On Thin Ice

by Cherry Adair

  She'd been blind and naive. Stupid and trusting.

  Not anymore.

  "I don't see you taking your loot and heading off to Fiji."

  "I'm not big on traveling," she said, admiring the way the light struck the snow, making it look like whipped cream.

  "You went to Montreal on your honeymoon."

  "We didn't get out much," she fibbed, feeling the remembered weight of fury and humiliation tighten her chest. Sean had flirted with a sleek redhead in the bar. The second night of their honeymoon, he'd come back to the room at midnight, smelling of expensive perfume and reminding her that men weren't programmed to be monogamous.

  Lily had tipped the room service tray that had sat there untouched for five hours onto his expensive suit. Then she'd told Sean that good manners suggested that he at least wait until the honeymoon was over before screwing some French hooker he'd picked up in the bar.

  Devastated by his betrayal, she'd immediately moved to another room. She despised liars.

  Sean had quickly learned that his loving country wife had reached her saturation point and had an intolerance for one more ounce of bullshit.

  Furious with herself for being oblivious to all the clues, Lily was also disgusted with herself for being blind to Sean's faults. And God only knew, there were a lot of them.

  Hurt and bewildered by the sudden change in a man she believed loved her, Lily was at a loss. She was on her honeymoon. The beginning of their lives. Together. And now that life had gone up in smoke right before her very eyes.

  Hurt. Angry. Confused. She was all of those. And worse. She felt stupid. And, damn him to hell, used.

  She'd spent her honeymoon exploring a city made for lovers. Alone.

  That had been the beginning of the end for them. The scales had fallen from her eyes and she'd seen Sean for the man he really was. And in hindsight that had only been the tip of a very large iceberg. She should've run like hell then, because the minute they got home, she was stuck.

  Sean had returned from the doctor's office a week later. The same day, in fact, she'd gone into town to see their lawyer, Barry Campbell. They'd faced each other in the impersonal, overdecorated dining room with a dinner neither of them wanted to eat laying between them.

  Lily, filled with righteous indignation and a deadly calm, told him the marriage was over. Sean, somehow shrunken and not so self-confident anymore, told her he had terminal cancer. She'd discovered later that he'd been seeing the doctor for months.

  The doctor had given Sean six months to live.

  Of course she hadn't believed him. Not for a moment. But a visit to his doctor the next day confirmed the grim prognosis.

  Lily couldn't leave then. Sean was a shit but she wasn't. Regardless of what had transpired between them, she couldn't bail on a dying man, not even one she could no longer love. She wanted to, God, how she'd wanted to, dreamed of it, in fact. She didn't want anything from Sean, especially not the guilt of leaving him to die alone.

  Maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe she should have left him despite his illness. She might have had she known the six-month sentence would turn into three long, agonizing years.

  "Lily?"

  "What? Oh, um—travel. I took a cruise to Mexico when I graduated from college."

  "I'll take you to Bora-Bora. The water's the most amazing translucent turquoise, and the sand is so fine it squeaks underfoot. You'd love it. Have you ever snorkeled?"

  Despite the frigid cold, and her breath hanging visibly in the air, Lily felt a surge of heat at the thought of being anywhere near Derek scantily clothed. A picture superimposed itself over the whiteness of the winter landscape. Of a beach, the white sand hot underfoot. Of crystal-clear turquoise water. The sound of gulls. And Derek, wearing nothing but a white smile and a golden tan.

  "Are you having trouble breathing?" he asked, sounding concerned. "The altitude—"

  "We aren't that high. I was pushing the kids a bit too fast and got distracted," Lily lied through her teeth. Thoughts of Derek were better than a thermal blanket. "Where were we? Oh, yeah. Snorkeling. The closest I've ever gotten was last year when Zephyr kicked me into the water trough. And believe me, what was floating in there had nothing to do with tropical fish."

  Derek laughed in her ear and she smiled at the deep, rich sound of it. "Is Fiji where you're always going off to?" she asked, curious.

  "Not as often as I'd like," he said absently. What the hell was he? A moron? Derek asked himself furiously. Why bring up her and Sean's honeymoon? Dumb ass. Of course they hadn't gone out much. Jesus. Sean had wasted no time on his return telling him every erotic detail of their Canadian honeymoon. The couple had spent every second in bed. And very little of that time sleeping. Damn it to hell. Even after all these years Derek still had pictures in his head of Lily and what she'd done on her honeymoon. Only he always transposed himself for Sean.

  He saw one of the Iditarod's famous yellow-diamond highway signs ahead that stated watch your ass. He stomped on the brake to slow down the team, and proceeded with caution, reminding himself to concentrate on the task immediately at hand.

  "I appreciated you not going on so many trips after Sean got sick," Lily said in his ear.

  T-FLAC hadn't exactly done the Snoopy dance about it, that was for sure, but he wasn't about to leave Lily with the burden of nursing Sean and worrying about the ranch. He had damn good hands in place, and a ranch foreman he paid an obscene amount of money for two reasons: one, he was that good, and two, Derek didn't want anyone stealing Ash away from him. His old T-FLAC buddy was indispensable, and he knew it.

  "I wanted to be there, Lily. For you."

  Lily sighed and the sound rippled through the mic right into Derek's ear and then slipped into his soul. He frowned, waiting to hear her brush off his concern, as she had so many times before. But she didn't. Maybe it was the anonymity of being able to speak without looking into his eyes, but she seemed to be more comfortable speaking honestly with him now than she had been in years.

  "Maybe I didn't say it in so many words," she said, her voice soft, wistful, "but I did appreciate it, Derek. I don't know if I could have handled it all without knowing you were nearby."

  It pleased him to hear her say it, but he knew that with or without him, she would've made it through. One of the things he loved best about her was her spine. Sure, she could be stubborn as hell—but she was loyal to the bone. Even when she shouldn't be. Sean had had her loyalty and he hadn't deserved it. But Lily lived by her own code, as Derek had learned over the years. The core of her was solid steel. She could bend when she had to, but she'd never break.

  It had torn a hole in his heart, watching her struggle to take care of her practice, the dogs and Sean. But there'd been no stopping her. "Yeah, you would," he said. "You're the strongest woman I've ever known, Lily."

  He wasn't insensitive. Sean's death had been goddamn hideously protracted. He'd been given six months, and had fooled the doctors by lasting three years. Derek knew it had been hell for the man he'd once thought of as a friend. That said, Sean had milked every step of his slow decline for everything it was worth. He had been neither brave nor stoic. And he'd dragged Lily down the painful path every step of the way.

  She'd eventually become pale and drawn herself, tending Sean without a word of complaint. She'd never suggested by word or deed that she felt anything other than total devotion to her dying husband. Yet Derek was pretty damn sure that Lily must've been aware of Sean's transgressions, even that early on. She was smart as a whip. How could she not have known about the other women?

  The question was, had she continued to love Sean? Really love him, despite what she knew? He didn't think so, but how the hell could a man be sure? Still, it would've been hard for any woman to forgive the womanizing, the lies, the wheeling and dealing, if she'd known about any of that.

  Why hadn't she kicked the son of a bitch in the balls and walked away?

  Because she was who she was, Derek thought with equal p
arts frustration and admiration. Lily was a loyal, strong woman who refused to shirk even the most ghastly of obligations once she'd made a commitment. Come hell or high water, she would stick out something like Sean's illness. To the bitter end. If she'd been the kind of woman to skip out on Sean—even though he'd deserved it—she wouldn't have been the woman Derek loved.

  That's what made her who she was. And as much as Derek wanted to shake her for wasting those years on a man who couldn't, didn't, appreciate her, he also had to admire the hell out of her for her unshakable loyalty.

  And mingled with his admiration for her was an ache, a persistent yearning to be loved completely. By her.

  "You know," Lily began, caution flags dangling off every syllable, "it would have been easy to turn my back on Sean. You, too. We have that in common."

  "I wouldn't have left you to go it alone," Derek assured her. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind he wanted to make damned sure that Lily knew she had been and was his only concern.

  "You helped make a horrible situation tolerable," she continued. "And it wasn't just Sean's illness. It was…"

  "Was what?"

  He heard her long sigh in his ear before she spoke. "Nothing. He was your friend and he's dead. Let's leave it at that."

  While Derek had no intention of ever telling Lily the truth as he knew it about Sean—what was the point?—what she knew, if she knew anything, was enough. There was such a thing as overkill. No. He'd leave sleeping dogs to lie, as it were.

  Lily was the kind of woman he needed. Unconditionally supportive, strong, independent. God only knew, his life wasn't normal. He needed a partner who could deal with his chosen profession. Cope with the separations and not being kept in the loop. Quite simply, Lily possessed everything he could ever want from a woman.

  The one thing he knew Lily despised was being lied to. He was going to have to tell her about his association with T-FLAC. He'd left that disclosure too long alrea—"Jesus Christ!"

  He and his team had been dropping gradually down toward the valley below and zigzagging through forest as he and Lily talked. Suddenly he was plunging down a very steep hill; directly in front of him was an unnecessary warning sign: dangerous trail conditions.

  No shit. You'd have to be blind and stump stupid to miss the trail vanishing over the edge of the cliff.

  Even Lily's warm laughter couldn't chase away the chill of foreboding as Derek stomped like hell on the brake and hung on for dear life.

  "Reached the entrance to Happy River steps, have you?" Amusement rang in her voice.

  He grunted, said a quick, silent prayer, then proceeded carefully and gently over the lip to plunge diagonally down the face of an extremely—God Almighty—extremely steep slope. It took nerves of steel not to look over the drop.

  "Stay in the ruts." Lily's voice was calm.

  His heart pounded as badly as it had when faced with eleven fully armed tangos in a backstreet Bangkok alley. "No ruts to speak of," he told her flatly, pulling up on the dogs. There hadn't been enough teams over this trail yet to make any ruts.

  "Keep the brake on," Lily told him, "and trust the dogs. They've done it before."

  Hell, he'd done it before. Last year. But it still scared the bejesus out of him. Give him a lunatic terrorist armed to the teeth any day. Then, he could at least shoot back. Here all he could do was pray and hope his dogs were feeling confident and fleet of foot.

  Fifty yards later the path doubled back; he and the sled were almost lying on their sides. The muscles in Derek's arms and back pulled and bunched as he fought to control the downward momentum of dogs and sled. His heart pumped, and his vision and hearing blurred, then sharpened.

  At the bottom was a flat area. It seemed like a hell of a long way away right now. But he kept that in mind as they crept along at a snail's pace.

  "At the bottom yet?" Lily asked ten minutes later.

  "Did you hear my sigh of relief?" Derek asked with amusement as he brought the team to a stop so they could all gather themselves for the next switchback. There was still a long way to go before hitting the safety of the bottom of the ridge. But saying a "thank you, Jesus" and taking time to wipe the sweat from his brow were in order.

  "Make that a prayer." She sounded out of breath herself as she started the same downward climb several minutes behind him. "And don't look down!" she warned unnecessarily. The drop to the gorge on his right was fifty feet. Straight down.

  "Stop worrying about me and concentrate, damn it," Derek said more harshly than he intended. He was scared spitless. Lily was sixty pounds lighter than he was, and as strong as she was for her job, as much practice as she'd had over the years, this bit of the trail was a ball buster.

  He realized he was holding his breath, reliving each step of the descent, every bit of protruding underbrush, each bend, each—"Watch for a broken branch as you come across the top edge," he remembered. "See it?"

  "Yeah. Thanks."

  "Stay in my ruts."

  "Believe me. I am."

  He imagined her gloved hands tight on the handlebars. A fierce look of concentration on her face. Until he saw the whites of her eyes and the pink of her cheeks, he wasn't budging.

  "I'm. Coming. Down. Very. Slowly," Lily assured him, amusement lacing her words.

  Derek glanced up and behind him, waiting for her to come round the bend so he could breathe again. There was no sign of her yet, but the clouds were now low enough to touch, a dirty white, heavy and ominous. It was about to snow. And snow big. Damn.

  Hey, God, Derek mentally prayed. Can you just hold off until Lily is on flat ground and safe? Amen.

  "I'd kill for a cup of c—What the heck!" She was cut off by an ear-splitting screeeech.

  Sounded like something enormous tearing.

  One of the giant pines ripping from its moorings?

  The earth shook. Derek's dogs started barking crazily.

  The thought flashed into his mind even as he listened—Jesus. No way—A split second before the roar—another sound. A detonation. A small one, but a detonation nevertheless.

  And up here, that was all kinds of dangerous.

  He released the brake so the dogs could run for it if necessary, then jumped off the back of the sled and raced up the switchback.

  "Lily? Where are you?"

  What he saw as he tore around the upper bend stopped his heart in his chest and caused an icy sweat to film his entire body.

  Half the hillside was breaking away from the mountain and tumbling to the gorge below in a giant plume of fast-moving snow and rock.

  Avalanche.

  Eight

  "Lil-eeeeee!"

  Heart in his throat, Derek rounded the curve at a dead run, just as a rumbling wall of white hit the back of Lily's sled with the thundering force of a bullet train.

  Jesus.

  Running flat out, he ripped off his restrictive coat one-handed, not feeling the icy bite of the cold as he tossed it to the frozen ground and lunged for the center line between the heads of her lead dogs. Made up of thick rope, and reinforced with steel, it ran the length from the leaders to the sled. And Lily.

  His hands closed around cold steel; his fingers immediately turned white with the strain of the downward drag. The muscles in his arms and back bunched as he focused everything he had on keeping hold of Lily's team.

  Her dogs barked and howled, frantic, answered by his own team down the path behind him. The cacophony of sound jolted the air and filled every crevasse of space across the narrow canyon.

  In the flash of a second before everything went to hell, Derek's gaze collided with Lily's, and he saw shock and fear in her terror-wide eyes.

  Then in a heart-stopping fall, Lily and the wheel dogs closest to the sled went backward over the edge of the mountain, followed by an enveloping blanket of white and brown.

  Derek's breath staggered and his heart lurched as he watched the terrifying now-you-see-me, now-you-don't disappearing act.

  Jesus—Prayer
, not a curse.

  "Hang on," Derek shouted into the rising wind. "For Christ's sake. Hang on!"

  He didn't know if she could hear him through the mic. He prayed she could. And prayed she was alive and conscious enough to know he'd find her.

  Barking manically now, aware of their peril, the thirteen tethered sled dogs slid backward. Feet struggling for purchase in the relentless and inexorable pull of the backward slide of the snow-enveloped sled.

  Putting their shoulders into it, the lead dogs, Arrow and Finn, battled to keep the rest of the team from plummeting to the gorge below under the onslaught of the debris bombarding them from the hillside above.

  "Good dogs. Good kids," Derek rasped, gripping the gang line and digging his boot heels into the trembling earth in an attempt to help them. Damn it, he needed help to pull this out of the crapper.

  "We can do this. Good dogs. Come on. Another step. And another. Yes!" The dogs dug in; brave, strong and willing to fight for life, they made a little progress, then fought the slide backward. "One more. Good dogs. One more." Opal's and Deny's heads emerged over the lip. Derek grabbed the line between them, hand over hand, straining every muscle as he pulled them up to flat ground. "Good dogs. Good dogs. Lily? Can you hear me?"

  He kept up the litany of praise to the dogs as he worked desperately to get them onto stable ground. He couldn't see Lily in the billowing clouds of white. "Please be okay," he muttered between determined, clenched teeth. "Let me hear you, Lily, sweetheart." He reminded himself she was there, roped to the sled, hanging on and doing what she could to help. Which was nothing, save encouraging the team. He had to think of something else to do. Something to halt the slide of the entire team down the mountainside. If that happened they would all die.

  Derek closed off the fear compartment of his brain with a loud clang.

  Don't go there, he warned himself, cold with fear. Don't, for Christ's sake, go there.