Chilled (Bone Secrets, #2)(50)

There.

She felt a single beat at her fingertips. Then another. Very slow, but strong. His heart hadn’t stopped; he hadn’t been without air for too long.

“He’s got a pulse. Get him breathing.” Thomas and Ryan exhaled at her words.

Jim was already working at it.

“Come on, Alex.” Brynn watched Alex’s chest move with Jim’s powerful breaths. The beat under her fingertips increased slightly in speed and she nearly cried in relief.

He’s going to make it.

Behind her Ryan sat hard into the snow, and she studied his exhausted face. He’d overdone it. He’d been ill to start with, and now he’d pushed too hard.

But not too hard if it saved Alex’s life.

At that moment she heard a rasping breath from Alex. Jim pulled the mask off, and the two of them rolled Alex to his side as he coughed and took rough breaths. She met Jim’s eyes.

We did it. He mouthed the words at her as his eyes filled.

Brynn brushed at her own wet eyes.

Ryan let out a whoop and pounded Alex on a shoulder. “Goddamn it, Kinton, you scared the crap out of us!” Ryan threw an arm around Brynn and laid his head on her shoulder, rubbing his eyes on her coat. She felt him sway with fatigue.

“Holy shit,” Alex said as he hacked and coughed and looked at the team with blurry eyes. He had snow frozen to his hair and eyebrows. Next to his icy, pale skin his lips now looked unusually red and flushed.

“Thanks.” He spit the word out with a gasping breath. Brynn brushed some of the snow out of his face and laid her cold hands on his cheeks to warm him. Compared to him, her skin was on fire. He blinked unsteadily at her, and she couldn’t breathe. The way Alex stared was setting off sparks in her brain.

“Hey.” She swallowed hard, unable to pull her gaze away. “I thought…We thought…” Her thoughts evaporated in the heat generated by the pounding heart in her chest.

Those steel-gray eyes of his turned sharp as razors. “I know. Me too. God, you look gorgeous.” Shivering lips pulled into a lopsided grin. “My lips are numb. So’s everything else.”

“We’ll get you warmed up.” She turned to the men and rattled off directions.

Alex sat wrapped in a space blanket in the cargo area of the plane and huddled over the tiniest portable stove he’d ever seen. He’d tucked everyone’s hand warmers into his armpits and into his pants, but he still shivered. He wanted to pick up the stove, wrap his coat around it, and hold it against his chest. Damn chills wouldn’t stop. His hand shook as he took a sip of the hot broth that Brynn had heated for him. It blissfully burned its way down his esophagus. He sipped again and sighed.

“Good stuff?” Ryan poked his head in through the open end of the airplane. When the avalanche had spun the body of the plane like a toy, it’d left the open end half-buried in a snowbank. A person could just squeeze through. They’d already decided to pack snow into the space to close it and use the hatch toward the rear of the plane for exiting and entering. After they looked for the packs.

Ryan’s shaggy hair poked out around his hood and his eyes looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter studying for college finals.

“Like single malt whiskey.”

Ryan’s gaze went to the little stove, and Alex wondered if he wanted to tuck it under his coat too.

“Got your pack from the top of the hill?”

Ryan nodded. “Two packs for the five of us. That’s not good numbers.”

“Someone will come in after us.”

Ryan shook his head. “I think we’ve had our window of good weather. The weather on my GPS is showing nothing but storms for the next two days.”

“We won’t starve in three days.” Alex watched Ryan pale and swallow hard. “Stomach still a wreck?”

“Let’s not talk about food.” His smile was feeble.

“GPS working?”

Ryan nodded. “They’re all showing the same readings now. I don’t know what the f*ck was wrong with them earlier.”

Alex took a sip of salty broth as Ryan stepped all the way into the plane and held his hands out to the little stove. He studied Alex from head to toe. Alex raised a brow. “Surprised to see me breathing?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.” Alex stared at the stove and its glowing flame.

“What do you remember?”

Alex was silent for a moment. His stomach knotted as he pulled up the memory. “I remember seeing you and Brynn waving at me. I remember looking up the hill and seeing a wall of white rushing at me.” He took another sip. “I remember thinking I was a dead man and tried to run.” He rubbed at his leg. Brynn had shoved three Advil in his hand along with the broth, but his knee still felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Or an avalanche.

“You didn’t get very far,” Ryan spoke softly.

“It was loud; I remember that. And then my ears were plugged with snow, but I could still hear the roar. Maybe the sound was in my head.”

Ryan shook his head. “No. It sounded like a train or tornado coming. That sucker was loud.”

“It reminded me of being tossed in the ocean while bodysurfing. You know, when you can’t tell up from down? That absolute panic that makes you pump your arms and legs and hope you’re headed toward the surface. That was my only thought. For some reason I knew I needed to move like I was swimming. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to end up on my back. I could have ended up head down. That would have been a hard target for you diggers to hit.”