C.J. Carmichael - A Sister Would Know

“Mr. Thorlow?”

Grant raised his head from his paperwork and saw the face of a dead woman. Helen Fremont.

He dropped his pen, stiffened his back and stared.

It was her—exactly. Long blond hair, even features, crystalline blue eyes. Had they made a mistake? Had she managed to ski to safety?

The prickles, which had danced along the skin on his hands and neck, subsided. Not a ghost after all; this had to be Helen’s sister, whom he’d contacted in Toronto a little while ago and informed of the tragedy.

“We were identical twins,” Amalie Fremont said. “I take it you didn’t know. You didn’t like her very much, did you?” she added.

That was an understatement. He’d first met the woman shortly before Christmas, and found her flighty, brittle and insincere. He liked her even less now. Undoubtedly, her reckless skiing had caused the avalanche, and his best friend was dead because of her.

If only she’d never passed through their quiet mountain community. Her brand of trouble belonged in the big city as far as he was concerned. As for her twin sister, he was less sure. Amalie Fremont’s gaze held qualities of intelligence and reserve that he’d never glimpsed in Helen.

Plus there was that inexplicable buzz he’d felt from just shaking her hand….

Dear Reader,

I’ve often made the drive from Calgary to Vancouver through the Rocky Mountains. One year I was with my husband and two daughters, when we decided to stop at the information center at Rogers Pass. That was where I first saw the video Snow Wars, and decided that a man who worked at Avalanche Control would make a perfect hero for a romance novel.

Several years passed before I developed the plot to suit my hero and had my editor’s approval to go ahead with the book. Now I needed to drive back to Rogers Pass to flesh out the details for my story.

I have to be honest. Some books are just more fun to research than others. The men at Avalanche Control in Rogers Pass couldn’t have been more helpful. Together we worked through different scenes in my book, melding my storytelling ideas with the physical realities of the setting. They shared tales of successful rescues and of heartbreaking tragedies. Cheerfully, they endured all my questions, from “How long do the batteries in an avalanche transceiver last?” to “How many minutes can someone survive once buried by an avalanche?”

I hope that in this book I’ve done justice to their answers and their profession.

Readers, I’d love to hear from you. You can e-mail me at cjcarmichael@SuperAuthors.com. Or write to Suite #1754—246 Stewart Green S.W., Calgary, Alberta, T3H 3C8 Canada.

Sincerely,

C.J. Carmichael

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my sisters, Kathy and Patti, with love

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to those real-life heroes in Rogers Pass for their generous assistance with my research: Dave Skjonsberg, manager, Avalanche Control; Jeff Goodrich and John Kelly, avalanche observers; Alan Polster, park warden, Glacier National Park.

Thanks, also, to Pat Dunn, at Parks Canada, who helped me gather much useful material.

Any factual errors are mine.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HELENA FREMONT KNEW that her dilemma was at last resolved. Her obligations to Davin, her baby, had been taken out of her hands.

Panic choked a cry from her throat. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t see. Burning pain shot up from her left leg—broken—but this was the least of her problems.

Air. How much had been buried with her? How long would it last?

The avalanche had carried her too far, buried her too deep to hope for rescue. When the oxygen that had been submerged with her was gone, she would soon follow.

I’m sorry, baby. Please forgive me.

The noon sun had been shining through the light curtain of falling snowflakes an hour earlier when she and Ramsey had set out for their day of skiing. Now, in her coffin of packed powder, Helena held the picture of her infant boy in her mind. She saw him as he’d been in the minutes after his extraction from her womb, over eleven years ago. The last time she’d set eyes on him.

That labor, the birth, her experiences after…Even now, her final minutes ticking away, the memory was a horror. Better to go like this—a slow, but relatively painless death.

Better for her, perhaps…Guilt pressed in like the snow above her head. Fifteen minutes ago she’d laughed at the risk of an avalanche. Her companion, Ramsey Carter, had tried to steer her along the safe ridge that he’d mapped out in the small wooden shack where they’d spent the night.

But the virgin drifts on the sloping bowl had been too inviting. She’d dug in her poles and pointed her ski tips toward the inviting concave mountain basin. Around her the snow lay in thick scallops from the previous day’s storm. The whoosh and scratch of her skis against the ice crystals were the only sounds as she swooped down the 35° slope.

Except for Ramsey’s cry. “Helen!”

She’d laughed and tucked her body lower to the ground. Funny how many ways there were to outrun pain. She never would’ve guessed skiing on the edge of her control could be one of them. She almost felt she was flying. Then suddenly she really was in the air. She glanced down and couldn’t see her feet.

Something hit her from behind and she was falling, ski poles dangling wildly from the safety straps attached to her wrists.

Now the snow was no longer fluffy, but hard, concrete stuff that burned her skin and bruised her bones as she was sucked deeper within it. The skis, which had allowed her to skim the crystal surface just minutes before, were now anchors dragging her down. Her flailing arms became imprisoned in the mounting piles of snow, ensnared, too, by their attached poles.

When her free fall finally stopped, she was like a butterfly mounted on Styrofoam. Movement was impossible. How much snow settled above her? She had no idea. All she knew was that she was packed in and everything around her was dark and absolutely still.

In the isolating darkness, it was a shock to realize she could still hear the world above—tree limbs rubbing in the stiff breeze, the squawking from a couple of disturbed whiskey jacks. She tried to struggle, but her range of motion was limited to the wriggling of her fingers from hands spread out sideways to her body.

Too late she wished she had kept them in front of her face before she was buried. Snow pressed in on her eyes, against her nose and mouth, making it a struggle to gasp for air.

Had Ramsey seen the avalanche in time? Been able to ski to safety? She hoped he hadn’t followed her, wasn’t at this moment risking his life for hers.

Flashes of light played before her eyes. She knew the snow must be cold, but her body beneath the tight ski pants and Nordic sweater felt warm, the pain in her leg almost trifling. She listened for Ramsey’s voice above, but moments passed and she heard nothing.

She hoped he would be safe. It was only fair. He, after all, had a family to return to. While she did not.

She thought of Davin, her baby, her love. Poor baby. Regret pounded through her veins, along with her cooling blood. What was she doing here? She never should have left the first time. Nor the second…