Free Fall

_{Chapter 16}

"Breathing's shallow," Logan said quietly to Lily. They were on either side of Matt, boots braced against the tree so as not to slip down the vertical slope. Lily was carefully trying to free Matt of the snow covering him to see his injuries.

Logan had no idea how long Matt had been down, but given the amount accumulated on him, it'd been at least an hour.

"Oh, Matt." Lily tugged off her gloves and put a bare hand to his frozen face.

"Don't move me."

Shocky but at least coherent, Logan thought, meeting Lily's gaze over his, fear and worry in her eyes. He ran his hands over Mart's limbs, but his dread only increased as he discovered why Matt didn't want to be moved. Looked like a possible fractured femur, some cracked ribs and a nice gash above his eyebrow, which was where the blood had come from.

Lily took in the injuries for herself and had to visibly harden herself. "We won't move you until we have to."

"Just fly me out of here," Matt said.

Again she looked at Logan. They both knew there was no way they'd get a helicopter in here with all these trees, and even if they could, the weather was too far gone for that.

They had no choice but to get him down the hill first. "Matt," Lily said.

Matt closed his eyes. "I really screwed this up."

Logan had already taken off his jacket and wrapped it around Matt's torso, and Lily removed hers, as well, setting it over his legs, trying to keep him safe from hypothermia. "Look at it this way," she said. "You're already injured so Sara can't do much worse to you for vanishing on her. Where the hell is your radio?"

"Lost it."

Logan slid his fingers against Matt's wrist to take his pulse. Weak and thready. He shook his head at Lily.

She removed her helmet and reached for her radio with a shaking hand. It wasn't the first time Logan had seen her remain cool and calm under incredible pressure, but it was the first time he'd seen it cost her. He wanted to make this okay for her, but he couldn't, and knowing she was strong enough to deal with it, knowing in fact that he could count on her to be just as strong as he was, was an amazing thing.

She was amazing. He'd never been with a woman like her before, one just as capable and resilient as anyone on his SAR team. What would it be like to be with her day in and day out, knowing his back was covered through thick and thin?

"I'm going to make it?" Matt's voice shook as his body trembled violently. "Right?"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not dealing with a pregnant Sara alone," Lily said, trying to be tough and failing.

Matt didn't notice. "The baby," he said softly, and a dreamy smile covered his face. "I almost forgot…"

"Don't tell Sara that."

He frowned. "Head hurts."

"Yeah, you cracked it good." She eyed the line of blood that had oozed from the wound, drying now.

"Stay awake," Logan said when Mart's lids dropped.

"Don't want to."

"Too bad." Lily leaned in so she was nose to nose with him. "Don't you go to sleep. Don't you dare."

"Hm-mmm."

"Matthew Edward Wallace." Her voice shook now as she grabbed his jacket. "Don't you leave me. Don't you leave Sara. Or that baby Matt!"

"Yeah. Here." Matt winced, "just…resting my damn eyes." He licked his dry lips. "Don't you guys have chocolate or something? Aren't you rescue people supposed to offer me chocolate?"

Lily sat back and let out a low laugh, squeezing Logan's hand when he reached for hers. He looked into her eyes and saw her fear for Matt, her uncertainly that they could actually get him down without doing more harm. He squeezed her hand again and for one brief moment, she clung.

From her, the gesture felt like a shouted declaration of her feelings, arid it jerked his own to the surface. But he heard snowmobile engines in the distance. Letting go of her, he scrambled up the hill to flag the other rescuers down, a feat in itself in the deep, thick snow.

The snowmobiles had to be left at the top of the cliff. It took a series of people and ski poles used as stakes on the vertical climb in order to get ready to move Matt. His condition had deteriorated and he kept shifting in and out of consciousness. They got him in a litter with a cervical collar around his neck and a hard board beneath his back, but a smooth lift wasn't possible with the steep, unforgiving terrain. Twice the litter slipped a few feet, once setting off a slide of snow.

Lily held her breath the entire time, watching the hill carefully because they were ripe for an avalanche, which would just top this whole disaster off nicely. But a nerve-racking forty-five minutes later, he was up at the top, the litter attached to a snowmobile.

Getting him down took a coordinated effort of the snowmobiles. Two in front to try to make a steady track, a difficult enough task with the steadily falling snow that had covered their route already. Following them went the snowmobile that towed Matt, and then another behind, on the radio, calling out the condition of the litter and whether it was a steady enough ride for their patient.

As the procession took off, Lily turned to Logan. She felt overwhelmed with emotion.

"It's only been a week," she said.

He didn't blink at the ridiculous and quick subject change. He didn't scoff it off or laugh. He just nodded, and she could have loved him for that alone. "The best week of my life."

"It's not long enough to know," she whispered, and shoved up her face guard.

"Some things don't take a lot of time." He stroked a gloved hand over her jaw. "You're one of those things for me."

She shook her head, even as she grabbed his hand and held it to her face. "I'm not ready for you to go."

"Then come with me. Come to my world for a week. For longer. For whatever you can give me."

Go to his world… He could have no idea how tempting that was. She didn't understand what it was inside her that made her fight this thing so hard when in truth, she wanted him so very much. The depth of his concern and compassion, coupled with what he'd claimed to feel for her and what she saw in his eyes, robbed her of speech. He was so solid, so right, so good for her, and she buried her hands in his jacket, tugging him close, kissing him hard. He instantly reciprocated, gliding his arms around her and hauling her close with a low groan that reached in and wrapped around her heart.

He loved her.

Loved her.

Staggering, really. But somewhere along the way, the hard knot of panic had loosened-slightly, anyway-and just thinking it began a glow of warmth from the inside out.

Only a couple of hours passed from the time they'd set out looking for him until they made it back to the lodge, but in that time, the storm had worsened and the roads were all closed again. Logan wasn't going anywhere for a while, but worse, neither was Matt.

They got him inside the first-aid room. Because the lifts had never opened, there wasn't a medic on duty, but Lily Logan, and Chris all had medical training. They stayed in touch with the local E.R. by phone, doing what they could for Matt, making sure he was warm and stayed still. Sara made sure he stayed awake.

She could have kept the dead awake the way she wailed at the sight of her husband. Lily tried to calm her down, but nothing could do that. Even Matt wanted the hell out and kept asking if the roads were clear. Logan wanted desperately for Matt to be able to get out and get to the hospital.

But for himself, he'd have been fine if the snowstorm never let up.

Lily grabbed a badly needed moment alone, standing just outside the first-aid room, protected from the snow by the roof's overhang, staring out into the storm.

Footsteps came up behind her, and then Aunt Debbie appeared at her side. "I need a moment with you."

Lily glanced at her, all decked out in her usual expensive finery. The only thing missing was her mocking smile. "Sorry. I'm exhausted and not up for any witty repartee."

"You put your life on the line to save Matt. You did it without even blinking."

Lily lifted a shoulder. "I blinked plenty."

"You do that every day," Debbie said softly in an awed voice that had Lily taking another look at her.

Wow. Aunt Debbie was really impressed by her. Stop the presses. "Have you somehow missed the meaning of ski patrol, and the fact that I've been on it for years?"

"Yes," Debbie said honestly. "I have. And I want to tell you in advance that I'm sorry though I don't deserve for you to accept my apology."

"What are you talking about?"

"When Mom left you this place, I was green with envy."

"You were not. You said good riddance and moved to New York."

"No, I believe my exact words to you were that I wished I believed in voodoo so I could curse you with pins and needles and watch you die a slow, torturous death."

Lily laughed.

Debbie's lips quirked. "Yeah, you did that then, too. And since most of what I wanted to do to you is frowned on in today's society, I settled for talking bad about you every chance I could." Her smile faded. "And playing silly little pranks on you to amuse myself."

A chill took hold of Lily that had nothing to do with the storm outside. "What?"

"Like removing a few out-of-bounds signs, screwing with your food deliveries, putting up party posters, messing with your computers. Even tossing random files from your desk into the trash."

Lily stared at her. "And then today with Matt…?"

"No! God, no, I didn't get him hurt on purpose." Debbie's eyes filled. "That was just stupid, dumb, bad luck."

Lily saw the tortured honesty in her aunt's eyes, and swearing lavishly, she paced the deck. This was unbelievable. She'd been racking her brain, trying to figure out if one of her staff members, or even a guest, could have been the one causing trouble, and all along it had been the one person she'd never even considered. Sure, Aunt Debbie had been a pain in the ass, with her demands and her the-world-owes-me-service attitude, but this…this betrayal was way over the top.

"You did hear the I'm sorry part, right?" Debbie asked her when she came close again.

"Why the hell would you do any of this?"

"I told you. I was jealous. Here we were, two peas in a wild pod, and yet somehow you still managed to make my mother believe you could handle all this."

"I didn't ask for it."

"No, that only made it worse." Debbie's smile was sad now. "Because you pulled it off in spite of not wanting to. I wanted to hate you for that, and instead I only love you more. Damn it. Now if you want to kick me out, I get it. But I'm telling you I'm done making trouble for you."

Lily could only let out a baffled laugh. "Do you want me to thank you? Do you know how many times you sicced Gwyneth and Sara on me, making my life a living hell?"

"Yeah." Debbie sighed in remembered pleasure. "And that was always fun to watch. I wish my sister and I were as close as you three."

"You are insane. We're not close."

"Aren't you?"

Lily looked out into the storm as her thoughts raced. Gwyneth was a sanctimonious pain in her ass, but she always had Lily's back, always, whether Lily wanted her to or not. And so did Sara.

And she had theirs.

"I'll leave as soon as I can get out," Debbie said. "I think I might have overstayed my welcome this time."

"What, you think you can just create havoc all over the lodge, and then disappear to leave someone else to clean up your mess?"

"I can't believe you'd want me to stay."

"I don't want you to stay. I don't want you anywhere near me right now. But you're going to face the consequences of your selfishness, and you're going to do it here. When this crisis is all over, when Mart's safely in the hospital and the guests are home, you're going to sit down with Gwyneth and Sara and you're going to explain exactly what you did to me, to the lodge, and why. It will be up to us as a family to decide where we go from there. Until then, you are going to stay in the lodge and you are going to work your ass off. Cleaning rooms, bussing tables in the cafeteria, shoveling snow- Whatever this lodge needs, you're going to do it."

There was a split second when she thought Debbie was going to argue, was going to come back with a smart-ass comment, but then she straightened her shoulders and met Lily's gaze. "If you're willing to have me here, then fine. I suppose it's the least I can do."

"Damn right it is," Lily said, trying to stop her hands from shaking in the aftermath of way too much adrenaline flooding through her system. She'd take a mountain cliff in a storm any day over this kind of crap. "You can start now, by washing down the tables in the cafeteria."

Debbie simply nodded. And then she was gone, leaving Lily alone, watching the snow fall in eerie silence, wondering why everything seemed… wrong.

Lily had never known the snow to fall so relentlessly. It continued to come down at the rate of a foot an hour, choking the life right out of the entire Tahoe basin and seeming to put her entire world into a weird time freeze, where everything that was wrong stood in ultraclear focus.

"At least we have food," Matt muttered, half delirious, half wasted with pain meds. "We're not going to have to turn into the Donner party." He forced his eyes open. "Promise me we're not going to turn into the Donner party. The weak got eaten first, and I'm feeling pretty damn weak at the moment."

Sara stroked his hair. "I promise to eat Gwyneth and Lily first."

"Okay, then." He smiled faintly, and Sara just sat there staring at him as if she could heal him if she wished for it hard enough. Lily could hardly bear to watch her sister's anguish.

As dark fell and more hours passed, Gwyneth pulled Lily aside in the first-aid room. Lily tried to hold on to what was left of her patience

She had her hands full worrying about Matt, the trapped guests and a distraught Sara, who kept throwing her arms around Lily, saying she was the most incredible sister ever. That was just new enough to have Lily liking it. "What?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Gwyneth whispered.

"I know things are all messed up, but you can yell at me later."

Gwyneth's mouth dropped open. "You think I want to yell at you for all that's gone wrong today?"

"Don't you?" Lily looked over Gwyneth's shoulder to Logan, who was bending over Matt, talking to him, trying to keep his spirits up, though Matt's leg and ribs were costing him considerable pain. Lily worried about how badly he needed surgery, about the possibility of internal injuries that they couldn't diagnose without an E.R. Her heart squeezed, hard.

"The radio says that the snow will be letting up in a few more hours. When it does, we'll kick everything into gear. We'll get Matt to a hospital, the guests in and out…and Logan to the airport." The reference to Logan seemed to slip out accidentally, reminding her of his words.

Come to my world, he'd said, probably never dreaming she'd actually consider it. And then, as if he felt her eyes on him, he straightened and looked right at her, with everything he'd claimed to feel for her in his eyes.

To take or leave.

"Oh, Lily." Gwyneth, queen bee, tyrant and a half, ruler of both her universe and Lily's, stood there as her eyes filled. "You feel for him," she whispered. "It's beautiful."

"No, it's not. It's…messy."

Gwyneth laughed even as a tear fell.

Unease filled Lily's belly. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to tell you something."

"What? And why are you crying?"

"What you do around here couldn't be done by anyone else, including me. I think I'm finally getting that. You have strength and commitment in spades and I'm sorry I ever let you feel like you didn't. Lily, I think you're incredible." Gwyneth hugged her hard. "Incredible," she repeated softly, and walked away.

Lily could only stare after her. Both her sisters thought she was the best thing since sliced bread today, which felt odd for a couple of reasons. One, she was the same person she'd been yesterday, last week. Even last year. Nothing had changed, so to be so suddenly accepted made her feel…off balance.

She'd finally proven herself to them, and yet the strangest thing was that she'd discovered she no longer needed their approval. She was okay with herself, she liked herself, and though it was lovely to have her family on board with her, their acceptance didn't change anything. "Gwyneth?"

Her sister stopped and turned. "Yeah?"

"If Grandma had died this week instead of last year, and left you the resort now, what would you do?"

Gwyneth smiled. "Do you trust me, Lily? I mean really trust me?"

"1 haven't," she said honestly.

"I know. But now?"

Lily cocked her head, surprised by all she saw in her sister's eyes. "I think maybe I do."

Gwyneth just smiled and walked away.

What did that mean? She looked over at Matt in bed. Logan sat at his side, reading from a joke book someone had hunted up. Sara sat on his other side. Every minute or so, Matt patted her arm, reassuring her he was alive. Lily watched the wordless glances they shared, glances that expressed everything they felt with such ease.

Because it unnerved her, made her feel things she wasn't ready to feel, she left the room and tried to bury herself in work. There was certainly enough to do, but everywhere she turned, what had to be done was being done. Logan had Matt's care covered, Gwyneth had managed any business stuff, the cafeteria was still up and running and Chris was handling snow-removal crews.

But damn it, she stood outside her office needing something to do so she could turn her damn mind off.

"Hey," Logan said, and tugged her around to face him. "It's late. Why don't you sleep?"

"I don't want to be asleep if Matt needs me."

"He's got plenty of care. Chris came in to be with him for a while."

"But-"

"The snow's still coming down, but the radar confirms a letup coming in a few hours," he said. "I double-checked with the hospital. They're sending an ambulance for Matt soon as the roads clear."

The long, tenuous rescue came back to her-witnessing Mart's incredible pain, knowing that if he'd been out there any longer they might have lost him. And just like that, she broke. "Oh, God."

He opened his arms, bringing them hard around her. "Hey, he's going to be okay. He's going to be in a helluva lot of pain for a while, but he's going to be okay."

She nodded and let herself cling, pressing her face to his throat, inhaling the innate scent of him that she'd grown so attached to in just a matter of days. In only one more, he'd be gone. He'd already be gone if Mother Nature hadn't intervened. She tightened her arms.

He let out a low sound and held on. "You never changed your clothes after the rescue."

"I'm okay."

"You've got to be chilled. Come on, let's go get you warm. Maybe get some sleep, too. Sara and Gwyneth have everything under control." Before she could protest, he'd led her to her room, nudged her inside and toward the bathroom for a hot shower.

She had to admit the hot water on her sore, chilled body felt incredible, but something was missing. Someone. She slid open the curtain to call out for Logan, but he was right there, waiting with dark, melting eyes. "In," she said, and tugged him into the shower, clothes and all.

Laughing softly, he hauled her close and kissed her, long and slow. She had no idea how he could make her feel so cherished and yet so hot and itchy at the same time, but he did. He always did. Together they stripped him out of his clothes, but when she tried to wrap her legs around him to draw him inside her body, he shook his head. "In the bed," he said softly against her mouth.

But her body was already humming, throbbing and halfway to bliss because of that shocking way he had of getting her to come with seemingly no effort. "Logan-"

"Bed." And he lifted her himself, dropping her, wet and still steaming, to the mattress, following her down.