Chill Factor (42 page)

He groaned, buried his face in her neck, and came.

When the crisis passed, he relaxed. Totally. She absorbed all
his
body weight. But only briefly. He gave himself scarce moments to
recover before levering himself up several degrees.

Watching her expression with fierce intensity, he slowly
reached
behind him and slid his hand along her thigh until he reached her knee.
Folding his hand around it, he guided it back until it was even with
his shoulder, resting on her chest. He did likewise with the other
knee. Her sex flowered open, exposing the tender center of it. He slid
his hand between their bellies, into the damp where they were
connected. The pad of his thumb found what it sought. His touch was
delicate, but a jolt of sensation shot through her.

She almost sobbed as his thumb tantalized her with small,
slippery
circles. He lowered his head to her chest, raked his teeth across her
nipple so she would feel the caress through all the layers of clothing.
Ever so slightly he increased the pressure of his thumb.

The pleasure built and built until every nerve ending in her
body
buzzed and tingled, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
Her nipples strained to the point of near pain. A scream was trapped
inside her throat as it arched high against his waiting lips. The walls
of her body milked his penis, still buried deep inside her, ample even
in its softness.

The aftershocks of the orgasm continued for several minutes.
When
finally they ceased, Tierney kissed her lips lightly and gathered her
beneath him.

Neither made a move toward disengaging themselves.

Not a word had passed between them.

They hadn't even disturbed the blankets covering
them…

Lilly came awake with the memory of last night intact, every
detail
having replayed in her mind even while she slept. Her body felt languid
and heavy, chafed by lust, drowsy with satiation. Tierney was curved
around her, the fronts of his thighs aligned with the undersides of
hers, her bottom snugly tucked into the concave warmth of his lap.

When she tried to move, he grumbled a protest and gently
tightened
his arm across her waist.

"Bathroom," she whispered.

"Hurry back."

"Save my place." As she slid away from him, she glanced over
her
shoulder. His eyes were closed, but there was a smile on his lips.

In the fireplace, only a few live coals were glowing beneath a
deep
layer of ash. The room was frigid. She pulled on her coat as she
tiptoed to the bedroom door. The hinges squeaked when she pushed open
the door; she halted, looked over her shoulder. But Tierney had gone
back to sleep. His even breathing continued uninterrupted.

She hoped he would sleep for several more hours to make up for
yesterday's exhaustion. His body needed rest in order to heal.

The bathroom was impossibly cold. She finished her business
quickly
and returned to the living room. Tierney still slept. As quietly as
possible, she placed the two remaining logs on the grate and stirred
the smoldering coals beneath, adding a few splinters of kindling to
spark flames.

Soon they would need more wood. She debated only a moment
before
going in search of her scattered clothing. She found her underpants and
slacks beneath the covers, pushed to the foot of the mattress. The rest
lay scattered across the floor or on pieces of furniture where they'd
been tossed.

When she had assembled the articles, she dressed hurriedly.
Her
boots had dried. The leather was stiff but no longer cold and damp. She
put on her gloves and wound Tierney's scarf around her throat.

The last thing she did was use her inhalers.

When she stepped out onto the porch, she immediately noticed
that
the clouds had cleared. Although the sun was well below the mountain
peak, the eastern horizon was a golden pink color. Overhead the sky was
spattered with stars, still visible against the deep indigo blue. Gauzy
clouds scuttled above the peak, carried by a wind strong enough to bend
the treetops and toss about branches.

Despite the wind, the day held the promise of rescue.

Nevertheless, they must prepare as though help would be unable
to
reach them today. The logs in the stack of firewood on the porch were
thick. Without being split, they would be slow to catch fire. Tierney
had managed to split smaller ones with the hatchet, but it would be
useless against the wood that remained.

She looked across the clearing in the direction of the
toolshed. It
hadn't snowed that heavily since Tierney's return late yesterday
afternoon, so the path he had cleaved was still discernible.

She'd used her inhalers. It wouldn't take her but a few
minutes to
walk to the shed and back. Despite his insistence that the ax wasn't in
the toolbox, she knew it was. He'd just overlooked it.

She wasn't foolish enough to try to split the logs herself.
She'd
save that chore for him. He wouldn't be pleased with her for fetching
the ax, but after he'd saved her life, the least she could do was spare
him this one task. The fresh air felt good, even if she had to breathe
it through Tierney's scarf. She also welcomed the chance to stretch her
legs after being cooped up for the better part of two days.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she went down the
steps and
started along the narrow path that Tierney had made through the snow.

Tierney. Strange she had never called him Ben. Even that day
on the
river, she'd used his first name only once, and then he had corrected
her. "Everybody calls me Tierney." It suited him.

Stirred by the memory of how many times she'd spoken his name
last
night in passion, she hugged her coat about her and buried her smile
deeper inside his scarf. His scent seemed to have been woven into the
wool fibers. She relished it.

Happier than she'd been in a very long time, she crossed the
clearing without mishap.

And then she entered the woods.

William Ritt led Dutch and Wes from his carport to the back
door of
his house, then through the kitchen into the living room.

"There are still some live coals. I'll have a fire going
soon." He
crouched in front of the grate and went to work.

Dutch was wild with impatience. Every minute he spent idling
in
neutral worked to Begley's advantage. He didn't need a fire. He didn't
want a fire because of the time it would take to build one.

Still, he was hesitant to bully William to the point where he
would
defy Dutch's threat of impounding the snowmobiles and withdraw his
offer of their use. So he stood by and watched as William added logs to
the grate and stirred the coals.

Before it slipped his mind, Dutch took a two-way radio
transmitter
from one of the zippered pockets of his ski suit. He nudged Wes and
pressed it into his hand. "In case we get separated up there. Remember
how to use it?"

Wes nodded. "Press the button to talk, release to listen."

"Right. It's good for up to seven miles."

The logs had caught. William stood. "There, that's better.
I'll get
Marilee up to make some coffee."

"We really don't have time," Dutch said. "Just give us those
keys
and we'll be on our way."

"It won't take but a few minutes. She'll fill a thermos for
you to
take along." He motioned them closer to the fire. "Make yourselves at
home."

"Really," Wes said, "I hate for you to disturb Marilee on our
account."

"She won't care," he said and started down the hallway.

Dutch, figuring he might just as well take advantage of the
warmth
while he could, approached the fireplace and extended his hands toward
the flames. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw William approaching a
door midway down the hall.

Even if Dutch didn't have a deadline, he would still be
against
waking up Marilee. That would be an additional person who knew his and
Wes's plan, and the more people who knew about it, the better the odds
were of having it screwed up.

Too late now.

William tapped twice on the bedroom door before pushing it
open.
Then he just stood there, arms at his sides, staring. Why was he
standing there staring into his sister's bedroom, acting weird even for
William Ritt? Dutch wondered.

Unless what Willian was staring at had rendered him unable to
move,
unable even to react.

Dutch's cop instincts kicked in. He spoke William's name with
a
question mark behind it, but already he was moving down the hallway. He
wouldn't be surprised to see blood spatters on the walls and a
dismembered body.

"What the hell's going on?" asked Wes, who also must have
noticed
William's strange behavior and was following close on Dutch's heels.

In the few short seconds it took to reach the bedroom, Dutch's
adrenaline was pumping in cop mode. Mindful not to rush into the room
and destroy or compromise crime evidence, he drew up short at the
doorway and pushed William out of his way.

There were no blood spatters. Marilee had not been
dismembered. She
was sitting bolt upright in bed, covers drawn to her chin, staring at
him, shocked speechless by the intrusion.

Beside her in bed, equally shocked, was Scott Hamer.

"Oh, shit." Dutch spun around, hoping to block Wes from
getting any
closer, but he was already there.

He shoved Dutch into the room, then stood with his hands
braced
against the doorjamb as though he needed them for support. "What the
hell is
this
?" he boomed.

"Wes." Dutch reached out to lay a cautionary hand on him, but
Wes
knocked it aside as he angrily lumbered toward the bed.

Scott threw off the covers and scrambled out of bed. He was
buck
naked. But far from ashamed. He faced his father belligerently. "It's
exactly what it looks like.
Dad
." He attached the
name like
an epithet.

Dutch guessed that Wes was furious as much over Scott's
defiant
attitude as over catching him with his pants down. But it was to
Marilee that he directed his furious glare. "You couldn't get a
man
,
you pathetic old cunt."

Scott sprang forward and rammed into Wes like a linebacker,
driving
his head into his father's belly and propelling him back several feet.
He crashed into an old-time cheval glass. Wood splintered, and the
mirror shattered into a thousand shards. That didn't stop Scott. He was
pummeling Wes with his fists and yelling how dare he talk to Marilee
like that?

Dutch could see that both of them would be sliced to ribbons
by
broken glass if he didn't intervene. Glass crunching under his boots,
he grabbed Scott around the waist from behind and hauled him off Wes,
who was winded and panting.

Dutch slung Scott toward the other side of the room. "Simmer
down
and put your clothes on, Scott. Wes." With his head, he motioned him
toward the door. Wes shot one murderous look toward Marilee, then
stepped into the hall. Dutch followed, pulling the door closed behind
him.

Wes paced the hallway like a caged lion. Dutch turned to
William,
ready with a suggestion that they return to the living room to await an
explanation when he realized that William didn't need an explanation.
He was wearing a self-satisfied smirk. And suddenly it all made sense
to Dutch. William's insistence they come to the house and wake up
Marilee, that had been a ploy. He'd staged this scene. "You son of a
bitch. You knew."

William didn't even try to hide it. "My sister is a noisy
lover. To
say nothing of Scott."

Marilee stepped out of the bedroom, remarkably composed,
wrapped in
a robe, her hair pulled back in its customary ponytail. "Scott has
left," she said. "He's extremely upset."

Wes bore down on her. "He's upset?
He's
upset?"

"Yes, and he is my only concern."

"Well, you'd better be concerned about future employment. Your
teaching career is over."

"I realize that, Wes, so you can stop yelling at me. I'm not
afraid
of you. Nothing you threaten me with will hurt or matter."

"How many other boys have you taken to bed?"

"Scott is not a boy."

"Don't smart-ass me. You should be begging my forgiveness."

"For sleeping with Scott?"

"For fucking him."

"How is that worse than giving him steroids?"

Dutch reacted with a start. He shot Wes a look of dismay, but
Wes
didn't see it. He was so angry, he was shaking. At his sides, he was
clenching and flexing his fingers as though preparing to wrap them
around Marilee's throat.

Impervious to his seething, she turned to her brother and
looked at
him with contempt. "This is what you've been savoring. All the
innuendos and smug gibes. References to a non-existent infatuation with
Wes. This is what they've been about."

"I hoped to appeal to your conscience, get you to break it off
before it came to this."

"No you didn't," she snapped. "Far from it. You wanted a scene
like
this because you're small, and peevish, and cruel, William."

"Forgive me for pointing out, Marilee, that you're in no
position to
call me names."

"What will you do for entertainment now, I wonder. Not that I
care.
I'll be moving away as soon as I can make other arrangements. You can
go to the devil." Then she turned and retreated into the bedroom,
gently closing the door behind her.

Wes confronted William. "You knew about this and didn't tell
me?"

"And spoil the surprise?"

Dutch clotheslined Wes across the chest as he lurched toward
the
man. William was a third Wes's size. It would be murder. "Leave it for
now, Wes." When Wes backed down, Dutch took a step toward William.
"Give me the keys to the snowmobiles."

"I can't think of a reason why I should."

Dutch took a step closer. "How's this for a reason? If you
don't
give me those keys, I'll unleash Wes to rearrange the bones in your
face, and you'll be slurping your food through a straw for the r
est
of your cocksucking life."