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Snowbound Then Pregnant
Cathy Williams
CHAPTER ONE
ALICEWASBEGINNINGto wonder whether this was going to be the day she finally met The Big Guy Up There—the very one her dad preached about in his sermons every Sunday.
The cold on her face stung, and even through the layers of protective ski-gear she could feel the whip of the freezing blizzard doing its best to turn her into an ice sculpture. She could barely see in front of her.
She had no idea how much time had gone by since she’d left the chalet where she and her three friends were staying: an hour? Three hours? Fifteen minutes? A year and a half? She’d forgotten her fitness watch in her hurry to leave and her phone was embedded so deeply into one of the pockets of her under-layers that to stop and unearth it would risk instant hypothermia.
Of course, she should never have ventured out, but hindsight was a wonderful thing, and at the time she’d justhadto get some air: it had felt like the most straightforward decision in the world.
Bea had been proudly showing off her engagement ring, a surprise revelation she had been keeping up her sleeve for the right ‘Ta da!’ moment. Out had come the champagne; the popping of the cork had been punctuated by lots of squeals of delight, a flood of eager questions and excited talk about bridesmaids’ dresses. Just like that, Alice had felt the world closing in on her.
She’d sat there, smiling and twirling the champagne flute between her fingers, thinking back to her own broken engagement eight months ago. Everything had been ticked on her ‘ideal for permanent partner’ checklist...and yet, Simon had just not been right, had just not beenenough, had just not been what she’d wanted after all. Everything about him had made sense yet, in the end, none of it had made any sense at all.
So what if she’d been the one to screw up the courage to do the breaking off? She still had scars left from the whole sorry business, and those scars had suddenly flared up, raw and painful, as she’d listened to her friends blown away by the thrill of an upcoming wedding.
She’d just had to escape, and hadn’t been able to stay put, pretending that she wasn’t tearing up inside, so she’d stood up and announced that she needed to have a breather. The fact that they had all instantly seen her upset and rushed to apologise for being thoughtless had only made the whole situation worse.
So here she was now, no longer skiing but moving clumsily at a snail’s pace, because she couldn’t see what was in front of her with thoughts of hypothermia and meeting her maker uppermost in her mind.
She was scared witless.
An hour, three hours, alifetimeago there had been fellow skiers on the slopes, but now the vast stretch of white was empty. She had skied away from the buzz of people, wanting the peace of solitude on the more dangerous pistes, and when the blizzard had roared in as sudden as a clap of thunder she had been alone.
Now she was desperately hunting for any signpost or landmark to orient her and show her a way back to civilisation, but the driving force of the snow was making it impossible. Panic was rising, but Alice knew that was something she had to block out, because panic in a situation like this equalled certain death. She was too experienced to go down that road.
A blizzard was the most dangerous condition on a mountain: people couldn’t see and the snow and moisture in the air made them lose heat very quickly. Those were basic ‘fun facts’ that had been drummed into all of her class as school kids over a decade ago before they’d gone on their first ever school holiday to Mont Blanc. They were also the very same fun facts she had drummed into her newbies when she had done six months of ski instruction during her gap year, on the very same slopes, less than four years ago.
Basically, no one in their right mind wanted to be out on a mountain in a blizzard—yet here she was. She stopped, tilted up her ski goggles and surveyed a scene of endless, driving snow, blowing this way and that as though driven by a giant, high-speed fan somewhere up in the sky. She was gripped by a momentary wave of sickening fear because the wilderness of white was so menacing, so alien. She could have been on another planet.
Keep making your way down and you’ll get to safety—law of averages and basic rule of thumb.
But, when it came to lessons learnt from this whole adventure, sudden attacks of emotion were onlyevergoing to be given airtime in the comfort and safety of her living room, preferably with a tub of ice-cream to hand.
She breathed in deeply and propelled her way onward with the speed of someone with weights strapped to their ankles swimming in treacle.
She had no idea how long it was before, at last, she sawsomething: a light, just a flicker penetrating the wall of snow. It was barely visible, and it might have just been an illusion, her fevered brain playing tricks on her, but at this point Alice didn’t really care. What were her choices? Illusion or no illusion, she was just going to have to go in that direction. There was no room for hesitation or fear because she was flat out of options.
Mateo was in the middle of preparing his evening meal when he heard something: the vaguest hint of something which was barely audible over the jazz music playing softly in the background. The angry howls of the blizzard outside had been reduced to murmurs because his chalet was triple-glazed to within an inch of its life. He stilled, turned off the music and tilted his head, every one of his senses on full alert.
Here on this gloriously isolated and tucked-away side of Mont Blanc, the chances of skiers dropping by for a cup of coffee were non-existent. This part of the mountain, with its treacherous slopes, was suitable only for experts and was usually so empty that it could have been his own private playground.
It had been a definite selling point when he had bought the place several years ago. He had no problem with the jolly troops of revellers who had fun in the many chic resorts on the mountain...just as long as they didn’t come near him.
So he was banking on whatever he’d heard producing the thump against his front door being the whipping snowstorm outside. Some idiot lost in this treacherous blizzard would test his patience to the limit and Mateo really didn’t want his patience being tested to the limit right now. Any other time, maybe, but here, now—no.
He was here for a week, seven snatched days. This was his one and only pure time-out from the gruelling business of running his network of companies and living life in the fast lane. He’d been here for two days and the last thing he wanted was any of the remaining five to be interrupted by a risk-taking fool.
Here, and only here, did Mateo come close to reconnecting with a past he had long since left behind, a past that contained none of the often tiresome trappings that went with the sort of wealth he had accumulated. It was important to him that he never forget his beginnings. He had grown up in this part of the world—not on this side of the mountain but in a village close to one of the cheaper resorts—in a small house with struggling young parents, both of whom had worked at a low-end resort for minimum pay. In the high season they’d depended on tips to top up the coffers and, in the low season, they’d taken summer work wherever they could find it. They hadn’t been proud.
Lord knew, things would have remained that way for ever had his mother not died when Mateo was twelve. After that, his memories were a blur of sadness, confusion, grief and then, as one year had turned into two and then three, the dawning realisation that he was growing up on his own because his still-young father just hadn’t been able to cope without his wife as his rock, by his side.
Mateo had watched from the side lines as his dad had managed to hold down a job at the resort for a couple more seasons. It had been a struggle, because drinking and drugs had begun to make twin inroads into his ability to work, and then eventually his ability to do anything at all—including his ability to look after himself, never mind his precociously bright teenaged son who had been left on his own to cope.
Mateo had quit school at sixteen to begin the process of earning money because his father hadn’t been able to keep his head above water. He’d had to balance earning money to pay the bills, because no one else had been around to do it, with studying to make sure he never ended up poor and dependent on the goodwill of others to pick up the slack. Keeping his education on track outside of the school system had became the ultimate goal. He’d known he had a good brain—better than good. He hadn’t intended to waste it, or to flush his future down the drain side by side with his father.