LITMIR.BIZ

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situations.

      “The trains need to travel through the mountains somehow,” Grant said quietly. “So do motorists. This corridor was the best available.”

      “But it’s so dangerous.” Despite her thick wool sweater, Amalie looked chilled. She hugged her arms around her body, her gaze caught by the view from the glass entranceway. She didn’t seem to appreciate the scenery.

      “Yes, it’s dangerous,” Grant agreed. “In an average year we have about 1,500 slides along this highway. Can you imagine how many are happening out in the wilderness?”

      Davin whistled. “But you control the avalanches, don’t you, Mr. Thorlow? With the howitzer.”

      “That’s my job, but avalanche control is hardly an exact science.” Grant shoved his hands into his dark-blue nylon pants. Amalie had moved on to another exhibit.

      Don’t stare, man! This is one woman who’s definitely off-limits.

      “We monitor air temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation and relative humidity,” he continued. “Then we perform field tests to check the layers in the snowpack. But people who think they can predict the timing and size of an avalanche with certainty are just kidding themselves. Even the avalanches we trigger intentionally sometimes surprise the heck out of us.”

      “Why are there so many avalanches on this part of the highway?” Davin asked, his attention on a large model of the mountain pass that dominated the main room of the information center.

      “Steep slopes, lots of snow.” Grant shrugged. “Those are the basic ingredients.”

      Amalie was now walking around the three-dimensional replica of the mountain pass. She was about to ask him a question, when he noticed someone at the main doors.

      Denise Carter stood there, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail and cheeks pink from the cold. She spotted him right away and he stepped forward to engulf her in a hug.

      “Denise. How are you? How are the kids?”

      She shook her head at the first question, only answering the second. “The kids are coping…Mom and Dad are with them.” She leaned into his chest, crumbling like powered snow in a harmless sluff.

      And then she noticed Amalie.

      “Helen?” First shock, then hatred transformed her features and stiffened her body.

      “No. I’m her twin sister. Amalie Fremont.”

      “You didn’t tell me Helen had a sister. That she would be coming…That she looked so much like…” Denise glared at Grant as if he’d betrayed her in some way.

      “Amalie lives in Toronto. I didn’t expect her to travel all this way.” Grant began explanations, then halted. “I’m sorry, Denise. I should have prepared you. I was shocked, too, the first time I saw her.”

      Amalie had her hands to her face, as if trying to conceal the features that reminded them all of a different woman.

      “You shouldn’t have come here.” Denise made a move toward Amalie, whipping off her mitten to point her finger.

      “Denise.” Grant took hold of her arm. “There’s someone else you should know about. A child. His name is Davin.”

      At the sound of his name, Davin glanced up from the model. “Hi there,” he said uncertainly, eyeing the peculiar expression on this new stranger’s face.

      Denise looked back at Amalie. “Your son?”

      “I adopted him and raised him from birth,” she answered. “But he’s really…he’s really Helena’s child.”

      “Helen had a child?” She whipped around to Grant. “Did you know this?”

      He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Denise. Come on, let me take you home. Or maybe you’d like to go have a cup of coffee. We can—”

      Denise shook off his hand. Spinning back to Amalie, she pointed her finger once again.

      “Ramsey was a good husband until he met your sister!”

      In a flash, anger became despair. Denise began to sob. Grant pulled her against his body, but his gaze stayed on Amalie.

      YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME. Amalie read the message in Grant’s face as clearly as if he’d spoken the words.

      Helena was a person, too! she wanted to cry back at both him and Denise. Her sister deserved to be mourned, deserved to be missed, deserved to be cared about.

      Remembering Davin, Amalie reached for the boy and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. He was staring at the crying woman, watching as Grant urged her out the door and into his truck.

      “Why does everyone hate Helena so much?” he asked finally. “Was she a bad person?”

      Resentment tightened Amalie’s chest as she turned her back to the door, to the people who had just left. True, Denise was in pain, but she was a mother, too. How could she have said such things in front of Davin?

      “They just didn’t know her, Davin. That’s all.” She gave him a hug and made a second, silent deduction.

      And neither did I.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “YOU KNOW RAMSEY was in the middle of renovating our basement, don’t you?” Denise asked.

      She’d stopped crying at last. Now she was sitting in Grant’s living room, holding the cup of tea he’d made her out of desperation. He hadn’t known where else to take her. She hadn’t wanted to go home, couldn’t face a restaurant. So he’d brought her here.

      Grant was prepared for a lot of emergencies. He’d led many a search-and-rescue operation, could provide basic first aid better than many doctors and had even survived a couple of unexpected encounters with grizzly bears.

      But what to do with a crying woman? That wasn’t one of his fortes.

      Now he sat on the very edge of his reclining chair and thought about the question Denise asked. Of course he’d known Ramsey was finishing the basement of the house he shared with Denise and their two children, Colin and Chrissy. He’d helped Ramsey haul in a load of drywall two weekends ago.

      “What am I going to do, Grant? I’ve got a half-finished basement I can’t afford to hire someone to complete, mortgage payments due every month and two children who adored their father and can’t understand why he was out skiing with a woman when he told us he was going to be working on a special assignment.”

      The pain in Denise’s eyes was too naked to look at. Grant cleared his throat and glanced instead at the cup in his hand. He thought about the issues she’d raised, and picked the easiest to deal with.

      “Don’t worry about money. There’ll be insurance.” Ramsey was the type to have arranged provisions for his family. Which only made his death that much more of a puzzle. What was he doing out on that mountain with Helen Fremont? Had the man totally lost his mind?

      To Grant, it was incomprehensible. Especially considering the flak Ramsey had always given him about getting a wife, having some kids. Apparently, family life wasn’t as idyllic as Ramsey had made it out to be.

      “I can’t believe he took her there, to the Asulkan Hut.” Denise’s mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s where we went the day he asked me to marry him. It was his special place, our special place. Whenever he had an important decision…”

      She choked back a sob, took a stabilizing breath. “Did you know, Grant? That he was seeing that woman?”

      He was relieved that he could honestly shake his head no. “I didn’t have a clue.”

      No one had been more surprised than him to find out Helen Fremont had accompanied Ramsey to that mountain retreat.

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