Racing Against the Clock Read online

  Embarrassed, she rested her forehead against his shoulder. Did he find her too brazen? Too eager?

  He hitched two fingers through the belt loops at her hips, lowered her jeans to her knees and helped her step out of them. She was left with only a pair of skimpy white cotton panties.

  “You are gorgeous.” He softly pressed his lips against her belly button.

  Hannah giggled as pulses of hot pleasure shot throughout her entire body. He straightened and kissed her again.

  She kept sneaking peeks at them in the mirror even though the image was blurred with steam. She was surprised at how sexy they looked, their bare flesh entwined. Her excitement grew.

  “Voyeur,” he teased, reaching over to clear a spot on the mirror with his palm. “If you want to watch, then watch.”

  For a second, before the steam clouded it over, she captured a glimpse of their faces. They looked blissfully happy.

  Amazing. How was this possible? Their lives were in chaos and yet, in the midst of it all, they found the courage and the resilience to reach out to each other.

  To give solace with their bodies.

  “Time for a shower.” He slipped a finger into the elastic of her flimsy panties and began to edge them down. When she was completely naked, he held out his hand and helped her into the shower.

  Warm water closed over her like a welcoming embrace and her sighs of pleasure erupted deep and throaty. Hannah was facing forward, eyes closed, water slicing down her face so she heard and felt his presence rather than saw him when, a second later, Tyler edged open the etched-glass shower door and stepped in behind her.

  He touched her back with a bar of scented soap, and she sucked in her breath at the sheer poetry of the moment.

  She had never showered with another person. She found the notion erotic and intriguing.

  His slippery hands went to work on her neck. Hannah purred and leaned forward, her wet hair falling across her face. Her skin tingled with delight every place that he touched.

  His fingers explored gently, ascertaining which spots made her squirm with pleasure and which areas were sensitive to the slightest provocation. The heat inside her built, growing and growing and growing. She was wet and hot and needy.

  Oh, so needy.

  The soap dropped to the bottom of the shower stall. Neither noticed.

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her around. They kissed under the shower spray, water sliding into their mouths along with their tongues.

  Her nerve endings came alive with enjoyment. She relished every sensation, from the taste of his lips to the feel of his fingertips strumming her nipples.

  He was so damned sensual. He knew exactly where to touch. She writhed in anticipation, desperate for more.

  “That’s it,” he cooed and his seductive voice sent her blood racing through her loins.

  He nudged her against the back of the shower stall, away from the water. The tile was cool against her blazing backside, his manly appendage throbbing at the apex of her womanhood. Here she was, neatly positioned between two very hard surfaces.

  She reached for him, but he blocked her hand. “Patience.”

  Lowering his head he captured one nipple that stiffened to a pebble between his teeth. His hand trailed over her hip before entangling in the patch of hair between her legs.

  Hannah groaned. Not a sweet, delicate feminine moan but a groan born of hungry need.

  Like a match to gasoline, he inflamed her. Hannah could think of nothing but Tyler and this incredible wanting surging through the floor of her pelvis.

  “Tyler,” she murmured. “Tyler.”

  “I’m here. Always here.” He nuzzled her throat with his lips while his magical, miracle fingers kept caressing and massaging, threatening to send her over the edge of sanity.

  Using soft, rhythmic movements, he stroked between her legs until she moaned loudly.

  Her climax came hard and sudden, taking her breath and leaving her weak-kneed. If he hadn’t tucked her securely in the crook of his elbow, she would surely have fallen.

  “There now,” he whispered, after her shudders had subsided. “There now.”

  She clung to him, her hands around his neck, her head buried at the hollow of his throat. Tyler held her until the hot water grew too cold to tolerate any longer, then he gently lifted her from the shower stall and settled her onto the bath mat. Retrieving a towel from the towel rack, he began to dry her off, patting her hair, dabbing at her face, frisking her skin with the terry cloth.

  “Arms up,” he said.

  Obedient as a child at bedtime, she raised her arms over her head while Tyler dried beneath her arms, then dropped to his knees in order to whisk off the rest of her body.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, still stunned from the exquisite pleasure he had just bestowed upon her. “Are we through?”

  “Sweetheart—” he smiled up from his position at her feet, his tone lazy “—we’re just getting started.”

  His words brought a thrill and she shivered again, but from excitement, not the cold.

  He wrapped her in a fluffy white bathrobe provided by the ski resort and lifted her onto the bathroom counter. As lovingly as a mother, he found a blow dryer in a drawer and dried her hair, gently running a brush through her curls.

  Thirstily, she soaked up his pampering. She studied his face, memorizing every dear sweet inch. All throughout his courtly caretaking, Tyler remained unclothed and unashamed of his nakedness. Hannah admired his composure, his self-acceptance and wished that she possessed such aplomb.

  She also enjoyed sneaking quick, thrilling peeks at his exquisite figure. A week ago, if someone had told her she would be holed up in a ski chalet in the New Mexico Rockies with a handsome, desirable man, she would have laughed herself silly. Now, Hannah didn’t know what had taken her so long to start living.

  When her hair was dry and her body had returned to some semblance of normal, Tyler took her hand and led her to the bedroom.

  “Come,” he whispered.

  Anxiety careened through her insides and she was breathing harder than a chain-smoker halfway up Mount Everest. Hannah didn’t know what she was doing. She was no expert at lovemaking. Would she disappoint him in bed?

  His superb, beautiful buttocks flexed as he walked across the room, Hannah trailing behind him like a kite. If he hadn’t tethered her to the earth she feared she would fly through the roof, buoyed skyward by a heady mixture of joy and trepidation.

  This is really happening to me, she marveled. Me. Socially inept, sexually neutral, workaholic Hannah. Except at this moment, she felt anything but sexually neutral.

  One look, one touch from Tyler and all the libido she had stifled for thirty-two years came charging forth, more unstoppable than a rampaging buffalo herd.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her, his warm hands gliding inside the terry cloth bathrobe to gently cup her breasts.

  She was on fire, completely ablaze. His fingertips grazed her skin, raising goose bumps, heightening her desire.

  How she wanted him! With a devotion and intensity that took her breath and made her long for things she had no business longing for. Like a home and a family.

  “Lovely, lovely,” Tyler murmured and buried his head against her chest.

  When he took one of her nipples into his mouth, she arched her back, cried out with pleasure and helplessly tangled her fingers in his dark, silky hair.

  Urgency swept over her. And need. Starving, insatiable need. More. She had to have more of him. All of him. Now.

  “Hannah,” he whispered. “I want you so much, but I want to savor our joining. I want to remember this forever.”

  “Please, don’t deny me!”

  “Shh, I’m not denying you.” He smiled and tickled her lips with his fingers. “Simply enhancing the anticipation. Lay back. Relax.”

  She tried to do as he suggested but she was tense with yearning. She settled against the pillows but then a horrible thou
ght occurred to her. “Wait,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “We can’t make love.”

  “Why not? If it’s birth control…” He held up a condom he’d had palmed in his hand. “Courtesy of the honeymoon suite.”

  “It’s not pregnancy that worries me.”

  “Talk to me.”

  Hannah sighed and clutched a pillow to her naked breasts. How to explain her fear so that is didn’t sound irrational. “It just occurred to me. What if I’m contagious?”

  “Contagious?”

  “You know.” She waved her hands. “What if we make love and I pass this defect on to you? I’d never forgive myself.”

  “That doesn’t sound very logical, Hannah.”

  “And developing the power to heal from exposure to radiation and a miracle drug is? Come on, Tyler. We’re dealing with the supernatural here and there’s no parameters for what we’re up against.”

  “We’ve got a condom.”

  “Yes, and how many times have condoms broken? How many AIDS victims have infected their partners even though they were practicing ‘safe sex’?”

  “You’re saying we can’t make love.” The disappointment on his face reflected the distress in her heart. How she wanted him inside her! But she simply couldn’t take the risk.

  Tyler flopped down on the bed beside her. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Wait a minute.” Tyler snapped his fingers. “I’ve already been exposed to your blood.”

  “What do you mean?” She frowned.

  He held up a thumb and opened his mouth to explain when a sound from outside the chalet garnered their attention.

  A distant rumbling noise.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He met her gaze. The rumbling grew from a rattle into a muffled roar, accompanied by screams and shouts of panic.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “Something’s wrong.”

  Tyler’s face paled. “Avalanche.”

  Chapter 12

  They scrambled for their clothes, pulling on sweaters, tugging on blue jeans, jamming their feet into their shoes.

  The hinged windows and front door of the chalet blew open, spilling snow into the foyer. Hand in hand, Tyler and Hannah struggled to the entryway and peered outside.

  What they saw stunned them into silence.

  A shelf of snow approximately two hundred yards wide was quickly descending upon a group of half a dozen ice skaters struggling uselessly to scatter out of the way.

  They watched helplessly as the snow covered the pond and its victims, mere yards on the other side of their chalet.

  “Oh my God,” Hannah cried. “Those poor people. They’re buried alive!”

  “We’ve got to help or they’ll suffocate. Every second counts,” Tyler exclaimed.

  Together, they dashed outside but there was so much snow flying in the air they couldn’t see more than five feet in front of them.

  “This way,” Tyler shouted, pulling her in the direction of where they had last seen the ice-skaters. “And don’t let go of my hand!”

  Inch by inch, they labored forward, taking many precious minutes to traverse a few meager yards.

  Cold air filled Hannah’s lungs making each breath as painful as inhaling icy fire. The tip of her nose was numb, her fingers stiff inside her mittens. Her throat ached with fear and her heart thundered in her chest.

  There had been at least two children among the group of unfortunate skaters. She lunged through snow piling deep as her hips, all the while clinging to Tyler like a lifeline.

  The swirling residue from the avalanche began to dissipate, sharpening their visual acuity somewhat, but fresh snow was falling in fast, giant flakes dropping from a gray cloudy sky, and a restless wind gusted against their backs.

  They trudged forward, eyes on the ground, ears cocked for cries for help. Their clenched hands trembled. Powerful electrical currents flowed back and forth between them. They were connected, united by their mission and their burgeoning feelings for each other. She never wanted to let go of his hand.

  People from neighboring chalets who had also seen the incident joined them.

  “I think this might be the spot,” Tyler said to Hannah and dropped to his knees in a heavy pile of snow. She sank down beside him and they began to dig with their hands.

  Watching Tyler work, Hannah was thrilled. All his concentration was focused on the task at hand. Saving lives. His firm jaw was locked in determination, his shoulders rigid. He had dedicated his life to healing the sick. He helped anyone who needed him, just as he had taken her under his wing, given her shelter at his beachside home.

  He was that kind of man.

  Then a sudden thought hit her like a blow. Was she anything more to him than simply another life to save? Had he rescued her because it was so much a part of his personality that to not help was an impossibility? Was she nothing more than a charity case?

  Her old insecurities nudged at her. Men don’t do anything without a motive, Hannah, her mother’s discouraging voice rang in her ears. Always remember that. Never lose your head to any charming cad and you’ll never have a broken heart.

  “Are you all right?” Tyler’s voice cracked her reverie.

  “Huh?”

  “You seemed dazed. And you’re shivering. I think you should go back to the chalet.” His brow was knit in sincere concern, his tone compassionate.

  “No,” she insisted, shaking off her self-doubt in the wake of his concern. “I want to stay.”

  “Are you cold?”

  Cold? Sizzling hot was more like it. Hannah shook her head and stared down at the ice. Why was she so afraid of these feelings? Because she knew it couldn’t last? Because both of them were going to end up getting hurt?

  Because there was no such thing as happily-ever-after.

  No. Her mother was wrong.

  She raised her head, her gaze traveling from his broad chest encased in a thick down coat, up his neck to his jaw and beyond to face those immutable eyes again. Her longing for him increased tenfold. With a single glance, he demolished her control, chiseled past her armor.

  And it wasn’t bad. Not at all. In fact, there was an unexpected freedom in letting go of control. Of accepting whatever came. A sudden lightness of being unlike anything she’d ever felt before swept over her as she gazed into his dark, mesmerizing eyes. She knew then she could trust him. Utterly, completely without the slightest reservation.

  “I’m fine,” she murmured and gave him a slight, reassuring smile.

  “All right. But, please, don’t overdo it. If you find yourself getting weak, tell me.”

  Nodding, she began digging once more.

  “I found something,” she cried a few minutes later and unearthed a child’s bright red ski mask. At the sight of the festive garment, her bottom lip quivered. That mask said so much. A family had come here for a fun vacation and they had met with a horrible accident. She sat staring at the small mask until Tyler gently removed it from her hand.

  “Be strong,” he said softly. “There’s no time for emotions. Most avalanche victims die within the first thirty-five minutes and they’ve already used up at least ten. These people are counting on us to save their lives. Keep digging.”

  Bolstered by his encouragement, Hannah returned to her task with a vengeance.

  Next, Tyler found an ice skate. Grimly, he dug faster. Soon, two dozen rescue workers had linked up with them and were frantically combing through the snow.

  “The avalanche has blocked the main road,” one young man, a ski resort employee, said. Worry wrinkles marred his forehead. He had ridden up on a snowmobile and was busy passing out shovels. “The crisis staff can’t get up from Taos to help us and the snowfall is preventing helicopter flight out. We’re completely on our own.” The young man surveyed the area and shook his h
ead. “I’m afraid lives will be lost. The resort doctor went down the mountain this morning to take an emergency appendectomy to the hospital. All we’ve got left are a nurse and three paramedics.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Tyler said. He glanced at Hannah. “And so is my wife.” He was telling the same lie he had told the motel owner in Texas. But it was an honest lie. When they found the victims no one would question Hannah’s involvement.

  She looked at her hands and thought about the ordeal that lay ahead of her. This would not be easy. If each healing sapped her own strength, how would she hold up with so many needing her attention?

  “I heard something!” one of the other diggers exclaimed. “I think someone is crying for help.”

  Immediately, everyone converged on the area and in rapid succession, they had extracted four victims from the snow. All alive and breathing. Tyler examined each one of them.

  “Is this everyone?” he asked, several minutes later.

  “There was a lady and her little boy,” a teenage girl who’d been caught in the avalanche, replied. “I’d just met them this morning at breakfast. She was teaching her son to skate. We saw the avalanche and we were trying to get out of the way before it hit.” The girl’s eyes misted with tears. “I saw the snow slam into them first and then it tumbled on top of me, too.”

  “Get her and the others to the resort clinic,” Tyler commanded the paramedics. “We’ll keep searching.”

  With grim resolve, he returned to the task of uncovering victims. Hannah dug beside him.

  “Tyler,” she said, a few minutes later. “I see a hand!”

  In an instant he was by her side, dragging a woman from the snowy embankment.

  The woman’s jaw was slack, lips blue and her eyes rolled back in her head. She shook in convulsive shudders.

  Tyler crouched beside her and a ski resort employee threw a blanket over her.

  “Hannah,” Tyler said and reached out to her.

  She knew what he wanted her to do. Taking a deep fortifying breath, she knelt beside the woman, closed her eyes and ran her hand over her quaking body.

  Instantly Hannah felt the now-familiar tingling warmth surge through her hands, circulating from her to the injured ice skater. She willed herself to perform a miracle, tried her best to direct the power over which she had no conscious control.