It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4)

by Julia Kent

  Pine managed a weak laugh. “Thanks for the coat.”

  Jeremy unfolded a second item in his arms, a thick, lined wool blanket that he wrapped around Pine’s legs and lap. Now the guy was insulated from the cold, at least, though he continued to shiver. Jeremy took out his walkie-talkie and said something to Miles that Mike couldn’t understand.

  “Who’s up there?” he asked as Jeremy finished talking to Miles.

  “Miles. Mike Pine’s dad. Dylan. Alex. Joe Stillman.”

  If anyone could figure this out, that crew could.

  “Pete? Adam? Dan?” He ran though all the remaining strong guys he could think of.

  “Someone has to hold down the fort, so Pete’s there with Sandy, Lydia, and Laura. Dan’s still out of town, coming in early from Portland with Krysta and Caleb. Last-minute supply run before the big wedding.”

  Oh, great. No Krysta. Without her best friend, Lydia would be one massive wreck.

  “Why Alex? He’s a guest.”

  “He’s also a doctor.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The complexity of the situation made Mike angry. This should be easy. Just rescue the damn guy, right? But once again, Mother Nature reigned. She decided the terrain, the weather, the wind patterns and the placement of obstacles. No one could influence her when the pieces were all in place. All you could do was find a solution or ride her out.

  “Jeremy!” he called out, the wind kicking up bad, making it hard to hear. The edge of his windbreaker hood caught in his mouth and he pulled it out. “How the hell are we going to do this?”

  Jeremy frowned, listened to something on his walkie-talkie, and shrugged helplessly.

  And then the rain began.

  “Fuck!” Mike screamed.

  Pine rose slowly, like a monk in a silent order, and this time, Mike had help. Between him and Jeremy, they guided him with aching slowness, the rain pelting them like BBs from a kid’s gun, as they reached the base of the path up.

  “Think you can walk it?” Jeremy shouted, The rain was hitting them at a forty-five degree angle, punishing in its suddenness.

  “I’ll try,” Pine grunted, the words punctuated by those weird breath gasps. Mike frowned, wondering now whether the guy had broken some ribs in the fall.

  They made their way about ten feet up the hill before Pine sagged against Jeremy, exhausted.

  “Need—to—rest,” he gasped. Mike looked up. The path curved as the slope increased. If it were just a straight line up, they’d be a third done. By his eyeballing, they were about a fifth done, and it was the easy fifth.

  Jeremy’s walkie-talkie crackled, and this time, Mike heard the words. “Need a basket?”

  A basket?

  “We can’t drag him up. No way. The path’s too curvy, and he’d break something else.”

  “What about driving him up on a four-wheeler?” Miles asked.

  Mike and Jeremy shared a look.

  “Dylan,” Pine gasped. “Dylan was a firefighter and a paramedic. He might know. Is he up there?”

  “Who do you think is suggesting all these ideas?” a new voice barked back from the walkie-talkie. “Jesus, Mike, I knew you were gun shy about us all getting married, but this one takes the cake,” Dylan cracked.

  Pine started laughing, which turned into a racking cough that scared the shit out of Mike.

  “We have to get him up there.” The rain stayed steady, any part of him not covered by his wetsuit now soaked, through the windbreaker and all. He wondered about Pine, who would have the added weight of the water soaking into his outer clothing very soon. Whatever benefit he got from the heat of the clothing would be outweighed by the elements very, very soon.

  “Can the four-wheeler do the job? The trail’s so narrow,” Mike said into the walkie-talkie. “And it’s going to be nothing but wet sand soon.”

  “We don’t need a crash and slide with yet another person getting hurt,” Jeremy said to Mike. They shared a look that made Mike’s mouth go dry.

  No, indeed.

  That was the last thing they needed.

  Jeremy’s words reminded him that Dylan was up there, his longtime partner in physical jeopardy, and he and Jeremy were standing here wasting time.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, taking command. All of his worry faded, the ex CEO in him taking over. “You have to get up that hill on your own two feet, Mike,” he said to Pine, taking the guy’s bad side and holding on by the hip. “One step at a time. We’ve got your back.”

  Jeremy shot him a very uncertain look that Mike ignored.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try later. Do now.” Step. Step.

  “Oh, I see the part of Yoda will be played by Mike Bournham,” Jeremy quipped.

  Step. Step.

  “If I’m Yoda, you’re Jar Jar Binks,” Mike muttered. Pine made a barky, wheezy laugh. Mike guided him two more steps.

  “You take that back!” Jeremy shouted, pretending to be genuinely upset. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

  Step. Step. Step.

  “Of course you have,” Mike scoffed.

  They were about a third of the way up now. The angle of the path changed, and Jeremy slipped suddenly, taking Pine down a foot or so, though the big guy recovered.

  “Careful,” Jeremy cautioned.

  “You talking to yourself, or us?”

  “I’m pretty fucking close to talking to God at this point,” Jeremy snapped.

  But they kept going up, step by step, Mike’s hamstrings starting to scream. He wore water shoes, unsuited for this kind of terrain. The arch of one foot sent a lightning bolt of pain through him as he stepped on a thin, bony tree root.

  Then again, he wasn’t making this walk with broken bones, scraped skin, a possible broken rib or two, and in a state of near shock, so who the hell was he to complain, even in his own mind?

  “I think we need another guy to help down here!” he called up.

  “Rope and guy coming!” Dylan hollered. In the distance, over the pelting sound of rain, he heard metal against metal, and men shouting.

  Within seconds, Mike lost his footing and felt his left leg just go, right down the sand, his adductor muscles tearing. Instinct told him to cling to Pine’s side, but a smarter part of his brain willed him to let go, because if he didn’t, he’d take the injured guy down with him.

  And then he got a taste of what it felt like to roll down a cliffside himself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mike Pine

  “MIKE!” Jeremy’s scream pierced him, the pain and fear tugging through his blood like a trillion tether lines being tightened at once. He braced his legs, the angle of the path making it damn hard to even stay still, rain shoved by harsh winds right into his eyes. If he turned to look down at Mike Bournham, he would fall right along with him. Social nicety said you look to try to help, but survival told him to crawl inward, because Mike Bournham had just been injured trying to help him. If he went back down that hill, too, this rescue would be nothing more than a clusterfuck.

  And could turn deadly.

  Not how he imagined the night before his wedding. Ever.

  The panic from earlier in the day at the sight of his parents had faded out of him long ago, seeping into the sand down there, washed away by tides long gone, the worry and horror all mingled in the ocean water, diluted down to nothing more than nature’s tears.

  “FUCK!” Jeremy screamed, holding on, legs working and shifting as the rain turned the ground beneath their feet into a game of Twister.

  A thick rope struck Mike on the shoulder, scraping the windbreaker, the rope’s weight so great it dragged the hoodie down, exposing his bare biceps. Stumbling, he perched between two worlds, nearly falling straight backwards.

  Jeremy grabbed him. The kinetic shift in the man as he braced his legs to absorb Mike’s fragility felt like a kind of grace you only see in a dance performance.

  “We’re close,” he managed to say to Jeremy. “Get me to the top
and then go get him.”

  “We’re not that close!” Jeremy barked.

  Mike looked up. Pa, Miles, and Dylan all peered down, then Dylan began screaming at someone tall next to him. Alex? The tall man’s hands were on Dylan’s shoulders and he bent down just enough to get in his face, Dylan coming back at him like an angry pit bull. Whatever conversation they were having looked like it was seconds from turning into a boxing match.

  The unmistakable sound of the words “FUCK YOU!” filled Mike’s ears.

  Dylan.

  “Fuck me, but you’re not going down alone!” Alex shouted back as he moved within one of the headlight beams, giving Mike a look at his very angry, distorted face.

  What were the fighting about?

  Close enough to watch it all happen, but still too far from safety, Mike paused. So did Jeremy. Suspended about ten feet from the very top, the rope at their feet, they just halted. Froze.

  Suspended themselves in time.

  “Grab the rope!” Dylan shouted. Jeremy startled, his legs not moving. Mike could feel him start to tremble from the sheer force of preventing so much weight from falling.

  Or maybe the shivers were from emotion? Fear? Cold?

  The rope was a cold, stringy snake around his waist, pressing against the small of his back.

  And then Mike watched in horror as someone—Dylan? Alex? Miles?—began a slow, inch-by-inch descent down those last ten feet.

  Tired. So tired. Mike’s eye drooped and a sudden wave of warmth made him feel so happy. Pleasant. Content and peaceful, a blanket of love that contradicted everything Mother Nature had thrown at him. If he just closed his eyes, he could keep this feeling. If he just let go, everyone could stay safe, and he could linger in this sweet state of warmth.

  “Hey!” Jeremy shook him. “Cut it out.”

  “I got him,” said a voice that made Mike start to choke with tears of pure, unadulterated relief. Dylan’s scent filled his nose, warm, wet arms bulging with effort as they wrapped around his good side, and he felt himself more grounded, centered and rooted to the earth. “You go get your guy.”

  “You sure?”Jeremy said, eyes wild, looking down the path. “I can’t even fucking see him!”

  “I got my Mike. You go get yours. Alex is pulling us up by the rope.”

  Mike looked up to see a tall figure braced at the very edge of the clifftop, rope in arms, with another rope around his waist, held in place by what looked like a crowd of men.

  “Your local fire chief’s up there with an ambulance, ready to go. We have another truck for Alex and one of the injured guys. I’ll send Miles down in a minute,” Dylan answered, his voice tight with control but crystal clear. This was a mission, and by God, they were going to complete it.

  “Right. Thanks. Good luck.”

  “Don’t need luck. Just need strength,” Dylan barked, his arms round Mike and pushing him at the hips, Mike’s legs stretching to calibrate and manage the shifting, wet sand, the thick brush, and the heightened angle.

  Dylan began pushing Mike, bracing himself to become the only obstacle between Mike’s rolling back down this hill. Dylan had turned himself into both counterweight and propulsion, his own body’s needs held back. Mike remembered Dylan’s stories of carrying two-hundred-pound fire victims out of homes, crossing burning staircases and crawling down hallways with victims on his back or in his arms. The tales were never told from a place of bragging, but rather one of wonder.

  “I’m not really there,” he would explain, his eyes glazing over, as if staring at something in a different dimension. “I become pure energy. I focus on getting out and that’s all that exists in the world.”

  Mike always interpreted that to mean that Dylan somehow left himself and let this vital force in, but as he became the object of that singular attention, he realized he’d had it wrong all these years.

  Dylan became more himself in this moment.

  He was Dylan, and nothing more, his power pushing Mike toward life.

  Pain ripped through Mike’s left side like a hot branding iron and he screamed, then a hard shove from behind had him face down on grass, blades and sand filling his mouth, dirt grinding between his teeth as he choked and spat.

  “Sorry,” said a deep, sincere voice. “Didn’t realize that was your bad arm.”

  He could barely move, but turned his head up to see the worried eyes of Lydia’s brother Miles.

  “You’re safe,” he said.

  “Go help Jeremy,” Dylan barked to Miles.

  Dylan’s face crossed in front of Miles, hair soaked and whipped against his cheekbones, face lined with a look that haunted Mike, had haunted him for more than a decade.

  It was the look on Dylan’s face the day Jill’s cancer diagnosis had come in.

  “I’m fine,” Mike whispered, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

  Because everything faded to white.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lydia

  Lydia jolted, her body running cold, as if someone drained her of half her blood in one single second.

  Something was wrong.

  “Get Miles on the phone,” she snapped at Sandy, picking up her own phone to call Mike. As it rang and rang, she cursed him, cursed Jeremy for insisting on going with Miles, cursed Mother Nature for brewing up a storm and wanted to curse the whole fucking world.

  “Miles isn’t answering.”

  “Damn it!’ she shrieked, nearly throwing her phone into the wood stove that blazed now, the fire made by her dad, who stood talking to the local fire and rescue chief. How many men did it take to save one guy?

  Everyone who stayed at camp was just waiting.

  But that feeling, like a cold lick by a demon tongue along her spine, made waiting impossible.

  She threw on a yellow rain slicker and shoved her feet into her mother’s boots.

  “Where are you going?” Sandy asked in an alarm-filled voice.

  “To find Mike and Jeremy.”

  “We know where they are, honey,” Pete said, breaking off conversation with Joe and coming over, giving her mom a look that made Lydia angry. “We just have to wait.”

  “Something bad just happened,” Lydia insisted.

  “We know,” Sandy soothed. “And we’re all working hard to—”

  “No, Mom, I mean something bad just happened.”

  Sandy’s phone rang in that exact moment. Lydia lunged for it, snatched it from her, and saw it was a call from Miles.

  “What the fuck is going on, Miles? Why aren’t you answering—”

  “Mike fell,” he said.

  “No shit, Mike fell! We know that! This entire operation is about Mike falling.”

  “Not that Mike, Lydia,” Miles snapped back. “Your Mike.”

  “My—my what?”

  “Your Mike was helping the other Mike up the path on the cliff and he lost his footing. Rolled all the way down. Jeremy’s working on getting to him but Jeremy just fell on his ass and is scooting down the hill slowly. We have to get Mike Pine to the ambulance, and Dylan’s here administering first aid, but this is a fucking mess. I’m about to help Jeremy. Tell Dad we need him. Now.”

  “Dad—” she started.

  “On my way,” Pete said, out the door before the final word was said.

  “No,” Lydia gasped as Sandy put her arm around her.

  Laura and her friend Josie appeared from the other room, faces tight with worry.

  “What happened?” Laura asked. “Did something go wrong? Is Mike okay?”

  “Which Mike?” Lydia whispered, her throat swelling with tears.

  “Mom? Lydia?” Miles’ disembodied voice floated through the phone. Sandy grabbed it and spoke quietly, rubbing Lydia’s back.

  She knew from the looks on Laura and Josie’s faces that she should explain, but she couldn’t. Her mind was locked shut, her heart pounding like a hard tide against shore, her mouth trying to form the words to say it. Say what had happened.

  To speak the unknown.


  “Mike fell,” Sandy said, finishing her conversation with Miles and turning to Laura and Josie.

  “AGAIN?” Laura cried out.

  “No, no, dear. Your Mike is on the grass at the top. Dylan helped get him up. Miles has him in the truck cab warming up, and Dylan’s giving him first aid. They’ll bring him to the hospital shortly.” Her face fell. “But Lydia’s Mike stumbled while trying to help your Mike up the hill, and...”

  Hearing it from her mother’s mouth made it real. Lydia collapsed into a small chair.

  “Oh, thank God,” Laura said, her body lowering with a short, sharp sigh, her sniffles matching Lydia’s, but in a completely different way. “But I am so, so sorry your Mike fell! I’m sure the guys will...” Her voice faded, and she added a simple, “I’m sorry.”

  “Josie!” Laura said, just as Mike’s mother, Mary, walked into the camp office in tears. “Go with Pete.”

  “Me?” Josie squeaked. “Why?”

  “You’re a nurse. they need all the help they can get.”

  Lydia knew the subtext of her words: what if more people get injured?

  With a curt nod, Josie sprinted out the door to join Lydia’s dad, Laura turning to Mike Pine’s mother with murmurs and tears.

  “They’ll be just fine,” Sandy said.

  Lydia knew better. Between the nasty squall, the steep pitch of the cliff, the fact that Mike was already exhausted from helping with the rescue, and the tone in Miles’ voice, she knew better.

  She knew this had to be bad.

  The question was: how bad?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jeremy

  Never had to deal with this kind of shit when I backpacked through Thailand, he thought to himself as his wet ass slid down the steep cliff, heels dug in, moving him forward inches at a time. The rain felt like a large, wide firehose was pointed right at his neck. The way he had to scoot down the hill meant he was getting the biggest wedgie ever.

  Distracting himself with stupid jokes in his own head was the only way to keep the deep fear at bay.

  If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have gone to the top of the hill, grabbed some supplies, and then gone to find Mike, but clarity wasn’t in abundant supply right now. Instead, he slid to a point where he could stand without falling and walked into the sheets of rain that pelted the shore.