Sluggish work to get her goggles off and then the sheepskin hat off her head and onto his, brushing away snow as she went. She put her goggles back on and set her palms to his cheeks, praying warmth reached him in time. ‘Cole, wake up.’ He stirred and he opened glazed eyes but he’d have to do better than that. ‘Cole, look at me.’
He tried, bless him, he tried.
‘Rees, concentrate.’
‘Told you we’d be okay,’ he mumbled and started to slip back into the dark.
‘No. Cole. Hey. Rees. Wake up. Time to go.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Go.’ He put his hand to his head, which had to be aching. She approved of the movement but she stopped him before he could dislodge the hat and find the blood. ‘I’ll stay here.’
‘No, you’ll die here. Cole, concentrate. And move. We’ve lost our shelter. It’s almost dark. We need to go.’
‘Go where?’
Good question. Not a question she had a ready answer for. ‘I think … okay, I think we have two choices. We either stay here and tuck into what’s left of the gondola, or … If you think you can climb we try and find our way back to top station. The cable’s still attached to something up there. Look.’
He followed her gaze to where the gondola cable did indeed stretch tautly upwards.
‘I don’t think we should stay here,’ she said anxiously. ‘Not if you can move. What do you want to do?’
‘Climb,’ he said after a lengthy pause, and she helped him sit up, and then stand up, and that was how it began, one foot after the other with the cable as their guide.
Jolie fell in behind Rees, and she held her breath every time he went down until he got up again, for she’d never be able to carry him on her own. No, if Cole Rees was to reach the top he’d have to do it under his own steam, which meant tapping into reserves of determination and strength. Or anger and rage. Whatever worked.
‘You know what I hate,’ she said finally, tapping into her own rage when it looked one time as if Cole wasn’t going to get back up. ‘People who have everything handed to them on a plate and who then just give up at the tiniest little obstacle.’
‘That so?’
‘Yep.’ The accompanying hand she offered him got him mad, but it got him up. ‘You know what else I hate?’ she said. ‘Men who think they can have it all. If I ran hell there’d be a pit especially for them and I’d lower them into it inch by inch until they came to realise that even if they could have it all, maybe they shouldn’t.’
‘You’ve got a lot of hate in you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Tell me about it. I also hate mean drunks and sleazy tippers, but who doesn’t?’
‘I hate needy conniving women.’
‘Me too,’ she said emphatically. And as an afterthought, ‘You really should try men.’
‘So should you,’ he murmured. ‘Is there any particular reason you’re dressed like a boy? You looking to be one?’
‘Nope,’ she said.
‘So … what? You have half a dozen older brothers and you borrow their clothes to go work on the mountain?’
‘Nope.’
‘So why the disguise?’
‘Habit.’ That and necessity. And that was that for conversation for a while as they concentrated on getting another fifty metres up that bloody mountain. Halfway to nowhere, with the snow still falling and the wind whipping at their clothes. Jolie was warm enough. Chances were Cole Rees wasn’t.
The cable rose above their heads now, good news if it meant they were nearing top station. Bad news in that it gave Cole no stable support. He fell again, and this time he left a dark stain in the snow where his head landed.
‘Cole.’ She scrambled to her knees beside him. His face was pale, his lips almost blue, and this time his eyes were closed. ‘Cole, wake up. C’mon, we’re almost there. Talk to me. Tell me what you hate.’
‘I saw them together once.’ His eyes were still closed. ‘Buying clothes.’
‘Who?’ She grabbed his arm and hauled him upright, tried to get her shoulder beneath his arm to help him up. ‘Who did you see?’
‘Rachel and Jolie Tanner. And my father.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Jolie grimly. She should know. ‘Maybe he was just passing by.’ She got him to his feet and let him lean on her while he adjusted to being upright and his blood dripped down her cheek.
‘Have you seen them?’ he said next. ‘Rachel Tanner and her daughter?’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen them.’ Why was he harping on this? Had he guessed her identity?
‘Then you know,’ he said.
‘Know what?’ Jolie slipped out from beneath his shoulder, waited until he’d steadied, and then took the lead, forging a path through knee-deep snow, trying to make it easier going. For him. ‘That they’re whores?’
‘That they’re stunning.’
Not what she’d been expecting to hear from this man, though she’d heard it all her life. She glanced back at him but his eyes were on the terrain at his feet. How much longer could he keep going? ‘That’s hardly a crime.’
‘There’s this arrogance about them.’
‘Bull,’ she whispered beneath her breath.
‘As if they know what you’re thinking and don’t give a damn.’
‘Maybe it’s a defence mechanism.’
‘It’s maddening, is what it is.’
She didn’t dignify his comment with a reply.
‘Rachel Tanner kept my father in thrall for over twelve years. She knew he had a wife and children. Responsibilities. She didn’t care.’
‘Shouldn’t he have been the one caring about all that?’
‘He did care,’ said Cole roughly.
‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘Just not quite enough to stop his adultery. Paragon that he was.’
‘That’s my father you’re talking about.’
‘So it is.’ Jolie clamped her mouth shut and let her anger take her further up the slope. Anger was useful. But it left too fast, ripped out by the wind and the cold, and in its place stood a wall of snow and the first faint stirrings of defeat. ‘It can’t be much farther. It just can’t,’ she murmured.
But it was.
They kept moving, with the gondola cable as their guide.
Jolie kept the lead until she’d exhausted herself, and then Cole drew level with her and shot her a glance.
‘And then there’s the daughter,’ he said hoarsely as he trudged past her to take point.
‘What about the daughter?’ Perhaps if he fell over again she could kick him up the slope.
‘She’s exquisite,’ he muttered. ‘And cunning.
She had my father wrapped around her little finger. He got her job after job.’
‘He what?’
‘She never kept any of them.’
‘Maybe she didn’t like any of them,’ said Jolie through gritted teeth. What jobs had James Rees got her? Dishwasher at the Holiday