Читать книгу Pregnancy Of Convenience - Sandra Field - Страница 6

CAL FREEMAN turned the wipers on high and slid the clutch of his four-wheel-drive into a lower gear. Not that it helped. The snow blowing horizontally across the windshield enveloped him in a world of white, through which he could, occasionally, sight the tall poles that marked the edges of this narrow road across the prairie.

The visibility had been better on the northeast ridge of Everest, he thought semi-humorously. Although the cold was almost comparable. He would never have expected conditions like this in southern Manitoba, not even in January. His friend Stephen had been right to insist that Cal carry emergency supplies when he set off to visit the Strassens, whose isolated home was several miles from the nearest village.

That climb on Everest had been—literally—one of the high points of Cal’s life. The struggle through the pinnacles, the bitter north winds, their decision to shoot for the top without oxygen…suddenly Cal snapped back to the present, his foot hitting the brake. What was that in the ditch to his left? A vehicle?

The snow whirled across the road like a phalanx of ghosts; he could see nothing but a smothering whiteness that mocked his normally acute vision. Slowing to a crawl, Cal peered through the glass. Perhaps it had been his imagination. After all, he and Stephen had stayed up late last night, catching up on the four-year gap since they’d last seen each other. And he’d drunk more than his fair share of that excellent Bordeaux.

No. There it was again, an angular shape skewed side-ways into the ditch, hood tight against a telephone pole. Coming to a halt as close to the side of the road as he dared, Cal switched on his signal lights: not that he really expected to meet anyone else mad enough to be out in such weather. Then he hauled the hood of his down parka over his head and yanked on his gloves.

He wouldn’t find anyone in the vehicle. Not in this bitter cold. But it was just as well to check.

As he stepped from the heated comfort of his Cherokee onto the road, the blizzard struck him with vicious force. The wind chill, he knew from the radio, was in the danger zone: frostbite on exposed skin within a couple of minutes. Well, he was used to that. He tucked his chin into his chest, fighting his way across the icy ruts in the dirt track, limping a little from an old knee injury. How ironic it would be if he, a world-renowned mountaineer, were to slip and break an ankle in one of the flattest places on the planet.

An irony he could do without.

The vehicle was a small white car. Bad choice, he thought trenchantly. And damn lucky the car hadn’t slid completely into the ditch, in which case neither he nor anyone else would have seen it.

There was a brief lull in the wind. His heart skipped a beat. Someone was slumped over the wheel. A man or a woman? He couldn’t tell.

Forgetting his knee, he lunged forward, adrenaline thrumming through his veins. The engine wasn’t running; how long since the car had gone off the road? He scrubbed at the window with his gloved fist, and saw that the driver was a woman. Hatless, he thought grimly. Didn’t she know better? Also, unless he was mistaken, unconscious. He grabbed the door handle, and discovered that it was locked. So were all the other doors. He pounded on the glass, yelling as loudly as he could, but the figure draped over the wheel didn’t even stir.

Cal raced back to his vehicle and grabbed the shovel from the back seat. Then he staggered across the road again. Once again he banged on the window, but to no effect. Grimacing, he raised the handle of the shovel and hit the glass in the back window with all his strength. On the third try it shattered.

Quickly he unlocked the driver’s door and pulled it open. Taking the woman by the waist, he lifted her awkwardly, trying to pillow her face in his shoulder. Once again he made the trip across the ice and drifts back to his vehicle. He eased her into the passenger seat, supporting her as best he could as he anchored her in place with the seat belt. Then he hurried back to her car, picked up her briefcase and threw it on the back seat of his four-wheel-drive. Clambering in on the driver’s side, he turned the fan up to its highest setting, dragged off his parka and draped it over the woman’s body, then tucked the synthetic silver emergency blanket around her legs. Only then did he really take a look at her.

The blizzard, the cold, the loud whir of the fan all dropped away as though they didn’t exist. Cal’s heart leaped in his chest. He’d never seen a woman so beautiful. So utterly and heartbreakingly beautiful. Her skin smooth as silk, her hair with the blue-black sheen of a raven’s wing, her features perfect, from the softly curved mouth to the high cheekbones and exquisitely arched brows.

He wanted her. Instantly and unequivocally.

Cal swallowed hard, fighting his way back to sanity. Sanity and practicality. There was a bruised swelling on her forehead, where presumably she’d struck the windshield when the car had swerved into the light pole. Her face was as white as the whirling snow crystals, her skin cold to the touch, her breathing shallow. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen? Was he crazy?

She was lucky to be alive. Besides, he didn’t believe in love at first sight. A ludicrous concept.

So why was the hand he’d touched to her cheek burning as though it were on fire?

With an impatient exclamation, he checked the odometer. Less than three miles to the Strassens’. His best bet was to take her straight there. The sooner she was in a warm house and regained consciousness, the better. Unless he was mistaken—and he’d picked up a fair bit of medical expertise over the years—she was just concussed. Concussed and very cold.

He eased into first gear and out into the middle of the road, forcing himself to focus on staying between the ditches. He’d expected to arrive at the Strassens long before this; he hoped they weren’t worried about him. His errand, after all, wasn’t the most pleasant.

Dusk was falling, making the visibility even poorer. Snatching occasional glances at his passenger, whose head was now lolling on her chest, Cal shifted into third gear. A lot of the snow was being whipped from the fields, for there was nothing to stop the wind but the occasional line of trees along a creek. He’d always had plenty of respect for heights; he’d have more for flatness from now on, he decided with a wry twist of his mouth that simultaneously acknowledged he was concentrating on the weather so he wouldn’t have to think about the woman.

She was probably married to a local farmer and had a clutch of raven-haired children. Why hadn’t he checked to see if she was wearing a wedding ring?

What did it matter whether she was or she wasn’t? The Strassens would know her name, they’d make the necessary phone calls, and she’d vanish from his life as precipitately as she’d entered it.

He’d seen lots of beautiful women in his life. Been married to one for nine years. So why had the startling purity of a stranger’s profile, the elegance of her bone structure, affected him as though he were nearer his thirteen-year-old daughter’s age than his own age of thirty-six?

Swearing under his breath as the gale flung snow across his path, Cal strained to see the poles along the road. He’d covered nine and a half miles since he’d left the main highway; if the Strassens’ directions were right, he had another half a mile to go. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about them, this elderly couple whose only son Gustave, a fellow mountaineer, had met his death on Annapurna just three months ago.

He, Cal, had come all this way to bring them their son’s climbing gear and the few personal effects Gustave had had with him on his last expedition. An errand of mercy he’d be glad to have over and done with. His original plan had been to stay a decent length of time and then head back to the city tonight. But the weather was putting paid to that; he’d probably have to stay overnight. Not what he would have chosen, particularly as he’d never met Gustave Strassen.

An illusory gleam of lights caught his eye through the snow. That must be the Strassens’ house. Now all he had to do was navigate the driveway.

Four minutes later, he was parked as near to the front door as possible. The house wasn’t as substantial as he’d somehow expected. Leaving the engine running, he took the front steps two at a time and rang the doorbell.

The door opened immediately. A heavy-set man with a grizzled beard boomed, “Come in, come in out of the cold, you must be Mr. Freeman—what, no jacket?”

“Cal Freeman,” Cal said rapidly. “Mr. Strassen, I have a passenger, a woman whose car went off the road. She struck her head, she needs attention right away—can I bring her in?”

The older man took a step backward. “A woman? What do you mean, a woman?”

What kind of question was that? “A young woman. On her own,” Cal said impatiently, “and obviously unprepared for the weather. She ended up in the ditch. I’ll go get her.”

“But we—”

Cal, however, had already turned back to his vehicle, the snow stinging his cheeks. Trying to keep the woman covered as best he could, he lifted her from the seat and with his knee shoved the door shut. The wind seized the hood of his parka and flung it away from her face. For a moment that was out of time he saw her lashes flicker—long dark lashes like smudges of soot. Her lips moved, as though she were trying to speak. “It’s okay,” he said urgently, “you’re safe now, you don’t have to worry.” Then he headed up the steps again.

Dieter Strassen held the door open. But he was no longer smiling. He said, his accent very pronounced, “That woman is not welcome in my house.”

Cal stopped dead, leaning back against the door to close it. “What did you say?”

A strained voice spoke from behind Dieter. “Get her out of here! I never want to see her again. Never, do you hear me?”

Cal knew instantly that this must be Maria Strassen, Dieter’s wife and Gustave’s mother. Short, thin as a rail, her hair in a gray-threaded bun skewered with pins. With a gesture that might have been funny had it not been so venomous, she thrust out one hand, palm toward Cal, as though she were about to push him physically back out into the blizzard.

Him and his burden.

“Look,” Cal said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this woman needs help. She’s concussed and she’s cold. She needs some hot food and a warm bed. Surely you can provide those?”

With a depth of bitterness that shocked Cal, Dieter said, “Better had she died.”

“Like our son,” Maria flashed. “Our beloved Gustave.”

Cal said flatly, “How far is it to the next house?”

“Four miles,” Dieter said.

“Surely you can see that I can’t go that far,” Cal said forcefully, shifting the weight in his arms. “Not in this storm. I don’t know who this woman is or what she’s done to make you hate her, but—”

“If we hate her, Mr. Freeman, it is for very good reasons,” Dieter said with something approaching dignity. “You must allow us to be the judge of that.”

“She married our Gustave,” Maria said icily. “Married him and destroyed him.”

Cal gaped at her, the pieces belatedly falling into place. As though he had actually been picked up and moved, he found himself back in an alpine campsite overlooking the south side of Mont Blanc. Four weeks ago.

It was unseasonably warm for December, and Cal was in his bare feet, luxuriating in the damp grass beneath his toes after an arduous day hiking; he’d been testing some foot-wear for a friend who designed alpine boots. One of the guides who had just brought up a party of Germans and who had introduced himself to Cal as Franz Staebel, remarked, “Gustave always liked to be in his bare feet after a climb…did you ever meet Gustave Strassen?”

“Oddly enough, no,” Cal answered. “Our paths nearly crossed several times but we never actually met…I was very sorry to hear about his death.”

“Ah, yes,” Franz said, grimacing into the sun. “He was an excellent climber, one of the best. Such a waste.” With sudden ferocity he banged an ice pick into the ground. “A totally unnecessary waste.”

“Oh?” said Cal, leaning back against the scaly trunk of a rowan tree. “How so?”

“His wife,” Franz said, pulling the pick out with a strong twist of his wrist. “His wife, Joanna. She was pregnant, he’d just found out the day before. But there was a good chance the baby wasn’t his. She’d cheated on him, had for years.”

“Why did he stay with her, then?” Cal asked idly.

“You should have seen her. Beautiful in a way few women are. And her body…Gustave was only human.” Moodily Franz kicked at a clump of grass he’d dislodged, the pale sun gleaming in his red hair. “So Joanna and the baby were on his mind that morning, the morning he attempted the rock ridge on Annapurna 3. And died in the attempt.”

As Cal knew all too well, distractions could be fatal on the mountains, where a moment’s misjudgment could send a man to his death. “I’m sorry,” he said inadequately. “I hadn’t heard about his wife before.”

“She controlled the purse strings, too. A rich woman, who let Dieter be stuck with second-rate equipment, and forced him to beg for sponsorships for his climbs. Ah, it was bad. Very bad. How that man suffered.”

“Where was he from?”

“Central Canada.” Franz gave a bark of laughter. “The prairies. Not a hill in sight. His parents live there still.”

“I have a good friend in Winnipeg,” Cal remarked. “I’ve known him for years.”

Franz sat up straight, dropping the pick on the grass. “You do? Would you be interested in visiting your friend and also doing a last favor for a climber who deserved better than the fate he met?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have Gustave’s gear back in Zermatt. I was going to mail it to his parents. But how much better if it could be delivered to them personally by a fellow mountaineer.”

Cal said slowly, “I do have a week or so free early in the new year…after I bring my daughter back to school here in Switzerland. And it would be great to see Stephen and his wife again. Providing they’re around.”

“It would help the Strassens a great deal. Their hearts must be broken. Gustave’s wife, she wasted no time after his death—she got rid of the baby. It could have been Gustave’s child, that was certainly possible…in which case she got rid of the Strassens’ grandchild, their only connection to their dead son.” He spat on the grass. “I curse the day Gustave married that woman. She brought him nothing but grief.”

“Mr. Freeman?” Dieter Strassen said, with the air of a man repeating himself.

With a visible start, Cal came back to the present; and to the simple and horribly unwelcome fact that the woman in his arms was the direct cause of a good man’s death and the deep grief of that man’s parents. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and tried to pull himself together. There was no reason in the world for him to feel so massively disillusioned about a woman he hadn’t even known existed half an hour ago. An unconscious woman, to boot, with whom he hadn’t exchanged as much as a word.

“Mr. Strassen,” he said, “I can see my arrival here is causing you and your wife great distress, and I apologize for that. But right now I don’t see any way around it. I can’t just dump her in the snow, no matter what she’s done.”

“So you know the story?” Dieter said sharply.

“Franz Staebel, the alpine guide who had your son’s gear, told me about your daughter-in-law a month or so ago.”

“Gustave thought highly of Franz.” Moving like a much older man, Dieter turned to his wife. “Maria, we’ll put her in the back bedroom, it’s the only thing we can do. She’ll be gone by morning.”

“Someone else can look after her,” Maria said in a stony voice.

Into the silence Cal said, “I will.”

“That would be best,” Dieter said with evident relief. “I’ll show you the room, and in the meantime Maria will heat some soup for you. We are being bad hosts, Mr. Freeman.” He gave a rather rusty bow. “Welcome to our home.”

Two could play that game. “Thank you,” Cal said, and smiled at Maria.

Her response was as cold as a glacier. “That woman will leave here tomorrow morning,” she said, “and she must never come back.”

Cal’s brain, which seemed to have gone to mush since finding a raven-haired beauty on the side of the road, finally made the connection. “Oh, of course—she’d just been here?”

“She had the audacity to bring us Gustave’s silver watch, his album of family photos. As though that would make us take her in. Forgive her for all that she’s done.”

“Now, Maria,” Dieter warned.

“Our grandchild,” Maria quavered, “she even destroyed our grandchild. Aborted it.”

“According to Gustave, it might not have been his child,” Dieter said wearily, running his fingers through his thatch of grizzled hair. “Gustave radioed a message out the very day he died, Mr. Freeman. About the pregnancy and his doubts. He wanted to divorce her.” His gaze flicked contemptuously over the woman in Cal’s arms. “But he knew that would mean no contact with a child who could be of our own flesh and blood.”

Maria bit off her words. “She took everything from us.”

“Enough, now,” her husband said. “I’m sure once Mr. Freeman has settled her, he’ll be hungry.”

“Please call me Cal…and some soup would be delicious,” Cal said with another smile.

Maria turned on her heel in the direction of the kitchen. Dieter lead the way along a narrow hallway to a back annex of the house; the furnishings were sparse, Cal noticed, glancing into what appeared to be a formal parlor, everything immaculately tidy and painfully clean. The back bedroom was no exception. It was also very cold.

Dieter said, “You must excuse my wife, Mr.—Cal. She is very bitter, understandably so. I’ll leave you to settle in, and whenever you’re ready, please come through to the dining room.”

Cal laid Joanna Strassen on the double bed, straightened, and said forthrightly, “Once she comes to, she’ll need something hot to eat.” And with annoyance realized he’d adopted the Strassens’ habit of referring to Joanna Strassen as she. Never by name.

“I’ll look after that. And I’ll show you to your bedroom in the main house.”

“I think I’d better stay here and keep an eye on your daughter-in-law,” Cal said with a depth of reluctance that took him by surprise. But if he didn’t look after her, who would? “After a blow on the head, it’s always a good idea to be under supervision for at least twelve hours.”

“Whatever you say,” Dieter replied, and for a moment directed a look of such implacable hostility toward the unconscious woman on the bed that, even knowing the story, Cal was chilled to the bone. “There’s extra bedding in the cupboard and the couch makes another bed,” Dieter went on, just as though nothing had happened. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Cal went into action. He drew the curtains against the snow that lashed the windowpanes, jammed the thermostat up several notches, and swiftly built a fire in the woodstove that stood in the corner. Touching a match to it, he watched briefly as the flames gained hold. Then he turned to the woman on the bed.

Joanna Strassen. Widow of Gustave. By all accounts an unfaithful and ungenerous wife, who apparently had destroyed her own child.

Nothing he’d learned made her any less beautiful.