Chapter 10C

Storms, Inside and Out...

Days 4 and 5...

For the next two days the storm raged. The solid rock wall directly behind the tent went a long ways toward protecting Jim and Sara from the worst it could throw at them. What do you do in a ten foot by ten foot tent for two days? Jim and Sara talked. Sara told Jim what it was like growing up with 'daddy dearest'. Several times those talks brought a flood of tears and by the time Jim had heard it all he secretly hoped that Eric Dillon survived the plane crash so that he could beat him to death with his bare hands.

The one fact that kept coming back to Jim was that Sara was nothing short of amazing. In a twisted sort of way she had grown up using her father as an example. She had simply done the complete opposite of what he would have done, which only went to prove that Eric Dillon's moral compass was one hundred eighty degrees off from normal.

Night was approaching. It would be their fourth since the plane crash. Since that first night when Sara had zipped the bags together they had slept together naked and cuddled up against each other. Jim knew he was in love with the girl and he knew it was wrong, but his resolve was wearing away by the hour.

Sara watched as Jim slept, the last rays of the sun straining to illuminate the tent where they lay. She thought about why he was here and she wondered if she had been wrong. The very first time Sara saw Jim she had fallen in love; not a crush, not some school girl infatuation. No, when Sara saw Jim for the first time she knew this was the man she would marry, and if she had learned anything positive from her father it was to go after what you wanted. She had slept on it that first night to be sure but as soon as she awoke the next morning she announced to her father that she would be marrying Jim O'Daniel just as soon as she could.

Eric Dillon recognised the look of determination on her face and for him the only recourse he could see was to help her with what ever she needed. And for a man as rich and powerful as Eric it was a simple thing to accomplish. This trip was to cement the relationship; little did he know how that was going to happen.

Day 6...

The next morning Jim awoke to silence, the storm had ended. Jim propped up on his elbow and watched Sara sleep. She was like no other woman he had ever met, bright, confident, and funny. He thought back a couple of days to the incident with the wolves. She had yelled out his name and what was wrong. How many other women would have handled the situation as well Sara had.

What would a future with Sara be like? Those thoughts brought him right back to what would happen to her when the two of them got off the mountain. The mere though of some shyster lawyer getting his hands on her worried him more than he would care to admit. Jim slipped his clothes on and went outside to see what the day would bring.

The mountain was still shrouded in fog as he went out and watered the bushes and then he went in to the cooking tent and started hot water for tea and breakfast.

"Jim? Jim? Where are you?"

"I'm fixing some tea. Would you like some or would you rather have hot chocolate?"

"Hot chocolate please." Sara sighed, she knew deep down they were still in danger, but still, being stranded with the person you love is not all bad.

Jim brought the hot chocolate in to Sara. She was always so beautiful in the morning. He had thought that every morning that he'd watched her wake up, but this morning the thought escaped through his mouth, "You are so beautiful in the morning."

Sara looked up in response to his words, her eyes sparkling. Jim could feel her eyes draining the last of his resistance, If she only knew how her eyes affected him. Her eyes owned his soul and he knew that as well as he knew his own name.

Sara watched Jim, who seemed to almost be in a trance. "Jim, I love you." Sara's voice was soft and steady as if to add to the hypnotic spell that she had him under.

Jim's eyes never wavered, "I love you too Sara." Jim heard his mouth give voice to what his heart felt. "Oh Sara, what have I done?"

"You don't love me?" Sara knew the conflict that was tearing at him. "Don't baby, don't be that way, age doesn't matter. If I had one doubt that we couldn't make it I'd agree with you. Come here."

Jim set his cup of half drunk, now cold, tea out of the way and moved into Sara's arms. She felt so good; how anything that felt this good could be wrong didn't make sense. But he knew what people would say; he would be accused of taking advantage of her. Her dad dead, stranded in the mountains and he moves in dick in hand and steals the Dillon fortune by fucking a sixteen year old. No, it would be worse, raping a sixteen year old. Suddenly the thought of losing her came to his mind, the very thought of having to go through life without her filled him with a fear. A black fear like nothing he had felt, not even in the streets of Baghdad. So much fear, a fear that led to pain; no Sara, never to be able to touch her to see her to hold her in his arms, the pain grew and grew until it exploded. "No!" he cried out "I can't live without you."

Sara heard his sob; her big strong man had surrendered, given himself to her. His life was in her hands and she would not ever let him regret it. She pulled his face to hers and they kissed. It would have been very easy for Sara to let all the passion that she felt for Jim flow into that kiss, but that would put them at a place that she was sure would come back to haunt the man she loved. So she kissed him lightly, holding and caressing him. Jim was crossing a line. Sara wanted to help him ease across that line. She knew that the answer to many of Jim's worries and questions were in her father's brief case but the time had to be right before she could reveal those things to him.

They sat in their bed for almost an hour holding each other and kissing. They might have stayed longer but nature interfered, "Jim sweetie, I need to go."

Jim unwrapped his arms from Sara and smiled, it wasn't a happy smile because Jim still felt like he had chosen a path that would lead him straight to prison. He couldn't stop loving her though, no matter the cost to himself.

Sara dressed and strapped on the pistol Jim had given her. While taking care of her business Sara realised that she needed to get Jim's mind off of everything that was happening. She saw a small patch of blue where Jim had started the bonfire pile. 'Just the ticket' she thought. "Jim would you bring me my leather gloves? We need to get started making this bonfire bigger."

Jim sighed with relief. If she had asked him to make love to her he would not have been able to refuse. The bonfire had saved him. Or was it her? Had she gotten cold feet? It was all right if she had, in fact it would almost be a relief.

Sara and Jim worked to the point of exhaustion piling wood on the barren piece of rock near their camp. The fog finally lifted about four that afternoon. As soon as it was good and dark Jim and Sara lit the bonfire and hoped that they would be spotted.

That night they watched it burn till well after midnight, by then their physical and emotional strength had long faded.

Twenty five miles away at the cabin of retired Professor Jonathan Hicks...

"Shut the door you're letting the cold in," Jonathan barked.

"Grandpa, come look! There's something on fire!" Jonathan's thirteen year old grand daughter Mary Beth was obviously excited about something.

"I thought you were looking at the stars with your new telescope."

"I was but then I saw this fire," Mary Beth exclaimed.

Jonathan slipped his boots on and grabbed his coat then followed Mary Beth to where she had set up her telescope, far away from the house lights where she could see the stars.

"There you can see the orange tint on the clouds that are moving in," Mary Beth pointed to the point on the eastern horizon.

Jonathan was still trying to defog his glasses but when he finally did get them where he could see out of them he too could see the glow in the eastern sky. "Here Grandpa, look through here," Mary Beth said.

Jonathan studied the fire carefully through the eye piece of the telescope. Raising up he searched for a landmark on the darkened horizon with his naked eyes. "Grandpa, I took a compass bearing, a GPS reading and I have marked the spot where my telescope is sitting. I want to move my telescope to the edge of the clearing and get another set of readings, we can tell where it's at that way can't we?" Mary Beth looked up at her Grandpa waiting to hear if her idea would work.

Jonathan smiled he took his hand and patted her on the back, "Run into the house and tell your grandma Emma that we need the cordless phone and the big reel tape measure that's hanging in the garage." Mary Beth left at a dead run and returned a few minutes later.

Mary Beth had also grabbed a screwdriver to push into the ground to hold the end of the tape measure. Jonathan cringed as she shoved his newest screwdriver into the rocky soil. The tape was one hundred feet long so they picked up the telescope and walked until they ran out of tape. There they set the telescope up. Mary Beth carefully aligned her scope the way she had been taught. When she was certain that it was set up exactly as it was in the other location she took her bearing and GPS reading and then wrote it on the new page in her observing journal. After she had done that Jonathan and Mary Beth walked back up to the house. Standing on the front porch Jonathan called the RCMP.

"RCMP how may we help you?"

"Hello, yes, my granddaughter has spotted a fire burning on one of the mountains east of our house. She has taken a compass reading she is trying to figure out where it is right now."

"You are sure it's a fire?"

"Oh yes, no doubt and it seems to be right at the tree line. Have there been any planes reported missing?"

"Well one disappeared six days ago but that should have been much farther to the east than anywhere you would be able to see. I guess they could have been way off course. We're sending someone to your house, it won't be long as we have a man nearby."

"Thanks, we'll be watching for him." Jonathan turned off the phone and turned to his granddaughter, "Let's go inside and warm up honey," Jonathan asked his grand daughter.

Mary Beth had been busy punching numbers into her calculator, "I'm sorry, what did you say grandpa?"

"Let's go inside."

"Oh all right." They walked into the house Jonathan with his arm around the shoulders of his granddaughter, In the house waiting for them was Emma, Jonathan's new wife. Mary Beth's grandma had died five years ago and only last year had Jonathan married Emma who was some twenty years his junior. Mary Beth didn't care, Emma was always nice to her and had been the first to suggest that Mary Beth come and stay with them after her father had died and her mother decided she didn't want to deal with her.

"Grandpa, I came up with a distance of forty point two kilometres to the fire."

Jonathan got out the topographical map of the area around the cabin. Jonathan and Mary Beth were just drawing a line on the map when someone knocked at the door. Emma opened it and let Sergeant Dave Sampson of the RCMP come in. "Did you see the fire?" Jonathan asked him.

"Yes, how far away do you think it is?"

"Mary Beth says it is forty point two kilometres, we were just about to lay it out on this map." Dave watched as Jonathan and Mary Beth oriented the map and then drew the line. Jonathan took a pair of dividers and marked off the forty km. Jonathan took a red pencil and circled the point. According to the map they were right at the tree line.

Dave nodded his head, "That spot is nearly two hundred miles from where that plane dropped off radar." Jonathan pointed the approximate distance north Dave shook his head. He then pointed to the south and Dave nodded his head.

"Which radar sight lost him?" Jonathan asked.

"Vancouver why?" Dave answered.

Jonathan pointed to the range of mountains and then pointed with his fingers to where Vancouver would be if it were on this map, "If they dropped below." Jonathan removed his glasses and brought his eyes very close to the map squinting to read the height of the mountain range. The numbers were in a worn fold of the map, "well what I'm saying is that the radar could have lost the plane behind these mountains."

"Can I borrow your phone?" Dave asked. Jonathan nodded and went back to look at the map, it was going to be very hard getting those people out. He just hoped and prayed that they were all right.

Dave returned from making his call, "We're going to have a helicopter up there in the morning if the fog doesn't ground us, the weather service is predicting overcast skies and low ceilings."

Sara and Jim had just crawled into bed when Sara asked, "Do think anyone saw us?"

"I don't know baby, I don't even know if there is anyone in a hundred miles. This place seems even more desolate than it was back home."

"So you think Shafter, Texas is a metropolis compared to this place?"

Jim's head snapped around to look at Sara, "How do you know about Shafter? I've never talked about that with you."

Sara's mind had just switched gears, she had slipped and now she had figure out some way of getting out of it. "Look there are some things I need to talk to you about, right now is just not the time. As for knowing about Shafter," Sara sighed, "well dad told me about that."

Sara's explanation went a long way in calming Jim's suspicions, not all the way but close enough that he could go to sleep and he could wait until tomorrow for the rest of the story.

Day 7...

Sometime in the night the two of them had rolled over and when Jim started to wake up he suddenly froze. His right hand now held one of Sara's teenaged breasts, he tried to move it and as soon as he did her hand grabbed his and held it on her tit. That's when he realised that his morning wood was wedged in the crack of her ass.

"Sara?" Jim called.

"Yes Jim, Did you sleep well?" Sara asked.

"Yeah, maybe a little too well," Jim complained, "how long have we been like this?"

"Well," Sara started, "I don't have a watch on but you been playing with my breast since right after you took my virginity."

Jim almost tore the tent down trying to get away from Sara only to have her break out laughing. Realising she had pranked him but good and also that, in a sense, he had given up any hope of a proper relationship with this girl when he had told her that he loved her, Jim got back in bed moving up close to her then grabbing her and tickling her in to submission. After she had capitulated he found himself propped up on one elbow staring into her eyes. "God you're beautiful," Jim said to her, "oh, I wish you were eighteen."