4

JOAN SLOWLY, achingly rejoined the conscious world. Something was strapped diagonally across her chest and holding her hunched forward in a seat. Where was she? And why was she staring at her tennis shoes with such intensity? Ditto her ponytail. It hung over her shoulder, brushed her knees. But the worst part was, she hurt all over and felt sick. She looked at her hands. She was also handcuffed. Why?

Then it all flashed back to her. Tony LoBianco. Houston. Dan Hendricks. The plane. The storm. The javelin. Ah, yes. They’d crashed. And my, wasn’t she calm about it all? I’m in shock. That’s it. I’m in shock. Or I’m dead. No, I prefer shock. Who wouldn’t be shocked?

Hurting everywhere, she pulled herself upright, wondering why she had to fight gravity to do so. Then she realized that the Cessna tilted to the left. But something, someone, was missing. Where was Dan?

“Dan?” No man, no body, no answer. The door on his side gaped open and, frighteningly, didn’t appear to be impeded by contact with the ground. Don’t even tell me we’re up a tree. She swallowed and took a deep breath. Had Dan fallen out to his death? Would she too if she tried to get out?

Squinting at the blindingly bright, snowy world outside the damaged aircraft, Joan assessed her situation. Okay, the storm had abated some, the world was white and long shadows blanketed her, the plane and the trees. So maybe hours had passed. She shivered. She was certainly cold enough for it to have been hours.

Pushing that thought aside, she took in her more immediate surroundings. The Cessna’s crumpled nose was bumped against a thick tree trunk. So, it wasn’t up a tree at all. It was on the ground because…she looked to her left and then to her right…she could see other thick-bark trunks. And through a clearing in those, some big purple mountains. But where was Dan? Scared now, she all but whispered, “Dan?”

Still no answer. “Dan?” she called out louder, maybe a little hysterically. “Dan, where are you? You didn’t leave me, did you?” Which was a pretty stupid thing to say, she realized. Because if he had, he wouldn’t be here to answer, now, would he?

Panic set in. He left me alone and handcuffed in this snowdrift. I’ll freeze to death or get eaten by a bear. Oh, please let me freeze all the way to death before I get eaten by a bear. Stop it. He probably went to get help. Now get the heck out of this Cessna before it catches on fire and explodes. Good idea.

Then she remembered Dan saying it probably wouldn’t catch fire because of the fuel and winds or something. But still, thinking better safe than sorry, she tugged frantically at her seat belt. With her hands cuffed and moving together like synchronized swimmers, she fought and scratched until she got her restraints unclasped. Shrugging out of them, she pushed her shoulder against the door on her right as she two-handedly fumbled with the latch.

No dice. Stuck. Jammed. Wedged. It wouldn’t open. Great. Close to tears now, she slumped in her seat and thought about giving up. Then a gust of cold wind drew her attention to her left, to the other open door.

Making a face at her own idiocy, she hitched and flipped, in beached-seal fashion, until she could pull herself up out of her seat. The plane lurched. Joan froze in position—on her knees and holding on to the seat back. Then she sucked in a very cold breath. Don’t do this, nice airplane. I’m sorry for everything I ever said about you. Just hold together until I get out. Please?

When the plane stayed in place, Joan inched her wary way over to the pilot’s seat. But her knee slipped, and she lost her balance. She tumbled face-first and squawking right out of the Cessna, rolling and finally landing in a deep drift of oh-so-chilling snow. Slowly, she came to her knees, spitting and hissing and rubbing her numb fingers over her face. A noise behind her jerked her around. The Cessna shuddered and slid a notch down its snowy embankment. Toward her.

Wide-eyed, Joan struggled to her feet and cleared the area in a dead run. Stopping only when she felt she was a safe distance away, she turned back to the disabled airplane. It slipped another notch. She jumped, fully intending to respond to her instinct to flee.

But just then, a spot of orange in the snow, and in the plane’s eventual path, caught her eye. She froze, more from sudden realization and fear than from the cold. The deputy hadn’t gone for help at all. Far from it. Because there he was. Lying on the ground. And he needed help. Her help.

Not liking herself one bit for it, she hesitated, told herself she was free now. Everyone, including Mr. LoBianco’s cronies, would think she was dead and that maybe wild animals had carried off her body. She could change her hair and her name and live her life. Be free of her past. Pick a future more to her own liking.

Yeah, and eat her heart out for the rest of her miserable life because she’d left a man to die. What if he was just unconscious? Could she just stand here and watch the plane crush him? Or leave him here, to die of exposure? “Great,” Joan huffed. Still, she looked at the orange parka half buried in the snow…then up at the Cessna…and around the expanse of open country surrounding her.

This was her last opportunity for freedom. Already hating herself, she turned away from the crash site, took a step and walked right into a low-hanging branch. “Okay, I was kidding,” she said aloud, fighting off pine needles. “Can’t even take a joke.”

Without asking herself who she was talking to, she turned around and trudged back to the deputy, telling herself she may as well stay with him. God knows, in her stable, boring, adventure-challenged existence, she’d couch-potatoed enough action-adventure TV shows to know that you always stayed with your craft.

By the unconscious lawman’s side now, she stared at his broad back and splayed arms and legs. With his face turned toward her, his cheek rested on a pile of snow-dusted leafy undergrowth. Well, she’d gotten one wish—his sunglasses were gone. Another good thing was his face. It wasn’t a bloody pulp. That was never good.

She knelt beside him in the snow, feeling the cold wetness penetrate her jeans. She looked him over. What should she do? Maybe feel his neck for a pulse? Sure. Why not? Holding her freezing fingers against his neck, she felt around, found nothing. Seconds and hope ticked by. Joan moved her fingers to another spot on his exposed flesh. And then, there it was. A pulse. Strong and steady. “Yes!” She slumped over him, hugging him for being alive.

When she raised up, she marked how stiff her muscles were, and how low over the mountains the pale sun was. She had to get him up somehow. She raked her gaze over the man’s still form. Maybe she’d better check him for broken bones before she tried to turn him over. Surprised, she sat back on her legs. Look at me. All of a sudden I’m Miss Wilderness Survival. Where’s all this stuff coming from?

After all, nothing in her citified, foster-home-living, unwitting-accountant-to-the-mob lifestyle had prepared her for this. Good thing that, between boyfriends, she’d kept company with her TV, huh? Strike a blow for the boob tube later, all right? For now, worry about broken bones and then find shelter from the cold.

Fine. She leaned forward again, moving her manacled hands awkwardly over the deputy’s body. He was so warm under his parka and so finely muscled. Under any other circumstances, Joan told herself, this would be a very…touching moment. But not like this. Poor guy. He was out cold and helpless. And here she was…feeling him up.

Clearing her throat, as well as her hormonal thoughts, she rolled him over as gingerly as she could, given his bulk and her cuffed condition. She then brushed the snow off his face and shook his shoulder, calling out, “Dan? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

Nothing. Joan sank back on her haunches and looked skyward. Great. Now what? Die here with him? What am I supposed to do? Find someplace warm. I know that. But where? Her gaze directed itself to the crumpled Cessna. No, thanks. But there might be blankets inside. And there’s the radio. Maybe it works. Sounded like a plan.

But first, she had to get Dan out of the plane’s path. She mentally measured his length and breadth. The guy may as well be Gulliver and she a Lilliputian. Was he never going to wake up? This just wasn’t fair. She needed him. He was going to help her, save her from herself. Somebody needed to. She couldn’t do it herself. She frowned. Did that make sense?

About as much as this. Just when she met someone who was kind and gentle, even funny, someone she thought she might be able to trust, look what happens. She’s charged with murder and he gets whacked in a plane wreck. What were the odds? She looked again to the Cessna and frowned. No telling when gravity would wrench it down on top of them. She looked down at the prostrate deputy. And jumped. His eyes were open, but not very focused. He grimaced and mumbled, “What happened?”

Joan slumped in relief, blinked back tears. “Well, remember earlier when we were airborne, how you kept saying it was going to be okay?” She shook her head. “It wasn’t. Here’s how un-okay it is—you can forget that press conference. We’ll be the news. Our crash, that is.”

He stared up at her. Blankly. Great. All the lights are on, but nobody’s home. He tried to sit up, but Joan restrained him with her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t move. Something besides your Cessna could be broken.”

She thought he looked a little less dazed and confused as he pulled himself up onto his elbows. But then he said, “My what?”

She huffed out a cloud of warm breath and pointed at the winged expanse of steel teetering just up the slope from them. “Your Cessna. It’s broken. Your taxpayers are not going to be amused.”

Dan craned his neck in the direction she pointed. Then his eyes flew open wide. “Holy—!” He jackknifed up, grabbed her around the waist and rolled over and over and over with her. Finally he rolled to his feet…obviously nothing was broken…and brought her with him. Grabbing her arm, he took off like a Boston Marathon legend, dragging her along behind him.

Stopping somewhere in the next county…in Joan’s estimation…he let go of her and bent over, bracing his hands against his knees. Breathing hard, looking pale, he croaked out, “Why were you sitting there? We could have been killed.”

“You think?” Sarcasm came naturally when she had wet, tangled, stick-embedded hair, was chilled from a roll in the snow and breathless from being forced to sprint at an Indy 500 pace. Between gasps for air, she griped, “What do you think I was doing? I was trying to make sure you were okay before I moved you. But then you woke up and…well, you know the rest.”

Looking somewhat dazed again, if not dizzy, Dan plopped down in the snow. “We crashed. I can’t believe we made it. But…I was out cold, and you stayed with me?” He stared up at her in a purely assessing way. “That was a pretty selfless thing for a cold-blooded murderess like yourself to do.”

She shrugged. “We have our moments.” Then she got defensive. “I thought you’d left me first. You weren’t the only unconscious victim here. When I woke up, I was still buckled in that plane and contemplating my shoes.”

“I’m glad you’re okay. But what made you think I’d left you?”

You’re glad I’m okay? Joan studied him. He was a nice guy. Then she said, “Because the door on your side was open, and you were nowhere to be seen. Didn’t I say that yet?” She then surprised herself by clogging up with tears. To her horror, her chin quivered and her voice wavered. “I thought you’d left me here to die.”

Dan’s expression softened. “I wouldn’t do that” Then he came unsteadily to his feet, put a hand to his forehead, swayed slightly, blinked several times, and then surprised her by reaching for her. “Come here.”

From sheer human need, Joan stepped into his embrace. With her cuffed hands held between her chest and his, she pressed her cheek against his coat’s zipper and didn’t mind its cold roughness against her skin. She clung to his quilted nylon jacket For the longest time, she stood melded to him, reveling in this feeling of being safe. She closed her eyes and sniffed again and again.

“Joan?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Run.” With that, he broke their warm cocoon of an embrace, clutched at the back of her parka and again dragged her with him.

Having to trundle along somewhat like Quasimodo, given his backward grip on her, Joan concentrated on staying on her feet From behind them came the metallic wrenching and moaning and cracking apart of the Cessna as it apparently worked on its descent Dan finally slowed and then stopped, swinging his arm around her to steady her. “Look,” he commanded.

Joan turned in his embrace and looked. What she saw transfixed her. She could feel the deputy sheriff pressed to her back, but her thoughts were with the dying Cessna. “Oh no. It’s going to slide right over that cliff and down the mountain. There go the radio and the blankets.”

“Yep,” Dan agreed, watching it go. But then he shifted his weight, causing her to look up at him. “How’d you know there were blankets?”

Joan thought about it, shrugged her shoulders. “I assumed. Were there?”

Dan nodded. “Yeah. Why didn’t you get them out?”

“It was them or you. I voted for you.”

“Then I owe you one.” Just then, another metallic groan split the air. “Uh-oh, there it goes.” Joan directed her gaze to the last swan dive of the wreckage. Behind her, Dan said, “It’ll just be pieces by the time it gets to the bottom. But any search party will be able to see that it slid down this mountain. They’ll come up here to find the point of impact.”

Joan turned against the pressure of his hold on her and looked up at his rugged jawline. “Just like on TV. So they’ll find us, right?”

Still watching the plane crumble and fall, Dan shook his head. “No. We won’t be here. If we stay out in the open like this, we’ll be plenty dead and frozen by then.”

“Or get eaten by a bear.” She again twisted in his embrace to take in their snowy, boulder-strewn surroundings. “Do you know where we are? I mean, exactly.”

Dan stepped back, tugging her away from him, but still he held on to her arm. “No, but I have a general idea.” He then looked skyward. Joan did the same. “Not good. It’s starting to snow again. And it’ll be dark in a couple hours.”

“Lovely.” She meant the situation, not the big, fat, lazy flakes salting them and the already white-covered ground.

Dan looked down at her, then at his hand gripping her arm, and finally settled on her cuffed hands. “Why didn’t you say something?” With that, he reached up under his parka and produced a set of keys. “Hold your hands up.”

Automatically offering her wrists, she kept her gaze firmly on his cold-reddened hands as he released her from her cuffs. He then hiked up his parka and replaced them on his belt.

“Throw those away, because I’m not wearing them again,” she swore as she rubbed her bruised flesh. When he let that pass, she knew something was up. She raised her head, caught his unhappy expression as he stared at her red, chafed wrists. She self-consciously dropped her hands to her sides, allowing the parka’s too-long sleeves to cover her fingertips. “What now?”

Her words seemed to rouse him. He met her gaze. “Shelter. Warmth.” With that, he turned away, his gaze lingering a moment on the valley below them. Then he looked to the mountains and pointed. “See that ridge on the left there, not too far away?”

Joan squinted and frowned in the direction he pointed. “Let’s assume I know a ridge when I see one. Which one and what about it?”

“Right there. In that clearing—like a bald spot about halfway up the mountainside? If I’m right about where we are, there’s a cabin over there. It’s a seasonal place, mostly used in the winter. Probably no one’s there, but at least it should have some canned goods and firewood.”

She looked and looked, but for the life of her couldn’t make out anything. Except the long, blue shadows slowly settling over the white, forested mountainside. She quit trying to find the cabin and looked up at him. “And if you’re wrong?”

Hazel eyes serious, he scratched his jaw. “If I’m wrong, we should die quickly.” With that, he trudged off to his left, not looking back to see if she followed. “Freezing to death isn’t all that bad. You just give up, sit down and go to sleep. And that’s the end of it.”

Twisting her lips into a grimace, Joan started out after him. “And how would you know that?”

Over his shoulder he called out, “Walk in my boot prints. It’ll make your going easier. And I don’t know, obviously. I’m just going by what the medical examiner says.”

Huffing and puffing from the cold that nipped her lungs, and stretching her stride to match his as she hopped from one imprint to another, Joan kept up her end of the conversation. “Medical examiner. Now there’s a cheery thought.”

“Yeah. Old Harry. You’ll like him.”

Joan stopped in her…his…tracks as she stared at the man’s parka-covered back. “I don’t intend to meet him, Sheriff.”

Her Abominable Snowman guide chuckled. “Deputy. And you will meet him, too. I want him to have you stab a dummy with a knife similar to the supposed murder weapon so he can see if your efforts match those on your lover’s body—which we still have in cold storage. Then we’ll know if you’re lying or telling the truth.”

“Fine. As long as I get to pick the dummy, Sheriff.”

He stopped and pivoted around to glare at her.

Joan frowned, recalled her words. “Oh. There’s a comma between dummy and sheriff.”

“It’s deputy. And there better be. Now try to keep up.” With that, he once again turned his back on her and trudged onward.

With a shrug of her shoulders, Joan followed him, feeling like a snow bunny hopping from one of his boot indentations to the next. She wondered why he had no qualms about her—a cold-blooded murderess—being behind him. She could pick up a rock or a branch or something and whack him over the head.

As if he’d just thought the same thing, Dan stopped and pivoted to face her. Joan pulled up short…about two long strides behind him…and cocked her head. “What?”

“Don’t even think it.”

Despite her surprise at his words—could he read her mind?—she grinned. “Yes, sir.” To herself she added, He’s afraid of me.

DAN COULDN’T FEEL his toes or the ends of his fingers. His nose was running. His vision was blurred and teary, thanks to the Popsicle-cold wind. Each step was an exercise in frozen agony. His stomach was growling at his ice-chest lungs, threatening to eat them. And the sun was going down.

Better yet, trailing him was a hopping, whining, red-haired self-professed murderess who’d saved his life. Well, at least she’d said that’s what she was doing when he’d come to. She could have been hunting for a rock to crush his skull with, for all he knew.

“I’m freezing, and I’m hungry. Where’s that cabin you said you saw? Are you sure it wasn’t a mirage?” she asked for the eighty-seventh time. “I think right now I could kill a bear with a stick, eat it whole and wear its fur.”

Shaking his head, pretending she didn’t make him want to laugh, Dan called back over his shoulder, “Just keep up. The cabin should be around this next bend.”

“You said that an hour ago. I think the cabin was a mirage, and you’re lost, and we’re going to die.”

That did it. Dan whipped around, saw her startled response, and felt some of the same, seeing how close she was behind him. “For the last time—keep your distance. I have a gun. I am not lost We are not going to die—at least, I’m not. There is a cabin close by. And mirages occur in heat, like you’d find in a desert. Does it look like we’re in a desert?”

Her cheeks and nose as red as her hair, her eyes as green as the pines around them, she shook her head and sniffed, rubbing her sleeve under her nose. “No. Are you afraid of me?”

“Afraid of you?” Aching, tired of her nonstop yapping, and over any desire—to save her or to savor her—that he might have felt earlier, Dan put his hands to his parka-thickened waist. “Why would I be afraid of you? No more questions. Just shut up and be quiet” She opened her mouth. Dan jerked his hand up, all but barking, “I know, shut up and be quiet are the same things. Humor me.”

She started to say something again as she pointed to his left Again he jerked his hand up. “I said, humor me.”

She huffed out a breath that coalesced and hung in the air between them. “Will you just turn around and look behind you, please?”

Dan shook his head. “Not if my life depended on it.”

“Actually, it sort of does.” Again, she cut her gaze to his left and then flicked it back to his face. “It’s the cabin. I think I see it.”

Dan narrowed his eyes, looking her up and down. An unarmed woman less than half his size. And wearing a parka big enough for a Dallas Cowboys lineman. How dangerous could she be? Yeah, well, he’d seen Tony LoBianco’s body. And he didn’t have any real proof yet she hadn’t killed him. “Come here.”

She did, but trudging and sighing all the way. Stopping right in front of him, she looked up into his face. The ice around Dan’s heart melted. Poor kid. Her lips were blue with cold. Her jeans were soaked from the knees down and, unlike his boots which kept his feet relatively dry, she had on tennis shoes. Her feet had to be frozen lumps. And she was shivering.

Steeling his sympathetic nature, Dan clutched her by her parka’s shoulder seam and pulled her along as he turned around. “Where’s this cabin you think you see?” he asked her, looking this way and that through the massive columnlike tree trunks that stood impassive to them and impervious to the cold.

“If you’ll let go of me, Sheriff, I’ll show you.” Her words shook with her shivering voice. She hugged herself and hopped in place from one foot to the other. “Like I’m going to run off. Where exactly would I go? If I did run, and as you keep reminding me, you have a gun.”

Dan narrowed his eyes at her…and let go of her. “All right. Lead on.”

And she did, weaving them unerringly through the dense copse and straight to a small clearing that sheltered…the cabin. Impressed that she’d found it, but prepared to die before he’d admit it, Dan ignored her when she turned to him and swept her arms out to one side, indicating the little house in the fashion of a game-show model.

Grumping under his breath, he brushed by her, intent on finding something he could use to break that padlock on the door. If they weren’t inside soon, out of these clothes and in front of a warm fire, they’d be poster children for frostbite. Not giving his prisoner a second thought, Dan searched the cabin’s perimeter, kicking aside snow, throwing off tarps. Working his way around to the right, he found firewood stacked against the cabin. Out back, a washtub.

Frustrated, he rounded the far corner. And met up with Joan. Walking toward him, she brandished a crowbar. “Son of a—!” Reacting on pure surprise and policeman’s instinct, he reached for his Beretta, but ended up fumbling frozen-fingered with his zipped-up parka. Forget it. He had to settle for a scowl and a bark. “Where did you get that?”

She stopped in front of him and raised the crowbar. He flinched, but she just showed it to him. “This? Right behind me. It was leaning against the wall. I was bringing it to— You are scared of me, aren’t you?”

It took a moment for his heartbeat and the adrenaline rush to subside, for her words to sink in. And for him to ignore them. “Do you realize I could’ve shot you? Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again.”

She gestured, waving the crowbar. “Who’s sneaking? I’m standing right in front of you.”

“Yeah, with a heavy metal weapon. Give me that damned thing before you—” Dan snatched the tool from her and, finally feeling in charge again, walked around the cabin to the bolted front door.

Joan was on his heels. “Why didn’t you just shoot the lock off like they do in the movies?”

Dan sighed. “A—this isn’t a movie. B—there’s no props guy to bring me more bullets when mine are gone. C—we may need them all before we get out of here. And D—I would’ve done that if I hadn’t found this tool.”

From behind him came, “If who hadn’t found it?”

Dan ignored her in favor of wedging one end of the crowbar through the padlock’s loop. He then threaded it halfway through, gripped both ends and twisted viciously. The lock’s metal snapped with a cold clunk. He lifted the padlock free of the staple, swung the hinged clasp away and pushed open the cabin’s rough-cut wooden door.

The interior was dim, the air stale and cold, but it felt like home. Dan tossed the broken padlock onto a table and took stock of the one room. A wood-burning stove, a fireplace, a box of kindling wood next to it. Two sets of skis, an old metal-framed bed. A crude kitchen, including a sink and curtain-covered shelves, which would hopefully yield some canned goods. And—hallelujah—a two-way radio.

But before he could take two steps inside, and again from behind him came, “Admit it. You’re afraid of me.”

Dan pivoted to face his tormentor. “Look, I’ve added a crowbar to my arsenal. I’m cold. Tired. Hungry. And sore as hell. Let’s not play ‘Who’s afraid of the big, bad convict’ again, okay?”

She shrugged. “Okay. But you are. You wouldn’t use a bullet on the lock because you think you’ll need them all for me.”

Dan nodded. “Keep reminding me. Now close the door. I’ll get a fire going while you see what you can scrounge up. Maybe some dry clothes, some food, hopefully. Whatever we can use.”

He fully expected her to argue, but surprisingly she just nodded and went to close the door. Next, she set about rummaging through the curtained shelves, as ordered. Dan watched her a moment, realized he was grinning at her, and then knelt in front of the fireplace. He dragged the wood box closer, searched through it. Kindling, logs, old newspaper, matches. Everything they needed.

Everything they needed. The two of them. Dan looked over his shoulder, stole a glance at Joan O’Leary. Turned profile to him, her long, red ponytail a soppy mess, the parka big enough for two women her size, she was sniffing and reading a can label. She looked terrible and cute as hell, all at the same time. Again and unbidden, a grin claimed his mouth.

Perhaps she felt the weight of his stare. Or perhaps it was just chance. But either way, she looked up at him. “Do you like—?” Her eyes widened, no doubt with surprise to see him grinning and staring at her. “What?”

Down on one knee, his elbow resting atop it, Dan sobered, and said, “Nothing. What were you going to say?”

Now it was she who stared at him. She then studied the can, and glanced at him again with those big eyes. “I was going to say ravioli. Is that okay?”

Dan nodded, wondered at his thudding heart. She was so damned little and wide-eyed. Could she be as innocent, in all ways, as she looked? And why was he wondering that? And what had she just asked him? Frowning now, he tried, “Yeah, that’s fine?”

She held the can up for him to see. “Good. There’re two of them—cans of ravioli. And a can opener. And a pot. I’ll…just heat them.”

Dan nodded, wished he could get over the urge to hug her to him and kiss her hair and tell her it was going to be okay. “Good.”

She blinked, lowered the can she held. “What’s wrong with you?”

Dan jerked and turned away, busying his hands with the kindling and his brain with words. “Nothing. I’ll get this fire going and then we can heat that up. I’m starved, but all I want right now is warmth and dry clothes. How about you?”

“No kidding.” Her voice fairly bubbled. Dan glanced over at her. She was grinning and saying, “Getting out of these wet ones will be a slice of heaven. I’d be happy just to wrap up naked in a blanket and get in that bed.” Then her eyes widened and she wheeled to face the sink, showing him her back.

Dan watched her, considered her words. And her own reaction to her words. Chuckling, he went back to building the fire. Throwing a log onto the grate, he mumbled to himself, “I think you’re afraid of me, Joan O’Leary.”