At the Brink (41 page)

“I’ve got another condition, and it’s non-negotiable, so think carefully before you answer.”

“I want to come.”

“Not yet, sweet, I haven’t said you can.” I could barely hold myself in check. “You have to agree to my last condition.”

“Oh, God,” she rasped. “What is it?”

“For good.” There was no way that I could ever survive being separated from Lily again. “You’ve got to promise me for good.”

“For good?” She whimpered. “Are you sure?”

“Non-negotiable.”

The smile she beamed on me would warm me to the end of times. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I said. “You won’t forget?”

“I’m in,” she said as we both started to come. “For good.”

* * * * *

To purchase and read more books by Anna del Mar, please visit Anna’s website
here
or at
www.annadelmar.com

And look for THE STRANGER, coming from
Anna del Mar and Carina Press in August 2016

Coming soon from Carina Press and Anna del Mar

Fire meets ice and opposites attract...

Read on for a sneak preview of

THE STRANGER

The Stranger

by Anna del Mar

Chapter One

Trouble welcomed me to Alaska. It ambushed me in the guise of an invisible patch of black ice that launched my car spinning into a triple Lutz. I pumped my brakes. Nothing. My rental careened over the ditch and bounced down the steep ravine. The rocks pummeling the undercarriage rattled my brain. I was distantly aware that the shriek piercing my eardrums came from my throat. My headlights illuminated the Sitka spruce that materialized before me, down to the huge, corrugated trunk that collided with the hood, bringing my involuntary detour to a jarring stop.

Silence. Only the sound of my ragged breath and my pulse, pounding in my temples, interrupted the atmospheric quiet. I pried my fingers from the wheel and stared at my shaking hands. They flickered in and out of focus until I managed to even out my breaths.

The good news? I was alive and, although the wreck had probably relocated some of my internal organs, nothing seemed broken. The bad news? The air bag hadn’t gone off and pain throbbed in my thigh and somewhere behind my ear. Crap. I’d come to Alaska to find my wayward sister, but my search had hit a major snag. Time to figure out how bad of a snag it was.

My hand was still quaking as I reached into my purse and found my cell. Zero bars. I groaned. What was the point of technology if it never worked when you needed it most? I snatched my purse and pulled on the door handle. The door refused to open. I scooted across the seat and opened the passenger side door, grateful to crawl out in one piece.

The cold hit me like a slap to the face. My nostrils flared and my lungs ached with the arctic wallop. To a tropical gal like me, the air smelled as though someone had stuffed a live Christmas tree in the freezer. Delicate snowflakes floated in the air like tiny speckles of silver. This was the first time I’d seen snow in real life. It was pretty, kind of magical really, but the cold crawled under my skin, stiffened my muscles, and clung to my bones. I pulled my hood over my head. Had it been this cold when my plane landed in Anchorage?

My wrecked rental looked like a deflated accordion wedged between the slope and the spruce. I had no prayer of backing it up the hill. I tackled the ravine, scrambling on all fours, and followed the wheel ruts up the slippery incline. It wasn’t easy. I wore a narrow pencil skirt under my Burberry trench coat, and a pair of four-inch heels I now wished I’d never bought.

It served me right for allowing my stepmother to choose my outfit for the Darius project presentation. Louise was a sucker for shoes—the taller, the better. Note to self: Never again relinquish your feet to someone else’s sense of fashion when it’s you—and you alone—who has to suffer the resulting torture.

I’m not sure how long it took me to climb back to the road, but by the time I reached the top, my toes had gone numb, my hands ached, and my fingertips had turned white. The road I’d been driving on looked totally benign, not like the camouflaged skating rink that had hurled my vehicle into the ravine.

I clapped my hands together to warm them up. The sound echoed for miles around me. Stuck in the Alaskan wilderness. Unreal. It was an unlikely predicament for a gal who’d much rather be at the beach. Shark attack? Sure, it wouldn’t surprise me if that ended up being part of my obituary. But frozen alive? Only if it involved a freak accident in Publix’s frozen food section.

“Summer Silva, get your act together,” I said aloud to break the eerie silence. My father hadn’t clung to a capsized raft for three days in the Florida Straits in order for me to die on my first day in Alaska.

I straightened my coat, shoved my hands into my pockets, and began to walk. A layer of slush-covered ice crackled beneath my heels. Yikes. My feet slid every which way and my legs wobbled.
Steady Silva
. I could handle the unwieldy shoes...on firm, unfrozen ground. The only ice I’d ever dealt with came out in little cubes from the automated dispenser in the freezer door.

Five minutes later, the cold skewered me like an arctic fork. Not a single car had made an appearance. I leaned into the bitter wind. I wasn’t made of sugar and spice. I was tough, and I meant to get out of this one, but I was majorly pissed. I was so going to give Tammy a piece of my mind when I found her.

I envisioned my sister lying on a white pelt in front of a roaring fireplace. I mouthed off into the deepening darkness. I was the levelheaded one. I was the one who always followed the rules, cleaned up the messes, did the responsible thing. And yet, right now, I was the one freezing my butt off on a desolate Alaskan road.

The headlights caught me by surprise. They sprang out from behind the curve and pierced the dusk. I waved my hands and flagged down the speeding vehicle. As it got closer, I made out a Ford F-450 super charged, black as night, the type that would’ve made my truck-obsessed sister drool with envy. The truck drove right by me before the taillights lit up and it skidded to a stop, then accelerated in reverse.

The window whirred down to reveal the warmth and comfort of the softly illuminated cab. The leather-scented, heated air wafted from the window and teased my frozen senses. A man sat at the wheel, enveloped in a black thermal jacket that I would have gladly traded a thousand bucks for, on the spot. His face might have been handsome, if it hadn’t been distorted by the scowl that wilted my poor attempt at a smile.

He more or less growled. “Who the hell put you up to this?”

“Excuse me?” I clutched my hood against a sudden burst of wind.

“You better come clean right now,” he bit out in a tone that matched the frosty temperature. “A name. I want to know who the hell hired you and what you were expected to do.”

“Hired me?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.” He eyed me like a wolf eyed a meal. “Who was it? Was it someone related to me? I swear, if you don’t tell me this goddamn minute, you’re going to be sorry.”

I stared at the man in the cab, unable to comprehend his rage. What on earth was he talking about? The fury blazing in his striking, amber eyes frightened me. As it was, I was so cold I couldn’t think, let alone make sense of what he was saying. I rubbed the sore spot behind my ear. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought. Maybe this was a dream or a nightmare. Oh, God. My stomach clenched. I really hoped I was awake. I shoved my hand up my sleeve and pinched my arm. It hurt. In fact, a lot of me was either throbbing or aching. A good sign, yes?

“Well?” he said. “Are you going to speak up or are you dumb, deaf, and mute?”

“Um, no.” I rubbed my arms. “I usually have a lot to say. It’s just that...well... I’m cold and you—I’m really sorry to have to tell you—but you sound like a crazy person.”

He launched another blistering glower in my direction. “For the last time,” he said, his tone intractable, “Who the hell put you up to this?”

“Nobody,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My car skidded off the road and I’ve got no cell reception.”

“Your car?” He looked up and down the road. “I don’t see a car. Where is it?”

“Back there somewhere.”

I’m not sure whether my treacherous heels slid on the ice or whether fatigue did me in, but my feet went out from under me and, though I clung to the window, I landed on my knees.

“Ow,” I might have said aloud.

“What the hell?”

Oh, lord. I let go of the window and my dignity at the same time. I surrendered to the elements and settled precariously on the frosty ground. The cold iced my shins, traveled up to my core, and chilled my spine. I was about to pass out from exhaustion. I had been up for over seventy-two hours. On top of that, I was suffering from a bad case of jetlag. If all of that wasn’t enough, the wreck had jarred my senses. I wasn’t in good shape and I knew it.

But I couldn’t allow myself to go unconscious. No, sir, I knew the risks of passing out in front of a stranger too well. I just needed a moment to gather my strength, defrost my brain, and get my act together. I leaned my forehead on the door and, basking in the warmth radiating from the undercarriage, forced myself to stay alert. Surely, I could get some help, the crazy man would go on his merry way, and I could move on to finish what I had come to do.

The truck quaked with the slam of a door. Angry steps crunched on the road. A pair of hiking boots parked by my side. I looked up and cringed. The man’s scowl pummeled me. From my perspective on the ground, he soared above me, tall and imposing, a giant really. His knees cracked when he crouched next to me.

“Did Alex hire you?” he said. “Alex Erickson?”

“Who?”

“Are you telling me you don’t know who Alex Erickson is?”

“I don’t.”

His breath came out in angry puffs that condensed in the air. He looked like he was about to spit fire. “Do you know who I am?”

“No clue,” I said. “Am I supposed to know?”

“You tell me. If no one put you up to this, then what the hell are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Not taking a walk in the park, that’s for sure,” I muttered.

My throat made this weird noise, a cross between a sob and a giggle, a sound that combined confusion with hilarity, fear with absurdity. But I wasn’t going to cry. No way. I wasn’t going to panic either. The part of me that felt utterly ridiculous kneeling on the frozen pavement in the middle of nowhere won out. I pressed my hand over my mouth, but the quiet giggles leaked out anyway.

The man rubbed the back of his neck and frowned, a dip of full eyebrows that screamed vexation. “Do you think this is funny?”

“Funny?” I couldn’t stop giggling. “No, not funny, more like hilarious.”

“Jesus Christ.” He raked his fingers through his longish hair, leaving a bunch of straight, flaxen strands in disarray. He didn’t know what to make of me, but he sure knew how to scowl.

The shivering, combined with his radioactive glower, stifled my giggle attack. I forced myself to pay attention
.
Determination whetted the man’s features and set the line of his jaw into a straight angle. A shade of stubble covered the lower half of his face, imbuing him with a golden glow that echoed the gleam in his eye, but there was nothing soft in his stare, not a hint of humor or friendliness.

At least he looked cleaned and groomed, unlike the rugged, hygiene-challenged characters I’d met in the three back-to-back episodes of
Alaska’s Bush Men
I’d binged-watched on the plane. Alaska had never been on my long list of places I wanted to visit, but after watching the shows, I had questioned my sister’s lucidity and the sanity of people who lived away from even the most basic human comforts. Now I wondered about this surly stranger too, the first off the grid Alaskan I’d met.

“Is your cell working?” I said. “Could you please call the police?”

“There’s no reception on this stretch of road.” The copper-hued eyes probed my face. “If you really need help, I’m all you’ve got.”

The world whirled around me. I steadied myself against the truck. Three days ago, I had been in the middle of the most important presentation of my professional life when Louise had called to tell me about my stepsister, Tammy. I had already been short of sleep and high on stress, but since then, I’d been on the go, trying to get to Alaska.

The earth beneath my knees shifted again. I tightened my grip on the truck and took a deep breath. I wasn’t one to fall apart so easily.
To bad weather, a brave face
, my father used to say, quoting an old Spanish proverb. I might be out of my comfort zone, but I hadn’t given up on my pride just yet. I straightened my coat and, balancing carefully on one knee, planted one foot first, then the other. I rose slowly from the iffy crouch.

“Oops!” My heels skidded in opposite directions. I fell, bounced on my butt, and ended up sprawled on the ground all over again, rear smarting from the impact. Crapola. I cursed under my breath.

“Damn it.” The man hooked his hands under my arms, lifted me up, and set me upright. “There. Do you think you can stand on your own?”

“Maybe,” I mumbled, rubbing my ass. My legs buckled, but I stared at my feet and willed them to stick to the ground.

“You’re shivering.” He opened the car door. “Get in.”

“No, thank you.” Even if I was freezing, there were rules about cars and strangers. “Can you please call for Roadside Assistance?”

The man actually scoffed. “No reception, remember?” He eyed me impatiently. “Lady, you do know that there’s a storm barreling down on south central Alaska, right?”

“The clerk at the airport did mention that.”

“But did he mention that anytime now, a Bering Sea superstorm is expected to bring blizzard conditions with winds in excess of sixty miles an hour?”

“Um, no.” I swallowed a dry gulp. “He didn’t put it quite as bad as that.”

“It’s going to get much colder,” the man said. “Emergency services went on lockdown about fifteen minutes ago.”

God almighty.

“What I’m trying to tell you,” the man said in a strained tone obviously intended for the dimwits among us, “is that—assuming you’re not a trap—I’m you’re only option at the moment. So get in the damn truck, before you freeze your ass off.”

Dressed in his black jacket and blue jeans, glinting with all that gold in his eyes and hair, he looked perfectly normal. Minus the scowl, he might have even been good looking. But his bad temper and my flash-frozen brain made for a bad combination. Plus, there was a good chance he was more than paranoid and grouchy. Maybe he was off the grid in more ways than one.

“Look,” he said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m in a shitty mood.”

“No kidding.”

“I wasn’t expecting this. You. Whatever.”

I perched my fist on my hip. “Do you think I was expecting you?”

“Just get in, okay?” He gestured to the cab. “I want to get indoors before the storm hits.”

“Where I come from, hitchhiking is dangerous.”

“Too bad,” he said. “In Alaska hitchhiking is a common form of transportation.”

“As far as I know, you could be a serial killer.”

“So could you.” He held the door open for me. “And my risk is higher than yours, since according to the Discovery Channel, female serial killers are rare but have been proven to be more prolific than male serial killers.”