CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
He was here because he had decided to take a cargo plane to his wedding. It all came back to him in a flash of light. The bar. The terrible scotch. The tiny little woman in a very large coat with a round, earnest face and freckles on her cheeks who was supposedly a pilot, but didn’t look old enough to be a high school graduate.
She’d crashed.
Suddenly, Adonis sat upright.
The full-scale force of the cold hit him then. The wind slapping him in the face.
“What happened?”
“Stay calm.”
Stevie. That was the girl’s name. The pilot.
“What the hell have you done?”
“The instruments went out on the plane. I didn’t do anything.” She paused for a moment. “Other than save your ass, that is.”
The plane.
He looked around, slowly taking in more details.
They were in the plane, sort of. But the outside had come inside, because the back end was broken off, and he supposed they had been saved only by the fact that somehow the front of the aircraft had remained intact. “It really is a good thing you kept your seat belt buckled,” she said. “Otherwise…” She looked meaningfully back at the open end of the plane. And he could see the cargo strewn all over the ground. Spreading out for a good distance behind them.
He wasn’t given to fear, and he could confidently say that his behavior in the past had been self-destructive at best. But that hit. Hard. A very real echo of the reality of mortality.
It was an inglorious end. Or would’ve been.
He frowned. And he put his hand back on his leg.
The pain suddenly cut through his delirium, and it was like the world had split apart. The pain was excruciating and the cold was unbearable. Her face was too sharp and too clear, and too pretty to bear and he had to fight to keep from being torn into pieces by the competing feelings.
Shock.
Pain.
Cold.
Her.
He pulled his hand away and found it sticky and hot with blood. “What happened?” he gritted.
“I’ve been trying to stop the bleeding,” she said. “I know you didn’t hit an artery or you’d be gone by now.”
He looked down and felt a shameful wave of nausea. His leg was… It was damaged was a kind word for it. He could see through to the muscle and bone.
“That isn’t good,” he said.
She looked at him like he was an alien life-form.
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”
He realized then that he had a belt around his upper thigh.
“I had to get the bleeding stopped,” Stevie said. “It was a lot of blood.”
He nodded. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Banged up. But miraculously… Okay. I suspect I don’t feel some of the pain because of adrenaline.”
“I guess this is what I get for taking a ride from a stranger.” He tried to laugh.
“I’m sorry. You’re probably gonna miss that wedding.”
“All right.” He didn’t know what else to say. After all, nothing seemed that important.
Not in the face of all this.
“What did you think about?” she asked, her voice muted.
“When?”
“When the plane went down.”
She looked as small and young as he’d first thought. But he hadn’t been worried at all. He hadn’t even given a thought about the plane going down, to the inclement weather being a problem. That his pilot who had been right when he’d landed the private jet, saying he didn’t think smaller aircraft should fly in the weather.
No, he hadn’t worried. He’d seen her, seen an opportunity and thought it was more evidence of everything going his way. As always.
Until the plane had gone down.
“You first,” he said.
She sniffed, and he realized it was from the cold. Not tears. She moved around, opening up boxes, uncovering some blankets, some coats. Part of the cargo that she had.
What brand of woman was this? Hell, what brand of human was she?
There was no self-pity. No weeping or wailing. She seemed as together, as poised as she had when piloting the plane, and he could not fathom why that was.
“This wasn’t for the wedding,” she said. “It was for a small outdoor outfitter. Thank God that was part of the cargo.” She wrapped herself in a sleeping bag, and then put one over the top of him. “Though it does make me want to ask God why he didn’t just keep us in the sky, since he’s out here providing miracles.” She sighed. “Maybe when you can move a little bit we can get you into the sleeping bag.”
He nodded. “Maybe.”
She sniffed again. “I thought about my father. And how there was no way he was going to be able to take care of my six sisters on disability. And then I thought how he’s probably going to die in six months, and then there will be nobody to take care of them at all. Nobody left to run the business.”
“You support your family?”
“Yes. I don’t mind. I love them. But realizing that I’m the only one keeping them from the streets… That’s terrifying.”
“Not your own death?”
“Well. If I’m dead, I suppose we don’t have to worry about me.”
“Perhaps.”
“What did you think about?” she pressed.
He had thought of his father. How there was no spare. How for all his exploits he was going to die actually trying to do the thing his father had asked him to do. And about how he would never be able to redeem the family name in the way his father had wanted.
He would never be able to redeem himself.
He’d never thought much about it, since his life had been a pantomime and not really his own. Now, perhaps, it never would be.
Maybe either way, it never would be.
“I thought about my home,” he said. It was true.
“Where is that?”
“It’s a small island in the Mediterranean. Beautiful. The water there is like crystal. The island itself has white sand. Palm trees. But also olive and cyprus. It is not flat. It’s mountainous. Volcanic. Like Olympus.”
“Are you Greek?”
“Adjacent,” he said. “I speak Greek. But also Italian, French, Mandarin.”
“English?”
He tried to smile, the sort of charming smile he often treated women to. “I thought that was obvious.”
“I’ve never even been outside the country.”
“Well, now that you didn’t die, you can if you would like.”
She screwed up her face. “Maybe. Assuming we don’t die of exposure before somebody finds us. I don’t know where we went off radar. We won’t arrive at our destination. But it’s going to depend heavily on how able they are to pick up our coordinates. I’m afraid to walk too far from the plane, but…”
“You can’t leave me here,” he said. “I’m liable to become a meal of one of your North American wildcats.”
“Well. That is true,” she said. “A cougar would probably enjoy chewing on you.”
“They have in the past.”
She blinked. “What?”
He smiled again, at her na?veté this time. “Never mind.”
She was… A country bumpkin. He had never met anyone like her.
He wasn’t sure he would’ve chosen to if the option had been presented. Well, not knowing that it would end up like this.
“I didn’t get your name,” she said.
“Does it matter?”
“I told you mine.”
“Yes,” he said. “Stevie. Like a small boy, or a witchy rock star?”
“I prefer the witchy rock star. I suspect my mother meant it in the slightly more tomboyish fashion.”
“My condolences.”
“Well, I’m pretty resilient.”
“Clearly.”
“Tell me about where you live,” she said. She had let his name go easily enough. It wasn’t that he was opposed to telling her. But Adonis was a particular sort of name. And if somebody recognized it, then they would know exactly who he was.
Again, not that it mattered. His being a prince hadn’t stopped the plane from going down. And perhaps therein lay a real look at his arrogance.
He had functionally believed himself to be bulletproof because he was… Important.
He didn’t even have a spare. His father needed him.
Was he truly so ridiculous?
Was he so hollow that he had never truly considered these things? He had thought he would gallivant around the world and prove to his mother that she’d made a mistake in leaving him all those years ago, after which he’d ascend the throne.
What it seemed like now was perhaps a mix of his father’s rigidity and his mother’s selfishness and he did not care for that at all.
Any more than he liked having those arrogant plans derailed.
He thought instead of the warmth of home. The air, the water. The food.
“We have some of the best food in the world. Fresh ingredients. Fish, lemon. Olive oil.”
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“You have any food in here?”
“I might,” she said brightly, suddenly scampering from the wreckage and going out into the snow. She examined some of her crates, a couple of which were intact.
Then she pushed one of them back into the ship, her eyes alight with determination.
“I’m going to look in here. This was for a specialty shop…”
She opened it up, and the contents were revealed as cured meats and cheeses.
“Oh,” she said, her expression rapturous. “We’re going to be okay. What we need to do is try to get the back part of the plane sealed up.”
“We?” he asked, gesturing toward his leg.
“Well. I will. And then we have food. It would be great if I could start a fire, and melt the snow. You don’t want to just eat it, because then… Well, hypothermia.”
“Where did you learn all of this?”
“A lot of it is just knowing. From living in Montana all my life. You had to know how to be safe in the wilderness. What we don’t want is to attract the attention of animals, though. This food is a boon, but it’s going to smell incredible to a bear.”
“We don’t want that,” he said.
“We don’t.”
“What we really want is to be rescued.”
“Agreed.”
She sighed. “I have flares and a flare gun. But I’m going to have to time it. It depends on if anyone’s out looking for us. I’ve got to take inventory and see what we have.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He realized that his default was that he was quite comfortable being served. Such was the life of a prince. But this was a survival situation, and this small woman must be horrendously exhausted after what had just happened.
“Probably not,” she said. “Appreciated though. If you move too much that wound could start bleeding again. I’m just grateful that it’s a pretty clean gash. I think some metal from the plane got you. But… It just could’ve been worse.”
“I’m sure.”
As it was, he knew that he was facing physical therapy. Among other indignities. There was no way something like this was simply going to heal.
He had never been betrayed by his own body before. Though, he supposed it wasn’t his body’s fault that flesh was soft enough to be cut by razor-sharp metal.
He watched as the girl scrambled around.
And then came back with their food.
“Let’s get something to eat, Clem,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“You haven’t told me your name. I decided to give you one.”
“Clem?”
She sniffed. “Short for Clemuel.”
“That is ridiculous,” he said.
“The entire situation is ridiculous, if you haven’t noticed.”
He snorted. “Believe me. I have.”
“Good. That means at least some of your faculties are working.”
“You seem more cheerful.”
“The prospect of food, and the fact that we have a way to keep warm can have that effect.”
“Yes.” Something gnawed at the back of his mind. And just like that, it appeared fully formed. “It is likely that I can be traced.”
“What?”
“My phone is able to be tracked.”
“Does anybody know that you’re with me? I mean, I have that find my thing on my phone too, but I don’t think it’s going to work out here.”
She didn’t understand. There was, of course, a sophisticated tracking system on his phone. But not just his phone, there was also something in his watch. In the soles of his shoes. He was a prince who preferred to live his life as independently as possible. The heir to the throne of his country. Nobody took chances on his whereabouts. If he didn’t appear when he was meant to, it would be noted.
Whether or not it would work in the wilderness, he did not know.
“Nobody has to know that I’m with you,” he said. “They just have to know where I’m not.”
“All right,” she said. “You were going to go to a wedding.”
“I was.”
He was trying to think if he had ever talked to a person like this. One who had no idea who he was. Of course, he had never talked to a person while his leg was flayed open either. So there was that.
It was for that reason he didn’t really want her to know who he was. It was weird. Because if he were to die out here, he would have never given his name to the last person who ever saw him alive. But also, it might be…
The one chance for him to be with someone who actually saw him as a person. That wasn’t something he had ever wanted before.
He could honestly say he wasn’t concerned over his authenticity or anything like that.
But it was quiet out here. And there was none of the revelry that he liked to surround himself with. None of the distraction. He couldn’t even move. And so for him in that moment, it seemed like maybe being with a person who saw him as simply that—a person—might be the best way forward.
“Well. Then we can hope that actually works,” she said. “I know that at some point my sister Daisy will track my phone. I just don’t think…” She scrambled over all of the debris, to the cockpit. She opened up a box at the center of the plane. She took out her intact phone. And held it up. “I don’t have any service.”
“You only just thought to check that?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of in shock. Also, I think on some level I figured we wouldn’t have any service.”
“Does it have that GPS on it that lets you make a call even without service?”
“It’s blank. But I can check.” She entered in 911, and he could see the phone screen go black. “It’s not calling out,” she said.
“I can try mine.”
“Where is yours?”
He looked around. “I… I actually have no idea.”
She went back to where he was, and searched around.
“I don’t see it.”
“Great. It might have flown out with the other debris. It wasn’t in a safe box. The box exists so that no one is playing on their phone while they’re trying to fly,” she said.
“Wow. Is that a risk?”
“Not with me. I always pay attention. I can’t stress to you enough that the fact that you aren’t dead right now is because I’m actually a great pilot.”
He laughed. “You have to forgive me for not fully being able to internalize that.”
“Hey. I get it. It feels like more of a disaster than a rescue. It was a rescue. Believe me.”
She was very earnest. And he decided he would believe her. Because again, if they were to die, or him specifically, since he was the one with the open wound, then there was no point in being suspicious. No point in being hostile to the last person he would ever see.
This pretty little enigma who reached him even through the blinding pain he felt now.
It really was a shame his leg was destroyed. Because one last round of sex might’ve been nice. Of course, she could always be on top.
“How old are you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Random.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“It was related to my train of thought.”
“Okay. I’m twenty-five.”
“Excellent.”
She simply looked at him like he was infinitely baffling. She looked like something that might be native to the snow and mountains. Like a small rock-climbing mammal. Or a particularly hardy goat. Cute, but perfectly capable of surviving in a harsh environment.
He was descended from warriors. So many nations were founded on conflict, and his was no different. The strongest had risen to the top, but in all the generations since, there had been peace. Peace, affluence. He considered himself a man in control. He invested in many industries, building his personal wealth portfolio beyond that which a mere monarch could easily obtain unless he was criminally exploiting his people. And while he possessed confidence in his ability to do what needed to be done, he had never had to worry about his physical survival.
She seemed to wear a certain amount of acceptance of things with the same practicality she wore that parka.
It was freezing inside of the airplane, but he knew it was shielding them from the harsh elements.
She unwrapped the package of the meat, which was sliced thankfully, and cured. And then did the same with the cheese, which was not sliced, but she began to peel great hunks of it off with her hands, and he couldn’t afford to feel anything but gratitude over that.
“Probably not the fanciest dinner you’ve ever had,” she said.
“Maybe not. And you?”
“Possibly. This is pretty high quality. If I were at home I would put some bacon and onions in a big pot, put a lot of butter with it. I fill the pot up with broth, add a bunch of red beans and some ham hocks. Simmer it for a bunch of hours. Serve it on some rice. That sounds good,” she said.
She looked dreamy just then. He didn’t think he had ever had such a simple meal as the one she was talking about. And yet, he couldn’t deny that it sounded comforting and warm.
“You have sisters,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Six of them. Two sets of twins.”
“Two sets of twins?”
“Yes. So it’s me, Daisy, Rose and Lilac, Bristol, Topaz and Opal.”
“Interesting names.”
“Yes. They are. All around. My mom was in her flower era when the three after me were born. Then she decided to be unique again, and Bristol stands alone thematically, like I do. Then she decided to go with precious gems for the youngest twins. She died when they were two. They don’t even remember her. But they’ll always be her gems.”
“Sorry. I know it’s difficult to grow up without your mother.”
“Did you lose your mother?”
“Yes. But she didn’t die. She just left.”
“That’s worse,” Stevie said confidently.
“Is it?”
“Well. Not for her I guess. But for you. Your siblings.”
“I’m an only child.”
“I should’ve known that,” she said smiling. “You have only-child energy, Clem.”
“What does that mean?” He found himself offended in advance.
“I don’t know. You just seem singular. One in the world. I don’t think I seem like that at all. I have siblings to take care of. A dad to take care of. I’m one of many.”
“I can honestly say I have never met a twenty-five-year-old woman who pilots cargo planes and scrambles around the wilderness like an expert. And I’ve known a lot of women.”
Those eyes widened, and then her cheeks turned pink. She cleared her throat. “I’m sure you have.”
He felt almost guilty. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. It hadn’t occurred to him that such a mild innuendo could cause embarrassment.
But clearly for her it did.
She was so… Innocent seeming. And yet, not at all. The way she talked about cooking, large hearty practical meals, the way she had said she had to take care of everybody. Yes, she was innocent, but not. A strange sort of creature.
When they finished eating, silence settled around them. It was beginning to grow dark.
They were covered by the sleeping bags that she had found, but it was still cold.
“Come here,” he said.
She looked at him from her position across the cargo space. She said nothing.
And he felt…a burst of heat and recklessness, an odd feeling of gratitude he’d never experienced before. Perhaps that was survivor’s giddy joy racing through his veins. Or maybe it was just her.
“There’s good body warmth between us,” he said. “Why not use it?”
“Oh,” she responded. “No good reason, I guess.”
He wished that he could maneuver enough to get a blanket underneath him, but he was feeling weak. Not a word he would have ever used to describe himself in the past. He didn’t like it. He would take any added warmth he could.
She looked very hesitant as she got down beside him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m hardly going to ravish you in my present state.”
She blinked. “And if you were in a different state?”
“Well, Stevie, if the two of us are going to die, then it would be a terrible shame to practice chastity in the face of our inevitable demise.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice strangled.
“You are twenty-five,” he said.
“Is that why you asked how old I was?”
“It was a passing thought.”
“I don’t know that I want to sleep next to you now.”
“Don’t worry. My leg is far too maimed.”
She moved slightly closer to him, and even with her keeping a bit of space between them, there was warmth.
So perhaps, he thought, as he began to drift off to sleep, they wouldn’t die after all.
He supposed he would find out in the morning.
Or not. If they didn’t wake up.