“So, did you get that kiss you’d hoped for from Kacey?” Jess said quietly.
“What?”
“I’m not stupid. I know guys.” She winked.
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, managed a quick smile. “Maybe.”
She picked up the container of MREs. “So, did you and Kacey date?”
He nodded, not sure how to correct her. Date? No. Believe that he’d found his soul mate? So much so that when she got pregnant, he’d asked her to marry him, believed in his naive seventeen-year-old hope that they could live happily ever after on love.
Apparently one of them had come to their senses.
He, on the other hand, made a living singing the lie that love was enough.
“We went out a few times,” he finally said.
Kacey came out of the house wearing a borrowed jumpsuit and holding a clipboard and her flight helmet. Maybe it was the freshness of old memories, but the sight of her, tall, shapely in her uniform, that auburn hair tied back to reveal her high cheekbones, her no-nonsense expression—all of it stirred up memories of a different version of her sitting on a stool at the long bar of the Gray Pony, swaying to one of his songs, looking at him like he could save the world.
Made him believe it.
“We need to get going before the ceiling deteriorates,” Kacey said. “We don’t know what we’ll find in Swiftcurrent Pass.”
Aye, aye, Captain. But he bit back the words. She was right—they had kids to find.
The uniforms hung from wooden lockers in the back room, helmets shoved on the shelves overhead.
He dug through the old uniforms and located the one he’d worn three years ago, during the summer of the great search. However, his helmet had clearly disappeared. He dug out one with the initials P.B.
Jess, too, donned her uniform and grabbed her helmet.
Kacey was in the cockpit, going through her preflight check.
Yes, once upon a time, he thought he couldn’t breathe without Kacey looking his direction. But they’d both moved on, clearly, and maybe his dad was right. He just had to keep going. He didn’t have the right to ask God to fix anything anyway, so maybe this was the best he could hope for.
He climbed into the back of the chopper, tested the radio in his helmet. Kacey’s voice came through crisp and sharp.
“Keep an eye out for those kids,” she said.
“You just keep us away from any mountains,” he responded.
“This will be fun,” Jess said, and Ben couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.
Ben eyed Kacey as she turned on switches, connected with the airport out of Kalispell. A precaution more than permission, but probably she was used to following regs. She checked in with Chet, then told Jess and Ben to buckle in.
Check.
He’d flown with his father so many times he knew the feeling as the chopper lifted vertically from the ground, of losing his stomach like he might on a roller-coaster ride. Kacey held the cyclic stick between her knees, her left hand on the collective lever, which appeared very much like an emergency brake on a car but acted like a motorcycle handle to increase lift and accelerate their ascent.
She maneuvered the tail rotor blade with her foot pedals.
They levitated, then gathered altitude as the bird found speed.
She angled them away from the base, over the barn, the house, then pointed them northeast toward the park.
He never grew tired of flying over Glacier National Park. She skimmed them over the vast meadows blanketed with scarlet red Indian paintbrushes, pink fireweed, sunburst yellow glacier lilies, and gold and purple daisies as she hovered below the clouds, the mountains looming ahead. Then she switched to IFR and flew them up through the clouds to where the peaks jutted above the cotton. Jagged-edged mountains, spires rimmed with snow reaching to the heavens, the blue vault of sky arching overhead, almost peaceful.
And that’s when their conversation from earlier revived, found purchase.
“What’s going on here?”
A good question, asked by Jess. And he’d been scrambling for an answer when Kacey came up with it.
Nothing.
That’s what she thought? That they’d been nothing?
But maybe Kacey was right. He’d spent too long dissecting his mistakes, trying to figure out why she’d gone from saying yes to marrying him to deciding to give their child up for adoption and refusing his calls.
And she thought he’d betrayed her. Wow.
He held on as they veered down, dipping again through the clouds, emerging into a bowl, the trees cascading down in a slope of green fir to a dark blue lake pooling at the bottom. He could make out the Highline Trail etched into the Garden Wall as she descended.
“We’ll land near the pass. We’ll have to go through the clouds again. Hang on.” Kacey’s voice, calm, no stress as she maneuvered the bird toward Swiftcurrent Pass, to the saddle where she could put down.
They landed in a patch of white daisies, the wind buffeting the chopper, and she instructed them to wait until she had the bird shut down before they got out.
The wind whistled in his ears as he opened the door and hopped out, searching for the group.
“Granite Park Chalet is just down the trail. My guess is that they’ve holed up there,” Kacey said, walking over to retrieve one of the duffel bags of MREs. “Ready for a hike?”
He grabbed his backpack and the bag of blankets while Jess fitted on her EMT pack.
Too many memories for him to answer.
He took off down the trail instead, on his way to the chalet.
More of a rustic way station than a traveler’s paradise, the Granite Park Chalet perched on top of a mountain on the west side of the Continental Divide, at the apex of two trailheads. Ben had more than once found his way to the remote outpost to listen to the songs in his head.
Like three years ago, when he thought he just might end up in Mercy Falls for good.
And, of course, right before he left for Nashville that first time, trying to undo the knots Kacey had lodged in his brain.
He hadn’t realized he’d left Jess and Kacey behind until he spotted the stone buildings gleaming in the midmorning sunshine. Built of ledge rock by the railroad over a hundred years ago, with a main eating area equipped with a stove and rough tables and second-story bunk rooms that emerged onto a hand-hewn deck. The view from the lodge felt a little like swallowing the world whole. More than once Ben had repressed the wild urge to swan dive into the expansive valley and hope the wind might catch him and carry him aloft, over lakes and black pine, the wind a song in his ears.
“Do you see them?” Kacey had caught up, barely breathing hard.
“Nope,” he said, “but there is a wisp of smoke from the chimney.”
He headed down the path. Far away, on the edge of the horizon to the west, black cumulus gathered, edged with the finest flash of gold, and he thought he heard thunder rumble.
“We’d better hurry,” Kacey said.
Although the sign directed visitors to the back, he entered from the front, onto the front porch and into the main eating area.
The door opened on ten teenagers sitting around the stove, some of them with their sleeping bags wrapped around them, eating Doritos and playing Monopoly.
Apparently not in need of rescue.
Except, from the group rose a woman, midtwenties, her dark blonde hair in braids and held back with a floral handkerchief. She wore green army fatigues, a vintage Pac-Man T-shirt, and Keens. “Oh good, you’re here!”
Huh?
Kacey had come in behind him and now pushed past him, toward the woman. “Willow? What are you doing here?”
The woman aptly named Willow climbed over bodies, directing someone not to cheat, and came over to them. “I’m so glad you’re here—and wow, really? Ben King too?”
He frowned, felt a smile lift. A fan, here on top of the mountain?
“I guess that’s a good thing, right? Because now you�
�re both here and you can look for her together.”
Look for . . . ?
“What are you talking about?” Kacey said, her pack dropping onto a table.
Willow stared at her, and something about her expression made Kacey still. Her hand touched Willow’s arm. “Who are we looking for, Willow?”
“Oh, of course, you don’t know. Sorry—I figured that’s why you came.”
Kacey’s mouth tightened into a tight bud of impatience.
“Audrey. She’s lost. Jared is out looking. I think he took the Loop Trail down, but I don’t know. He left hours ago to look for her—for them.”
Kacey had stiffened. “Them?”
Willow made a face at Kacey. “I’m sorry. She took off yesterday with one of the guys in the group, and they haven’t been back.”
“Audrey is with one of the guys?” Kacey took a deep breath. Held up her hands as if trying to wrap them around Willow’s words. “Who is she with?”
“Just another camper—his name is Nate. He’s her age, promise.”
“Nice. Two teenagers out on the mountain by themselves. That’s fantastic.” Kacey turned, pressed both hands on the table.
Enacted some deep breathing.
Ben hadn’t a clue what might be going on here. “Who’s Audrey?”
And that’s when everything around him stopped, went silent. Willow stared at him, blinking, and then, slowly, Kacey rounded, her eyes wide, her mouth opening.
He heard only the thunder, maybe out of the approaching storm, but more likely deep inside, his heart knocking to get out. To run.
Because even as the words formed on Kacey’s lips, even as she put voice to the truth, he realized his father had been right.
This is why he’d come home.
“Audrey is only your daughter.”
3
As much as she wanted to throttle Willow—and Audrey, for that matter—Kacey didn’t have a thought beyond trying to decipher if Ben might actually be asphyxiating.
He had his mouth open, his eyes widening, his breath hitching—maybe not about to perish, but as his mouth closed, he looked very much like he’d had the wind knocked out of him.
“My . . . daughter?” He cast a look at Willow, then back to Kacey.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you serious right now? That you didn’t know, for the past thirteen years, that you had a daughter? Wait, don’t tell me. Did you miss the fact that I was pregnant? Don’t tell me you have selective amnesia right now, because I remember every detail, from the pickles to the ice cream runs.” She had other details she remembered too, but she wouldn’t bring them up in front of a group of within-earshot teenagers.
“Yeah, I remember, thanks,” he said, his voice sharp. “And yes, I know you had a baby.” He cleared his throat, cut his voice low. “Know we had a baby, but—”
“What did you think happened, Ben? That she vanished?”
And that was when he caught her around the elbow and, before she could recover from her shock, dragged her outside.
He pulled the door shut behind him.
“What?”
“Are you kidding me? If we were in cell phone range, those kids would be tweeting right now.”
“Tweeting—that’s what you’re worried about?” And now she would have to dismember him. “You have a daughter.”
“Stop talking.” He held up his hand. “Just give me a second here.”
And then he bent and grabbed his knees, as if his head might be spinning.
Seriously? “Ben, what is going on? You didn’t know about Audrey? At all?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He walked away from her, running his hands through his hair.
Seriously?
Her mouth opened, even as he whirled around.
She had no response for his stripped, incredulous expression.
“I called,” he said on a wisp of voice. “I called and called and—”
“You didn’t show up for her birth! You were sitting in jail, drunk! I know, because my father told me.”
He sucked in a breath. “That’s not the whole story.” And he wore such a broken expression she had to turn away.
She refused to feel any sympathy for him. Instead, she blew out a breath, hands on her hips. A low-pressure system gathered in the west, evidenced by the low-hanging thunderclouds. She didn’t like it.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over, and now we have to find Audrey,” he said, as if reading her mind.
“Agreed.” She stepped back inside the cabin, her entire body trembling.
Thankfully, it seemed that despite an outburst that felt like shouting to Kacey, the youth group had been oblivious to the revelation. Small mercies.
Willow, however, had turned ashen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that Ben didn’t know.”
She could hardly blame the sister of Audrey’s godmother. After all, for all Sierra knew, Ben had walked out on them the night Audrey was born.
So much for the abandonment story. Although, until this very moment, it had been true.
“It’s okay,” she said to Willow. “But I don’t understand—what is Audrey doing with the Mercy Falls youth group? She attends church in Whitefish with my parents.”
Willow’s mouth made a silent O. “Well, that probably has something to do with Nate.”
“Nate.”
“Oh, they are so cute. Nate’s had a thing for her since—”
“Willow! Who is Nate?”
“Sorry. They play in a band together at their middle school, and since she doesn’t have a youth group at her church in Whitefish, she started playing for us and attending some of our extracurricular events. Like this hike.”
“Perfect. Where did they go?”
The door had opened, and Ben stepped in behind her. She felt his presence, solid, a wall of anger and not a little frustration, and it raised the little hairs on her neck.
But she’d spent twelve years in the military, in hot spots around the globe, and a little ire from Ben wasn’t going to faze her.
Her biggest concern, right after locating Audrey and Nate, was keeping Ben quiet.
The last thing her confused thirteen-year-old daughter needed was her absent, superstar father rising from nowhere to complicate her life. And what would Kacey do if Ben sang her daughter a song, made her fall for him, then walked out of her life the millisecond she actually needed him?
Nope. Audrey already had a semi-absent mom. She couldn’t be saddled with a disappearing father.
“I don’t know. It was supposed to be a three-day trip. We hiked the trail up here two days ago, and when we went to leave yesterday, we realized the trail had been washed out. With the rain on the mountain, Jared suggested we lay low in the chalet for another day. He was thinking we’d hike out today via the Loop Trail. They must have sneaked out yesterday afternoon—we didn’t notice them missing until last night, and we went looking, but it got dark so fast, and we didn’t know what to do—”
“You don’t leave two kids out in the elements overnight!” Ben snapped. “It snowed in the park last night.”
“I know. We walked down the Highline Trail as far as we could and didn’t see them. We weren’t equipped to search in the dark and had no way to contact anyone. That’s why Jared hiked out today—to get help.” And now Willow looked like she might be unraveling, her eyes shiny. “Listen, we didn’t know what to do. Nate’s dad is a forest ranger, so hopefully he has some sense about him.”
“It’s Audrey who has the sense,” Kacey said. “She’s been backpacking with me numerous times—she probably found them a place to hunker down.” She noticed that Jess had joined their conversation. “Can you pack me a survival first aid kit—water, food, blanket, simple splints? If they haven’t returned, it might be because one of them is injured.”
“Want me to go with you?” Jess asked. “The kids are good here—mostly just dehydrated.”
“No. Stay here, on coms. If we find them and need to
pack them out, we’ll need you to go back to the chopper, meet us with gear.”
Jess nodded and turned to repack her bag.
Kacey glanced at Ben. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into—”
“I know where they are.”
She stared at him, words dropping away. His mouth tightened, and he raised an eyebrow.
Oh.
He raised a shoulder. “Why not, right? If his dad is a park ranger, he’s heard of the place. And if you’ve told your daughter—our daughter—anything about—”
“No. I haven’t.”
And that clearly hurt him, because he flinched. Then, “Right. Well, it’s worth a shot.”
Willow was staring at them, and now, as Jess returned with the pack, asked, “Where?”
“The fire lookout tower,” Kacey said. She grabbed the pack, pulled on the straps. “Stay on the radio, Jess.”
Ben had already pushed through the door.
She had to run to catch up to his long strides carrying him away from the chalet. He strode with purpose, a darkness in his expression.
Now was probably not the time to . . . “Ben, can we talk?”
“About what? Or rather, where do we start? Maybe with the fact that you told me you were going to put the baby up for adoption?”
Ho-kay. She slowed her breathing. If he wanted to run all the way to the tower—wait. “Adoption? Why would I—”
“You know why. Because of your mother.”
And that hurt, a blow right to her solar plexus. She fought the urge to press her hand there, ward off the ache. “I only suggested it once. And I didn’t mean it.”
“It sounded like you meant it. And when your dad showed up and told me—”
“What do you mean, when my dad showed up?”
The sky had turned a greenish black, the wind carrying an edge as it slid through her jacket. When Ben stopped, rounding on her, she could have sworn he carried the change of weather in his expression. “I called him, hoping he’d get me out of jail. And by the way, I wasn’t drunk. I’d been fighting.”
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