Warm Heart

by Amy Lane

  Mal nodded. “We’re running out of time.”

  They were. It took both of them to secure Damien in his fire-blanket cocoon, and when they were done, Tevyn took his go bag and Mallory took the first aid kit, and both of them took a corner of the blanket. Together they walked, trudged, marched, and stumbled through wet stinging snow, which grew thicker with every step.

  The frigid air rasped their lungs and froze their fingers and definitely Mallory’s toes, and the wet snow soaked through his overcoat, his suit jacket, his shirt and T-shirt, sapping Mal’s body heat and his strength.

  But Tevyn was beside him, not giving up, and dammit if Mal was going to leave him alone.

  You stayed.

  Goddammit, yes. Mal had stayed. From what he could see, Tevyn’s grandmother had been the only person in his life to promise permanence, and she was going. Mal had to stay, and he wasn’t going to let a blizzard stop him.

  The edge of the tree line felt almost like a lie, because the snow barely lessened up a little and the fringe of trees hardly provided any shelter from the wind. They kept trudging, looking for a rock, a fallen tree, anything that would give them shelter, give them some dry ground, even a windbreak that would let them start a fire and get their bearings and still the shrieking of the storm around them.

  Tevyn spotted it first—a rough, rocky outcropping and a few trees close enough to form an umbrella along the edge. It wasn’t huge, and it didn’t have a heater or hot chocolate, but it did have some bare ground at the base where the snow hadn’t been able to penetrate, and some trees to hang their other fire blankets from to serve as a lean-to.

  They could get warm there, and that was a priority because Mal knew he couldn’t keep going much longer like he was.

  With a grunt and a lunge, they pulled Damien’s tightly wrapped form into the small enclosure, and Tevyn took maybe a minute to catch his breath.

  Then he dug through the go bag and came back with two pairs of wool socks, two of the homemade sweaters he always wore, and two warm all-wool hats.

  “I’m going to fix us a windbreak,” he explained tersely. “You, put this on yourself first—I can hear your teeth chattering from here. Then dress Damien—make sure you get his feet and then wrap him back up. The insulating blanket should have helped keep him dry, but he’ll go into shock, you understand?”

  Mal nodded because he couldn’t trust himself to speak without chattering, and started to peel off his sopping wet cashmere gloves.

  “Leave those on,” Tevyn said shortly, taking Mal’s hands and holding them between his own gloved fingers. “Wool actually keeps heat in even when it’s wet—believe it or not, your hands will get colder unless we have a heat source. Change your socks. Get Damie squared away. Fire’s next, okay?”

  Mal nodded and gave him a shaky smile. “You are so on t-t-t-t-topppp of it,” he praised. “I c-c-can d-d-do—”

  Tevyn silenced him with fingers over his lips. “You’re hanging in there like a champ,” he said. “Let’s get you and Damie warmed up, and it won’t feel like I got all the answers. ’Cause I gotta tell you, what we do next is gonna need all our smarts.”

  Mal nodded, warmed emotionally by his kindness, even if physically he was still a big frigid ball of wet snow.

  Tevyn gave his shoulder a little shove, and Mal sat on a downed tree that felt like it was made to be a bench, doing his best to follow Tevyn’s orders.

  The socks, indeed, felt like heaven over his aching toes, but Damien’s boots were a little big. Mal draped his wet socks on the slope of the rock face, figuring if they could dry off just a little, he could use them to pad the inside of the boot.

  Taking off his overcoat and suit jacket was a misery, but once he’d stretched his way into Tevyn’s sweater…. Ah, Gods. He shuddered with the layer of warmth over his body, and he put his suit jacket on over it to keep the layers warm. Tevyn’s hat was, again, a blessing, and as soon as he was dressed, he sat down to share the blessings.

  Damien woke up enough to smile as Mal was pulling on the rainbow-hued sweater and hat. “I’m out of it for a little bit and you decide to decorate?”

  “Glad you like it,” Mal joked grimly. “Because next stop is your feet.”

  “Oh God. No.” Damien shuddered, and Mal grabbed the first aid bag.

  “Tevyn! Painkillers all right?”

  Tevyn grunted and paused in the act of draping a fire blanket over one of the biggest gaps of coverage from the trees and securing it with what looked like spare boot laces wrapped around the blanket and the branch. “Definitely. You should both eat a power bar too. You need fuel to stay warm, and you don’t want to get depleted. There’s three water bottles in there—two refillable. Use the plastic one first. I have an idea for that.”

  Mal took his directions, giving Damien two ibuprofen and wishing he had whiskey to wash it down with.

  Damien swallowed the pills with a shudder. “Do we know our status yet?”

  “Fucked?” Mal offered, and Damien crossed his eyes.

  “Well, I asked. What’s the plan?”

  Mal looked around, thinking gratefully that the little shelter Tevyn had built had gotten a little warmer with the windbreak.

  “Build a fire,” he said, hoping they had what they needed to start one. “Wait out the storm. Assess the situation, figure out our options.”

  “I’ve got a lighter in my pocket,” Damien said, and Mal almost cried in relief.

  “You smoke?”

  “No. Just lucky. Flew for the Navy, got it from my first flight instructor as a gift. Good luck. Hopefully it can save our asses—not that Grandma Missy’s knitwear might not do it for us,” he said with a grim smile. His eyes fluttered closed. “Whatever you were going to do with my feet, go for it. I’m fading, and I might be out of it enough to not mind so much.”

  He minded. He minded enough to squeak and pass out again, and Mal grimaced. Damie had worked for Mal’s company a long time—they had a rapport, had sat down to drinks before. Damie had even hit on him once or twice after Keith, but Mal’s stupid, blind, fruitless attachment to Tevyn had kept him from saying yes.

  Seeing a friend in pain sucked.

  But it did give Mal a chance to check on the circulation in his foot and make sure he wasn’t bleeding too heavily into the pressure bandage. So far, so good—the foot was cold, but not frigid and not blue. Mal slid the socks on gingerly and then cocooned him again in the fire blanket, taking the lighter out before he bound him up. He bundled his overcoat under Damie’s head, grateful for the bare ground instead of the snow, and set about snapping twigs and branches off the fallen soldier he’d been sitting on.

  They were dryish. The tree hadn’t been dead long enough for them to be truly seasoned, but with some pine needles and some paper they should start. While Tevyn worked on the lean-to, Mal left the shelter to gather more wood and was stunned by the force of the wind outside their snug little haven from the snow. He saw some dead branches about fifteen feet from the entrance to the lean-to and struggled in that direction, missing his overcoat again completely. He managed to grab the branch and was dragging it back, the better to stomp on it when they had some clear ground, when he heard his name called with a note of desperation.

  “Mal? Mallory!”

  “Right here!” he called back, pulling within sight of the opening. “Getting firewood. This should—”

  “You got to tell me!” Tevyn demanded, his voice rising in a faint wail. “Dammit, you can’t slip out like that. I didn’t know where you went—”

  “I was only going—”

  “You’ve got to tell me!”

  And for the first time since the copter went down, Mal heard something besides grim competence in Tevyn’s voice.

  He heard panic.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Tell you. Got it—”

  Tevyn shook his head. “No, man—you just disappeared, and you promised you’d stay.”

  Mal drew abreast of him. “I promised,” he s
aid again, but his heart was aching a little more now. “Trust me. I was getting firewood. Next time I’ll tell you.”

  Tevyn nodded violently once. “Did you guys eat yet?”

  “No. I was going to make a fire—”

  “Good idea. I’ll—”

  “Tev?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I meant it. I won’t leave unless you want me to.”

  “Then just don’t,” Tevyn said defiantly, and then he disappeared into their little shelter, leaving Mal to jump up and down on the set of branches until he had dried needles and twigs enough to set on fire.

  THE fire made all the difference.

  Besides Damien’s lighter, there was a flint striker in the first aid kit and a little bag of cotton balls soaked in Vaseline tucked in a mint tin. Mallory had been nonplussed when Tevyn had first pulled that out, but then he’d put two of the cotton balls under a pile of dry needles and lit them on fire.

  “Cotton’s flammable,” Mal said, eyes big as they caught a sturdy flame that quickly devoured the needles and then the twigs Tevyn was feeding it.

  “It’s also murder in the snow,” Tevyn told him grimly. “Cotton kills. Don’t take off that sweater.”

  Mallory had heard that saying before. The thing that made cotton great in the summer—its breathability, its ability to wick away moisture—made it a deadly way to lose body heat, especially when wet. The sweater Mal was wearing over his T-shirt and under his button-down was the most important layering piece on his body, but his wool suit coat came second.

  A burst of wind came in through the remaining gap in the shelter, and Tevyn scowled at it. “We need to block that if we want to keep the fire, and I’m fresh out of fire blankets.”

  Mallory looked at Damien with apology in his eyes. “We could use my overcoat—but we need to find another pillow.”

  Tevyn stared at Damie thoughtfully, and his eyes went faraway. He went to his go bag and started rooting through it, pulling out things like plastic bags for wet clothes and a couple of sweatshirts, one of which looked surprisingly familiar, and a number of T-shirts, which he wore and replaced repeatedly as he sweat during activity. After mumbling something that sounded like “Goddammit, forgot the fucking rope!” he dumped the T-shirts into Damie’s lap and then—carefully—swapped out the go bag for Mal’s overcoat.

  “C’mere and help me secure this,” he ordered, and Mal didn’t question him. The coat had cost nearly a thousand dollars, pure lamb’s wool, with a thick satin lining. As he and Tevyn used the knife to poke holes in the corners and one of the lapels so they could secure the coat to the tree branch Tevyn had wedged against the cliff face and the other fire blanket, Mallory was very aware that his slick work clothes were the least of their worries.

  “It’s a nice piece,” Tevyn said wistfully, surprising him. “I mean, you’ll be able to wear it down the mountain—it should keep you warm and, to some extent, dry—but, you know, looked good on you.”

  Mal smiled a little, trying, and failing, not to be pleased. “Was hoping you’d notice,” he said, working to lighten the mood.

  “I always notice.” Tevyn finished securing his end and waited for Mal to finish with his. Mal’s fingers were warming now that they were out of the wind, and he hoped the fire would do even more.

  He wanted badly to drag his knuckle across Tevyn’s cheek, to do something tender, small, that would join them as human beings, remind them both that something had changed the night before.

  But Tevyn whirled away, heading for the pile of gear he’d pulled out of the go bag. “Here!”

  Mal caught his own CSU San Francisco sweatshirt in the face.

  “You kept this?” Mal asked, pulling it over his suit jacket. He’d left the thing in the suite when he’d been part of the entourage for the Olympics. Tevyn had ended up getting X-rays, and Mal had needed to ask Harold to pack his suitcase for him so he and Tev could make it to the airport. That had been three years ago. He’d assumed it had ended up in a homeless bin in Aspen by now.

  “It comes down to my knees,” Tevyn said with a faint smile. “That over a pair of long johns is the best comfort wear in the universe.”

  But he avoided Mallory’s eyes as he said it, and Mal’s stomach warmed.

  Tevyn hadn’t even been in the suite—he’d been in the competitor’s village, getting laid every night, from all accounts. But somehow he’d gotten hold of the sweatshirt, kept it close enough to be in his go bag with his pajamas, his comfort item.

  Mal let him look away, but a completely nonphysical warmth took root in his stomach. The flush across Tevyn’s cheeks, the way he was treating the sweatshirt like it was no big deal—he knew. Something really had changed the night before. Not something they could talk about now; they were trying to survive.

  But if they could make it through the storm and get home, they would have something they needed to talk about.

  They returned to the fire, which Damie had made bright and merry by feeding it from the pile of dry wood Mal had broken down and brought in, and Tevyn continued to be resourceful and clever.

  The first aid kit he’d saved from the plane had an old-fashioned metal box inside the insulated nylon carry bag. Tevyn dumped the contents of the box—Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, more gauze—and shoved them into a plastic Ziploc from his go bag. He set the carry bag aside, leaving Mal to wonder what plans he had for it, then scooped snow into the halves of the metal box. He set the box over some of the sturdier branches in the fire to melt the snow and pulled some high-protein broth packets from the go-bag pile and mixed them in the water as it melted. Then he funneled the mixture into one of the reusable bottles. They passed the bottle around, warmed and heartened by the food and the heat, and finally, Mal felt like he could think.

  “Cell phones,” he said. His had been tossed to the other side of the helicopter cabin before the crash. Getting it hadn’t occurred to him.

  “Bottom of the canyon,” Tevyn said promptly.

  “Mine too.” Damien was still pale and in pain, but the painkillers and warm broth had done him a world of good. He huddled in his fire-blanket cocoon near their cheery little blaze and did his best impression of a slug on vacation, which was all Tevyn or Mal could ask of him.

  “Well, that’s good and bad,” Tevyn told them, and they both nodded.

  “Search party will show up to the base of the mountain as soon as the blizzard dies down,” Damie said. “And guys, that’s going to be three days, minimum. After that, they’ll find the wreck, but they won’t find us.”

  “Will they be able to tell where the wreck came from?” Mal asked, and Damie shook his head no.

  “By the time rescuers get down there, it will look like I tried to land there instead of getting my ass flung on top of a mountain. If they do figure out where we landed, they’ll still need to send people up here to find us.”

  “How long will that take?”

  Tevyn and Damien both blew out a breath. “Anywhere from another three to fourteen days,” Damien said, and then he and Tevyn came to some sort of agreement. “Or at least that’s what my outfit would estimate,” Damie added.

  “Your outfit?” Tevyn wouldn’t know this, but Mal had okayed Damien’s time off and, in fact, had helped fund the venture.

  “He works for a private search and rescue outfit,” Mal said. “It’s independent of government agencies, but they do work with the dog handlers in most areas.”

  Tevyn wrinkled his nose. Of course, profitizing a search and rescue operation had sounded like a bad idea to Mal, too, at first.

  “So say there’s a hurricane,” Mal said, remembering Damien’s friend’s business plan. “And the government is doing all it can, but your daughter was going to school in the area and she’s a hot mess about practical things.”

  “The Christie Newman case,” Damien confirmed.

  “You call Glen Echo’s outfit, and they’ll send a helicopter out for her and her friends. Once they get them to safety, they m
ake themselves available to any agency that wants them—that’s part of the caveat, that and cooperation—but they fly in and take care of that one person maybe nobody was looking for.”

  “But… but money….”

  “There is a fee,” Mal conceded. “But Glen’s pretty good about taking stuff on account. In fact, probably better than most emergency rooms about not hounding a client until they can pay. And his prices are transparent online. He shows how much the overhead costs and how much profit he turns to keep things running. So far, people have been so grateful to have something they can do personally. People don’t generally bail on the company that just saved their lives.”

  Tevyn grinned tiredly at Damien. “Look at you. Looks like a mild-mannered helicopter pilot, but you’re really a sexy rescue worker. I’m impressed.”

  In spite of himself, Mal snorted, and Tevyn cast him a droll look.

  “Would they count the blizzard?” Mal asked, not wanting to face how badly he needed to wrap Tevyn in his arms and never let him go. “I mean, toward days before they give up the search?”

  “Yes,” Damien said quietly. “Glen would give us some extra time because he’s my friend and because we both did our stint in the Navy together and he knows I’m not going to do something stupid. So he’d look for us for a full two weeks—more if he found proof of life. But yeah. The three days nobody can look for us is going to count.”

  Tevyn sighed. “And making it up this mountain isn’t going to be easy. The thing keeping us alive right now—the shelter—is the thing that’ll keep us out of sight from a helicopter.”

  “So the question is, should we stay put after the storm?” Mal had read this once—one guy had built a shelter much like this one and burned everything he owned to stay alive. They at least had trees around them and fuel for their fire. Slogging through the snow was a risky proposition at best.

  Mallory looked at Damie, whose pained grimace was everything.

  “Damien?” Tev asked softly.

  Damien gave a convulsive shiver, and Mal could see his features, pale and drawn—and starting to sweat. He gave Tevyn an apologetic smile. “I don’t suppose you have any penicillin in your go bag?”