Be Mine at Christmas(25)
Author: Brenda Novak

“I don’t feel any major injuries,” he said. “Can you walk?”

Not Mark. Mark’s replacement. Mark’s old acquaintance turned political enemy. “I th-think so.” Why weren’t his teeth chattering? How could he remain calm, even through this?

She should’ve expected it. She’d often said he was made of stone. His wife, already ailing with cancer, had committed suicide two years ago, six months after Mark’s death. But Maxim Donahue had never shown so much as a hint of regret. She could still remember the implacable expression he’d worn when he appeared on television on a completely unrelated matter only days after Chloe Donahue’s funeral.

Adelaide had always resented him for the ease with which he’d been able to return to business as usual. He made carrying on look simple. Probably because he cared about nothing as much as his own ambition. That was part of the reason she’d decided to run against him. What Donahue had said about her late husband provided the rest of her motivation.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

The pilot didn’t utter another sound. Cox. Adelaide knew she’d never forget his name again. Not if she lived to be a hundred.

“Wh-what about M-Mr. Cox?”

Light appeared. At last. But it wasn’t the emergency lights. It was the blue glow of flames licking across the cockpit. The flicker illuminated the slumped figure of the pilot.

“Get your hands out of the way!” Maxim Donahue shoved her fumbling fingers aside, unlatched her seat belt and half dragged her to the door, where he pulled the barely visible emergency latch. But the door wouldn’t open. They were trapped. Unless they could discover where that wind was getting in….

Grabbing her shoulder, he shoved her toward the back. “Find the opening. I’ll get Cox.”

Find the opening. Adelaide could feel the wind, the cold, even the wet snow seeping through the wreckage, but her head injury left her dizzy, stupefied. She couldn’t think. Especially when she heard Donahue behind her, his gruff voice carrying a terrible note of finality. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” she repeated, unable to absorb his meaning.

He didn’t clarify. He pushed past her and kicked at the walls and windows. But the fire in the cockpit yielded more smoke than light. Flames stole along the floor, threatening to destroy the only hope they had.

Adelaide’s nose and throat burned. And the sticky substance, the blood, coming from the wound on her head kept running into her eyes. She wiped at it and blinked and blinked and blinked, but it made no difference. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t imagine how they’d live another five minutes.

Suddenly, the plane shifted, and a great gust of ice and snow blew back her hair.

Donahue had found an opening. He’d widened it. That brought a poignant burst of hope. But at the same time, metal screeched against rock, echoing miserably against the night sky. Then the plane tilted at a crazy angle and the floor beneath their feet gave way.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FRIGID BLAST of air that represented escape hit Maxim Donahue just as the plane plummeted down the side of the mountain. Had he not already lunged for the opening, he would’ve experienced a second crash—and Adelaide Fairfax would’ve gone down with him. As it was, the movement of the plane jerked her so hard he nearly lost hold of her. Numb from the cold and blinded by swirling snow, he wasn’t sure he’d managed to pull her out until her hand patted its way across his chest as they lay, prone, in the snow. Maybe she wanted to confirm that he was still with her. Or maybe she was just seeking warmth. They were both going to need it. He wondered if they’d last long enough to be rescued.

“I’m here,” he yelled above the raging storm. “You okay?”

“That depends on how…you define okay.” The wind made it difficult to communicate, but at least she seemed to be making sense. The shock of the crash had caused her to react with a sort of stunned lethargy. He was under the impression that she’d still be sitting in her seat if he hadn’t unbuckled her restraint and prodded her to get moving. But that didn’t surprise him. There’d actually been studies showing that only a small fraction of the people involved in plane wrecks got themselves out. Another small percentage grew hysterical. The majority did neither. They simply stayed put and allowed themselves to die.

A bang resounded far below, indicating that the plane had come to rest.

The pilot was still inside.

The image of Cox’s body, now probably as mangled as the twisted metal that encased it, made Maxim sick. But he couldn’t change what was, couldn’t turn back time. His only choice was to do what he’d done with Chloe’s death—bury the shock and grief in some other part of his brain so he could function. If the panic he held at bay ever took root, it’d spread so fast he wouldn’t be able to stop it. Just as Adelaide had remained buckled in her seat, watching flames devour the cockpit, he’d find himself lying in the snow, unable to move or even think. And if ever he needed to keep his wits about him, it was now. Together with a wing and some other debris from the crash, which looked more like props in a movie, they were a few feet from the edge of a steep precipice. The wind whipped at them feverishly. If they weren’t careful, those gusts would toss them over the side just like the main body of the plane.

Why had he put himself in this situation? Why had he listened when Cox insisted they could beat the storm? They should’ve stayed in Tahoe as they’d initially discussed. Instead, Maxim had succumbed to the pressure of Governor Livingston’s phone call. But only because he’d wanted to make the party. He couldn’t slow down, couldn’t stop working. That would give the emptiness in his life a chance to catch up with him.

“What are we going to do?” Adelaide called.

The irony of being caught in this situation with the one person he disliked more than any other hit him, and he began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “We’re stranded on the side of a cliff in one of the worst storms to hit the Sierras in a decade. We’re going to die up here, and you’re laughing?”

He felt no obligation to explain. “I’ve finally pushed fate too far,” he muttered instead.

He doubted she’d heard his reply, but she must’ve understood a little of what he was thinking because she shouted, “Who do you figure will win the primary if we’re…not there?”