“Because it’s not an appropriate song for a thirteen-year-old girl.”
“Why not? How does it go?”
“I don’t remember,” he lied.
“But it’s on your album.”
“Yeah, I know. But I didn’t write the song.”
“It’s catchy.”
He turned in his seat then. “‘I like your smile, stay for a while. Huddle up around the fire.’” He added the tune. “‘It’s all right, stay for the night. Let’s chase away the cold and do it right. C’mon, baby, let’s start a fire.’”
She went quiet.
“Yeah. You really want our thirteen-year-old daughter singing those lyrics?”
“Why did you sing a song you don’t want people to sing?”
“The entire album is full of songs we didn’t write.”
“But you—you’re an amazing songwriter, Ben. You could always write songs that made people feel and cry and . . . I have your first album, and . . . you should write your own songs. The kind you want people to sing.”
He couldn’t breathe. She had his first album.
Before he could follow up, she added, “Hollie was a good addition, though. She’s a cutie.”
He snorted. “Hollie is cotton candy with blonde hair and an amazing voice.” Cotton candy that had just destroyed his career.
“Wow. That’s harsh.”
“Okay, she’s not exactly cotton candy. But she’s . . . well, let’s just say that she’s not necessarily known for the dark ballads.”
“That’s all your department?”
He wanted to nod.
“She hasn’t written a song her entire career. Her skill is belting out the high notes and putting on a show. And not that it matters, but Hollie and I split up. She’s going solo.”
More quiet as they angled up the river, and he focused on the shoreline, eyes on the edges in his fruitless search.
“She hurt you.”
He stilled. Sighed. “No. She stole something from me. Betrayed me.”
She angled up another falls, and that’s when he saw it—something tangled in the edge of the river. White flesh, decaying legs. “Kacey, look.”
She turned the chopper around, angled back toward the spot. Hovered over it for a better look. “I don’t know, Ben. It could be a deer corpse.”
“Can we put down, take a look?”
She added altitude. “Get out the map. The nearest place is probably Avalanche Creek Park. But mark these coordinates down.” She gave him her reading.
They rose higher, and he leaned back in the seat, his heart thundering.
“That was her on the phone on Saturday, wasn’t it?”
Oh, they were still talking about Hollie. He nodded.
“She wanted you back.”
He frowned. Then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t sing with someone who’s going to stab me in the back when I’m not looking.”
Silence, and he couldn’t tell if he’d hurt her.
Until, “No, I suppose not.”
Great, Ben, so much for making friends.
Kacey absolutely refused to be jealous.
And really, how silly was it to be jealous of someone Ben had called cotton candy.
Except Kacey had seen Hollie Montgomery. That “cotton candy” came with curly, lush blonde hair, pretty blue eyes, and curves that looked good in Daisy Dukes, a cutoff black T-shirt, and red boots.
She didn’t believe it for a moment when she told herself he hadn’t liked her.
They’d probably had a fling and Ben had skedaddled north, nursing a broken heart.
Well, he wasn’t bouncing back into her arms, thank you.
But Kacey could admit that it irked her, just a little, that while she’d been flying rescue missions and watching her back for snipers, he’d been singing love songs with a beautiful woman in front of thousands.
Overhead, the sun had reached its apex; the smell of the river mixed with the piney scent of the forest. They’d follow the trail along Going-to-the-Sun Road, cut in toward the river as they got closer.
She’d put them down about six miles from the sighting, near the campground area of Avalanche Creek, radioed in their position, and now grabbed her own backpack of supplies.
He hadn’t said much since his revelation about Hollie and the fact that he hadn’t written his last album of songs—something she hadn’t expected, given his love of sitting in his truck, penning lyrics. Now he set off, leading the way back down the trail along Avalanche Creek without a word.
Something—not Hollie, exactly, but maybe someone else—had him on edge.
But it wasn’t her problem to fix him anymore—not that she ever had anything to give him except her ear—but the old tug remained, to reach out, to listen.
To care.
She did care, but she couldn’t let old memories wheedle open her heart, let him get a toehold.
Not that she could escape it with him walking ahead of her on the path, looking like a hero in his faded jeans, hiking boots, and a blue SAR T-shirt stretched out by his sculpted shoulders. The sight of him stirred up forbidden feelings, like an old song suddenly revived, her body humming to the long-familiar beat.
“We’re going to have to hurry if we hope to check out that—something—and get back before dark.” Ben glanced over his shoulder at her.
Blue eyes, and they could simply swipe away her breath, like they had so many times when she’d spotted him watching her across the dance floor at the Gray Pony, or when he’d glance into the stands at a football game. Always searching for her. Finding her.
Seeing her.
It had taken her years to find herself after he left. She couldn’t be lost again.
“I forgot to pack bear spray,” she said, catching up. “This is bear country.”
He patted his pack. “Armed,” he said, and his glance contained memories. “I got this.”
“Good,” she managed, painfully aware that a part of her she’d forgotten—or perhaps had simply eradicated from her life—stirred at his easy protection.
He always had a way of making her feel safe, and she hated that, despite her years of survival training, she leaned into it like a reflex.
He walked along the path, clearly a man who had grown up in the shadow of the park, his gait sure as he stepped over ruts in the trail. But that was Ben—as comfortable in the woods as he was on the football field or under the bright stage lights.
He was born to show up, be a hero.
Oh boy, she was in such big trouble.
As if reading her thoughts, he glanced over at her, his eyes warm. “You remember that night we rescued that hiker, how dark it was? I still can’t believe Lulu found us. Or that we made it back to her cabin.”
“You did have that head lamp, but I kept waiting for the bear to follow up, jump us in the middle of the forest. All that blood.”
“I know. They say bears can smell a human from five miles away. And they can run forty miles an hour. I’m pretty sure God had an army of angels looking out for us that night.”
She let his words fall, not sure what to say.
He too went silent, his boots thumping the ground. A squirrel ran across the trail.
“You were amazing that night. I still can’t believe you carried that guy over a mile—”
“We couldn’t stay there, and besides, you helped.”
“I was just trying to keep up. You acted so fast—probably saved his life.”
He lifted a shoulder. “The one time my impulsiveness came in handy.”
She gave him a tight smile, let his comment pass.
“Did you know that Ken still comes out every year, hikes this trail, just to prove he lived? There’s some kind of bear attack survivors’ club, and they make a point of revisiting the place where they were attacked every year.”
“I don’t see the point of revisiting the past,” she said.
He glanced at her, fast, then nodded, looked away.
&nbs
p; “I didn’t mean—I don’t mind . . . Anyway, you were amazing that night. So cool under pressure.”
“Hollie says it’s my superpower. I never get stage fright.”
And they were back to Hollie. Nice.
“I wish I had your steel nerves,” she said.
“What are you talking about? You fly rescue choppers. In Afghanistan. You won a bronze medal. That says steel nerves to me.”
No, that just said she’d lived.
“I still can’t believe you became this amazing pilot, Kace. I’m really proud of you. You’re a hero.”
Crazy, hot tears pricked her eyes. She blinked them away. Clearly she needed more sleep. But again, last night she’d spent too long staring at her parents’ ceiling before finally surrendering to a sleeping pill.
“I’m just a chauffeur. The real heroes are the guys on the ground who defend the villagers and build wells with targets on their backs.”
“You didn’t earn a medal for being a chauffeur—”
“Yes, actually, I did.” She winced at the edge in her voice.
He frowned, and she couldn’t bear the look of concern in his eyes.
She ignored it and headed down the path in front of him. Two hours they’d been hiking, and if they didn’t find the body soon, they’d have to camp out here for the night.
“Kacey?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I Googled the article. I know what happened.”
“I wish you hadn’t.”
The breeze lifted the smell of earth and decay, mixing it with the scent of the river. “Up ahead is an overlook,” she said, remembering the trail.
The sooner they got off this mountain, the better.
He caught up to her. “Kacey, what’s going on? You should be proud of what you accomplished.”
“And you should be writing your own songs.” She rounded on him. He took a step back. “You want to tell me why you quit writing?”
His mouth tightened. “No.”
She stood there, a little nonplussed. Then, “Right. Okay. Let’s just get this done.”
She led the way toward the overlook, the mist of the falls rising and iridescent in the midafternoon sun. On the opposite side of the river, a similar overlook, higher and just downstream, jutted out over the falls.
She scanned the frothing river. “We’re still a mile or so away.”
“We can cross the river down at the Avalanche Creek Bridge, work our way back up. The body might be easier to spot from the opposite side.”
Indeed, with the overhanging cliffs dropping twenty feet in some areas, rocks, scrub bushes, and shaggy pines obscured the view of the shoreline below.
“Once we find it, we can probably find a place to cross, or at least get a better look, take pictures, and bring back a recovery team.”
She returned to the path, not looking behind her, feeling his eyes on her. They walked in silence for so long that she glanced back once to see if he was still following her.
He wore a solemn, tight look. “I wonder if Lulu still lives around here.”
“She was already ancient fifteen years ago. I doubt it.”
“Did you know that her great-great-grandfather owned the property, back in 1890? Used to trap this area. She’s fifth generation in that house.”
They came to the bridge and crossed it. The trail headed southwest, to McDonald Lake, but they turned east, back up the trail, scanning the far bank. In places, the river narrowed, dropping through the gaps in rocks that resembled bowling balls stacked on each other, covered in yellow and green lichen. In other places, the river flattened out, flowed flat and clear over a wide, stony bed.
“I don’t see anything,” Kacey said, finally standing at the edge of a cliff with the river ten feet below. Spray licked her face.
Ben stepped up beside her. She’d forgotten how tall he was, a good six inches towering over her. The wind picked up his scent—the finest hint of sweat, the cotton of his shirt, the remnants of his morning shower. The late afternoon had added to the layer of golden whiskers on his chin.
And just like that, her memory circled her back in his arms, and the taste of his lips on hers, whiskers against her chin, his kiss asking for her surrender. She felt his chest under her hands, the way he wrapped her up in his embrace, made her feel safe.
Her throat thickened with the rush of memory, the heat tingling her skin.
Yes, very dangerous to revisit the past.
“What’s that?” He pointed downstream to an eddy, the late afternoon shadows turning the water a deep indigo. Caught against a stripped-downed log—a body. Most definitely a body.
She hadn’t realized she’d grabbed his hand until he squeezed back.
“Is it her?”
“We need to get back across the river, see if we can work our way down.”
“Maybe we should call in the team. We don’t want to destroy any evidence.”
Ben nodded. “Take a picture, and I’ll see if I can get reception somewhere.” He pulled out his phone and held it up, searching for bars.
She took a few shots with her cell, a familiar quickening inside her. This might be a body recovery, but at least someone—Ian—would have answers. Closure.
No one would be left on a mountaintop today.
Ben came back to her. “No signal.”
“I think we need to get down there.”
“We’re running out of daylight, Kacey. I don’t think we’re going to make it back to the chopper before dark.”
“We’ll climb down, get a good look, hike back to the campsite—”
A scream tore through the rush of the river, the wind scurrying through the trees.
Kacey froze, looked at Ben.
He’d already turned, pocketed his phone.
Another scream and he grabbed her hand, pulled her back to the path. “It’s coming from upstream.”
She should have expected it; Ben ran right toward the scream.
9
Fifteen years ago, screaming had erupted through the woods, and Ben and Kacey had tracked it down just in time to see a grizzly take his final swipe at a hiker. With a punctured leg, a broken collarbone, and a gash that opened up his skin along his back to the bone, the man was close to perishing on the side of the trail.
Thankfully, Lulu Grace had also heard the screaming. With the twilight deepening the layers of danger in the forest, she’d found them and convinced them to bring the man back to her cabin in the woods, let her doctor him, then wait out the night in case the bear decided to turn them all into prey.
That night, Ben had seen for the first time the side of Kacey that made her not only a soldier but a rescuer.
No one stood between Kacey and someone in need of saving.
No wonder she’d earned a medal.
Now, Ben watched as she knelt next to the injured hiker they’d finally tracked down a half mile up the trail. His wife—Ben placed her in her early seventies—paced the trail behind her injured husband, shaking.
Ben stood up, walked over to her, and without thinking, simply drew her into a quick embrace. “He’s going to be okay. It looks like a broken ankle.”
“He has a heart condition,” she said softly.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Mary Beth. And this is Howard.”
Howard wore a Glacier Park baseball cap, a yellow sweatshirt, and a pair of rain pants, and his face grimaced in pain. Kacey had already draped her blanket over Howard and was now taking his pulse.
“Mary Beth, why don’t you sit down?” Ben went over to his pack and pulled out his blanket. He tucked it over the woman’s shoulders, just in case the trauma of seeing her husband fall into the river and nearly get swept away sent her into shock.
“How did this happen?” Ben said quietly, holding her hands. Her skin felt paper thin, soft. She too wore hiking attire—Gore-Tex pants, boots, a windbreaker, a pair of binoculars around her neck.
“We saw a ruby-cr
owned kinglet, and Howard wanted to get a picture, so he climbed down onto one of those boulders and slipped.”
Ben didn’t want to tell her how many people slipped, fell into the froth, and drowned, especially now with the rivers swollen.
“I think he wedged his foot on a boulder. How bad is it?”
He had taken a look at the leg, seen the angle of the foot, the swelling around the ankle as Kacey worked off his boot.
Bad.
“I don’t think he can walk on it,” Ben said. “Stay here—let me take a look.”
He left her on the boulder, glanced at the darkening sky, and for a second wished Lulu might miraculously show up.
But they weren’t fifteen and alone. Surely Kacey knew how to save lives, and Ben could pull out his rusty first-responder skills. Besides, this injury didn’t look nearly as bad as Nate’s had been.
Ben knelt beside Kacey as she searched for a pulse in Howard’s ankle, her voice calm. “So, you’re a birder,” she said. “Did you know that Glacier has the largest concentration of Harlequin ducks in the Lower 48?”
“Yeah,” Howard said, his breath tight with pain. “We were hoping to get a glimpse of a nesting Black Swift.”
“They roost behind waterfalls,” Ben said. Kacey had taken off Howard’s sock, and now Ben pressed on the appendage, watching the refill. “It seems to be getting blood,” he said quietly. He turned to the man. “Can you feel that, Howard?”
He nodded.
“Wiggle your toes for me,” Kacey said.
He winced but managed movement.
She leaned back on her haunches. “I don’t think it’s broken, but there is no way he can walk.”
Ben dug around his pack, found the ice pack, and snapped it into use. He wrapped it around the man’s ankle, keeping it gentle as he heard Howard groan. “Sorry, pal.” He secured it with the Ace bandage.
“Maybe one of us needs to hike out, get help.” She looked up at the sky, then checked her watch. “I can do it.”
“You should stay here with him. You have more medical training.”
“I can fly the chopper out.”
“In the dark?”
She gave him a look.
“Listen, I get that you flew all over the mountains of Afghanistan, but this is Glacier, with its own weather patterns. Besides, I don’t like you walking alone this time of year—we haven’t seen a grizzly yet, but twilight is not the time to hike solo. Besides, we’re hours from civilization—even if you hike out to the road, the Logan Pass Visitors Center closed an hour ago. There’s not going to be any traffic until morning.”
Wild Montana Skies Page 17