Up Close and Dangerous Read online

  “I think that’s done the trick,” she breathed. “Finally.”

  The next step was to wash any dirt and debris from the cut, but for that she needed water. She’d put a bottle of water in her tote bag, wherever it was. It had to be around here somewhere. It had probably gone out of the plane when the left wing snapped off, so if she located the missing wing, the tote bag should be between the wing and the rest of the plane.

  “I’m going to look for some water,” she told him.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  No, he wasn’t; she doubted he’d be able to stand on his own.

  Standing, she began examining the area immediately around the plane. When she didn’t spot the tote bag, she followed upward, with her gaze, the path the plane had taken, marked with broken and splintered trees and limbs.

  Her eyes widened. The mountains loomed around her, silent and shrouded with snow. The only sound was the occasional sighing of the wind in the trees. No leaves rustled, no birds sang.

  The mountains were immense, looming high above her on all sides, so tall they would soon block the afternoon sun. Slowly, disbelieving, she turned in a circle. There was nothing but mountains, and more mountains, as far as she could see. They spread out below, massive bases that were veiled by gray clouds. Deep, incredibly rugged folds in the earth created black shadows where sunshine seldom touched. The plane was nothing more than a dot on the steep mountainside, already half-covered by the limbs of the trees into which they had crashed, and those black shadows were spreading toward it.

  She felt dwarfed, insignificant to the point of nothingness. She and Justice were nothing, she realized. They were completely, totally insignificant to these mountains. Any rescue could conceivably take days to reach them. They were alone.

  7

  BAILEY LOOKED FOR THE TOTE FOR AS LONG AS SHE COULD without exhausting herself, but an extensive search would have involved climbing up the steep, sometimes vertical mountainside, and she simply wasn’t capable of that. Finally giving up, she slowly made her way back to Justice. He looked dreadful, she thought, and it wasn’t just the blood; he was lying so still, as if life were seeping out of him even though she’d gotten the bleeding stopped. What blood loss hadn’t accomplished on its own, cold and shock were finishing. The bottom dropped out of her stomach at the thought. “Justice, are you awake?”

  He made an “um” sound in his throat.

  “I can’t find the bottle of water I brought. There’s snow, but I don’t have any way to make a fire to boil it. If I sew up this cut without washing it out first, there’s a big risk it’ll get infected. I’ll clean it out as best I can with the alcohol wipes, in a little while, but first I’m going to do what I can to get you warm.” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder at the plane. She still didn’t think it would shift, but she couldn’t discount the possibility. Moving him, though, was something else that would have to wait.

  “Good,” he said, the word only a thin thread of sound.

  Working quickly, she lifted his feet and stuffed one of the trash bags of clothes under them, to help with the shock. Opening the other bag, she took out another flannel shirt and folded it, then gently tucked it around his head to help keep him from losing even more body heat. Then she pulled the space blanket aside and started layering clothes over him, starting at his feet and working up. When she got to his shirt, cold and wet with blood, she opened his knife and simply sliced the shirt off him, then wiped the blood off his chest as best she could with the first garment that came to hand, which happened to be a pair of her underwear.

  When he was as dry as she could get him, she layered more clothes over his chest and shoulders. Finally she lay down beside him, snuggled under the layers of clothes until she was against him and could get her arms around him, and as a last covering pulled another shirt completely over their heads so the air they breathed would be warmer. The shirt didn’t block out all the light, but the effect was sort of like being in a cave. Their breathing almost immediately made the air feel warmer against her face, and the small comfort was so welcome she could have cried in relief.

  He felt like ice against her. He needed something hot to drink, or something sweet to eat, to help him combat the shock and cold. She still wasn’t thinking as clearly as she needed to be, because while she couldn’t provide anything to drink she had put a stash of candy bars and some chewing gum in one of the suitcases—evidently the one suitcase she hadn’t opened. She should have thought of them, and taken a few minutes to find them.

  Her own shivering was lessening, but he wasn’t shivering at all. That couldn’t be good.

  “Hey, Justice,” she said. “Stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me if you can feel any warmth coming from me.”

  For a long moment he didn’t answer, making her fear he’d lost consciousness again, but finally he said, “No.”

  Maybe she had on too many clothes for her body warmth to seep through to him. Wiggling around under the pile of clothing, she removed the down vest, and worked it over him so that it was the first layer next to his body. She was colder without the vest, but she snuggled close enough that she was partially covered by it, too. The down had absorbed some of her body heat, because she could feel it against her icy hands.

  “Feel that,” he murmured in a drowsy tone.

  “Good. You have to stay awake, so keep talking to me. If you can’t think of anything interesting to say, just make a noise every now and then so I know you’re still conscious.”

  She began running her left hand over his chest and shoulders and arms, to stimulate his circulation. “There are some candy bars in one of my bags. When you get warmer, I’ll dig them out and get some sugar down you; that’ll make you feel better.” She paused. “Now you say something.”

  “Something.”

  “Smart-ass.” Despite the fact that the word was slurred and his voice incredibly weak, her heart lifted. If he could still be a smart-ass, then maybe he wasn’t as far gone as she feared.

  CAM LISTENED TO Mrs. Wingate talking. He felt as if his consciousness was split in two and part of him drifted away into fog, tethered only by her occasional demands that he respond. On a far closer level he was also aware of his complete physical misery; he was so cold that he had a whole new appreciation of the word. Why couldn’t the two parts trade places, and the physical awareness float out there in the ether? The one thing he didn’t want to happen, right now, was for the two to merge, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t let himself drift any further away.

  Hearing her voice gave him something to focus on, helped keep him from floating away into darkness. He knew he was hurt and he even knew why, though he was fuzzy on how. He’d crash-landed the plane, evidently successfully since they were both alive. He remembered the engine inexplicably quitting, and he remembered trying to get the plane to the tree line so the vegetation would help cushion the impact. That was it; nothing about the actual crash at all. His next memory was of his head feeling as if someone had used a baseball bat on it—hell, his entire body felt like that—and nothing making sense except Mrs. Wingate calling his name.

  He had to concentrate hard to hold on to the thread of what she was saying, and sometimes his thoughts drifted and he’d lose touch, only to be brought back by a sharp question or a jab of pain. Sometimes every word was crystal clear; sometimes they were just sounds that he knew were supposed to mean something but didn’t. There was no clear line of demarcation between what was real and what wasn’t, and he floated in that no-man’s-land.

  Now she was touching him. That, at least, was real, because he could feel her. He was vaguely surprised; she didn’t want to speak to him, but she’d touch him? Strange. She’d covered him with something, he didn’t know what, but it felt nice and heavy. Then she’d lain down beside him, put her arms around him, and begun briskly rubbing his chest and arms. A faint warmth began to seep into him.

  The warmth, as faint as it was, felt great. What also felt great was her brea