High Passion

CHAPTER 22

The snow that had fallen overnight had already melted into slush in the heat of the late October afternoon sun. Beside her Devon tapped his fingers impatiently on the door frame, but he didn’t say anything, not even as she took the corner too fast and had to pull the car out of a skid.

The usual heart-pounding adrenaline rush that accompanied getting a call-out had to be controlled until it could be used to a good purpose. She might have good reason to be extra excited this time around, but she was on the edge of being too riled up.

Neither of them talked—it was a short enough drive to HQ that they didn’t need to chatter—and they already knew the same basics about the coming rescue. Rehashing the meager details they’d been given over the phone wouldn’t change a thing.

The familiar pattern of getting herself into the right mind-set was easier in silence, and Alisha was grateful Devon seemed to enjoy the arrangement as well. Sharing a ride made sense. Showing up at Lifeline pissed off at each other? Wasn’t a good idea.

It was just over a week since she’d been released from the hospital. She was back to full strength. A couple of hard days at the gym and training with the team had blown the final cobwebs from her system. Physically she was ready.

Mentally, she had to face the challenge and see.

She wondered if Devon still had his doubts. She’d caught him staring at the strangest moments over the past week, his expression somewhere between a frown and confusion. When she’d had the entire team’s help loading and moving her things out of her old rental he’d been especially pensive, not to mention his constant glancing around as if expecting someone to pop out and demand they stop.

Well, that behavior she understood. Vincent hadn’t shown up again. Last she’d heard he’d returned to Toronto, but it wasn’t easy to believe. His ghost haunted her at the strangest moments, the echo of his words lingering in her ears.

She pulled on the parking brake and readied to open her door. Devon caught her hand before she could exit.

The expression blazing in his blue eyes messed with her heartbeat even more than the pre-rescue excitement. “Give me a kiss before we go inside,” he ordered, “so I’m not tempted to maul you in front of the team.”

She smiled and leaned across the stick shift to accept his caress. He cradled the back of her head and gave her a brief but firm sample of exactly how talented he was with his lips.

She gasped for air when he let her go. “Well, that was nice.”

He winked and opened his door. “Watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alisha teased, joining him outside the car, her bag slung over her shoulder. “I watch it, sugar. Trust me, I watch it all the time.”

They were both laughing as they raced through the door, Anders and the rest of the crew waving and calling out as they got into position for the updated report. Marcus stood behind the desk with Lana, the brunette waiting silently at his side.

She’d been on her best behavior since Marcus had called her out. Alisha still didn’t like Lana much, but at least the other woman wasn’t pushing herself forward anymore.

“Get ready for a slow, wet slog,” Marcus warned. “The snow above thirteen hundred feet is sticky and thick. Chances are you’ll need snowshoes or skis.”

“Lovely, Slurpee season has arrived.” The long tails of Anders’s laces dragged over the floor as he walked. He adjusted his ski pants and sat to retie his boots. “Why do people insist on going out too early in the season?”

“Idiots determined to get their trip in no matter what. You’ve got bad glacier ice and crevasses—prep accordingly. I’ll get more while you’re en route.” Marcus and Lana responded to the crackling radios in the background as the rest of the team scrambled for gear.

The rush of energy filling HQ was soothing. Packing new equipment, working to load what might be needed. Erin gave her a wink, then headed out to get the chopper in order, her bright orange ski coat visible the entire journey across the tarmac to the aircraft.

After settling into place in the transport area, Alisha took a few deep breaths before adjusting her headset and falling into conversation with the team.

Over the next hour as they flew to the base of Bow Lake, updates flooded in from Marcus. Three men had gone missing during a hut-to-hut ski trip along the Wapta traverse. They’d signed the trail book, but until they missed their expected return day, no one had known there was any trouble.

“Is there a custodian at the Bow Hut this time of year who we can ask if they made it that far?” Anders asked.

“Negative,” Marcus reported. “Not until December.”

“Drat, I didn’t think so. Okay, best tactic. Erin will start us at the trailhead. We’ll follow the usual approach to the headwall and the hut. It’s a potshot until we see how far they got, or we see definitive signs of danger zones.”

“Headwall is going to be avalanched, I guarantee it,” Devon pointed out. “But in that area the snow is so unstable at this time of year, how will we know if it’s the problem site or not?”

“We’ll check the hut. If they stayed a night like planned, there will be signs. If they didn’t show, it narrows our search zone.”

Alisha accepted the map Anders passed over, unfolding the thick paper to examine the elevation markings. The edge of the known glacier ice. On her right, Devon leaned in to draw a finger along the route they’d follow.

Maybe it was terrible, but having him there made her feel . . . more at ease. She was ready, she really was, but there was something reassuring to know he had her back. He always had, even during the days before they were working together, fighting to outperform each other at school. Even then she’d never expected anything less than his best effort in terms of keeping her safe.

The realization that they’d stepped beyond the trust relationship found in the SAR team hit hard. Alisha watched Devon’s hands and remembered his touch. Hard, sexual compulsions, soothing gentle caresses.

She trusted him with her life every time they came out to do a job. But this was more than that. She trusted him now on a whole different level, and the buzz of that revelation warmed her the rest of the flight to the trailhead.

“We’re in position,” Erin announced. “I’ll parallel the creek for the first couple kilometers where there isn’t another approach option. Check the snow conditions, Anders, and let me know if you need me to do a flyby on the tree route once we hit that section.”

Alisha shifted to face the window, leaning in to stare down at the snow-covered ground. It was early in the ski season, so early that some parts of the creek were still open, the water flowing over the edges of ice, glasslike sections reflecting the sun in flashes. Shorter pines and scraggy brush poked up in spots along the water’s edge, and through the middle lay two thin lines running parallel to each other, following the stream’s meandering path.

“Ski tracks,” Xavier called first. “Someone went in during the past few days, and there’s no new snow over them.”

“That makes the search easier.” Anders stood and leaned over Xavier’s shoulder. “You keep an eye on the path. Erin, looks as if we’ve got a straight route to the headwall. How are the conditions?”

“Wind is fine right now, but I expect it to pick up once we ascend the valley. Gusts usually roar on the glacier top.”

Anders nodded. “Yeah, most nights Bow Hut shakes from the high winds. No fresh snow is great, but our chance of following these clear tracks all the way to our targets is zero. They’ll have blown away or drifted over within twenty-four hours.”

They passed the base of the wide half-moon wall where the trail elevation increased so rapidly that the only way for a skier or hiker to reach the top of the plateau was a series of tight switchbacks. In the summer, the steep terrain would make the average hiker’s thighs burn with exertion. Now in the middle of ski conditions, there was the added danger of the snowpack on the upper slopes letting go and taking out everything below it.

“It’s clear,” Xavier announced. “No avalanche sign. The cornices on the peak are still hanging on.”

“Swing wide to the hut,” Anders ordered Erin. “Alisha, Xavier, you two will do a run in to check the daybook and see if anyone camped out during the past few nights. We’ll lift up and get Erin to sweep the area while you’re looking around.”

Landing outside the hut proved everything she’d expected. The door cracked open and Alisha dropped to the ground, the snow underfoot hard-packed to rock solid by the wind. Any loose powder knocked free by the pressure of the props swirled icy cold around them as temperatures fell to below freezing.

“You check the sleeping quarters. I’ll meet you in the cookhouse,” Xavier suggested.

It only took a minute for her to look, the separate square boxlike cabin with bunks lining the walls even colder than outside. The wind caught the door and created a high-pitched whistle that echoed in the empty space. Alisha joined Xavier, glancing around the smaller hut, her breath causing puffs of steam to expand into the unheated air.

Xavier spoke into his walkie-talkie, one hand holding the hut logbook. “They were here two nights ago. Planned to head to Balfour Hut.”

“Affirmative, we’ve spotted a faint trail line from up here. It fades, but we’ll check the usual route.” Anders ordered, “Prep yourselves, guys, I suspect we’ll be looking in crevasses.”

Alisha shivered as she and Xavier jogged to the landing site. She liked summer rescues better than winter, and crevasses were her least favourite winter rescue situation.

Lowering herself into one of the narrow cracks in the ancient glacier ice fields was mentally different from lowering into a rock cavern, and miles from doing an actual vertical climb. She checked herself, though, and while she wasn’t looking forward to it, she wasn’t more frightened than usual.

Fear wasn’t a bad thing, especially if it kept you on your toes to stay alive.

The helicopter rose smoothly. Erin banked to the south, the pressure pressing Alisha into her seat as they moved toward the main ice field.

A soft touch on her thigh made her glance down, and she was surprised to see Devon resting his hand easily on her even as he looked out the window. She didn’t say anything, just laid her hand on top of his briefly, needing that moment of connection.

Warmth rushed her. Contentment. She was here, doing what she loved, with people she . . .

Alisha took a deep breath and pushed the rest of that thought aside for now. Concentrating on the rescue was her first priority. Even though she wasn’t about to deny that Devon’s hand resting on her leg warmed her a whole lot.

“Head to the west.” Tripp pointed into the distance. “See it? Open crevasses in the middle of a snow field.”

Anders swore softly as he moved forward for a better view. “You think the idiots walked over a few snow bridges unintentionally, then hit a section of weak snow?”

Devon stared at the warning signs of a situation gone bad. Glacier ice had a tendency to crack open in long, extended streaks, exposing what looked like claw marks from the air. On the ground level, these cracks could be anywhere from a foot across or more than ten feet, and plummeting in depth from a few feet to impossibly frightening measurements. The most dangerous crevasses were the surface cracks that were three or four feet wide—narrow enough that in a strong wind, snow would cling to the edges until a cap formed over the top, creating a false level surface.

A lucky skier or hiker could cross a snow bridge without knowing it. If the pack was thick enough, and the temperatures cold enough to hold the fragile structure together. The unlucky ones broke through and fell to whatever depth before the crack narrowed and pinned them in place.

If it narrowed at all.

“We’ll know in a minute,” Erin offered. “I can fly you through the maze, but I can’t set you down.”

“No problem,” Alisha straightened her collar, prepping to be lowered. “Anders can winch me.”

Devon got himself ready, adjusting his harness and double-checking the new carabiner he pulled from the gear bag. He’d observed Alisha closely the entire trip out, but there was nothing about her behavior to complain about. Nothing unusual compared to before she’d had the emergency trip to the hospital.

Amazing was the only thing that came to his mind as he watched her prep to be lowered from the hovering helicopter. Brave, strong—he admired her more every day. Which made the fact he wanted to tell her that more difficult to keep silenced.

Xavier shouted. “We got a hit. Holy shit, what the hell did they do?”

Peering from the window, it was difficult to figure out the exact problem, until he noticed the faint lines. “They were roped together. Look. There, and there. One of them must have fallen through, jerked the other two off their feet, and they each broke through a different section.”

“Alisha, get in position.” Anders motioned the others back. “Set a couple anchors for the sleds before you head into the crack.”

“Got it,” Alisha said. While Anders checked her buckles and ropes, she glanced over his shoulder at Devon, smiling and giving him a thumbs-up.

He nodded. “Don’t make me have to climb too far. I’m feeling lazy.”

She snorted, then ignored him and followed Anders’s instructions.

The noise increased as the main door slid open, not only the sound of the props, but the wind rushing around them as Erin hovered the chopper over one of the wider bands of solid ice. Alisha turned and leaned back, easing over the bay lip and into midair, where the cable supported her slow descent to the ground.

“She’s spinning like a top,” Tripp warned.

“Winds are bad. She can handle it,” Anders insisted. “Damn, she’s good. Look at that, right on target.” He clicked on the speaker. “Lovely landing, girl. Now, set your bolts.”

“On task. There’s one of the men directly to the west of me. You want me to rappel down to check him while you’re lowering the gear?”

“Wait for Devon,” Anders ordered. He glanced over his shoulder at Devon, and Devon caught the warning. After this much time exposed, the chances any of the victims were still alive were slim.

Lowering out the door was like walking into a freezer. The wind tore through his clothing, curling around the edges of his helmet and scratching his cheeks raw in the short time he hung in midair. The new rope Alisha was tying off below him shone brilliant blue against the grey-white of the snow.

His feet touched down and she grabbed his harness to anchor him, her strong grip pulling him toward her, and he smiled. “Thank you.”

She wrinkled her nose as she glanced up, undoing the cable from his belt and returning it to the chopper. “Anders thinks they’re DOA, doesn’t he?”

Devon nodded slowly. “It’s been two days.”

She sighed sadly. “I’m ready for it. You want to belay me?”

“I can go first if you want,” he offered.

She shook her head, glancing upward toward where the chopper hovered above them, Xavier at the door readying to be lowered. “I said I’m prepared. You can’t guard me from the awful parts, Devon.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t try.” Like he always did.

She touched his face with her gloved hand, then reached for the ropes and tied in. Xavier joined them. Then Tripp. The four of them worked smoothly to get into the cracks and bring up the three men who’d slid in too far to get themselves out. One after another, the near-silent task continued. Recovering bodies was always the worst part of the job, even though Devon knew it gave closure to the families who’d lost loved ones.

It was so senseless. The staring eyes filled with terror even after death, or the ones who looked as if they’d fallen asleep, the cold and fatigue silently taking them to a place where they didn’t hurt anymore.

He lowered Xavier to the final of the victims, carefully manning the ropes. Waiting in hope for a loud shout that never came. Xavier’s quiet, “He’s gone as well,” was all they got.

Alisha and Tripp glanced up from where they were securing the wrapped bodies they’d pulled from below, strapping them to boards. Devon caught their sorrow, the hope for a miracle fading from their eyes. “You want a hand?” he asked Xavier.

“Nope, I’ll be fine.”

Alisha and Tripp finished their grim task, one at a time attaching the cable to allow Anders to winch the bodies onto the chopper. Xavier hooked on the final board and it rose straight from the depths like a somber flag against the sky.

Xavier climbed up, and they gathered gear. All of it normal and precise, pretty much like any other rescue except there was a sadness hovering over them all. The usual quips and energy were muted in a kind of respect and heartfelt sorrow.

They waited to be lifted, still tied into the safety anchors Alisha had attached at their feet to the icy surface of the glacier. The never-ending wind rushed them, stealing their breath and chilling their extremities. Alisha turned her face aside, and Devon pulled her closer, guarding her from the worst of the gale. Silence reigned—it wasn’t a time for joking or fooling around.

The cable was lowered again, and Tripp gestured Alisha forward.

A brittle crack sounded, and all four of them froze. Devon held his breath, praying it wasn’t ice anywhere beneath them.

“Hurry it up.” Tripp motioned to Alisha again. “The sooner we get out of here, the happier—”

A sudden gasp escaped Xavier as his feet slipped on the bare ice surface. Underfoot the ice tilted, sending Xavier flying to one side. Devon lunged for him, but it was too late. Xavier slipped off the edge and into the crevasse beneath them.

Tripp swore, diving for the ropes to halt Xavier’s slide. “Goddamn. Everyone, brace yourselves.”

Devon eyed the safety ropes still in clear view of the surface—Alisha’s, Tripp’s, his own. Everything looked fine, and as shitty as it was that Xavier had fallen, his backup rope should stop him before he fell more than—

Xavier’s shout of dismay changed to a shriek of fear that carried on for far too long before cutting off abruptly.

Oh God.

Tripp was on his knees, leaning over the edge. “What the hell happened?”

Devon feared the worst. Clinging to Alisha to hold her back from the edge, they cautiously peered over.

Laughing, teasing Xavier lay far beneath them, his body twisted. Utterly still.

Alisha had never tied herself in so quickly in her life. On autopilot she adjusted ropes and got herself into position to be lowered to Xavier’s side. “On belay,” she snapped.

Devon nodded once, his face tight with worry as he braced himself and lowered her.

It was one of her worst nightmares—one of the team being injured, and her little drug-induced trip to the hospital didn’t count. This was in the field, uncertainty and confusion wanting to rush in. The only thing that would have made it worse would be if it were Devon she was climbing toward, not knowing if he was dead or alive.

“Talk to us,” Anders’s voice carried over the speakers. “Come on, Xavier, hang in there and give us a sign.”

Nothing. Silence on the airwaves.

Anders tried again. “Answer, Xav. We’re going to get you out of there. We’ve sent a pretty girl to come hold your hand and make you fly.”

“Will she kiss me?” Xavier’s words were a whisper, but everyone on the team exhaled at the same time.

Alisha gripped her rope tighter as Devon controlled her descent. She had to swallow past the lump in her throat to speak. “Well, I suppose I could kiss you, but only once we’re somewhere nice and warm. I’m ready for a hot tub, what do you think?”

A groan rose from Xavier as she got close enough to brace herself on the narrowing walls of ice. “Naked hot-tubbing sounds fun, but I bet Devon would kick my ass.”

“I’m there, Devon. Take.” She reached for Xavier, brushing his cheek carefully. “Well, we won’t invite him, then.”

A couple of quick movements later she had him locked to her, safety ropes ensuring that he wouldn’t slip anywhere else. She checked him quickly. His climbing belt was a mess, twisted and loose instead of snugly wrapped around his thighs and waist.

She leaned over to check his vitals, working desperately not to shake him, but in the tight space it was nearly impossible. “Xav, how you feel?’

He cleared his throat. “Actually, I don’t feel much, which kind of worries me.”

Oh God. No feeling meant a spinal injury. She tried to keep her face blank even as terror raced through her. She pressed her lips quickly to his. “We’ll get you out of here, okay? Just hang on, and we’ll get you out of here.”

The next fifteen minutes were hell. Devon sent Tripp down, and he helped her get Xavier on a backboard. By the time they had him ready to transport, Xavier was passing in and out of consciousness. The board rose into the air, and a cold, icy sensation settled in her stomach.

Only once Anders had safely pulled him into the chopper did she breathe a sigh of relief. She glanced to the side at Tripp to make sure he was ready to climb out so they could get Xavier to the hospital as soon as possible.

Tripp clutched the remains of Xavier’s climbing belt in his hands, the frayed webbing untwining farther as he held it in the air.