Life Shocks Romances Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Jade Kerrion

  Moments later, a harsh mechanical scream rang over the roar of the snow. Cody glanced over his shoulder and stared in shock at the explosion of flame that turned the white powder cloud a garish orange. “Oh, God. No.”

  There was no time to say anything else, do anything else, or think anything else. The avalanche uprooted pine trees and tumbled boulders straight into Cody’s path.

  The world turned as white as death.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Felicity hummed to herself as she explored Cody’s well-stocked kitchen. Why he placed the salt and pepper shakers on the shelf farthest away from the stove was mind-boggling, but eventually she found everything she needed to make herself a pleasant breakfast. She turned on the television for background noise—the apartment was too quiet otherwise—but she paid it no attention as she sat at the kitchen table, reading a book over scrambled eggs and toast.

  Her thoughts kept straying to Cody though. How was he doing? Surely he would be on his way back by now. If she knew, she could have a hot meal and hot chocolate waiting for him.

  The white noise from the television unexpectedly shifted into focus. “—Alpine Rescue Team is onsite right now.”

  Frowning, Felicity rose and walked into the living room to stand in front of the television. She stared at the black specks moving over the surface of a mountain that looked like it had been whitewashed and stripped of any distinguishing features like trees and rocks. The newscaster continued speaking. “The avalanche, which happened a half hour ago, is believed to have brought down the first Alpine Rescue helicopter to arrive on the scene.” The image flashed to the charred remains of a helicopter. “Three bodies have been recovered but not yet identified. The search continues for other possible survivors of this tragedy on Capitol Peak.”

  Shock and chill shot through Felicity, numbing her to her fingertips. She grabbed her smartphone, her fingers fumbling as she hit one of the numbers on speed dial.

  Moments later, Eric’s familiar voice came over the phone. “Hey, Felicity. What’s up?”

  The words tore out of her in huge, sobbing gasps. “The Capitol Peak avalanche. Cody was in it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Reed, Carolyn, and Eric hurried into the Alpine Rescue Team headquarters in Evergreen an hour later. Felicity, huddled in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room, rose from her seat to meet them.

  Carolyn, her jerky motions devoid of her usual grace, threw her arms around Felicity in a hug intended to derive comfort as much as to give it. “Any word yet?”

  “No, they’re still looking,” Felicity said, her voice sounding small and thin even to her own ears.

  “I want to talk to whoever’s in charge here,” Reed said.

  “Carl Smith,” Felicity said. She pointed to a door on the other side of the waiting room. “Through that door and to the left. I’ve already spoken to him.”

  Reed strode off, accompanied by Eric.

  Felicity and Carolyn sat down side-by-side.

  Carolyn broke the silence. “You said you spoke to Carl. What did he say?”

  “He’s got as many men as he dares put on that mountain.”

  “Does he think there will be another avalanche?”

  Felicity could not suppress the shudder. “He doesn’t know. I don’t think anyone does.” She fell silent. Her thoughts churned, half-formed, and trailed into incoherence. Worry lodged in the pit of her stomach, twisting into nausea. Both her parents’ and Darrell’s deaths in car accidents had come as shocks. She had never before endured the agony of uncertainty. It was, she realized now, far worse than the crushing certainty of death.

  She glanced up at the sound of a door opening. Eric was walking toward them, his face pale. Dread filled Felicity, and she blindly reached for Carolyn’s hands. The older woman’s hands trembled too.

  Eric spoke, “They IDed the three burnt bodies recovered from the helicopter. Cody’s not one of them.”

  Relief swept over Felicity. She expelled her breath in a shuddering sigh. How could she possibly feel so relieved when three men were dead—men who were fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers…?

  The wait began anew. Time passed, the minutes punctuated by cups of stale coffee. Felicity glanced at her watch. Ninety minutes had passed since the avalanche, and she knew that by thirty minutes, the chances of survival, if the person survived the initial avalanche at all, would have dropped to 45 percent. Surviving past two hours was considered an impossibility.

  Cody was running out of time. She was running out of hope.

  Just before the two-hour mark, Eric emerged from Carl’s office with more news. “No Cody yet, but they found two more bodies, close to each other, several hundred feet down the mountain. They were buried in nine feet of snow.”

  “But Cody—”

  “They think he’s somewhere around where the other two men were. They found his backpack, and they’re looking hard,” Eric tried to reassure her, but Felicity wasn’t deaf to the despair in his voice.

  Cody had run out of time.

  ~*~

  Several hundred feet above where Alpine Team rescuers were searching for Cody, a small pocket of snow, no larger than the size of a fist, collapsed in upon itself, raising down into a narrow, dark tunnel.

  “Fuck, yeah!”

  Later, Cody would reflect that “Fuck, yeah” was probably not the best choice of words to welcome his reemergence into the world, but then again, he had spent the past few hours digging himself out of a snowy grave. Composing speeches had not been high on his to-do list just then.

  He squinted up at the sunlight and fresh air pouring in through the narrow tunnel he had cleared out to the surface. His next problem, he reflected, was to get his body through a snow tunnel no larger than the circumference of his arm.

  But hey, he had fresh air. Anything was possible with fresh air.

  It took him another hour to expand the opening, a bit at a time. He flinched from the chunks of snow and ice that rained down on his face, but the hole was eventually large enough to wriggle his shoulders through. He pulled himself up and hitched his arms on either side of the opening to rest.

  Down in the valley, he could see several people working the snow in several locations, including on the blackened snow around the charred remains of the helicopter. His face tightened. Jake… And the other climbers—four of them. Had anyone else survived?

  Cody dragged his body out of the ice tunnel and hiked down the hill. As he got closer, he recognized the faces of his friends from the Alpine Rescue team. No one really looked up or around; they were all too focused on digging through several feet of snow.

  His orange backpack, dusted with snow, lay next to one of the team leaders, Keith Henderson. Cody stumbled to his knees, grabbed an energy bar from his backpack, and bit into it. He chewed as his mind slowly worked through the painful reality of the situation. Jake…Cody squeezed his eyes shut. Jake was probably gone. The climbers in the helicopter too.

  He looked up and stared into Keith’s wide-eyed, slack-jawed face. “Did the other two climbers make it?”

  Keith yanked him to his feet and enveloped him in a rib-bruising bear hug. “Where were you, man? Everyone’s looking for you.” Keith looked over his shoulder, his grin wide and full. “Hey, he’s here. The man himself!”

  The other Alpine Team members surrounded Cody as he pointed to his tracks in the snow. “Buried up there,” he said after he caught his breath from the crushing hug.

  “Dumped your backpack and backstroked uphill as the snow came down, didn’t you?” Keith nodded approvingly. “Brilliant move, and absolutely the right thing to do. Of course, we were all looking in the wrong place.”

  “There were four climbers—”

  Keith’s expression sobered. “Found them all. Two near the helicopter. The other two just over there. They didn’t make it.”

  Cody’s throat went dry. “And Jake?”

  Keith shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.” He raised his voice. “No
w, let’s pack up our gear and clear out of here. Pete can check you out on the chopper ride back.” He shook his head. “Damn it, Cody, you’re a lucky devil. You have no goddamn right to be alive.”

  ~*~

  At the two-hour mark, Felicity stopped looking at the clock but she did not leave her uncomfortable seat in the lobby of the Alpine Rescue headquarters. A sharp ache throbbed in her chest, and a heavy fog filled her head. Voices seemed to come from a long way off, a buzz of white noise—words she recognized but did not have the energy to understand. She stared down at the linoleum-tiled floor. With the toe of her boot, she traced muddy streaks into patterns.

  She stared at the regularly spaced triangular patterns. Like the tattoo on Cody’s right arm. The realization jolted pain through her—pain that threatened to yank her from her deliberately unthinking state. No, no. She dragged her boot across the tile, erasing the pattern.

  Felicity closed her eyes. In her own mind, she saw herself poised on the edge of a chasm. She stared down into the inky blackness. You could fall forever and never find your way out.

  “Felicity!”

  It was Cody’s voice. Her eyes still closed, the Cody in her mind—so strong, so alive, so in love—ran toward her…toward the chasm.

  No, no. Not this way, please. She pleaded, but he could not hear her. She held out her hands, but he ran right through them, right through her, with that daredevil smile on his face.

  She turned in time to see him fall—still smiling.

  She reached out, her arms straining, but could not catch him.

  I’m just imagining things. Felicity opened her eyes to stare once more at the mud-streaked tiles, but the image of Cody falling away from her, smiling as he plunged into darkness, did not go away. She could see it as if burned on the inside of her eyes, superimposed on everything on her field of vision. Oh, God. Why you? Why did you risk your life? Why couldn’t it have been someone else who died?

  “Felicity!” His voice sounded nearer than ever.

  Oh, God. She buried her face in the palms of her hands.

  Strong arms pulled her to her feet and wrapped around her. She found herself surrounded by his scent, his strength. Dazedly, she pulled back and stared up at Cody’s face. His skin was blistered by cold, but he wore a smile—that same goddamned smile he had worn to his death. Her lips trembled and whispered his name like a prayer. “Cody?”

  He stroked her hair. “I’m not hurt. It’s like they all say—I have the devil’s luck. I’m okay; I really am.”

  She looked over his shoulder. His parents and his brother stood behind him, their joy and relief evident on their faces.

  Something seemed to explode in her brain. In her mind, the pictures she had seen on television of Jake, the helicopter pilot, and of the four climbers shattered like shards of glass and reformed into a jagged-edged composite image of Darrell.

  Dimly, she was aware that she should have been feeling joy and relief at Cody’s safe return, but those emotions were swept away and buried beneath an avalanche of pure fury.

  Cody’s smile faded as if he were aware of her transforming emotions.

  “I can’t do it,” she said, her voice sounding cold and mechanical even to her own ears. “I can’t be with you and watch this kind of thing play out again and again.”

  “What kind of thing?” Cody asked warily. He did not remove his hands from her shoulders.

  “Where the people around you die, and you walk away without a scratch. Every time you do something crazy, every time you cheat death, it’s like watching my brother die all over again, but it’s worse.”

  The words caught in her throat, too horrid to give voice. Every time you risk your life, I’d be waiting in here praying that you can walk away again, without a scratch, even if everyone else around you dies…

  She raised her chin and stared into his shocked face. “I can’t…I won’t live like that. It’s the edge, Cody; I found my edge. You found my edge.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I can’t be with you. I can’t love you.”

  “But—”

  “Goodbye, Cody.” Her eyes dry and her head held high, she shook his hands off, turned her back on him, and walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Colorado was still locked deep in one of the nastiest winters on record when Cody finally managed to wrangle some off-time to visit his family. He pulled up in front of the mansion and cut the engine. He stared at his parents’ house, and for the first time in a long time, thought to himself, I’m home.

  His heart thumped a rapid beat. Anticipation was a tight coil in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t wait to see Felicity.

  They had not spoken in the four weeks that had passed since he survived the avalanche on Capitol Peak. Of course, the tragedy that killed five others but allowed him to survive had brought back memories of her brother’s death. Her forgiveness, he reflected bitterly, was apparently not as complete as they had both imagined. He had given her time and space to decompress from the shock, even though his every instinct had screamed at him to chase her down, grab her, and never let go. His gut told him not to let love vanish from his sight, but his head told him to give love a chance to sulk in private.

  To distract himself from the ache of wanting Felicity and the pain of missing her, he had volunteered for double shifts for the past month. The persistent and heavy snowfall might have been a skier’s dream, but it was the Alpine Rescue Team’s nightmare. They needed more people than they had on staff, and Cody and others on the team had stepped up to the challenge. When he wasn’t working, he was catching up on his sleep, usually on a bunk bed in the Alpine Rescue headquarters.

  As far as distractions went, his overtime with the Alpine Rescue Team did not manage to keep his mind off Felicity. He thought of her constantly when he was awake and dreamed of her when he slept. He relived the argument—no, it hadn’t been an argument. He hadn’t argued. She had simply stated her point of view and walked away, leaving him too dumbfounded to argue.

  Four weeks was sufficient time, he hoped, to take the edge off her anger and give him a sporting chance of talking her into giving him another shot at happiness

  He rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Meredith, who answered the door, showed him to the informal dining room, where the table had been set for four. Cody frowned. He had spoken to his brother just that morning, and Eric had said he would be at dinner. Perhaps he had been held up at work.

  Moments later, however, Eric walked into the dining room. “Cody,” he acknowledged with a nod of his head. He shrugged off his business suit jacket and loosened his tie, popping the button on his collar.

  A chill crept through Cody’s chest. He tried to keep his voice casual. “Isn’t Felicity joining us for dinner?”

  Eric darted Cody a sideway glance as he dropped into a chair. “Felicity’s not here. She went back to New Jersey about three weeks ago.”

  Cody’s mouth dropped open. Disbelief roared through his brain—a massive sound that robbed him of his voice.

  “It wasn’t a secret. We would have told you if you’d asked.” A muscle shifted in Eric’s smooth jaw. “Guess she didn’t mean that much to you. Wish I’d known that. I would have moved in on her if I had known you weren’t serious about her.”

  “But why did she go?”

  Eric’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Did you not hear a word of what she said to you in parting?”

  “She said all my near-death misses reminded her of her brother dying, and she couldn’t live with it.” Cody’s face twisted. “She didn’t really forgive me after all.”

  “No, you idiot. You didn’t hear her right. She said she couldn’t live with the kind of person she was going to become if she continued to love you.”

  “I didn’t ask her to change for me.”

  “Yeah? Well, love does shit to people.” Eric was unusually crude. “Guess she didn’t see it coming. I just think it’s damned ironic. She moved across the country to learn how not to hate the man whom she
thought killed her brother. To take that woman, a woman with an amazing capacity for love and forgiveness, and to demand from her a love that wishes other people dead—”

  “That’s not what I asked of her!”

  “But that’s what your psychotic lifestyle demands of her. She loves you. She wants you alive; she wants you with her. You risk your life every day, boast of your devil’s luck—the kind of luck that allows you to emerged unscathed while others die—and you think that it’s not going to change how she thinks and feels about you, and worse, the people with you?”

  “She’s completely overreacting.” Cody shrugged off his brother’s concern, but he could not defend against the niggling fear inside of him. “She didn’t have to run away. We could have come to an understanding.”

  Eric frowned. “How was she supposed to know that when you went straight back to your job without so much as checking on her?”

  “I was giving her space!”

  “She doesn’t need space. You’re crazy if you think she’s going to change her mind. In fact, you’d be crazy to want her if she changes her mind. She wouldn’t be the Felicity you fell in love with.” Eric’s face hardened. “The issue here isn’t her lack of love for you. The problem is she loves you too much. If the two of you can’t reach an agreement, the real problem—the only problem, in fact—is your lack of love for her.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  His lack of love for her?

  How dare Eric challenge how much he loved Felicity?

  She had torn a gaping hole in him with the simple words, “I can’t love you.” He had seen the anger in her eyes—directed more at herself than at him—but her voice had been cool and flat, as if she had never loved him.

  Eric’s voice rang through Cody’s head. “The problem is she loves you too much.”

  Could Eric have been right; was the problem too much love instead of too little?