He’d nearly died. He would have if not for a quick-thinking ER doc who responded to her screams, armed with an epinephrine pen.
Somehow she’d ripped the pretty dress he’d given her. Stupid investment—she’d tried to tell him that. But he’d been acting weird all day, from the sudden decision to take her with him, to the dress, to the hair appointment, to even the idea that they’d actually have dinner on top of the Americana Hotel.
It didn’t make sense, and now it didn’t matter.
The nurse left, and she walked over to him, put a hand on his leg.
Held on.
Because she’d started to shake. She blew out a trembling breath, closed her eyes. She couldn’t lose him. Couldn’t. “Oh, Ian.”
She didn’t know where that voice, that tone, came from, and it shook her. She got up then, stalked to the corner of the room, trembling. Pulled out her phone. Dialed. C’mon, Willow.
The phone flipped to voicemail. Willow’s way too perky voice.
Sierra glanced over to Ian, then sank down, her back to the wall.
“Willow, I really wish you’d pick up. I did something stupid. Really stupid. And I don’t know what to do.”
She paused, waited for the beep to cut off her message, but nothing came.
She sighed then, her voice broken. “Ian nearly died tonight. He ate mushrooms, and before you turn that into one of Mom’s stupid jokes, I’m serious. He’s in the hospital and . . . I nearly lost him. And not just my job—but him. Which . . . oh, you’re going to kill me but . . . I think I’m in love with him.”
Sierra bent her head, breathing hard, her eyes burning. “I know I said I wouldn’t but . . . he turned all gray and I just panicked. And—I can’t lose him, Willow. Shoot! I’m in so much trouble.” She ran her hand under her nose, found it running, tears now coursing down her cheeks.
Behind her, the machine started to beep, and Ian lurched in his bed, choking.
“Ian!” She dropped the phone, ran to him. His eyes flashed open, and he writhed in the bed, fighting his breathing tube.
“Don’t move—your throat was swollen, and they feared it closing up again. Just calm down.” She slammed her hand on the nurse call button, then pressed down on his shoulders, found her assistant’s voice, the one that kept their lives in order. “Stop thrashing. You’re fine—you’re just fine.”
She forced a smile.
The door banged open, and the night nurse strode in, followed by another.
“He’s awake and fighting his breathing tube,” Sierra said as she stepped back.
The second nurse turned to her. “Okay, you—step out. We need to take out his tube.”
“I’m staying.” She backed up to the wall.
Maybe the nurse believed her, or maybe she simply didn’t have time to argue. “Okay, Mr. Shaw, we’re going to call the doctor, see if he can take this tube out.”
She left while the other nurse took his pulse.
Sierra walked over and slid her hand into his. He gripped it, weaving his fingers into hers.
Oh boy.
Then he focused his blue eyes on hers, as if he needed her, and she simply couldn’t move.
How could she leave this man who so clearly needed her?
She offered another reassuring smile, and the doctor entered the room.
Flicked on the light.
And there went the relative obscurity of her meltdown.
But she held Ian’s hand as the doctor explained what had happened, how they’d had to resuscitate him, intubate him, and flood his body with epinephrine and albuterol. He’d been on IV cortisone and antihistamines for the past three hours. “We just want to make sure you don’t have another, delayed attack. But we can take out your breathing tube and just keep you on oxygen.”
She hung on to Ian’s hand as he coughed and the doctor pulled out the tube, leaving him gasping, white, and nearly retching.
He finally fell back into the pillows. Looked over at Sierra.
“Don’t try to talk,” she said softly.
The nurse removed the blood pressure cuff, charted the results, and suggested that she go back to the hotel.
Sierra responded with a look that earned a chuckle from Ian.
“What? What if you don’t like your Jell-O? Someone has to be here.”
“My hero,” he said, his voice sandpaper.
“I said stop talking.”
He gestured for water, and she moved the cup and straw to him.
“Not too fast.”
But, of course, he didn’t listen.
She pulled it away. “Enough. You keep that down, I’ll give you more.”
“The meds will make him sleepy,” the nurse said, in a final attempt to get her to leave. But really, where would she go?
“Thanks. I want to be here when he wakes up.”
The nurse gave a tight nod as she left.
Ian leaned back, and Sierra stifled the urge to press his sweaty hair back from his head. Oh, shoot. She had to get these feelings under control or—
“You were crying,” he said, his voice a little slurry.
She froze, then affected a frown. “Naw, I wasn’t—”
“You were crying, I can see it on your face.”
Oh, that. She shrugged.
“And I heard you.”
She barely suppressed a wince. “I called my sister. Just to let her know—”
“You said . . . I thought you said something about being in trouble. Is everything okay?”
She froze, then scrambled. “No, I said I think the gala is in so much trouble. I can’t believe they gave you mushrooms.”
He made a funny face, and even in this light, it might’ve been about the most attractive thing she’d ever seen. Ian, with his beard growing in, dark red to match the highlights in his hair, looking at her as if he wanted to rise from his near deathbed to solve her problems.
He couldn’t save her from her sad, pitiful self.
“Thank you for what you did tonight. I know you saved my life.”
He had such a warmth in his eyes, she had to look away. Run, actually, except she couldn’t let go of his hand. “Of course. That’s what assistants are for.”
Oh, how lame. But what else could she say?
“I’d say that’s over and above. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.” He slid his hand out of hers, sighed. Closed his eyes as if in pain.
And her brain rushed to a thousand conclusions, settling on one.
Oh no. She simply had to do the math, starting with the expression on his face as he’d faded, all the way back to the insistence that she bid on him, to the fact that he actually expected them to have dinner on the Americana Hotel rooftop.
She knew better than to suspect anything romantic. He’d made her promises, after all. So that only meant . . .
He was letting her go. This was her final huzzah, the send-off, the thank-you for a great job.
She nearly put her hand to her chest to cover the wound.
But in truth, she’d seen it coming, what with him handing over PEAK Rescue to the Mercy Falls EMS. It was only a matter of time before he turned his frequent trips away from the ranch into a permanent change of address.
Which meant that cutting it off now, before her heart got even more desperately entangled, was best for everyone. “Ian, stop. Before you go any further, you should know you don’t have to do this. I’m already—um, well, I know that I like working for you, but I think it’s time for me to—”
Her cell phone buzzed from where it lay on the floor, moving as if it were alive.
She sucked in a breath. “Hold that thought.”
“Sierra—”
She held up a finger to shush him as she chased down the phone. Willow?
No. She frowned as she answered. “Sam?”
“I’m so sorry to call you this late at night, Sierra, but I’ve been trying to get ahold of Ian. I know you keep his schedule, and I know it’s late, but I really n
eed to find him.”
She glanced at Ian lying in the bed, his eyes closed, as if drifting back into sleep. And why not—the guy was drunk on meds. She supposed that Sam might be a little surprised, should she simply hand the phone over.
“Uh, why? Is there a message I can pass on to him?”
“Actually, yeah. If you can track him down, it’s pretty important.” She could imagine Sam, his dark blond hair in spikes from dragging his hand through it, going on a handful of hours of sleep, thanks to the flood. She could hear the fatigue in his voice.
“I can probably find him,” she offered. She walked over to the bed. Yes, most definitely conked out. Their conversation—and her resignation—would have to wait until morning.
“Good. Tell him to call me as soon as he can—or better yet, get back to Mercy Falls. We dragged Dante James’s body from the river tonight. He and Esme clearly didn’t run away together.”
Everything around Sierra went silent—her heartbeat, her breath, even Sam’s voice in her ear.
Esme hadn’t run away with Dante.
The words banged around in her head, even as she said, stupidly, “What?”
“The flood must have loosened his body from wherever it was caught in the river and floated it down. A rancher found it just south of town lodged in a drainage canal. It’s pretty decomposed, but he’s still wearing his class ring. It’s Dante.”
Dante was dead. Her knees turned weak, and she reached out for the nearby chair before she fell.
Oh no.
“We need to talk to Ian and see if he wants to reopen the search for Esme.”
And she knew, without asking, just what that answer would be.
She turned and stared at Ian, old, secret words rising up to surround her.
“I love Dante, and I’m going to be with him, even if we have to run away. Don’t tell him, Sierra, promise me you won’t tell Uncle Ian.”
“He’ll be back in Mercy Falls by tonight,” she said quietly, and hung up.
5
Somewhere in the night, Ben had landed on one clear, resolute thought.
He wasn’t going to let Kacey steal his daughter from him. Not again.
“Ben, slow down. You’re going to break these kids’ necks!”
Miles’s voice reached out from up the trail, echoing over the valley and slowing Ben’s gait. Probably Miles was right—the switchbacks heading down from the Loop Trail, although not as treacherous as the Highline Trail drops, could still derail a camper if they tripped.
The tumble downhill could lead to another broken ankle, or worse.
And he had a responsibility to get the remainder of the kids—the ones who hadn’t flown out this morning with Kacey—back to Mercy Falls. He could admit that after being out in the elements overnight, Audrey seemed worn out, probably wouldn’t have made it back down the mountain.
Leaving him, Jared, and the other two PEAK Rescue personnel to hike down the Loop Trail. Overhead, lazy, wispy cirrus floated high, depleted by the three-day thunderstorm, the sky a light, airy blue, the sun healing the soggy land.
God setting the world right after the storm.
For the first time in his life, Ben thought maybe the Almighty might finally be doing the same for him.
If, in fact, that were possible.
He took a breath and stopped to let the group catch up and survey the view. Not a spectacular vista compared to the Highline Trail, but one could hardly discount the breathtaking rise of Heaven’s Peak to the south and Mt. Oberlin to the east, shaggy-edged with green pine, snowcapped and jagged against the blue horizon. A fragrant mountain breeze caressed the wildflowers that covered the mountainside, and soon they’d descend into the fireweed and the scraggly pines and aspen of a young, recently burned forest.
Ben’s thighs burned with all the downhill pounding, and, going first, he kept an eye out for grizzlies rooting in the huckleberry bushes.
A large part of him just wanted to leave the group behind—they were safe in the capable hands of Jared, Pete, and Miles—and do an all-out sprint down the mountain, all 3.8 miles to Going-to-the-Sun Road, where he’d flag down some tourist and somehow catch up with Kacey and the PEAK chopper.
Stop her before she packed up Audrey and drove her away, out of his life.
He’d spent the night replaying their fight, her words finding the crannies where he parked his shame.
“The idea of a child and a wife depending on you probably scared the stuffing out of you.”
He lay in his springy bunk, chilly under a blanket as the moonlight dragged across the floor, dredging up his memories. He’d tunneled back through time and took a good look at the seventeen-year-old sitting in the jail cell, his knuckles raw, his jaw aching, one eye egg-sized, listening to the honorable Robert D. Fairing, judge of Flathead County and apparently ruler over his future, tell him that the girl he loved didn’t love him.
Didn’t want him or his child.
More, that by attempting to build a future with her, Ben would only destroy it.
He had been scared, he could admit that.
Miles caught up to him. “You in a race, buddy?”
He glanced at Miles but didn’t answer.
Miles hadn’t said a word to him about Kacey and Audrey, but maybe he didn’t know about her. Still, Miles lived in the area, had grown up with both of them.
Ben was trying not to feel betrayed by everyone he knew.
“Have you kept in touch with Kacey Fairing?” Ben asked.
“I guess I might have heard she joined the army. I haven’t been around either, really. I’ve been over with the Jude County Wildland Fire Department for a few years. But with Kelli expecting our second—”
“Kelli’s expecting?” Ben remembered her from high school—cute, petite, a couple years younger than him, which put her at least four years younger than Miles. “She finally decided to marry you?”
Miles offered a grunt. “Yeah, but . . . Actually, we were separated for a while. She was tired of me fighting fires and spending the winters chasing the rodeo game. Gave me an ultimatum.”
Ah. Miles never did well with an “or else.”
“So what brought you back?”
“Kelli. And my kid—Huck. He’s a regular little bull rider like his dad. Should have seen him riding the lambs in the county fair. Kelli said she’d give me another chance if I was really going to stick around. I’m trying to be worthy of that, I guess.”
Worthy.
Maybe that’s what Kacey needed—something other than his word that Ben would show up, stick around in their lives.
He took out his canteen, downed some water, then glanced back at the teens now catching up.
And that, really, was the problem, wasn’t it? He couldn’t rightly just lie down and surrender everything he’d built. But if he wanted to be in his daughter’s life, that would require him changing his life—or hers. Which meant sending her life into upheaval.
He wiped his forehead, waiting while the kids all took drinks.
One of the kids had his phone out and was holding it up for reception. Ben hadn’t even checked—and now pulled his cell out of his pocket.
Three missed calls, all from Goldie Davis, his manager.
He shoved the phone back in his pocket, not quite ready to hear bad news.
The next two miles down took another hour, and by midmorning he was loading the kids into a van driven out by the EMS department of Mercy Falls.
He hunkered down in a seat in the back with his cell, thumbing through his Twitter feed.
While he’d been saving kids and discovering secrets, his former partner had decided to release her new single on iTunes.
It had blown up to number one, and she’d announced her new single album with Golden Heart records.
Which left people asking, #whereisBenjaminKing?
He leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes.
“Play me a song, Benj.”
He could almost feel Kacey’s long aubur
n hair twining through his fingers, taste her lips as they brushed his, hear her laughter as she backed away. They were sitting in the back of his pickup, a horse blanket spread out on the bed. Her beautiful green eyes shone, her smile pure and sweet. “I can tell you’ve been working on a new one.”
What he wanted to do was trace the freckles dotting her nose, down her cheekbone, then catch her face in his hands and kiss her. To lose himself in her touch and the fact that with her, he wasn’t the poor kid of the town pastor but already a star.
Already someone with his name in lights, proving to the one-horse town of Mercy Falls that he didn’t need any more handouts.
Instead he pulled out his guitar and picked out a chorus.
When you need a friend
A shoulder you can cry on
Someone who understands what you’re going through
Just look over here, see me standing closer
Nobody will love you the way I do
A jolt as the van slowed over a rutted section of the highway, and Ben jerked awake. He had the sickening feeling he’d actually been humming, judging by the way one of the campers eyed him. He sat up, adjusted his gimme cap, ran a hand over his beard.
They were coming into the southeast end of Mercy Falls, past the Gray Pony Saloon. The gullies and ditches were filled with muddy water, the road eaten away in parts. The VFW hosted a few regulars in its parking lot. Cars were abandoned by the side of the road, a few power lines down, and every single greenhouse at the Mercy Falls nursery had caved in, the yard submerged under three feet of standing water.
They turned south before they hit town, toward the PEAK headquarters, skirting the destruction on Main Street, the flooded church, the destroyed Safeway grocery store, the trailer park now simply debris.
And, of course, the Great Northern Bridge in splinters, halfway into the river.
Sandbags held back more destruction, but it would take months, if not longer, to rebuild the town.
They headed south, and just outside the city limits a couple miles of split-wood fencing paralled the road. They finally turned into the PEAK entrance, driving under the crossbeam.
The blue and white PEAK chopper sat on the pad, and worried parents waited in groups, nursing coffee.
His father held court on the porch.
Wild Montana Skies Page 10