Long Road Home

by JoAnn Ross

  “Fuck this.” Fed up, Sawyer ran, zigzagging between rocks and stunted trees, whatever bit of cover he could find, while the remaining members of the team provided cover from behind the vehicle.

  As a bullet pinged off a rock just next to his head, he decided this dodging attack method looked a helluva lot easier when John Wayne or Clint Eastwood did it.

  Those miserable days of Special Forces training under actual fire, along with years spent scaling sheer rock faces in the mountains back home, paid off as he finally managed to climb the cliffs to an outcropping that allowed him to blast away with his machine gun.

  Which provided enough distraction that the wounded could be carried to the copters and airlifted out.

  Meanwhile, he’d taken a lot of fire that had peppered his arms and legs with rock fragments. A direct hit through his pant leg above his knee burned like a son of a bitch. Other shots had been stopped by his armor, which had left his ribs feeling as if he’d been gored by a bull.

  But as Sawyer made his way back down the cliff, he was congratulating himself on still being alive when—shit—a bullet slammed into his shoulder, causing him to lose his death grip on the rocks.

  Jerked out of the all-too-familiar falling nightmare, Sawyer realized that the hammering pounding in his head wasn’t gunfire but someone knocking.

  While he wouldn’t object if Austin had shown up for a bootie call, he doubted that was the case.

  Not taking time to pull on his boxers, he yanked the sheet off the bed, wrapped it around his waist, and stumbled into the other room to open the door. Cooper was standing there, illuminated by the spreading yellow glow of the porch light.

  The time of night, along with his brother’s uncharacteristically grim expression, told Sawyer that the news was bad. “Is it Dad?”

  “No.”

  “Not Rachel or Scott?” Coop had already lost one woman to tragedy. Sawyer couldn’t imagine him losing another.

  “It’s the Campbells.”

  Sawyer raked a hand over his hair. “Heather and Tom? What about them? We just had dinner with them. They had to leave before we finished because Tom got a call about a breech foal he had to turn before they left for Ashland.”

  “That explains what they were doing out on Duck Pond Road.”

  Sawyer’s blood, which was already cold from lingering shadows of that night in the Afghan mountains, turned to ice. “They couldn’t tell you why they were there?” Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. The unthinkable, impossible, very bad truth was written all over his brother’s face.

  “They couldn’t because a boulder fell from the cliff onto the top of their car. A witness who’d been driving a lumber truck a ways behind them saw it happen and said that it was when that tremor hit. Which was probably what shook it loose.”

  “Jesus.” Sawyer had managed to convince himself that once he got home to River’s Bend, he wouldn’t have to ever hear news like this again. Coming on the heels of the nightmare, it slammed straight to the gut like an iron fist, nearly doubling him over.

  Then, another thought hit. “You haven’t told Austin yet.”

  “No. I figured it would probably be better if you were there when I did.”

  “Jesus,” Sawyer repeated. “Yeah . . . Right. Just let me put on some clothes.”

  Cooper followed him into the bedroom as he pulled a pair of knit boxer briefs from the duffle bag he was still using for a bureau and scooped the jeans he’d worn to dinner off the floor.

  “We just had dinner with them,” he repeated, knowing how inane that sounded. But was there anything more effing inane than two best friends being killed on their way to an anniversary celebration? Two parents leaving their children . . .

  “Aw, shit. The kids.”

  “I stopped by the house on the way over here, and Rachel’s going to keep them away from the TV in the morning and not answer the phone unless it’s one of us. I figured you, Austin, Rachel, and I would tell them together.”

  “Good idea.” Sawyer pulled a T-shirt, which was lying on the floor next to his jeans, over his head. It was the one he’d worn yesterday to clean out a stall and smelled like horse and sweat, but he figured that was the least of his problems. “Good,” he repeated numbly.

  Thoughts were bombarding his brain like incoming shrapnel. “We were looking at photos,” he said as he sat down on the sleeping bag and pulled on a pair of socks that didn’t smell too much like a wrestling locker room before reaching for his boots. “The wedding, the kids’ baptisms.”

  As Cooper’s news sunk in even more, memories of standing in front of helmets, inverted rifles, boots, and dog tags of the fallen flashed before his eyes. “Hell. Now we’re going to be going to their damn funerals.”

  “It sucks,” Cooper agreed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” As much as Sawyer felt like hurling up his guts, he had to stay strong for Austin. He stood up, put his hands on his thighs, and drew in a deep breath. Sent it exploding out.

  His head cleared, his vision focused, he grabbed his jacket, which he’d tossed over the doorknob when he’d come home. “Let’s go get this over with.”

  *

  A MOMENT AFTER Cooper’s knock, the porch light came on. There was another pause, then Austin opened the door.

  “Sawyer? Cooper?” Dressed in a pair of pale blue pajama pants with clouds printed on them and a knit camisole, she looked sleepy, tousled, and delicious. On any other night, Sawyer would be tempted to take her back to bed and make up for lost time. But this was not any other night. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Austin,” Coop said. “Could we come in?”

  “Oh.” She backed up and opened the door wider. “Of course.” Sawyer watched as comprehension on why they’d be showing up at her door at this hour of the night clicked in. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe you’d like to sit down.” Cooper’s tone was kind but, Sawyer noticed, had shifted into cop mode. Which had him wondering how many times in his life, first as a military cop, then working for the Portland Police Bureau, then here, his brother had been required to make a visit like this. As hard as the visits Sawyer had made to the families of his fallen teammates had been, this had to be far worse.

  “Do I need to?”

  When Coop appeared prepared to give some oblique cop answer, Sawyer decided this was one of those bandage cases. Ease it off, taking more time and dragging out the pain, or just rip and get it over with. He decided Austin would rather just have it rip.

  “Heather and Tom were in an accident after leaving the Carpenters’ place,” he said, earning a sharp look from Cooper for having interfered in his official police business. “A boulder fell onto their car out on Duck Pond Road. Coop says they died instantly.”

  “Died?” Even as Austin’s heart denied it, her head knew that Sawyer had no reason to lie. “No.” Feeling as if she were about to shatter, she folded her arms across the front of her tank top, trying to hold herself together.

  When she’d been a little girl, younger even than Jack, all the yellow diamond Watch for Falling Rocks signs along the upper river road had made her nervous because she’d never known what she’d do if she actually saw one crashing down the side of the cliff. Austin had never shared her fears with her father because she didn’t want to sound like a scaredy-cat. Over the years, after having never heard of anyone being killed there, she’d put her concerns aside and had gotten so she didn’t even notice those signs anymore.

  “I’m sorry.” Sawyer drew her into his arms. “So damn sorry.”

  Austin was cold. So very cold. The last time she remembered feeling like this, chilled to the very marrow of her bones, had been eight years ago, when a devastating blizzard had blasted down from Canada and Washington.

  Barreling through the mountains like a freight train, it had brought snow, ice, and sixty- to ninety-mile-an-hour winds that buried cattle in snowdrifts, some measuring eighteen feet high, leaving a trail of destruction and
dead animals in its wake as it headed eastward into Idaho. Her teeth had chattered near to breaking as she’d joined her neighbors for days out looking for thousands of missing animals.

  Unlike back then, tonight she was inside her warm and cozy home, safe in Sawyer’s arms. But she still couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, over and over. She could feel his lips on her hair. Hear the steady, solid beat of his heart beneath her cheek while her own heart was wildly kicking against her ribs like a bucking horse.

  “Oh, God, poor Heather. And Tom.” Trying to block out the vision of the sunny yellow minivan Tom had agreed to drive to Ashland instead of his old veterinarian pickup, Austin pressed her fingers against her eyes, so hard that all she could see were crazily floating spots.

  “We just had dinner with them,” she said, as if stating that truth could reverse time back to when they’d been laughing together at the New Chance.

  “I know.” His hand was soothing her back. “I said the same thing when Coop told me.”

  She lifted her head and saw the truth in his somber gaze. Once again, like old times, they were on the same wavelength. And how terrible was it that this was the thought they’d have to be sharing?

  She looked over at Cooper, who was still standing there, hat in hand, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else. Or, more likely, she thought, back in time, before he’d gotten that call. “You told Rachel first.” It was not a question.

  “Yeah. We figured you, Sawyer, she, and I would tell the kids in the morning. But she’s going to tell Scott first.”

  Although her heart had slowed down to a more normal rhythm, her chest felt so painfully tight. Austin rubbed the heel of her hand against it as her cottony brain tried to sort that out.

  “Because he lost his father.” Despite having only been together since early last fall, Rachel, Cooper, and Scott had bonded so well it was as if they’d always been a family.

  “Yeah.” She knew he was uncomfortable when he dragged his hand through his hair. “She thought Scott would be able to share empathy. And let them know it gets better.”

  “That’s fortunate they’ll have someone there who’ll truly understand.” Her mother abandoning her family had felt like a death at the time. But Sawyer had always been there, like a rock for her. And from then on, Austin had always been able to rely on him. Except for after she’d cut him out of her life by marrying Jace. “But reliving that time is bound to be terribly hard on him.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper repeated on an exhaled breath that had her realizing that what she’d first thought to be discomfort was deep concern for the boy he loved like his own flesh-and-blood son. “Rachel’s an amazing mom. We’re going to do our best to ease any hurt, but we’re notifying the school so they can watch for any problems. We’re also setting up appointments with a therapist I’ve used for kids in bad situations before. One just for him alone, so he can share whatever he’s feeling without having to worry about us judging him. And another with him, Rachel, and me together as a family.”

  “You’re a good dad, Cooper Murphy.”

  Austin felt the moisture burning her eyes and blinked it away. Although she wanted to just go back to bed, hide under the covers, and sob until she was all cried out, between Sawyer’s strong arms and Cooper’s steady, reassuring attitude, she was able to clear her head enough to concentrate on what all needed to be done.

  “Where will the kids stay? With you and Rachel?”

  “For now. I called a woman I’ve worked with before at Child Protective Services on the way over here. We’ve been cleared as emergency temporary custodians until a permanent home can be found.”

  “Tom’s parents are in Hawaii and not well enough to travel.”

  Tom had been adopted at birth by older parents, who were now both in their eighties. His father was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and Heather had worried about his mother wearing herself out taking care of him twenty-four seven. When the elderly woman had broken a hip last winter, she’d had no choice but to place her husband in a long-term care home. The same one she’d ended up in.

  “And, of course, Heather’s parents died when she was pregnant with Jack.” Another painful thought struck like a lightning bolt. “Heather hated driving on Duck Pond Road because that’s where they swerved to miss an elk and hit a tree.”

  She closed her eyes again when she realized she’d just spoken of her best friend in past tense. How could that be? It wasn’t fair. Even as she wanted to scream, to sob, Austin struggled for calm because the children—her godchildren—were going to need her. And Sawyer.

  “The location makes it even worse,” Sawyer said.

  “It does. It’s so, so tragic.”

  Austin drew in a breath.

  Shook off the pain.

  Okay. There was planning to be done, and one thing she’d always been very good at, even more so since having to scrape up income for the ranch, was to figure out ways to handle all this.

  Then only once Heather and Tom were—how could this be happening?—buried and the children settled in with a new family, most likely with Rachel and Cooper, especially since Rachel had mentioned wanting another child, would Austin allow herself to weep.

  14

  AUSTIN DRESSED HURRIEDLY in jeans, a shirt, and boots. After pulling her hair into a tail, she wrote a note to her dad, telling him what had happened, left it next to the coffeepot, then rejoined Sawyer and Cooper.

  As she and Sawyer followed Cooper’s SUV, the butterflies she’d felt fluttering in her stomach when they’d headed off to the dinner that may or may not have been a date had returned. But this time they were giant condors, flapping oversized wings that had her feeling on the verge of throwing up.

  “Are you okay?” Sawyer asked, slanting her a look as they turned onto the two-lane road. It had begun to rain again, which Austin found appropriate. It also started a “Tears in Heaven” earworm she feared she’d be hearing a lot over the next days.

  She started to assure him that she was fine. Then decided there was going to be enough pretense for the kids’ sake. If she didn’t have someone she could be honest with, vent to, she’d never make it through this.

  “No. I’m not. This is wrong in so many ways and on so many levels I can’t even wrap my head around it yet. I’m crushed, angry—no, make that pissed off—heartbroken, and scared to death because I’m afraid I’m going to screw this up and make things even worse for Jack and Sophie.”

  “You won’t screw it up.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Because you love those kids. And they love you. Heather told me at the party how wonderful you are with them. How you’re like a favorite aunt.”

  “They don’t have any aunts. Or uncles.” The children were more alone than she’d been when her parents divorced. At least she’d had her father. And Sawyer.

  “Family doesn’t necessarily come from blood. We make it. The way you were family with Tom, Heather, and the kids.”

  She turned from looking through the rain-streaked window toward him. “If I’m like their aunt, you’d be a surrogate uncle.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not the same. They haven’t seen me for over a year. A lot changes in a kid’s life in that length of time.”

  “Like you said the other day, life happens,” she said. “They may have grown up some, but they’re still children. Who are going to need you.”

  “I’m not going to bail on them.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that.” Sawyer, like his brothers and father, had always been faithful to the bone. “And I wasn’t lecturing you.” Though it admittedly could have sounded that way.

  “They’ll be living with Coop and Rachel,” he said as he turned off the road onto the long driveway to the ranch house. “My brother’s good with kids.”

  Austin felt a niggling of nerves at the back of her neck. “But he’s older,” she said carefully. “He didn’t know Tom as well as you do. Did.” Damn, ther
e it was again. How could she possibly think about the couple as only existing in the past?

  They had plans. She had them all written into the planner on her desk and, as backup, on her phone’s iCal. There was bridesmaids dress shopping with Heather for Rachel’s upcoming wedding. After that was Sophie’s thirteenth birthday party, which was taking place in a new tea shop that had recently opened on Front Street. Heather, naturally, had already gotten the pattern for her daughter’s dress and had shown Austin sketches of the hats she was making for each of the girls invited to the party. Although there would be the usual tea sandwiches and sweets, Austin was making the birthday cake.

  Then came the Fourth of July rodeo, with Tom not only providing veterinarian services but taking part in the calf roping, the same way he had with Sawyer back in high school. Though Sawyer, being the more reckless of the two back then, had also done bronc and bull riding.

  And that didn’t even cover typical Sunday picnics at the river, trail rides, barbecues. The patterns of Austin’s life had become so interwoven with the Campbell family she couldn’t have separated the threads if she’d wanted to. Which she hadn’t.

  But that wicked bitch fate had stepped in and ripped her life to shreds, just when she was starting to get it together again.

  And how could she be pitying herself while two children lay sleeping in the log house Sawyer was pulling up in front of, unaware that, come morning, their own young lives, and their hearts, would be shattered?

  She was, Austin decided as she jumped out of the cab, not waiting for Sawyer to go around to open her door, a very bad person.

  15

  COOPER’S HOUSE WAS made from logs milled on the ranch property, the same as the one Sawyer had grown up in with his brothers at the Bar M. Since the night had grown seasonally chilly, Rachel had started a fire going in the river-rock fireplace.

  She greeted Austin with sad, red-rimmed eyes and a hug. “I’m so sorry.”