Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Read online

  For a very short moment, he rested on the edge while his heart settled back into something that could be called a rhythm and his head stopped throbbing from the thick rush of blood.

  The throbbing underscored a sore spot at the back of his skull. With careful fingers he probed under his hair and found a place so tender he jerked his fingers away. But there was no broken skin—the thick thatch of his hair would have helped prevent that—and his fingers were clean, so no blood. He couldn’t even remember being hit.

  Considering the others, he’d been lucky.

  He grimaced but before he could drift off into that black pool of guilt again he got to his feet and strode to the broken fuselage. Sophie was waiting for him to return.

  He let the memory of those startling, sea-green eyes swim into his mind, the eyes with the ancient, wise soul staring out of them. The quiet determination he’d felt emanating from her when he’d looked into her eyes washed over him now like a calming tonic. His mind floated in that serene pool, while he worked at scavenging through the wreckage, stripping it of anything that would aid their survival.

  He had been speaking a simple truth when he’d told her water would be the least of their problems. Now he realized the arrival of a rescue party would not be quick.

  Given the circumstances, rescue wasn’t even guaranteed.

  Chapter Two

  The sun was strong, warming her and making her sleepy. The removal of the crushing burden of loneliness allowed her eyes to shut. When she opened them again, Sophie knew she had dozed because it seemed little time had passed, even though sand and rocks slithered down the channel again, heralding the return of the tall man.

  She was impatient for his return. When he had first lowered himself to the shelf and smiled, merely lifting the corners of his mouth, she had felt a sense of recognition stir in her soul. He wasn’t a stranger, even though she didn’t know his name.

  Then his smile faded and he’d simply looked at her; assessing, calculating. The frank stare was oddly reassuring. He was no man’s fool. A self-reliant man, who looked to his own instincts and made his own decisions. She knew that she would be all right, that this man could be trusted. Which was strange, for so far in her life, she’d found her greatest comfort and safety arose in moments of solitude, from depending upon her own strength. “It’s just the circumstances,” she muttered. But she felt a spurt of eagerness when the pebbles began to roll and bounce down the slide, heralding his descent.

  He returned with treasures.

  Sophie watched in amazement as the pile of goods grew. It took him half-a-dozen trips, using the wire rope for stability, to bring each load down to the platform. In the end, there were three or four backpacks. From the top of one she saw foil packages and realized he’d repacked that pack with food. There were other anonymous bundles too.

  He’d rigged another, slimmer rope made of luggage straps and pieces of fabric, including some of the fuzzy gray wall lining that had covered the lower half of the cabin. This little rope he used to lower down the most amazing load of all. Her jaw fell and she watched, dazed, as a whole cabin chair slid and tumbled down the gully, trip-hopped and tumbled a couple of times, then came to a rest on its back a few feet from her.

  It was one of the double chairs, with the articulated arm in the middle. The gray upholstery with the elegant thin red stripe was scuffed, dirty and ripped on one corner. She stared at a mangled bolt that hung from the bottom of the metal frame that served as legs. Had he wrenched it up himself or was it a lone survivor too?

  He scuffled down the last few feet himself, smiling at her expression. “You can’t stay lying on the damp ground,” he explained.

  She found herself laughing. “Luxury in the wilderness.”

  He turned to sort out the bundles, revealing some of the bounty he’d gathered. Wood, clothing, food and water. Two first aid kits. There was more but he put two of the packs aside, pushing them under the overhang, where it dipped down to within a few feet of the ledge’s nearly level surface.

  Sophie watched him with mellow happiness, the pain in her leg fading to a detached, muffled hammering. Not only was she not alone on this shelf in the middle of nowhere but her companion was remarkably capable. He exuded the industrious air of someone who knew what they were about as he sorted and stored.

  She wondered what he did for a living. He wore black jeans and a black polo-neck sweater flecked with midnight blue. A black belt threaded through the jeans, with a plain square buckle, silvery gray. Hiking boots, scuffed and well used. Ordinary clothes that gave away nothing. They even camouflaged the thickness of his shoulders but couldn’t hide their width altogether.

  Whatever he did for a living, she was glad he was here, now.

  “You okay? How do you feel?” He stepped over a bundle, crouched down next to her and laid his hand on her forehead. “Sorry I took so long.” Low and warm, his voice seemed to rumble in her mind and it took a moment for her to recognize and label the emotion. He cared.

  The warmth enveloped her and for a second she felt an absurd need to cry. She blinked rapidly. “I’m fine.” Her voice was thick.

  A faint frown puckered his brow and his hand fell away from her forehead. Again, the assessing, judging expression appeared in his eyes.

  Sophie cursed her weakness and tried to master the helpless wail that battled to voice itself. She lifted her chin and tried to breathe deeply.

  “No, don’t,” he said softly, his hand dropping to her shoulder. “Don’t hold it back. Cry if you have to. It’s okay.” He shook his head. “You’re allowed to be scared. Hell, I’m scared too, you know.”

  The admission brought hot stinging tears that broke down her hasty defenses. Great racking sobs shook her and her vision dissolved.

  Warm arms wrapped around her. A gentle hand laid her head against soft wool. Beneath that was the hard wall of his chest. She turned her face inward, shutting out the light, seeking warmth, and wept her heart out.

  Sometime later, Sophie told him quietly, “I’ve never done that before. The crying thing. I mean, in front of someone.” Let alone on their shoulder.

  “I believe you.” His flat tone seemed to imply sincerity. He didn’t pause from stacking the wood into a fire pile.

  “What’s your name?” Sophie asked.

  He looked up at her and grinned. She guessed his thoughts. Now you ask? “Jack. Jack Laubreaux.”

  Sophie rolled the name around in her mind, measuring it against the shock of thick black hair, his deep brown eyes and clear, white skin. His features were lean, the jaw clean and well defined. To her, he looked more Irish than his name allowed. “It sounds French.”

  “My father is French Canadian.” He arranged the last piece of kindling, reached into his pocket to pull out a book of matches, ripped one out and lit it. He set fire to the paper balls sitting beneath the wood. “He came south when he was fifteen. He’s been in the States ever since.”

  She focused on the tense he’d used. His father, at least, was alive. “Was your mother Irish, then?”

  “Sort of. Her grandparents were from County Mead but she was a mid-western farm girl, as corn-fed as you can get.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Jack,” she said.

  Again, he gave her that quick assessing look. “You’re okay now.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “I’ll be all right as long as the silence doesn’t last,” she said, reaching for a truth that came from several layers deep inside her. She hadn’t realized before that truth could be seamed like that—that there was superficial honesty but one could choose to dip into the strata beneath, for a purer truth.

  His assessment was longer this time and Sophie found her chin lifting, her shoulders squaring. Defiance. She had just handed over a substratum of truth, a private slice of herself. Would he belittle it? She had never done this before and had no experience by which to judge.

  He smiled. It was sudden, as if he’d been caught off-guard and was
smiling despite himself. But his whole face lit up, including his eyes. Strong white, even teeth showed and his eyes crinkled at the corners, filling the deep brown irises with good cheer. It was like watching the sun come out. Her breath caught, her spirits soared.

  “We’ll just have to keep talking then,” he said.

  Sophie tried to suppress her answering smile. “Can you talk that long?” she asked seriously. “How long will it take them to find us?”

  “Oh, a day. Maybe two,” he said cheerfully. Quickly, he turned to one of the packs behind him and dug into it. “I have something here for you.” He pulled out a pair of jeans. “They’re probably too big but you don’t want to sit around in wet clothing and we have to get it over your leg.” He dug again and came up with a dark blue sweatshirt, which he spread out for her inspection. On the front was written University of Chicago in white lettering, beneath an all-white badge showing a stylized gryphon, its wings spread. “This, I guarantee will keep you warm.”

  The flames from the fire were starting to lick higher and she could feel the warmth from them. In comparison, she realized that the wall of rock behind and beneath her was radiating a steady chill now the sun had passed out of reach. Jack was offering warmth, dry clothing. She examined the jeans. “How do I get them over my leg?” she asked, somehow sure he’d have the answer.

  He did.

  First of all he pulled out one of the medical kits and shook out a small capsule-shaped tablet. “Prescription strength pain killers,” he explained, handing her the water bottle along with the tablet. “Percodan. I busted up my arm once and the doc had me on these for a week. I was high as a kite to start, but man, do they work. I was taking two at a time, so I figure you’d better start with just one.”

  She took the tablet without hesitation for her whole leg and her hip felt like white-hot pokers driving up into her body. While they were waiting for the medication to kick in, he sat on one folded leg, his chin perched on the other denim-clad knee, feeding the fire up into a steady, comforting blaze.

  Twenty minutes later her mind was buzzing, her body remote and her thoughts ethereal. The pain in her leg had receded to a dull roar that she could ignore.

  She realized that Jack was watching her.

  “Better?” he asked softly.

  She nodded.

  “Okay, now to get you comfortable.” He took out a knife from his back pocket—another memento from his treasure hunt?—and slit the left leg of the jeans from hem to waistband. Then, with the impartiality of a nurse, he helped her strip off her own grimy, damp suit pants. He did most of the work, for her own fingers were thick, clumsy and throbbing with the beat of her own heart. He took most of her weight on his shoulder for she could only prop herself up with her good right leg. While she lifted herself up, he threaded the jeans over her foot and slid them up to her waist.

  “No, don’t sit down there,” he said, as she tried to lower herself back down. His arm was around her waist and he was reaching for her right leg, sliding the other arm beneath it. “This’ll hurt a bit,” he said, his face very close to her.

  “Yup,” she said inanely. She understood him well enough but her tongue had a mind of its own.

  He lifted her.

  It did hurt. It hurt like hell. Silver fire exploded in her leg and there was an identical flash in her mind, wiping out all the distant good humour and remote fogginess. She tried to bite her teeth together but couldn’t stop the guttural cry that broke through.

  A few steps, then she was lowered onto warm softness. Cushioning her back. She looked to her left and blinked her teary eyes so she could focus. The cabin chair, of course. Jack must have set it up while the painkiller had been doing its work and she hadn’t noticed. Her broken leg was resting on a piece of internal fuselage, the mild curve of the metal holding it steady. One end was propped on the chair, the other on one of the packs Jack had brought down the gully.

  He was standing over her, one hand on her shoulder, holding her steady in case she listed to one side.

  “I’m okay,” she said. It came out as a croak.

  “Sorry,” he said. “But I had to get you off the ground.”

  She nodded. “Yup,” she agreed, tiredness abruptly spreading through her. The chair was warm at her back and the fire before her deliciously hot.

  “Wanna do up your jeans now?” he asked and she heard a thread of amusement.

  “Sure,” she said and yawned. She tugged at the oversized jeans and fastened them, then pulled up the zip.

  “Sophie.”

  She realized her eyes had closed. She forced them open.

  “Don’t fade on me just yet,” Jack said. He held the sweater. “Can you get your jacket off by yourself?”

  She struggled with it but the coordination needed to lean forward and remove one arm and then the other defeated her. This time, Jack’s amusement was audible. He chuckled. Hands gently helped her out of the jacket. The sweater was tugged over her head and her arms pushed into the sleeves. She could help with that much and straightened her arms as the sweater was pulled down. Warmth enveloped her. Oversized, but soft and comfortable.

  “Mmm….” The murmur slipped out. Her eyes were closing again.

  “Drink,” he said. The water bottle touched her lips. She drank.

  The chair back supporting her reclined and a small, distant sentinel in her mind laughed silently. Of course. The seats in a plane always recline.

  “Sleep,” he whispered.

  Yup. She had no idea if she said it aloud it or not.

  Much later, she awoke, rising through sleep layers enough to register the dark of night. The fire had died.

  It’s late, she realized.

  But the night was not fully dark. She came a little bit closer to alertness. Why was it not quite dark?

  The mountains, of course. Across the valley from them, marching north and south in broken, uneven rows, the mass of each mountain sat over them. Unlike the monster they clung to, the peaks across the ravine were sheer, treeless crags, with thick snow caps. The white stone and the snow gleamed in the three-quarter moonlight, bathing everything with a ghostly radiance.

  Keeping guard, her foggy mind suggested as sleep pulled her back down.

  * * * * *

  When she woke next it was a gray, overcast day. She became aware of a dozen different facts at once.

  Jack was sleeping on the chair next to her but unlike the average plane passenger, he had turned himself sideways so his right side was against the chair. He had one of the small, gray airline blankets over his shoulder and a second over his legs. One leg was thrust out toward the remains of the fire. The boot had dug a small furrow of dirt.

  There was a square of green, plastic tarpaulin across her leg. The curved edges of the fuselage supporting the leg held the plastic up. Before he had settled into the chair for the night, Jack must have spread it over her. As she sat blinking away sleep, she realized another pair of blankets had been dropped over her too.

  At the same time her body set up an insistent demand for three things—she was thirsty, starving and needed a washroom very soon.

  Then she saw a cloud float by at the same level as their ledge and watched it, astonished, all bodily demands forgotten. Gotta be fog, she thought. But fog was just low-lying cloud. So she really was watching a cloud swing by. The novelty held her motionless for minutes as the cloud moved down the valley.

  While she was watching, Jack woke up, stretched and stood up, running his hands through his hair. He felt around carefully toward the back of his head but before she could ask what he was doing, he turned to the fire and prodded it with a long stick. He dropped fresh wood on it.

  The practical start to the day gave her the courage to tell him what she needed and Jack complied with a small smile. While Sophie blushed furiously, he produced a small, square, plastic dish that looked like it belonged to the bottom of a bar fridge and a small packet of Kleenex. Once again, he helped her in the same impartial manner as
last night.

  Afterward, he went back to stirring up the fire. “I think breakfast is in order,” he declared. “Coffee, cake, cookies and some banged-up fruit.”

  “What do you have, a Starbucks tucked away somewhere?” she asked, the idea of hot coffee making her mouth water.

  He pulled out a handful of foil packages and shook them. “Airline food. Which some people figure ain’t really food at all, but it’ll fill our stomachs.”

  He didn’t make a very big fire, even though the day was colder than yesterday. When she asked him why, he pointed up to the cloud ceiling that seemed to be low enough to touch. “It’s going to be a long, damp day. We shouldn’t waste dry wood, when rain’ll probably put it out in a while.”

  Breakfast was one of the best meals Sophie had ever eaten. Part of the enjoyment came because she hadn’t eaten anything yesterday. A bottleful of water was all she’d had. No wonder the painkiller had kicked in so hard.

  Jack made her swallow another tablet, along with her coffee. The coffee, instant, black and served in a chipped plastic cup, was ambrosial. While she was sipping the last of the coffee and the medication soothed its way down to her leg, Jack fussed with the plastic sheet over it.

  “We have to keep your leg dry and clean,” he said.

  “You know first aid? You’ve studied it?”

  “I know a bit about a lot.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it study, though. More like on-the-job training.” He moved away then, packing up anything that wasn’t waterproof and tucking it under the chair or under the overhang. He produced another plastic sheet, the twin of the one over her leg, except that it was torn across one corner. He put it on the chair beside her. “In case of rain,” he explained.

  After a while there was nothing else for him to do. Almost reluctantly, he sat down beside her.

  “You’re allowed to take it easy,” she said.

  “I know. I just don’t want to get caught…”

  “Get caught?”