip of one of these slashes that traveled the mountainside.

  “Don’t look so worried, Rei. We will make an offering to the Mother before we leave and let her decide.” When Sherpas said it was in the lap of the gods, they really meant it.

  “We will ask her to protect us.”

  “Good. I want you to come with us. Nuwa can organize the others while we’re gone.”

  Kurt finished the dregs of coffee in his mug. The liquid had cooled long ago, but the caffeine still did the trick. “That’s it, Rei,” he added. “We’ll see how it goes, my friend. A few of the porters already here can follow us to the couloir. Chelsea has the money—she’ll make it worth their while. They can help transport the bodies once we get past the worst ice and hit the smooth downward slopes where the fixed lines are anchored.”

  Chelsea has the money.

  Was that why Paul took every opportunity to flatter her? Admit it, Jellic, you’re acting like a dog in the manger. You’ve been so busy trying to look out for both your names, and Paul’s seen a gap that he’s ready and willing to step into.

  Even without all this rumor nonsense, what chance had he with a woman like Chelsea? On her mother’s side she was descended from Spanish aristocrats, one of the first families of Argentina, who owned vast tracts of land. He owned a half-built lodge. She had money and he had debts. It could never work.

  Didn’t mean he was going to give Paul a chance to step into his shoes. And he would continue to keep a close watch on him.

  Kurt uncrossed his legs to stand, looking down at his feet as he rose. He then glanced over at Paul sitting with Chelsea. No way could that little guy ever fill his size twelves.

  He continued to watch as Paul followed suit, rising at the other side of the cooking pit. Kurt saw him murmur something to Chelsea as he left, heading away from the campsite. A quick glance over his shoulder and he knew the reason. Basie Serfontien had arrived.

  Paul must be feeling homesick again. There was no other reason that Kurt could see why the younger guy would choose Basie’s company over theirs. The big fair Afrikaner was all hail-fellow-well-met and shouted his business to the world, while Paul was full of secrets.

  It was Paul’s secrets that bothered him most.

  It was the wind that woke Chelsea.

  She knew that when the air grew cold and heavy at night the winds might descend from high on the mountain. But this blast, this buffeting and rocking of her tent, was loud enough for jet-stream winds. Oh, please don’t let this hold up our plans. Don’t let anyone get hurt.

  Ashamed of her selfish little prayer, she cowered inside her sleeping bag, willing to put up with the terror as long as the result didn’t mean another trip down to Base Camp.

  The next time the tent tipped, Chelsea decided she couldn’t just lie th
ere. She sat up and scrabbled halfway out of her thick, quilted sleeping bag. Both hands searched the nearby floor for the stretchy band attached to her headlamp.

  Success.

  Her fingers latched on to the elastic strap, but before she could flick the switch, she froze, desperately aware of another noise outside. She recognized the sound the zipper on her tent made when it stuck and needed an extra tug or two. Someone was outside.

  Were they intent on rescuing her?

  Was the situation out there that bad?

  Fumbling with the cold headlamp to locate the switch, she pushed herself upright. Darn blasted thing, she cursed as the switch toggle didn’t connect the battery with the lightbulb.

  Then when it worked, the light blinded her. In a rush she aimed the beam at the entrance. Through the dazzle of red spots she made out a bulky white arm. The light flashed off steel.

  A knife. Chelsea screamed as she grabbed the first thing to hand, a boot with crampons still attached. Her violent throw lost her the headlamp and all sight of her target. In the second or two it took to retrieve the light, the arm had disappeared through the yellow flap as though it had been a figment of her imagination.

  She screamed again, this time from sheer bloody temper. No one raced to help her. The winds were too much competition for one little voice. Their roar dominated everything, her cry in the night included.

  Her fingers shook, and stretching the lamp over her forehead suffered from the more-haste-less-speed syndrome. In another few minutes she had pushed her sleeping bag off and slipped her warm sock-clad feet into her boots. She had worn the thick socks and everything but her quilted jacket to bed.

  Quilted parka—where was that? Oh, yeah, her pillow.

  Since the intruder hadn’t bothered to refasten the door flap, leaving her tent was the least troublesome task she had to perform. But as soon as she tried to stand upright, the wind ripped the breath from her throat. Bent double, making a smaller target for the gusts to bowl over, she set out. As she stumbled across the rocks of the cooking pit, shapes much like her own, heads lit by yellow Cyclops eyes, flitted past in the darkness.

  She didn’t approach them, couldn’t abolish the fear of running into her knife-wielding intruder.

  Her goal was simple. She wanted Kurt.

  Chelsea couldn’t miss his tent, not with the light on inside. The flap was partially open, and in less than a heartbeat she dragged the zipper to the floor and crashed straight through.

  She let out a huge sigh. The sight of Kurt’s red anorak did everything to confirm her faith in him. Whoever was out to get her couldn’t be Kurt. Until now, she hadn’t admitted that when she saw the knife her memory had flashed back to the day she and Kurt met. And farther, to Atlanta’s warning to watch her back.

  Kurt, like Rei, was propping up a tent post, both men pushing their weight against the pressure building outside. They faced her from opposite sides of the basically flimsy structure. She heard Kurt laugh as she dragged her last leg through the gap.

  The tent floor was cluttered with sleeping bags and camping gear. Candy wrappers spilled from a bag filled with rubbish. As if they’d been having a party and Chelsea hadn’t been invited.

  One look at her stricken expression and his laughter disappeared. “Chelsea! What’s wrong? Has this wind trashed your quarters? These gusts are stronger even than Ama Dablam.”

  Ignoring the mess on the floor, she trampled across it to throw herself at Kurt’s chest. “Someone tried to break in to my tent.”

  His arms came around her. “Teddy, honey, it was probably a mistake. All the porters are out checking that the tents don’t blow away. Most of these guys are reinforcing the rocks weighing down the guy ropes.”

  “Do they need a knife to do that job? I only saw a white arm, no face. The hand was holding a knife, but it disappeared the moment I flashed my light at it. Why? I’ve never given any porter reason to be frightened of me.”

  “You sure you weren’t dreaming? Maybe one of those stories Rei and Paul have been telling about the yeti played on your mind, and the noise of the wind exacerbated the dream.”

  Her temper flared. How could he doubt her this way? “It wasn’t a yeti, or a dream! It was a man. I saw his arm…and his gloved hand…and the knife.”

  “I heard you, but none of our guys wear white. We’d never see them against the snow and ice.” He hugged her closer. “Do you want to spend the rest of the night here with us? I can get some porters to stand against the walls of your tent. It’ll soon blow away with only the weight of your backpack and a lady’s accoutrements to hold it down.”

  “No. And I don’t have accoutrements, not that I know of. And to hell with what people think. I want you in my tent with me. Your extra weight will be all it needs. My tent isn’t nearly as large as this one.”

  “As soon as Nichols comes back to relieve me, I’ll take you back to your tent. Hopefully the porters have secured it well enough to last until then.”

  Chelsea let out a gusty sigh as if she she’d taken some of the turmoil of the storm inside her. “That’s great. I always feel much safer with you around.”

  “Listen, don’t you go trying to make me hero. All I do is what it takes to get by. Nothing heroic in that.” Kurt’s hand clasped her shoulders as he put her at arm’s length. “If you want to make yourself useful, find a post to lean on before Nichols returns and sees us. It’ll only take one moment of weakness and our efforts of the past few weeks will have been for nothing.”

  Chelsea crossed the equipment-strewn floor more slowly than on her arrival, but she did as he asked—put her back to one of the curved posts. The light swung back and forth on its hook at the top of the tent, and every time it lit up Rei’s face, she could see him grinning at her.

  It didn’t take a clairvoyant to work out what was going on in his mind. Throwing herself at Kurt had outed her.

  A blind man could have seen she had feelings for Kurt.

  At least Rei was one person they could trust not to let them down by carrying tales. At the core of his character the Sherpa had an essential honesty. Rei would never have deigned to spread the rumors bothering Kurt so much.

  And once she got Kurt by himself, maybe she could work up enough courage to tell him about the key. How else could she get him to realize she had not imagined the knife-wielding hand? Come to think of it, the hand had been white, as well. Whoever had broken in only had to lie in the snow to become invisible.

  Telling Kurt about Atlanta’s letter and cousin Arlon wasn’t going to be easy. She didn’t want him to stop trusting her or think that her motives were all about money.

  Hard as it might be for Kurt to believe, she had this horrible feeling someone up here on the mountain might want her dead.

  What was a man to do when a woman literally threw herself at him? Kurt’s mind was abuzz as he tossed his sleeping bag inside and stepped into Chelsea’s tent. If anything was needed to show how much he wanted her, his body had gone hard, ready to mate from the moment her thighs and breasts pressed close.

  His needs were secondary now. His first task was discovering if Chelsea had just missed being a victim of a guy with a knife. And if she really had seen it, if it wasn’t a dream, what were they going to do about it?

  His thoughts kept returning to the incident on the aluminum bridge on her first climb up to Camp Three. Why had only that rung been so worn it had given way? He’d checked the others as he went back and they were fine.

  Rei had fixed the rung with some wire he had in among the bits and pieces in his pack, kept for just such an occasion. One rung out from the end was the point where people stopped looking down and fixed their eyes on their goal, solid ground.

  Like him, most men with their longer stride would probably take the rungs two at a time. Sherpas were shorter, lighter, but he’d seen them cross like Nichols—forget the rungs and slide their feet along the sides of the ladders.

  He heard Chelsea enter behind him and the sound of the zi
pper being closed. “Leave that, but stay where you are until I light the lamp.”

  Kurt clamped his teeth on the middle finger of his glove and hauled it off to search out the matches. Soon the lamp was shedding soft light, making it possible to see farther than their headlamp’s narrow beams. The floor was tidy compared to his quarters, but then, Chelsea wasn’t bunked in with Paul and Rei. Nuwa shared with the porters, making them his responsibility, but his old friend Rei was with him for his climbing expertise. With Chelsea’s experience no more than minimal—only what he’d taught her so far—and Nichols in his first season in Nepal, Rei’s input was definitely needed. If the going got too rough, Kurt needed to know there was someone he could rely on.

  The tent rocked as if they were at sea in a storm instead of 21,000 feet above that level. He tossed Chelsea’s sleeping bag at her. “Here wrap that around you if you feel cold, but leave your boots on in case we need to make a hasty exit,” he said.

  “I want to talk about what happened.” She stood three feet away, making it impossible to miss her tight-lipped frustration.

  “I was getting to that. Any reason why you can’t be comfortable while we do it?” As another gust hit the walls he thrust one hand against a post, putting all his weight behind it. The worst blasts were hitting eighty knots an hour and more. “Hang on to your hat—this one’s a doozy. Get your weight onto the outside edge till it passes.” He had to shout to be heard.

  The light swung, lengthening then shrinking their shadows on the yellow bowed walls, while the top of the door flap bounced up and down making an annoying pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat. Kurt flung an irritated scowl in its direction, expecting it to rip apart any minute. It would be his fault. He had stopped Chelsea closing it fully. The wind whistled in and out of the opening as if expelled from a giant bellows, and he watched it lift the floor.

  One of Chelsea’s overboots slid into the middle of the floor, accompanied by something else—a knife.