Until Spring (3 page)

Her eyes opened before drifting closed again. They jolted wide when he started to remove her heavy coat.

"We have to get you warm," he explained. "Water-soaked clothes against the skin can be deadly when you've been out in weather like this."

She made a little grasping motion at the edge of her coat and pulled away from him, but she was so feeble that she only slid down the wall and lay coughing on the floor of the mine.

He didn't care about her sensibilities or her protests; he only knew that she might die if hypothermia got the better of her. She already showed the signs of this dread reaction to cold. She seemed to have no judgment, no reasoning power, and had little control over her hands. She was barely surviving in a half-conscious stupor, and after collapse, the next stage of hypothermia was death. He was sure that she had no idea of the dangers.

Despite her weak cries, he stripped the coat from her body. The coat, although old, had once been a good one, and it was made of pure wool. It was soaked clear through, and so were the clothes she wore underneath it: an inappropriately thin cotton shirt and a pair of blue jeans. He stripped those off, too, working methodically and scarcely paying attention to the fact that this was no girl but a full-grown woman.

He pulled off his own coat and wrapped it around her, covering it with a thin Mylar survival blanket, which took up only a few inches of space in his saddlebag but served admirably to conserve body heat when unrolled and wrapped around a victim. Then he found a couple of heat tablets, lighted them, and melted snow in his tin cup. By the light of one of the candles in his survival kit, he dropped a bouillon cube into the hot water, keeping an eye on the girl all the while. She lay on her back on the rock floor, her chest rising and falling regularly. He was afraid that she might suddenly stop breathing or experience heart failure. Both were possibilities.

"Do you think you could drink this?" he asked gently as he held the cup to her lips. She managed a few sips, then turned her head away. He understood. She was offended that he had so unceremoniously stripped off her clothes. Didn't she understand that he'd only been acting out of kindness?

He found a few oily rags in the cubbyholes near the mine entrance, and lacking anything more suitable, fashioned them into a cushion against the rocky floor.

A particularly strong gust of wind delivered a surge of snow deep into the interior of the mine, and Duncan hurried to the entrance to see if the storm was worsening. Visibility was zero, and he felt sure that the outside temperature had dropped. It would be foolish to try to make it home in this storm. He knew the old mine well enough to know that the temperature inside ranged in the low sixties no matter what the weather outside, but he also knew he'd better repair the door if they were going to be there all night. He dragged it across the opening and wedged it shut with a rotting two-by-four.

When he returned to the girl, he found that she had rolled over on her side into a fetal position. Despite his coat and the survival blanket, she was still shivering.

"We have to get you warmer," he said, and he knew she understood his words because she curled herself into an even tighter ball as though to shut him out entirely.

He started to unwrap the Mylar, but she held it fast. Losing patience, he rolled her over and dragged her out of it. The look she gave him was one of pure resentment. She must be feeling miserable, and yet she cared more about proprieties than saving her own neck. Still, her lips were blue.

As carefully as he could, he pulled her arms out of the coat, and then, looking at her naked body as briefly as possible, he wrapped his coat around the two of them and rolled them both in the survival blanket. Her body was so tiny that she reminded him of a bird, and he felt her heart beating wildly against his. Shivers wracked her body for a long time, but finally, gradually, they stopped.

Her head rested against his shoulder; her legs warmed between his. At last she slept.

Flapjack whinnied, and Duncan spoke to him calmly. The girl didn't wake up. Outside the wind keened and whistled, and after the candle flame flickered and died, Duncan dozed off, wondering just before he did so whatever had happened to Quixote.

Chapter 2

She woke up carefully, letting the feeling flood back into each stiff limb one by one and not yet daring to move. Once she could feel her arms and legs, she was sorry. They were stiff and sore. Her throat hurt, and she stifled a cough.

She smelled his scent before she felt or heard him. It must be a throwback to caveman days, when humans depended on sense of smell much more than they do now; when in danger, she knew to rely on it again. He smelled musky and of the outdoors. It was a decidedly male smell, and her first reaction was to panic.

She forced her fear to subside because her well-honed intuition told her that he was safe. He had helped her when he found her here. She might have died if he hadn't.

His arms held her close, and his legs were wrapped around hers. Her head was cushioned from the stone floor by his shoulder. And she was naked. She closed her eyes, trying to block from her memory those few minutes when he had undressed her. It didn't work.

Was it morning? She couldn't tell. It was dark in this place. She heard a whinny and a scuffle. A horse, then. She didn't remember the horse.

She felt something furry brush her cheek. It sank against her chest and began to purr. Amos! He was all right!

Carefully she pulled her arm free of the coat, meaning to curve it around the cat, but the survival blanket crackled and the man stirred. She felt him waking up and held her breath, hoping that he would fall asleep again. Unfortunately, he didn't. Instead she felt him pushing himself to a sitting posture. He removed his legs from around hers and she lay motionless, scarcely daring to breathe as he left the shelter of the blanket and coat. She pulled the blanket tightly around her and huddled against the cat.

She heard him fumble in the dark before he struck a match. It flared and illuminated his face, which she didn't remember from last night. His cheekbones were high and pronounced, and his skin was tanned and lined. A web of fine lines fanned out from deep-set eyes. His hair was dark. He turned inquiringly toward her.

"So," he said conversationally as he lighted a candle, "you're awake."

She said nothing, but he seemed to expect nothing. He spoke a few words to the horse, which stomped its feet a few times, and then he tugged a board away from a door and pulled it open.

The glare of sun on snow made her wince.

The man surveyed the scene outside before looking back over his shoulder to address her. "Well, it looks like we'll be here for a while. I doubt that Flapjack could make it through those drifts." The storm had evidently passed, and Flapjack, she surmised, was the horse.

Her rescuer used a board to clear the snow from in front of the door and led the horse outside.

"There's a rock overhang here," he explained when he came back, stamping the snow from his boots. "It protected the entrance from the snow. It looks as though we'll have to wait for Rooney to bring the snowmobile and save us."

She only stared at him. Evidently he'd decided to make her his responsibility. She wasn't sure she liked the idea, but what choice did she have? If she wanted to get out of here, she'd apparently have to depend on him. She knew that the snowstorm the night before had been a whopper.

Her eyes darted around the room, if that was what it was, looking for her clothes. She saw them hanging from a spike in the wall. She inched her way up the wall, meaning to edge toward them little by little.

His back was toward her, and she was able to make some progress before he wheeled and saw what she was doing.

"You want your clothes, do you? I'll check to see if they're dry." He reached out and tested her shirt and jeans for dampness.

He tossed everything but the coat in her direction.

"Here, I suppose you can put these on if you like. They're dry enough. The coat is still soaked."

She scrambled to collect her clothes and drew them under the blanket. She eyed him warily, wondering if he expected her to dress in front of him.

His eyes softened. "You can go around the curve in the tunnel to put those on," he said. He indicated the dark passageway beyond.

Still grasping the thin plastic sheeting close around her, she rose painfully to her feet. She cast a fearful look in the direction he'd indicated. A yawning black hole seemed to stretch infinitely into the rock. It smelled damp and dank.

"Go ahead. There's nothing back there. This is an old mine. The tunnel curves a bit, then splits off into passageways. Did you think you were in a cave?" His eyes invited a reply, but she merely stared at him. He seemed kind and considerate, but you never could tell. Sometimes those were the very ones who insinuated themselves into your good graces, showing their true natures only after you learned to trust them.

"Here, you can have the flashlight," he said. He took several swift steps forward, startling her so that she faltered and almost fell.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you, okay?" he said. The light in his eyes was warm.

She reached out a hand from under the blanket and grabbed the flashlight, then scuttled around the curve in the tunnel until she was out of his sight.

She set the flashlight on the floor, and with shaking fingers pulled on her still slightly damp jeans and shirt. There was a huge bruise on her right hip and a corresponding one on her right shoulder. She'd hit the ground harder than she'd thought when she tripped over the log.

She picked up the flashlight and inspected the tunnel. Little sparkly flecks of mineral in the rock walls glinted back at her. The passage wasn't wide, but it was about five and a half feet high, which gave her plenty of room to stand upright. The man who had rescued her would have had to crouch in here. She estimated his height at about six feet.

Amos slipped up on her and twined himself around her ankles. She bent to pick him up and rested her cheek against his warm fur.

"Don't worry," she said to him. "It'll be all right. We'll be on our way in no time." She said this only to reassure herself. Amos, she'd discovered, was happy anywhere that he could nestle close and keep warm. He didn't care whether they reached California or not.

When she had dressed, the flashlight beam preceded her into the front of the mine. The man had put his coat back on and was boiling water in a tin cup. He spared her a glance and said, "You'd better wrap back up in that survival blanket. It'll keep the chill off. I'd give you my coat, but I want to step outside and take care of my horse. I'll also look around and see if I can find a way to get out of here. I hate to wait for Rooney if we don't have to."

He seemed to assume that she knew what he was talking about. She didn't, but his advice to wrap up in the blanket was a good idea. She wrapped herself tightly in the Mylar, leaving a hand free to push her hair out of her eyes. Her hair was matted and could have used a good brushing. She'd carried a purse when she jumped out of the truck, but she must have lost it in the storm. It had held everything she owned in the world, which wasn't much but included a brush and comb. She dismissed the idea of her appearance from her mind. She wasn't trying to win any beauty contests.

"Would you like chicken or beef bouillon?" the man asked.

She blinked at him.

"For breakfast. I have chicken and beef bouillon cubes. Which would you like?"

She realized from the patient way that he spoke that he was trying to decide if there was anything wrong with her mental faculties. This gave her the impetus to croak, "Chicken, please." It definitely wouldn't do for him to think she was a mental case. What they did with people they suspected were mentally incapacitated was to call the authorities. Then someone came and took you away to an institution.

"Here, you can hold this while the bouillon cube dissolves." He handed her the cup, and she cradled it in her hands. The heat was welcome.

He crouched beside her, and she wished that he'd go away. She felt uncomfortable with the way he gazed at her with such concern.

"My name's Duncan Tate. I live on a ranch near here. You were in pretty bad shape last night." He waited for her reply.

She bit her lip and looked away. He had certainly been in a good position to know exactly what shape she was in, right down to her bare skin. She didn't want to think about it.