“You are so … bossy!” she muttered.

  “I am. I’ve also been call an asshole once or twice, but I’m still not leaving you on your own until I can see you can walk.”

  She was tempted to test it, but her hip and leg were throbbing like an aching tooth just from being carried. She couldn’t imagine it would be easier with no help.

  She was not happy about it, however.

  He met her gaze steadily once he’d helped her lean against the tree and balance herself. “You know I’m gonna have to help you with those pants, right?”

  Her face reddened. “I can ….”

  “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

  She gaped at him. “Why would I want you to?”

  His eyes narrowed on her face assessingly. “Because you’re secretly in love with me and you want me as bad as I do you?”

  Dolly felt her face flash three times before he finished that sentence—accusation—pinpoint observation. “I don’t …. I’m not …. Why …?”

  “Because I want you so bad, baby, it’s driving me crazy I can’t touch you like I want to.”

  He planted his mouth over hers abruptly and it blew her brains right out the other side. Heat and lust washed over her and through her and began a jungle beat in her hooha, keeping pace with the runaway beat of her heart.

  She was peripherally aware that he was working at the closure of her pants, but the only thing beating a refrain in her head was bonking.

  Breaking the kiss almost as abruptly as he’d started it, he dropped to his knees and snatched her pants and her panties down to her ankles before she could even suck in a breath to protest.

  “Oh … my … god, Dolly!”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “You are so beautiful, baby!”

  Her knees gave way.

  Fortunately, he caught her. Pain still shot through her leg and she squeezed her eyes tightly against it. He was looking at her contritely when she managed to catch her breath and pry her eyelids up.

  “I didn’t see anything, baby! Swear to god I had my eyes closed the whole time.”

  Dolly was almost amused—because clearly that was a total lie.

  If she hadn’t still been fighting the nausea from the pain.

  If she hadn’t been so embarrassed.

  If she hadn’t more than half feared he was ridiculing her.

  Almost amused.

  He caught her head between his palms, squeezing lightly. “Stop it!”

  She beat back the urge to cry. “What?”

  “Over thinking … everything I say and do.”

  She blinked at him a couple of times.

  “Potty. I’ll be right over there—not looking,” he ordered her and abandoned her to her task.

  She really hated to admit it, even to herself, but it was a mighty struggle even though he’d helped her to sit and pulled her pants and panties down.

  Because she couldn’t bend her right leg at all without excruciating pain.

  And beyond that, she had bashful kidneys.

  They knew he was right there and could probably hear even if he really wasn’t looking.

  It was really going to suck a big hairy one if she had to do two up on the snowy mountain.

  By the time she managed to let go, she was stiff. She still tried to get up by herself, actually managed to get most of the way up without passing out.

  But then there was the clothing.

  And she was freezing her ass off—literally.

  The good news was that she didn’t have to drip dry.

  The bad news was that she was pretty sure she had piss icicles dangling.

  Thankfully, she was wrong. He looked her over very frankly when he pulled her panties up, adjusted them, and then her pants.

  “You know I’d way rather be pulling all this down, but, as beautiful as that is to behold, I don’t think I could find Ranger in this cold. I’m pretty sure he’s hiding,” he said conversationally.

  She studied him with a faint smile. “You are, without doubt, the most … charming man I’ve ever met. You have ten million conquests already. You don’t need me.”

  He sobered. Anger flickered in his eyes. “There’s where you’re wrong, Dolly.”

  * * * *

  It was awful, Dolly reflected, to feel as if you’d done something unforgivably wrong and not be able to figure out what it was.

  Of course, there was probably no fixing it—once done or said, it was too late to undo it—but she would at least like the chance to try.

  The sad thing was that she didn’t realize Chance was trying to flirt with her until she said whatever it was that provoked that stony look.

  Well, she still wasn’t convinced it was a serious flirtation.

  Very likely he was as scared as everyone else and that was his way of dealing with it.

  Not that she didn’t think it was strange to need an ego boost in the middle of such a disaster, but everybody was different. Everyone coped in their own way.

  And his way was harmless.

  Mostly.

  He couldn’t know how much it would hurt her. He was a kind man. She thought he was a very good man and that he’d never knowingly hurt anyone. At least no one that didn’t richly deserve it, she mentally amended.

  The man had steel in him.

  She’d caught glimpses of it.

  She had her doubts if he was afraid of much of anything—in spite of his joking about it. Maybe because he did.

  That part was definitely no act—not anymore than his kindness was. He was genuine.

  The teasing, though.

  Well, it was teasing. She knew that.

  It just sucked that she couldn’t take the teasing in the spirit it was intended—just enjoy his banter.

  She did enjoy it.

  She thought he was really clever and funny.

  As if she hadn’t already been ‘in’ to him over her head, though, she felt like she was sinking deeper.

  And the worst of it was that she knew he wasn’t trying to be unkind—like her fellow employees who seemed to have taken an instant dislike of her.

  Perhaps because they resented her being ‘fat and happy’ when they thought she shouldn’t be? Maybe because they were afraid it was ‘contagious’? That just being around her was enough to make them get fat?

  Not that she’d thought of herself that way before she started working for Chance, around the Hollywood crowd.

  Actually, she didn’t feel ugly now.

  She just worried because she knew she wasn’t up to Chance’s standards and that made her paranoid any time he teased her.

  Well that plus he’d never acted like he knew she was even alive before.

  That thought gave her pause, made her wonder if it was the accident—not the head bumping kind, but the ‘thank god I’m alive!’ kind. Must spread my seed to feel alive!

  She’d almost accepted that that was what it was that had him flirting so outrageously with her when she knew damned well he wasn’t really interested when it occurred to her that he’d kissed her right after they’d gotten on the plane.

  Because she’d been so scared.

  Because he was just the sweetest, most wonderful man alive!

  Not because he couldn’t control himself.

  He’d been controlling himself just fine for the past six months or so, after all.

  But maybe her theory still worked?

  Maybe he’d tried the ‘knight in shining armor’ thing and then the plane crashed and he was feeling obligated to finish rescuing her?

  Nope. She was missing something, she decided.

  It sucked that her fishing expedition had just pissed him off.

  Would it have killed him to insist that he needed her?

  She had to suppose that hadn’t occurred to him.

  So …. She was wrong. How was she wrong?

  Needless to say the need for survival distracted her fairly quickly from what had been a semi-pleasant speculation about her favorite person—pleasant because she always enjoyed thinking about him. Semi because the thoughts themselves distressed her.

  Her stomach diverted her first. There’d been food on the plane. Not much, but snacks. She was certain of it, but somehow it had all disappeared.

  Even though everybody that could actually walk had searched the wreckage pretty thoroughly before it got too dark to see and had started all over again the following morning when they woke up.

  She hadn’t seen anybody chewing but nobody, not one soul, had complained about hunger or thirst.

  Naturally enough, her mind leapt to the snacks she’d packed for her trip, but she was loathe to go for it when she might have a fight on her hands about it.

  Secondly, what probably should have been first on the list occurred to her.

  Nobody had said anything about the fact that there hadn’t been a sign of anybody looking for them.

  Nada.

  From what she could see, the plane had mowed down a lot of stuff and left a debris trail a quarter of a mile—at least. Of course, the fuselage was mostly buried in the snow, but she couldn’t believe nobody had spotted it.

  Nobody heard it go down?

  Nobody had fucking noticed they never made it to NYC?

  They’d been expecting to get there the night before to make that plane to the UK. All hell should have broken lose in this length of time!

  Not she figured they all rated that, but they had Chance Malone with them for crying out loud! He wasn’t a nobody!

  Well! She wasn’t going to bring it up! Every time she pointed out any unpleasant truth she got the evil eye—as if she was responsible for it!

  She actually didn’t want to think about the unpalatable truth herself—like they might have to hoof it out. She didn’t know about the others, but she wasn’t currently in any shape for a hike. Her leg wasn’t hurting as badly as it had been, but she still couldn’t put her weight on it.

  She doubted she could even crawl since that would mean using the leg, too.

  It was a scary enough thought that she decided she needed to see what she could do about getting around.

  Grunting, struggling, she managed to crawl out of the shelter. She had to rest when she had and wait for the pain to subside.

  She managed to get to her knees—well one knee, because she couldn’t bend the other even a hair and just trying made her feel like she was going to pass out—but it looked like getting to her feet by herself wasn’t an option at the moment. Mentally shrugging, she scraped a little snow up and packed it against their shelter to block a hole. She regretted it. Her fingers instantly felt like popsicles.

  Chance arrived, his expression stony. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  Dolly blinked at him. Because it never occurred to her? “Uh … I thought you were mad at me,” she said finally.

  He made a sound of irritation and helped her to her feet. “You need to go?”

  “No … I just thought I should probably try to regain as much mobility as I could … since we haven’t heard anybody. I mean … in case ….”

  He frowned. Lifting her hands to have a look at them, he knocked the snow/ ice crystals off and brought them to his mouth to blow his hot breath on them. It made her fingers throb harder but it was absolutely welcome, even though she felt a bit awkward.

  And that didn’t even begin to describe her feelings when he decided to shove them up his shirt and flatten them against his belly.

  She couldn’t actually feel anything. At first. Her hands were too numb from the cold, but it was like planting her hands on a stove. Inside of a few moments, he’d warmed her hands up and got the circulation revving so that she could feel every beautiful, sculpted inch of his fabulous six pack.

  It blew her libido into orbit.

  “They’re like ice. They’ll freeze you,” she murmured a little hoarsely.

  He met her gaze when she looked up. “Amazingly enough, I’m not feeling cold right now.”

  He didn’t crack a smile that time to suggest he was teasing or joking and Dolly didn’t know how to take it. “You’re not?”

  “Definitely not.”

  She gulped. The sound was loud in her ears and she wondered if he’d heard it. The possibility warmed her cheeks with discomfort.

  Chance closed his eyes as if he was in pain. “Slipped my mind you were hurt,” he muttered and then smiled wryly. “Found Petey. The things you do me, woman!”

  Dolly had one of her ‘moments’. “I thought you called him Ranger?”

  He laughed—not a mere smile or chuckle. A laugh. It echoed across the top of the mountain.

  As embarrassed as Dolly was, she laughed, too. “I don’t believe I said that.”

  “Me either, you perv. To think you remembered after all this time. I’m going to have to watch myself. I keep forgetting you have a mind like a steel trap,” he said, still thoroughly amused, but then he looked around and sobered. “I’ll help you hobble around a bit, then, if you think you’re ready for it.”

  She was and she wasn’t.

  Mentally, she knew she had to get able bodied as fast as she could if she wanted to survive—and she did.

  Physically, she proved there was an issue pretty damned fast.

  She thought she might have a cracked bone—which was the same as saying broken. It was just still in one piece. She couldn’t decide, though, if it was hip or thigh—or knee. The entire leg hurt like hell so it was pretty hard to pinpoint the ‘worst’ spot.

  It seemed unlikely it would be the thigh bone since that was the largest in the body and that meant it was going to be impossible, probably, for her to do anything to stabilize it to protect it from getting worse, or hurting too much to move.

  She couldn’t walk and she couldn’t crawl.

  Saying no one came, how the hell was she going to make it down the mountain?

  Because she could see they were on a mountain—high. The plane had come down below the tree line, but not by a hell of a lot.

  So, if her memory served her, they must be at least five thousand feet up, possibly more—a very long climb even if it was going downhill all the way.

  It was warmer by the time it got close to noon. Dolly used that term laughingly. It was still horrible, just more bearable. Everyone used the opportunity to move around and search for their possessions, or anything from the plane that might be useful.

  They spent some time digging the fuselage out of the snow, debating what they should do with the bodies inside.

  Dolly suggested they do what they could to bury them so that it wouldn’t attract predators.

  “Good idea,” Chance agreed, ignoring the condemning gazes that bored into Dolly.

  “But …! They’ll expect to recover the bodies and take them home!” Liz exclaimed.

  “I would think so,” Chance said. “We’ll need to mark them, but I for one would rather not leave them as bait for wolves or bears—wild cats—whatever predators might be up here with us.”

  “I brought my gun,” Jeff volunteered somewhat reluctantly.

  Chance halted and turned to study him. “How much ammo?”

  “Not as much as I’d like,” Jeff responded. “I’ve got a full clip in the gun and a spare.”

  “Maybe you could hunt something to eat?”

  Jeff blinked at him. “With my pistol? It ain’t much good for that. We’d need snares and there’s not a lot this high up besides, it being winter.”

  “I know how to make a snare,” Dolly volunteered.

  That time every single one of the survivors turned to look at her in disbelief.

  “What did you do before you got to be Chance’s personal assistant?” Liz demanded.

  Chapter Four

  Dolly’s lips tightened. “I read.”

  “And just how did you pick up making snares in a romance novel? You been reading Tarzan and Jane?”

  That embarrassed Dolly way worse. She should have just kept her mouth shut, she thought angrily.

  Nothing could more surely make her look pathetic than reading a romance novel.

  Because assholes like Liz always assumed it was because a woman just couldn’t get a man.

  When the unfortunate truth was, she’d found plenty. She just hadn’t managed to find one that was worth keeping.

  Not that she gave a damn what Liz thought.

  But Chance wasn’t deaf.

  And she didn’t like the assessing way the other men were looking at her.

  It really sucked big time that she couldn’t just get up and stomp off in righteous indignation.

  “You think we can find what we need to make one?” Chance asked.

  Relief and gratitude went through Dolly. She beat back the urge to cry from humiliation before her ‘god’. “Sure. It’s basically the way primitives hunted smaller game and they used what was handy.” She frowned. “We’d need to see if we could find a trail.”

  He tilted his head questioningly.

  “Animals tend to wear down trails,” Jeff said. “If there are enough of them, we should find tracks and then we can set snares along them.” He shrugged. “Something might turn up. I think it would be worth doing even if the rescuers aren’t far behind us. I’m hungry now. I sure as hell don’t want to do without for days … maybe weeks.”

  Well and there it was—laid out like shit on a banquet table! The ugly truth they’d all tried to avoid.

  They hadn’t seen any sign of rescue … yet.

  Of course, they hadn’t been due to land until fairly late the night before. There was no telling when someone got around to reporting their plane missing. From that point, it could still take a while to get things moving. They had to have some idea of where to look even to have a clue of a general area to start putting searches together.

  Chance crouched in front of her, smiling faintly. “Mind like a steel trap—that’s what I love about you, baby! You’ve got a sexy brain, lady. You stay put. Jeff’s getting around a lot better and this could take a while. We’ll handle it.”

  Dolly’s mouth was still at half cock when he straightened and left.

  “Sexy brain my ass,” Liz muttered in a perfectly audible voice. “If that’s all he’s interested in this is going to be a dizzying turnover. I sure as hell wouldn’t be flattered by that kind of comment.”

 

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