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Some bright spark suggested putting together a ski posse. The suggestion was made jokingly but it fed the embryo of an idea in Severo’s head.
Fifteen minutes later, having resisted the well-meaning attempts to dissuade him from his course of action, Severo was strapping on a pair of borrowed skis. The borrowed ski gear was a slightly snugger fit than he would have liked, but more than adequate.
The snow still fell from rapidly darkening skies, but the wind had dropped and he made quite good time down the road, following it in the direction he had seen his car vanish.
He might have missed the abandoned vehicle had he not paused at the top of the incline to scan the horizon; if he had not he would undoubtedly have missed the light.
Changing direction, he followed the eerie beam to its source: the headlights, or at least the one not buried in the snowdrift, of his own off-roader, which was well and truly off road now!
It was the scene lifted direct from his imagination minus, thankfully, the lifeless body slumped over the wheel. The door was open but the thief had already gone, proving that she was as criminally stupid and suicidal as she had appeared; anyone with half an ounce of sense would have stayed with the vehicle and the shelter it afforded.
His belongings were still where he had left them. The sensible thing would be to gather them and make his way back to the inn. An insane woman was not his responsibility. It would serve her right if she did end up a statistic of the freak weather conditions—and he’d end up beating himself up because he could have saved her, or killed himself trying.
After a brief internal struggle he sighed. It would do his reputation no good at all if people suspected he had a conscience.
He permitted himself a grim smile when, after a quick reconnoitre of the immediate area, he discovered the imprint of footsteps that the falling snow was already beginning to cover—his thief was not far ahead.
It was not difficult to follow the footsteps. The thief, who appeared to have stumbled several times, was apparently walking in a series of ever-decreasing circles.
All sounds were muffled in the white landscape except the hoarse rasp of her own laboured respirations as she forced herself onwards. Neve’s reserves of energy were totally depleted; it was sheer desperation now that drove her on. The dread lodged in her chest felt like a stone; total panic was a heavy heartbeat away.
‘I like snow,’ she reminded herself, panting as she added, ‘I love snow.’ Before falling flat on her face for the fifth time—she was counting.
If she ever had grandchildren she was going to bore them silly with this story, though stories that began with the day Granny stole a car might not be setting the best example!
She lay there and closed her eyes; she would just rest for a moment. Then she would get up because if she didn’t there wouldn’t be any grandchildren to set a bad example to.
She would get up because James had trusted her and she couldn’t let him down.
She lay there hearing his voice.
‘I have a favour to ask you, Neve.’
‘Anything,’ she had replied, meaning it.
James Macleod had been at college with her dad and because of that he’d given Charlie a job. Her brother had then proceeded to repay the kindness by embezzling from clients’ accounts to pay for his gambling habit.
Knowing he was about to be found out, Charlie, planning to flee the country, had confessed all to Neve. She had gone to James and begged him not to bring in the police.
Amazingly he hadn’t. Instead James had covered the theft using his own money, with the one proviso that Charlie seek help for his gambling addiction.
As far as Neve was concerned she was not about to refuse any favour James asked of her.
‘Marry me.’
Any favour but that one.
‘I’ve shocked you.’
‘No, no,’ she lied, closing her mouth. Nothing in the way James had treated her had led her to think he thought of her that way.
She certainly had never considered him in a romantic light. She wondered uneasily if anything she had done or said had made him think…? Blushing madly, she fumbled for a tactful way of responding without hurting his feelings.
‘That’s very nice of you, but it’s just…I—’
‘You don’t love me—of course you don’t. I’m old enough to be your father—’
‘It’s not that, it’s—’
‘But this wouldn’t be permanent, Neve. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but bear with me, don’t say anything yet, just let me explain. You see, it’s back,’ he revealed.
Neve knew the ‘it’ James referred to was the disease he had been battling for years.
‘And this time the prognosis is not good. I have two months tops. Don’t cry, Neve, I’ve had time to come to terms with it and, to be honest, I’m pretty tired. My only regret is leaving Hannah.
‘She will be alone and vulnerable, the target of unscrupulous people more interested in her money than her welfare. She will be a very rich young woman, Neve. If you and I marry on paper, and you adopt Hannah, become her legal guardian, nobody will be able to dispute your legality when I am gone. I can trust you. I know you will protect her.’
The tears began to seep from beneath Neve’s closed eyelids. ‘And a great job I’m doing of that!’ she mumbled bitterly into the snow. She hit the powdery white surface with her closed fist and hissed, ‘Come on, Neve, you’re being pathetic. Stop wallowing and get up.’
Teeth gritted, she fought the growing compulsion to just close her eyes. She rolled onto her back; the effort exhausted her. It was while she was lying there gathering her strength that she heard the noise—yes, it was a noise, not the wind. Someone was shouting.
‘Here!’ she croaked. ‘I’m here!’
Energising relief rushing through her body, she struggled to pull herself into a sitting position before drawing herself up onto her knees. Then, hand held above her eyes to shade them from the falling snow, she directed her hopeful gaze at the shadow emerging through the snow. ‘Hannah?’
She felt a stab of disappointment. The figure outlined against the sky was not a girl, but a man, an extremely tall man on skis. A man who, from the speed he was approaching, appeared to know what he was doing.
Not Hannah, she thought, refusing to be disheartened, but someone who could help her find Hannah.
For a horrid split second she thought the figure on skis hadn’t actually seen her—he hadn’t changed direction. Her heart sank, and panic set in as she imagined him passing by. She began to shout and wave her hands, but her words were whipped away by a sudden strong gust of wind. Then just as she was sure he was going to vanish he veered and came to a stop that sent a puff of fresh snow into the air a few feet away from her.
Almost sobbing with relief now, she waved at him and opened her mouth to call a warning that the ground fell away steeply, and closed it again. He was unclipping his skis and walking the last few feet. Unlike her he was not sliding and stumbling, but moving instead with an almost panther-like grace. The figure clad from head to toe in black approached.
Neve willed him to hurry. She was impatient to explain the situation and renew her search for Hannah.
‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.’
He stood there for a moment. He might have been happy to see her too, or surprised or any number of things, but it was impossible to tell because his face was covered by a black ski mask. All she could see was the gleam of his eyes through the slits of the mask.
Without saying a word he extended a gloved hand and she took it, her eyes widening as she registered the steely strength of the man who dragged her to her feet.
‘Thank you so much.’ She tilted her head back to look her rescuer in the face. She had to tilt a long way; he was seriously tall. The overall effect of the mask and the all-black outfit was sinister, but, she was willing to admit, practical.
Her own face was numb but she was sure it was going to sting like crazy when the circulation returned to it and her frozen extremities.
‘Have you seen anyone else? A girl about fourteen?’
He didn’t respond to her anxious query, just carried on staring down at her.
‘Dark hair, she’s wearing a red duffel coat.’ A warm colour but the coat wasn’t—it was thin and not waterproof. She caught her wobbling lower lip between her teeth and said with determined optimism, ‘Which will be useful—we’ll be able to spot her miles away.’
Her tone invited him to come back with something appropriately upbeat, but when all he did was carry on staring at her with the same unnerving intensity, Neve gave him a gentle nudge.
‘I mean, red stands out for miles, ask any ginger person.’ She tried, but Neve couldn’t force the laugh past her tight, aching throat muscles. ‘We will find her, won’t we?’
‘Find who?’ His narrowed eyes scanned her face. The freckles across her nose stood out in the ghostly pallor that was alleviated by the patches of colour where the driving snow had chafed the soft skin of her cheeks to a painful pink. More worrying was the bluish tinge of her lips, a warning sign he might have noticed a precious minute earlier if he had not been transfixed by the brilliance of electric-blue eyes. In his defence they were extraordinary.
‘Who?’ Had he been listening to a word she’d said? ‘Hannah, of course.’
He unzipped his jacket and draped it around her narrow shoulder. ‘She’s a redhead too?’
‘No, red coat.’ The heat embedded in the padded fabric was tempting, but as much as she appreciated the gesture she couldn’t let him. ‘That’s really kind of you, but I can’t allow you—’
‘Allow implies I asked permission.’
The irritation in his deep voice was echoed in the dark eyes that meshed briefly with her own.
‘I didn’t.’
‘But you’ll get cold…’
Ignoring her protest, he took her right wrist.
She was too surprised to resist as he threaded it into the sleeve as if she were a child and then took her left hand and did the same.
‘But—Ooh!’ He drew the two sides of the jacket together so forcibly he almost jerked her off her feet. Teeth chattering violently, she looked up at him. His dark eyes glittered back at her through the slits in the mask, projecting a level of anger that was bewildering.
‘I really don’t need your—’
Severo swore and grabbed her by the shoulders. This was no time for tact and diplomacy. He studied her upturned features with a baffled expression. She couldn’t take his jacket, but this was the same woman who had taken his car without a second thought?
What she needed, in his opinion, was therapy, and so did he for being out here.
He pulled the zip all the way up until just her small tip-tilted nose peeped out over the top.
‘I’d love to chat with you, but we have no time for a debate. Also, for the record, I am not being chivalrous, this is purely practical. I’m wearing layers.’ And even through them the bite of the cold went bone deep.
The chill went deeper still when he thought of what sort of condition she would have been in if he had not found her when he had. How long would she have lasted—another hour…less?
He felt his anger surge. She seemed utterly oblivious to the danger she was in.
‘You are dressed for a stroll along a beach.’ The harsh condemnation in his voice made Neve take an involuntary step backwards. ‘It is people like you,’ he continued, warming to the theme, ‘people who have no respect for nature and the elements, who wander into the mountains ill equipped and expect other people to risk their lives to save them for their foolishness.’ He shook his head and searched the pale face tilted up to him; it felt like yelling at a kitten. ‘You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’
‘I’ve never tried to climb a mountain.’
He released a hissing sound of irritation and said, ‘The subject is closed. We are wasting time.’
‘You’re right.’ Neve was relieved he understood the urgency of the situation. ‘I was thinking if we found some high ground—’
What school of survival had she attended? ‘We need shelter, not high ground.’
‘No, that won’t work, we need to see—’
Sounding annoyed at the interruption, he cut across her. ‘See what exactly?’
‘Hannah,’ she said, finally placing the accent that had intrigued her since he began to speak: Italian.
There had been several Italian waiters in the restaurant they had stopped at for lunch. It would be a coincidence if he had been one of them. Though now that she thought about it, she did not remember any of them being this tall.
He shook his head. ‘Hannah?’
‘I was heading towards…’ she made a vague gesture behind her with her hand ‘…That way and she was just in front of me in a blue—’ Neve shook head crazily; she couldn’t recall the make of her own car ‘—car. Which way did you come? Did you see her?’ He shook his head and turned away, scanning the horizon, sizing up the most direct route back to the road.
Neve caught his sleeve and tugged hard. He turned his head, his glance drifting from the fingers curled into the fabric of his sweater to the tumble of wild copper-gold curls around the heart-shaped face turned up to his.
‘But you must have. Were you on the road?’
‘I saw no one.’ Severo struggled to contain his escalating impatience. ‘We are not equipped to undertake a rescue operation.’ Bit late in the day to realise this, and for all he knew this Hannah might be a figment of this woman’s imagination. If not he hoped she had already found safety, but the brutal truth was if she hadn’t adding to the casualty list with their own lives was not going to help. ‘This woman, if she exists, will have to take care of herself.’
‘She’s not a woman, she’s a child! What do you mean if? We have to—’
‘We?’
Neve grimaced as she realised she had been presuming he would be willing to help her. Clearly she had been wrong; she didn’t usually judge, but it was hard not to feel contemptuous of someone who looked after number one.
She began to unzip the jacket.
‘Fine, I’ll find her myself. But when you’re able, could you inform the authorities that a fourteen-year-old is missing? If that’s not too much bother?’
As it was nobody even knew Hannah was out there somewhere. ‘And that’s my fault too, for not thinking,’ she mumbled as she tried to shrug off his jacket.
Severo swore under his breath and, leaning down, pulled the two sides of the jacket together. ‘You can tell them yourself when we get back to civilization,’ he said as he pulled the zip all the way up to her chin again.
Neve zipped it down far enough to speak. ‘No you don’t understand. I can’t go back. I have to find Hannah. She was—’
‘No, you don’t understand.’ The woman had the survival instincts of a lemming.
‘Hannah—’
Severo gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on her shoulder as she struggled desperately to pull free. ‘What we have to do is find shelter.’ It would not be as easy as it sounded; in the last few minutes the snow had begun to fall heavier than ever.
Severo lifted his narrowed eyes to the leaden sky. Another half-hour and the light would be gone. Their best bet, he reasoned, was to head back to the abandoned off-roader. That would provide at least some shelter from the elements. Even retracing his footsteps in this near white-out was not, he recognized, going to be easy in the unfamiliar terrain. He had a good sense of direction, but in these conditions it would be all too easy to become fatally disorientated.
‘No…no!’ Neve panted, struggling wildly but with little effect against the steely restraint of his grasp. ‘You don’t understand, I have to—’
Severo, his voice harsh with impatience, cut across her shrill impassioned plea. ‘You may have a death wish, but I do not.’
Neve regarded him with contempt and set her jaw. ‘Fine, you go back or wherever, but I’m going on.’
Severo watched her lips, seeing them move, tuning out the hysterical babble, but unable, even at a moment when all his attention needed to be concentrated on the crucial matter of survival, not to appreciate the lushness of the pink outline.
Under the ski mask a fleeting grimace twisted his wide sensual mouth. As he acknowledged the male weakness a moment later it was replaced by an expression of steely resolve. Time was of the essence; to be out here when darkness fell was not a good idea.
‘What are you—?’ Neve let out a startled yelp as she found herself heaved casually off the ground a moment later and slung over a male shoulder. ‘Put me down!’ she shrieked.
He grunted in response to the kick she landed, but did not reply to her demand. He just carried on walking, head bent against the driving snow.
Chapter Three
SEVERO placed his burden down on her feet.
He shot out a steadying hand when her knees sagged. ‘You are all right?’
He sounded more irritated than concerned, and Neve weakly batted his gloved hand away. All right? Just her luck to get rescued—or was it kidnapped?—by a man of few words and all of them stupid!
‘No, I’m not all right!’ she panted.
She had been hauled cross country against her will with all the dignity of a sack of coal, she was exhausted, she was cold, she was paralysed with fear and guilt every time she thought of Hannah!
All right?
She bit her quivering lip, resisting the strong temptation to lie face down in the snow and cry. She took a deep sustaining breath and reminded herself she was not a wimp—she just had wimpish tendencies.
Severo took her reply at face value and chose not to notice the quivering resentment in her voice. He flexed his shoulders, aware that she was struggling not to fall apart; nine out of ten people already would have. The redhead might be stupid but she was also gutsy.
‘Well, you’re alive.’ Alive was something she might not be if he had not found her. Severo felt his anger mount as he considered her criminal stupidity. ‘So stop moaning.’
The terse direction made her blink.
‘I don’t know who you think you are—’ She stopped, realising that she didn’t have the faintest idea who he was or what he was except selfish, insensitive and extremely fit. The latter was a given—after the fifteen-minute slog through the snow carrying her he had to be exhausted, but there was nothing to suggest even slight fatigue in his manner. Her glance slid to his broad chest; he was not even breathing hard under the black fleece.
‘Just who are you anyway?’
‘I’m the man who saved your life. You can,’ he added sardonically, ‘thank me later, when I will happily give you my life history.’
‘A name would be quite sufficient, and I didn’t ask to be saved.’ Neve knew that she sounded quite unbelievably childish and ungrateful, but her frustration at being forcibly brought here when she ought to be searching for Hannah made it hard for her to be gracious. ‘I didn’t need saving.’
His lips twisted into an ironic smile as he fished out his mobile and tried for a signal: nothing. ‘Yeah, I could see that you had the situation under control.’
Neve, who had held her breath while he tried his phone, watched him slide it back into his pocket, barely registering his sarcasm.
‘No signal?’
He shook his head.
Neve pulled her spirits out of the depressing downward spiral they had taken since Hannah had run out of the inn, and straightened her shoulders. This was not the time to get negative. Looking around, she finally took in the lit building behind her. Lights meant people, and this place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘What is this place?’ Other than the answer to her prayers. The people inside would be able to raise the alarm, finally. Of course, the search parties would already be out if she had thought before acting, and Hannah might already be safe, not out there somewhere, lost, cold…Neve shook her head, refusing to follow the thought to its horrid conclusion.
Stay positive.
She would find Hannah, and her stepdaughter would be all right.
She had to be all right!
Severo watched with growing fascination as the flicker of expressions moved across her pale face. In a matter of seconds he registered a gamut of emotions, all extreme, from deep despair to steely-eyed determination.
Born in another age she would have made a great silent-screen actress—that face could convey more than several pages of dialogue.
When he didn’t respond Neve brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek and angled a questioning look up at him.
‘A barn conversion, I’d say, and a safe haven.’ He was beginning to wonder if this woman had at any point had the faintest idea of how much danger she had been in. Her attitude certainly made it seem unlikely.
Lucky for her she led a charmed life and he had developed a fascination for red hair and electric-blue eyes.
Neve took a deep breath. She didn’t want a safe haven while Hannah was still out there. ‘Hopefully the people here will not be too worried about their own skins, unlike some, and—’
Without turning, he cut her off. He did not need to be hailed a hero—in fact he would have run a mile to avoid such a scenario—but a simple thank-you might be nice.
‘Can you save the reading of my character until we get out of this? We cowards do not have conversations in the middle of a blizzard—and don’t try to run because I will find the necessity to catch you irritating.’
In the act of turning, Neve froze. ‘Is that a threat?’ she demanded through teeth that were now chattering from a combination of cold and shock.
‘It is an understatement,’ he corrected, throwing the comment over his shoulder as he negotiated the snow-covered flight of steps.
Light streamed from the glass panel that led down to the big entrance door, and the slits cut deep into the blocks of stone, but it was the apex wall that appeared to be formed totally of glass panels that had made the place visible from the other side of the valley.
Severo banged on the door. When there was no reply he alternated banging and then ringing the bell. He made enough noise to rouse the dead but nobody inside stirred—were they deaf, or possibly just cautious of strangers appearing from nowhere?
The question was academic. If he was terrifying someone he would make his apologies. He did not need a thermometer to tell him that the temperature was dropping. Right now his main priority was getting inside before things got serious.
How much more serious do you want, asked the voice in his head, stuck in the middle of a blizzard with some felonious madwoman?
To look at her standing there in the jacket that reached her knees she looked cute and fragile, the sort of woman that aroused protective instincts in men—the ones who had not been kicked by her, at any rate.
He was not one of them. She had landed a couple of hefty kicks before she had quietened down, which would have caused a lot more damage had her footwear not been woefully inadequate for the conditions.
‘Stay there!’ He flung the terse instruction over his shoulder before working his way around the side of the building. He almost missed the side entrance, a glass-panelled door that was half obscured by a drift that had formed up against the side of the building.
A quick survey revealed it did not look nearly as substantial as the oak-panelled main door. His luck was turning, and not before time. All he had to do now was get to it, which required shifting the several feet of snow that blocked it.
Using his gloved hands, Severo began to clear a path to the door, building up a steady rhythm as he made a narrow slippery corridor through the snow.
‘I said not to move.’
It was spooky. He had not even turned around. The man clearly had eyes in the back of his head.