The moment Cole stepped up to her, he could feel Nora moving closer to him. He placed his hands on her hips, and in response she reached up and slipped her hands around the back of his neck.
Doing his best to ignore the instincts raging inside of him, Cole said, “Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
Her muscles tensed and the softness in her expression faded a bit. “Does this mean you’re breaking up with me?”
“Come on, Nora. We really haven’t been together for long.”
“I know,” she said while letting out a breath and taking a step back. “It’s just that I was afraid this might happen from the first moment I thought about approaching you.”
“You were going to approach me?”
She nodded with a hint of embarrassment. “I hung back because we work together and that can always get weird. But, we don’t really get out and meet people anywhere else. At least, I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Cole quickly added.
“Then why break up?”
“Because I’m going on this trip to clear my head. The way things have been going, I’d like to wipe everything away and start over.”
“Reboot the ol’ system, huh?”
It was just that sort of geek-talk that had captured his heart. That, and how good she looked in her short skirts and button-down blouses while playing the newest build of
“You could put it that way,” Cole said. “I didn’t think it would be fair for me to string you along, take off to reboot and then expect you to wait for me like some dutiful wife from an old war movie.”
Nora smiled and closed some of the distance she’d created with the backward step she’d taken. “One, you’re not going to war. And two, there isn’t a man alive who could turn me into a stereotype. Most guys would catch hell just for lumping me into that category, and technically, I should hurt you for including me with everything else that’s just supposed to be wiped away.”
“Sorry about that. I just—”
“You just talk a few steps ahead of your brain, Cole. I know that. You’re also not most men.” She pressed herself against him and whispered into his ear, “I think it’s cute that you brought me over here to get one more bit of lovin’ before you take off on your manly Canadian guy-fest.” Smirking at the bit of surprise she saw in his face, Nora added, “But you’re right. We’re not hitched, and there’ll be time to see where we stand when you get back. For now, why don’t I send you off in style, soldier?”
Cole nodded and kissed her. Nora’s lips tasted like strawberries, and the skin under her sweater was even smoother than it looked.
Chapter 2
The twin engine prop plane rattled around Cole’s body as another wave of turbulence struck it like an invisible boot. High winds blew in from Silverthrone Mountain, raking along the desolate, snow-covered expanse to beat against the aircraft’s hull like a set of iron claws. The sounds echoed within the metal tube, which only had exposed bolts and rusted brackets where seats should have been. Fortunately, he was wrapped up in enough thick layers of wool, down, and other winter gear that he could barely feel the jagged points sticking up from the floor.
Although blue skies could be seen through the frosted, oval porthole windows, it was difficult to say where the plane was in relation to the ground. The barren fields of ragged white could just as easily have been fifty or fifteen hundred feet below. Cole winced and quickly rubbed his hands together; playing off his reaction as if it had been caused by the cold, and not to the ever-present fear of plummeting to his death.
He looked toward the front of the plane, expecting to find the pilot fighting with the controls. The skinny man behind the wheel seemed more concerned with adjusting his headphones, which didn’t make Cole feel any better about his prospects for surviving the trip. The other five passengers didn’t have much else to offer him either. At the back of the plane were a pair of young guys from UCLA who’d spent the choppiest sections of the flight going through the motions of convincing each other they’d been through a lot worse. While they might have been fooling each other, they were obviously petrified, and that made Cole feel better. Misery might love company, but it sure as hell didn’t love being the biggest loser in the pack.
Just then a voice fought to be heard above the roar of the propellers. “Hey, man. You all right?”
“I’m just freaking great,” Cole screamed to the guy directly across from him. “How about you?”
“Not too bad. You fly much?” Like Cole, he was sitting on a rough patch of steel floor where a seat had once been.
“Sure I do, but this is more like being inside a tin can with wings.” The plane trembled then, causing every screw in the fuselage to cry for mercy. Cole gritted his teeth, forced a smile and added, “This thing does still have wings, doesn’t it?”
The other man looked through a plate-sized window and nodded. “We’re still good. My name’s Brad, by the way.” He was a skinny guy with sunken features and wire-rimmed glasses held in place by an elastic strap looping around the back of his head. Thick, curly, dark brown hair poked out from a dark blue stocking cap. His smile wasn’t affected by the turbulence or anything else around him, and it never seemed forced.
Cole extended a hand wrapped up in an old pair of skiing gloves. “I’m Cole.”
After peeling off his own glove, Brad shook his hand. There was strength in Brad’s grip, which was more than a little surprising, considering it came from a man who seemed to be outweighed by the winter gear he wore. Cole couldn’t help but notice the fresh scars on the palms of Brad’s hands. “What’re you doing out here, Cole?”
“I signed up for one of those extreme vacations.”
Cole’s voice carried farther than he’d thought because those last two words elicited a round of shouts and fist pumps from the college kids at the back of the plane.
Brad nodded to the frat boys and then rolled his eyes to Cole. “Please tell me you’re not with them.”
“I might be. Actually, they’re probably why my tickets were so cheap. What happened to your hands?”
Twisting his hand so he could look at his palm, Brad glanced at the scars for an instant before pulling on his glove. “Burned it while fixing my motorcycle.”
The college kids were either motorcycle owners themselves or just generally enthusiastic, because they let out another round of noise.
Brad ignored the hollers from the back of the plane, lowered his voice and said, “Look at it this way, Cole. Those jocks back there will probably wind up passed out in a snow-bank twenty minutes after we land.”
“They’ll probably wind up dead,” grumbled an older man sitting next to Brad.
Cole had noticed the grizzled man before but had almost forgotten about him. He wore less gear than Brad, but his clothing and equipment had obviously seen far more use. The lining in his jacket was shredded, and his black stocking cap was frayed all the way around its edge. His gloves looked as though they’d been stitched together from pieces of an old catcher’s mitt, and his feet were covered by thick, well-worn moccasins.
“Don’t mind him,” Brad said. “He’s not one for the silver lining.”
Cole extended his hand to the older man anyway. “Cole Warnecki.”
The older man looked at Cole’s hand as if he thought it might be diseased. Eventually, he looked into Cole’s eyes and shifted his jaw back and forth beneath a thick layer of silver whiskers. “Gerald Keeler,” he said while shaking Cole’s hand.
Where Brad’s grip had been surprisingly strong, Gerald’s was just strong enough. In fact, the muscles in his arm and hand barely even tensed, making the old man seem like a bow that had only been halfway drawn.
“I know why he’s here,” Gerald said while hooking a thumb toward the large man who sat closest to the pilot
