Chill Factor (3 page)

Feeling one, she whispered, "Thank God, thank God." But then
she
noticed the spreading dark stain on the rock beneath his head. She was
about to lift his head and search for the source of the bleeding when
she remembered that an individual with a head wound shouldn't be moved.
Wasn't that a strict rule of emergency aid? There could be a spinal
injury, which moving could exacerbate or even make fatal.

She had no way of determining the extent of his head injury.
And
that was a
visible
injury. What injuries might he
have
sustained that she couldn't see? Internal bleeding, a rib-punctured
lung, a ruptured organ, broken bones. And she didn't like the look of
the awkward angle at which he was lying, as though his back was bowed
upward. She must get help. Immediately. She stood up and turned back
toward her car. She could use her cell phone to call 911. Cell service
wasn't always reliable in the mountains, but maybe—

His groan halted her. She turned so quickly her feet almost
went out
from under her. She knelt beside him again. His eyes fluttered open,
and he looked up at her. She'd seen eyes like that only once before. "
Tierney
?"

He opened his mouth to speak, then looked as though he was
about to
throw up. He clamped his lips together and swallowed several times,
containing the urge. He closed his eyes again, then after a few seconds
opened them. "I was hit?"

She nodded. "By the rear quarter panel, I think. Are you in
pain?"
After a few moments' assessment, he said, "Everywhere."

"The back of your head is bleeding. I can't tell how bad it
is. You
fell on a rock. I'm afraid to move you."

His teeth had begun to chatter. Either he was cold or
he
was going into shock. Neither was good.

"I've got a blanket in the car. I'll be right back." She stood
up,
ducked her head against the wind, and labored back to her car,
wondering what on earth he'd been thinking to have charged out of the
woods like that, straight into the middle of the road. What was he
doing up here on foot, during a winter storm, in the first place?

The trunk lid release on the dashboard didn't work, possibly
because
of damage to the electrical system. Or possibly because the lid was
frozen shut. She removed the key from the ignition and took it with her
to the rear of the car. As she'd feared, the lock was glazed over
.

She groped her way to the shoulder of the road and picked up
the
largest rock she could handle, then used it to chip away the ice. In
emergency situations like this, people were supposed to experience an
adrenaline rush that imbued them with superhuman strength. She felt no
such thing. She was panting and exhausted by the time she'd knocked
away enough ice to raise the trunk lid.

Shoving the packing boxes aside
,
she found the
stadium blanket zipped into its plastic carrying case. She and Dutch
had taken it to football games. It was for warding off an autumn chill,
not surviving a blizzard, but she supposed it was better than nothing.

She returned to the prone figure. He lay as still as death.
Her
voice rose in panic. "Mr. Tierney?"

He opened his eyes. "I'm still alive."

"I had a hard time getting the trunk open. Sorry it took so
long."
She spread the blanket over him
.
"This
won't be of
much help, I'm afraid. I'll try—"

"Save the apologies. Do you have a cell phone?"

She remembered from the day they'd met that he was a
take-charge
kind of man. Fine. This wasn't the time to play the feminist card. She
fished her cell phone from her coat pocket. It was on, the panel was
lighted. She turned it toward him so he could read the message. "No
service."

"I was afraid of that." He tried to turn his head, winced and
gasped, then clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. After
a moment, he asked, "Can your car be driven?"

She shook her head. What she knew about cars was limited, but
when
the hood looked like a crumpled soda can, it was reasonable to assume
that the car was disabled.

"Well, we can't stay here." He made an effort to get up, but
she
pressed her hand against his shoulder.

"You could have a broken back, a spinal injury. I don't think
you
should move."

"It's a risk, yeah. But it's either that
or freeze to
death. I'll take the gamble. Help me up."

He extended his right hand, and she clasped it tightly as he
struggled to sit up. But he couldn't stay up. Bending forward from the
waist, he fell on her heavily. Lilly caught him against her shoulder
and held him there while she repositioned the stadium blanket around
his shoulders.

Then she eased him back until he was in a sitting position.
His head
remained bent low over his chest. Fresh blood trickled from beneath the
tight watch cap, eddied around the front of his earlobe, and dribbled
down his jaw.

"Tierney?" She lightly smacked his cheek. "Tierney!"

He raised his head, but his eyes remained closed. "Fainted, I
think.
Give me a minute. Dizzy as hell."

He breathed deeply, in through his nose, out through his
mouth.
After a time, he opened his eyes and nodded. "Better. Think that
together we can get me on my feet?"

"Take all the time you need."

"Time is what we don't have. Get behind me and put your hands
under
my arms." She released him cautiously and, when she was certain that he
could stay upright, moved behind him. "A backpack."

"Yeah. So?"

"The awkward way you were lying, I thought your back was
broken."

"I landed on the backpack. Probably saved me from a serious
skull
fracture."

She eased the straps of the pack off his shoulders so she
could lend
him better support. "Ready when you are."

"I think I can stand up," he said. "You're there to break my
fall
just in case I start falling backward. Okay?"

"Okay."

He placed his hands on either side of his hips and levered
himself
up. Lilly did more than spot him should he fall. She made as great an
effort as he, lifting him until he was standing and then supporting him
until he said, "Thanks. I think I'm all right."

He reached beneath his coat, and when he withdrew his hand, he
was
holding a cell phone, which evidently had been clipped to his belt. He
looked down at it and frowned. She read the curse word on his lips. He
wasn't getting service either. He motioned toward the wrecked car. "Is
there anything in your car we should take back to your cabin?"

Lilly looked at him with surprise. "You know about my cabin?"

Scott Hamer clenched his teeth against the strain.

"Almost there, son. Come on. You can do it. One more."

Scott's arms trembled with the effort. Veins bulged to a
grotesque
extent. Sweat rolled off him and dripped from the weight bench onto the
gym mat, making small splats against the rubber.

"I can't do one more," he groaned.

"Yes you can. Give me a hundred and ten percent."

Wes Hamer's voice echoed in the high school gymnasium. Except
for
them, the building was deserted. Everyone else had been allowed to go
home more than an hour ago. Scott was required to stay, long after
classes were dismissed, long after all the other athletes had gone
through their after-school workouts as set
out
by
their coach, Scott's father, Wes.

"I want to see maximum effort."

It felt to Scott like his blood vessels were on the verge of
bursting. He blinked sweat from his eyes and expelled several puffs of
breath through his mouth, spraying spittle. Tremors of overexertion
seized his biceps and triceps. His chest seemed about to explode.

But his dad wasn't going to let him stop until he had pressed
four
hundred twenty-five pounds, more than double Scott's body weight. Five
reps had been the goal set for him today. His dad was big on setting
goals. He was even bigger on achieving them.

"Stop screwing around, Scott," Wes said impatiently.

"I'm not."

"Breathe. Send the oxygen into those muscles. You can do this."

Scott inhaled deeply, then expelled the air in short pants,
demanding the impossible of his arm and chest muscles.

"That's it!" his dad said. "You raised it another inch. Maybe
two."

God, please let it be two.

"Give me one more effort. One more push, Scott."

Involuntarily, a low growl issued out of
his throat as he
channeled all his strength into his quivering arms. But he got the
weight bar up another inch, enough to lock his elbows for a millisecond
before his dad reached over and guided it into the brackets.

Scott's arms dropped lifelessly to his sides. His shoulders
slumped
into the bench. His chest heaved in an attempt to regain his breath.
His entire body trembled with fatigue.

"Good job. Tomorrow we'll try for six." Wes passed him a towel
before he turned away and moved toward his office, where the telephone
had begun to ring. "You shower. I'll get this, then start locking up."

Scott heard his father answer the phone with a brusque
"Hamer," then
ask, "What do you want, Dora?" in the deprecating tone he always used
with Scott's mother.

Scott sat up and ran the towel over his face and head. He was
whipped, absolutely spent. He dreaded even the walk to the locker room.
Only the promise of a hot shower got him off the bench.

"That was your mother," Wes called to him through the open
door of
his office.

It was a messy space that only the brave dared enter. On the
desk
were stacks of paperwork which Wes considered a waste of time and
therefore avoided doing for as long as possible. The walls were covered
with season schedules for numerous sport teams. A two-month calendar
was filled with his handwritten hieroglyphics, which only he could read.

Also taped to the wall was a topographical map of Cleary and
the
surrounding area. His favorite hunting and fishing spots had been
highlighted with a red marker. In framed photos of the last three
years' football teams, Head Coach Wes Hamer stood proudly in the center
of the front row.

"She said it's beginning to sleet," he told Scott. "Get a move
on."

The pungent odor of the high school locker room was so
familiar to
Scott he didn't even notice it. His own stink mingled with the stench
of adolescent sweat, dirty socks, jerseys, and jockstraps. The odor was
so pervasive it seemed to have soaked into the grout between the tiles
in the shower room.

Scott turned on the faucets in one of the stalls. As he peeled
off
his shirt, he looked over his shoulder into the mirror and frowned with
disgust at the outbreak of acne on his back. He stepped into the shower
and put his back to the spray, then vigorously scrubbed as much of it
as he could reach with an antibacterial soap.

He was washing his crotch when his dad appeared, carrying a
towel.
"In case you forgot to pick one up."

"Thanks." Self-consciously he removed his hand from his
private
parts and went to work on his armpits.

Wes draped the towel over a bar outside the stall, then
motioned
toward Scott's groin. "You take after your old man," he said around a
chuckle. "Nothing to be shy about in that department."

Scott hated when his dad tried to get chummy with him by
talking
about sex. Like that was a topic Scott was just dying to discuss with
him. Like he enjoyed the innuendos and suggestive winks.

"You've got more than enough there to keep all your
girlfriends
happy."

"Dad."

"Just don't make one
too
happy," Wes
said, his smile
inverting. "You'd be a real catch for one of these local gals looking
to elevate herself. They're not above tricking a guy. That goes for any
female I ever met. Never trust the girl to take care of birth control,"
Wes said, shaking his index finger as though this was a new lecture and
not one Scott had been routinely subjected to since puberty.

Scott turned off the water faucets and reached for the towel,
quickly wrapping it around his hips. He headed toward his locker, but
his dad wasn't finished yet. He clamped a hand on Scott's wet shoulder
and turned him around. "You've got years of hard work ahead before you
get to where you're going. I don't want some gal to turn up pregnant
and ruin all our plans."

"That's not going to happen."

"Make damn sure it doesn't." Then Wes gave him an affectionate
push
in the general direction of his locker. "Get dressed."

Five minutes later Wes locked the gymnasium door behind them,
securing the building for the night. "Bet anything school's out
tomorrow," he remarked. Intermittent sleet was falling, along with a
dreary rain that instantly froze on any surface. "Be careful where you
step. It's already getting slick."

Cautiously they made their way to the
faculty parking lot,
where Wes had a premium space, reserved for the athletic director of
Cleary High School, home of the Fighting Cougars.

The windshield wipers labored against the freezing rain on the
tempered glass. Scott shivered inside his coat and pushed his fists
deep into the flannel-lined pockets. His stomach growled. "I hope Mom's
got dinner ready."

"You can have a snack at the drugstore."

Scott turned his head quickly and looked at Wes.

Wes kept his eyes on the road. "We're stopping there before we
go
home."

Scott sank lower into his seat, pulled his coat close around
him,
and moodily stared through the windshield as they moved along Main
Street. There were Closed signs in most of the store windows.

Shopkeepers had left early, before the worst of the weather
moved
in. But it seemed no one had gone straight home. Traffic was heavy,
especially around the grocery market, which was still open and doing a
brisk business.