Epilogue

K2—Karakoram Mountain Range, Pakistan

27,230 feet—Between Camp Four and the summit: July 29

Thick, heavy snowflakes swirled in the beam from Lindsey’s headlamp. It was 8 p.m. and the weather was complete shit. Her elation at reaching the summit of K2 earlier in the day had dissipated as she struggled to get Elena Rossi off the mountain. How ironic that summitting was the easy part. Descending was always the true test of any climb.

Although Elena spoke English, she had reverted to her native Italian hours ago, and Lindsey had given up talking to her. At least they weren’t alone. Ed “Ditch” Dittrich had helped belay Elena down some of the worst sections of the Traverse, the area above the Bottleneck, constituting the most dangerous area on K2. Lindsey was nearing her last reserves, and she suspected Ditch was, too.

Where was Ty?

He had lagged behind on their summit bid, having helped one of their other teammates, Billy Packer, back to Camp Four when the man couldn’t go on. But then Ty had done an extraordinary push back to the summit. She and Ditch had passed him hours ago as they were descending, and he was closing in. Their exchange had been brief, and for one wild moment she had considered going back up with him.

But they were in the Death Zone, that area above 26,000 feet where all life was slowly dying, including them; exerting unnecessary energy was folly to the highest degree. So she and Ditch had resumed their descent while Galloway had pushed upward. He had no radio, so Lindsey didn’t know if he’d made it or not.

In the ensuing hours, she had kept alive the hope that Ty would catch them, since their pace had slowed considerably while aiding Elena, whom they had found asleep on the snowfield leading to the summit.

It wasn’t the first time Lindsey had been on a mountain with Elena and forced to deal with the woman’s weak climbing skills, and it had crossed her mind more than once to leave her where she lay. But just when Lindsey was reaching her limit, Ditch would step in. Despite being almost twice Lindsey’s age—and harboring his own resentment over a past relationship with Elena—he had proven why Ty relied on the man as a guide and mentor on this expedition. Ditch was steady, patient, and a world-class climber.

Lindsey stopped on the steep mountainside, anchored to the mountain with an ice axe in each hand and her boots, clad in spiky crampons, kicked into the icy terrain. In the glow of her headlamp, she spied the start of a fixed line.

She released a sigh of relief. They had reached the Bottleneck, so called because it was a narrow couloir, at times clogged with climbers. It was a dangerous three hundred-foot stretch of steep, slick, and unforgiving ice. It was also shadowed by a large serac from above, curved over them like the prow of a giant ship, and every climber passed as quickly as possible beneath it since pieces had been known to break off and come crashing down. This wasn’t a place to dawdle.

But once they made it through this section, they would arrive at the relative safety of the shoulder where Camp Four was pitched.

She knew the fixed rope didn’t traverse the entire Bottleneck—the Poles had placed it yesterday on the way to their summit bid and had only one hundred feet of rope on hand—but it was better than nothing. And they needed all the help they could get with Elena.

The wind blasted Lindsey, threatening to rip her off the mountain and throw her into the abyss far below.

It was blisteringly obvious that K2 wasn’t going to give up her summit without a fight. Descending the Bottleneck in this shitstorm of low visibility was bad enough but having to guide an impaired Elena down was enough to give Lindsey sharp pangs of panic.

Had Alison been in this same spot, gripped with the same bone-deep fear?

Her sister had died on this mountain two years ago, likely not far from where Lindsey currently stood.

This won’t be my fate.

Two climbers materialized behind them in the darkness. For a moment, Lindsey thought it was Tyler, but that elation was dashed when the first one spoke with a German accent. Frieder.

They came to Ditch first, but to her surprise didn’t stop and instead climbed around him and Elena.

When they tried to do the same to Lindsey, she blocked them.

“Can you help us get Elena through the Bottleneck?” she asked.

Frieder stopped and said nothing, then finally shook his head and uttered one word, “Nein.”

To Lindsey’s shock, he said nothing more and climbed past her, hooking himself to the fixed rope.

What the hell?

When the second German, Volker, moved to do the same, she planted her axe in front of his face. “We need help with Elena.”

Volker shook his head. “We are spent.”

“So are we. If we leave her here, she’ll die.”

“Then she should not be here. Not our responsibility.”

“Bullshit,” Lindsey said. “It’ll go faster with four of us.”

Volker ignored her and climbed up a few feet to get past her. Then he went to the fixed rope, clipped on, and the swirling snow swallowed him up.

Stunned, Lindsey remained where she was, trying to quell her anger.

A loud snap filled the air, and then a rumble.

Shit!

“Hold on!” she yelled, facing the mountain and tucking her head, praying her helmet would fend off any blocks of ice.

She closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting as the roar grew. A cloud of snow and ice slammed into her, and she held tight to her ice axes to keep from being blown off the mountain.

But the avalanche hadn’t hit them.

Trembling, she didn’t move.

“Lindsey,” Ditch said. “Where are the Germans?”

Her headlamp revealed the fixed rope to be still intact. Maybe the two shithead Germans were okay. She almost didn’t care.

She swung her light back toward Ditch and Elena, trying to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Ditch had retrieved his radio. “David, come in.”

In addition to Ty, Lindsey, and Ditch, their team had consisted of David Shaw and Billy Packer. Since Shaw had summited the day before with the Poles, a move that had irritated Lindsey, he had nonetheless stepped up to care for Packer at Camp Four until the rest of them could return to help.

“I’m here,” Shaw replied.

“We think part of the serac broke off. Frieder and Volker might have gotten hit. Over.”

“Copy that. I’ll go out and look for them, but it’s a white-out. Be careful. Over.”

Ditch stowed the radio. “Is the fixed rope still there?” he asked Lindsey.

“It looks like it,” she answered, her teeth chattering.

“You stay here with Elena,” he said. “I’ll go check.”

Unable to move, all Lindsey could do was watch as he moved above her and soon disappeared into the snowstorm, just as the Germans had.

Ditch had hooked Elena to an ice screw before he had left them, so she was secure for the moment, allowing Lindsey to remain where she was and regroup.

She was shakier than she wanted to be.

The snow conditions were becoming untenable. It was too dark. A piece of the serac had just broken off, possibly killing Frieder and Volker. And if the two German men weren’t dead, how would anyone find them? Was there anyone left at Camp Four besides David and Packer?

And now, as she waited for Ditch to return, she faced the fact that she might have to bivouac with Elena right here. Spending the night hanging off the side of K2 was a terrible idea, and one she wanted to avoid. Climbers joked that bivouac was French for “mistake.” And Elena had certainly made a mistake as she’d tried to reach the summit earlier today, instead of turning around. Now, Lindsey was paying the price for the woman’s piss-poor decision-making.

Knowing she needed to stop complaining, Lindsey switched to problem-solving mode, trying to corral her errant thoughts into something useful. Hours—no, it had been days—of oxygen deprivation was fast destroying her cognitive skills.

She had a bivy sac, but it was only meant for one person. There was no way she could secure it on this near vertical face, so they would need to ascend. But what if they got lost?

What about Ty? Was he still behind her? And wasn’t the other American team also downclimbing from the summit? If she waited long enough, surely they would meet up with her and could help get Elena down. But it was already so late. They could be hunkered down, bivouacking despite the lunacy of sitting still and waiting out the storm. Waiting for sunrise.

Or they could be lost themselves.

Godfuckingdammit.

She really needed to get her and Elena down.

Now.

She gathered her courage and yanked an axe free and swung it into the icy slope with a loud thwunk, then kicked in a step with the sharp cramponed-toe of her right foot. Repeating this process, she carefully shuffled over to the start of the fixed rope. She gave a yank on the cord. To her horror, it released and flew back toward her.

Sucker punched, she gasped for air that wasn’t there.

Please, God, no!

Where the hell was Ditch? Was he somewhere down below? Hurt, or dead?

If she left Elena, Lindsey knew she would never find the woman again. Not in this weather. Not in Elena’s compromised state.

Elena would be Alison all over again, incoherent and lost, roaming the high reaches of K2 until death arrived and mercifully ended her suffering. And if she abandoned Ditch now, wouldn’t it be a replay of when she had left Jim Shoop—family friend and her mentor—on Kangchenjunga? Her actions had led to his death. Hadn’t they?

No, a voice echoed back to her. A familiar voice.

Lindsey swung her headlamp into the snowflakes whipping wildly around her. “Al?” she said, using her sister’s nickname.

But there was nothing but wind and snow and darkness. Lindsey steadied herself.

Regroup. Focus.

She had to get Elena off this mountain.

She had rope in her pack—only a thin, fifty-foot length of nylon—but it would have to do. She went to work securing it between her and Elena, shortening the length, and then she did something unorthodox—she attached the longest part of the rope to the frayed end of what remained of the fixed rope. How would she deal with this when she and Elena had moved across the Bottleneck? She would cut it.

All of this was incredibly risky, but if Elena fell, Lindsey wasn’t certain she could hold them both. Being connected to that ice screw might save their lives.

Yes, yes, it seemed plausible.

“Elena!” Lindsey yelled. “You’d better answer me in fucking English!”

The woman’s response was barely audible, but at least she was still conscious. “What?”

“You’ve got to climb. I’ll go first, and you follow. Face in. Make sure you kick your steps and get a solid purchase. Do you understand?”

Elena nodded, her bundled-up form illuminated in the glow from Lindsey’s headlamp.

With everything secure, she inched her way horizontally out onto the steep face of the Bottleneck, sensing the large serac of ice above them. The very same serac that had already calved a large chunk.

Her heart pounded, and her muscles screamed for oxygen. The visibility was terrible. What if she went in the wrong direction?

Have faith. Just go.

“Lindsey!” A distant voice crept from the shadows.

Thinking she’d imagined it, she kept moving. At this altitude, climbers had been known to hallucinate. Lindsey vowed she wouldn’t succumb. The voice she’d heard earlier, the one that had sounded so eerily like Alison’s, was just a figment of her imagination.

“Lindsey!”

Galloway? She carefully looked behind her, but only Elena was there, creeping along behind her.

For a moment, her thoughts wandered. Was it the abominable snowman? The yeti, come to lure her to her death by pretending to be Tyler Galloway, a man she was pretty certain had snagged her heart despite her best efforts to treat him like every other guy she’d dated.

A figure slowly grew in shape behind Elena.

“Lindsey! It’s me! It’s Tyler!”

Relief swamped her. It was him.

A loud crack split the air.

“No!” Ty yelled, reaching for her, but he was too far away.

And then the thundering hooves of a thousand horses came crashing onto Lindsey.

Continue the series as the adventure continues with Book 2 Cold Horizon—combining sexy romance with locales around the world.