Up Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard Page B

tempted to wrap it around herself and curl into the tightest ball possible until she felt a little less miserably cold, but he’d lost a lot of blood and needed it more than she did.
    Which should she do, put the blanket under him for protection from the snow, or over him to help hold in what body heat he had? Could he warm up at all, lying in the snow? Damn it, she couldn’t think! She’d have to go on instinct. “I’m spreading the blanket beside you,” she said, suiting action to words. “Now I’m going to help you shift onto it, so you won’t be in the snow. You’ll have to help me. Can you do that?”
    “Yeah,” he said with effort.
    “Okay, here we go.” Kneeling on the blanket, she slid her right arm under his neck, seized the front of his belt with her left hand, and lifted. He helped as much as he could, using his feet and his right arm; the biggest help was that he wasn’t deadweight any longer. Straining every muscle, she shifted him so that most of his torso, at least, was lying on the blanket, and decided that was good enough. Quickly she folded the rest of the blanket over him, tucking it in where she could.
    Suddenly dizzy and nauseated, she sank to the ground beside him.
Altitude sickness,
she thought. She was almost at the end of her rope. If she pushed herself much harder, she’d find herself lying in the snow, unable to get up, and she’d die before the next morning—probably even before sunset today.
    Still, she had to get to their suitcases, put on dry clothing, and lots of it—now. She had to function, or both of them would die.
    She schooled herself to take slow, deep breaths to feed her oxygen-hungry body. Slow—that was the key. She should move slowly, when she could, and not let panic lure her into rushing around until she collapsed. That meant she had to plan every move, think through what she was going to do so no effort was wasted.
    The luggage was loaded into the plane through the baggage compartment door, and secured by a cargo net that kept the bags from flying around the cockpit during rough weather, though she thought her suitcases would probably be too thick to fit in the space between the roof and the high seat backs. The problem was, though most of the roof was now gone and the suitcases would fit through the gaping hole, they would have to be lifted almost straight up, and they were very heavy, and she was so weak and cold and exhausted she didn’t think she could manage the task. She’d have to open them while they were still in the baggage compartment, and get out what she needed.
    She’d have to unclip the cargo net. She was sure she could reach the clips, but she wasn’t sure she could manage if the clip was a particularly strong one. If that was the case, then she would need some other way of getting through the net.
    “We have to get warm. I need to get more clothes out of my suitcase,” she told him. “If for any reason I can’t get the cargo net unclipped, do you have a knife I can use to cut it?”
    His eyes opened a little, then closed again. “Left pocket.”
    Getting to her knees, she untucked the blanket she’d just tucked around him and slipped her right hand into his pocket. The warmth was startling, and so delicious she almost moaned, but her fingers were so cold they were numb and she couldn’t tell if she was touching the knife or not. She grasped at whatever was there.
    “Careful,” he murmured. “Good Time Charlie’s down there, and he’s attached.”
    Bailey snorted. “Then keep him out of the way, or he might get unattached.” Men. Here they were on the verge of dying from hypothermia and, in his case, blood loss, but he was still protective of his penis. “
Good Time Charlie,
my ass,” she muttered, pulling her hand out of his pocket to see if she’d snagged the knife.
    A tiny smile curved his mouth for a moment, then faded.
    She paused, her gaze on his bloody face. That was the first hint of humor she’d ever seen him