He swiped another cookie, then glanced at Kacey.
There appeared that smile again.
And it might be Sierra’s imagination, but did Kacey actually . . . blush?
“See you this weekend, Audrey?” Ben said. “For your birthday party?”
Audrey’s smile could light the northern sky. “Yes.”
Kacey steered her daughter toward the locker room in the barn, where she could change clothes.
Which left Sierra with the ring in her grip.
Perfect. Fine.
She’d simply stand on his front porch, deliver the message.
She got into her car and drove over to his beautiful house, her heart thundering.
His truck sat in the drive.
It was just a message.
But she had to wipe her hand on her jeans before she could manage ringing the bell.
She stood there, listening to the thunder of her heartbeat.
No answer.
She rang again. Waited.
And the longer she stood there, the more the image of him lying there passed out—or worse—took form in her head.
What if he . . . well, what if he hadn’t been over to see her at PEAK headquarters because he actually, truly needed her more than ever?
She dug out her keys, found his house key, and unlocked the door.
The silence inside could deafen her.
“Ian?” Her voice echoed through the cavern of the house.
She toed off her boots, then padded into the living room. Stopped.
Papering the floor, the sofa, the long trestle table, the end tables, even the hearth, lay every paper, every report, every map, every sketch, every faint lead they’d ever followed on Esme.
As if he’d stepped right back into the middle of the search to let it consume him.
Oh, Ian.
And then she heard steps behind her.
She turned, and the sight of him stopped her cold.
He wore a beard—not an overnight stubble but an actual beard, russet with sparks of gold and copper. His hair was wet, spiked up as he toweled it dry, and he’d emerged into the room wearing only his sweatpants.
She’d only seen him without a shirt a handful of times, but she never quite got over his washboard stomach, the sculpted wide shoulders, biceps in his strong arms, the dusting of dark hair across his chest. He was always so proper—but in this instance, he looked wrung out and not a little feral.
He slowly lowered the towel and stood staring at her, his blue eyes riveted to her, wearing an expression she couldn’t place.
Anger? Shock?
Please, let it be relief.
“What are you doing here?”
Ian didn’t mean for the words to snap out quite like that—sharp, lethal, as if he wasn’t in fact simply blindsided.
If he could, he’d simply tuck his words back inside, stand there and hope she didn’t see him.
He knew how he looked—and only the fact that he’d smelled like something that had languished in floodwaters for a week had coaxed him into a shower.
But he’d taken a long, painful look in the mirror, studying his bloodshot eyes, feeling as if he’d aged a decade in a week and realized . . .
He’d made a mess out of his life.
He’d dodged that truth for a few days, but as the days blurred together, the haze of information swilling his brain, tangling it, blotting out the sun, he came to the understanding that without Sierra, his world had turned to night.
And into that darkness, she’d appeared.
Standing in the middle of his family room, wearing a pair of leggings, a long striped yellow shirt, and those eyes that could practically see right through him, uncover every moment of stupidity.
Wow, he missed her. Needed her. So much so that one look at her turned his entire body to ache. But he’d fired her, and he couldn’t, as much as he longed to, drop to his knees and beg her to stay.
Ian Shaw simply didn’t do begging. He commanded, sometimes with money, but begging meant taking out his heart, offering it up.
And he simply didn’t have the strength for that, not anymore.
But that didn’t stop him from feeling the hollow burn deep inside as she frowned, her face darkening at his words.
“I’m here because . . .” She took a step toward him, cleared her throat. “I have news about Esme. And for your information, I didn’t want to come, but Ben asked me to.”
News? He wanted to ask, but his throat wouldn’t work, caught on the rest of her words.
I didn’t want to come.
He couldn’t betray that her words had found purchase. Instead, he hung the towel over a chair and headed to the kitchen.
She followed him. “Ben and Kacey searched the river. They found a body.”
“Oh.” Although he’d hoped they’d find a clue to Esme’s disappearance, the words still felt like a punch to the gut.
He ran his hand along the cool granite of the kitchen counter, balancing himself because all at once he was in very real danger of his legs buckling.
He managed to reach the fridge, open it, and blink against the bright light.
A container of orange juice, a piece of cheddar, a jar of pickles. He grabbed the OJ and drank it out of the carton.
Ran his hand across his mouth, a measure of composure returning. Then, “Do they think the body is Esme’s?”
“They don’t know. They also found this.”
Something plinked on the counter. He turned, and the light caught it, the emerald in the center casting northern lights against the stainless steel of the fridge. He stared down at it, and his heart gave a lurch.
He picked up the ring, held it between his fingers, all breath gone.
“It’s hers, isn’t it?”
He must have nodded, because he felt her hand on his back. “Sit down.”
“No.” He put the ring back on the counter, took another swig of juice. Stared out past her to the mountains.
So God was really going to do this. Destroy his life yet again, despite his best efforts at earning forgiveness. “So then the body is hers.”
She frowned. “Oh no, Ian. I’m sorry. No, this wasn’t—I’m so sorry. I handled that badly.”
She acted as if she wanted to reach out to him but pulled her hand back.
He could have used her, just for a second, to hold on to.
“Ben and Kacey ran into an injured hiker and had to spend the night with Lulu Grace. Remember her—she lives near McDonald Lake? She has that homesteaded cabin?”
“Yes, but—”
“She claims to have driven someone who left this ring behind and who matches Esme’s description to Saint Mary Lodge.”
He stilled, trying to sort the words out, categorize them. “When?”
“Three years ago. I don’t know any more than that.”
“What about the body?”
“Sam sent out a team to recover it. I don’t know anything.”
“So she could be alive?”
“I don’t know. But Ben made the point that if she got a ride, she could have been dropped off at the Amtrak.”
“What?” He rounded on her, then shook his head.
Woozy. Yeah, he probably needed to eat something. But he blinked away the spots and walked past her, into the family room, finally locating the map of the park on the sofa. He stood above it, tracing his finger loosely down highway 86. “That’s a pretty wild stretch.”
“Maybe. But we never even thought to check the Amtrak. We focused all our searching on this side of the park.”
He closed his eyes then, a wave of emotion rushing over him. “I don’t understand. Why would she drive to the other side of the park?”
The voice didn’t even sound like his own. Rattled, tired, broken.
“Ian.”
“I just . . . wish I could understand.” He turned and padded through the chaos of his room, his bare feet kicking up papers as he stood in front of the picture window.
From here, his land extended all the way to the far horizon, with the cut of the gray-blue mountains rising to the northwest.
His world, and yet Esme, like his wife, Allison, had run from him.
He heard shuffling behind him. Then, “Me too.”
He turned then, surprised.
She lifted a shoulder. “I never understood why finding Esme was such an obsession with you. I mean, I got it, of course. You loved her. She was your niece—and you were taking care of her. She got lost on your watch and you were determined to find her. But those are just the obvious reasons.” She touched his arm. “What’s the real reason?”
He drew in a breath, looked at her hand on his arm. Then he closed his eyes. “Because she was my responsibility. Even my second chance. And I didn’t want to believe I was the most wretched man on the planet.”
When he opened his eyes, she was still standing there, looking up at him.
“What are you talking about?”
He pulled away from her. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me, Ian. I know I was just your employee, but I actually do care about you.”
Just your employee. Her words burned in his chest, and he longed to correct her.
But she’d betrayed him too.
Still, he needed someone. And apparently, Sierra was that person. “I drive away the people I love. And then God takes them away.”
“What?”
He sighed. “I wanted to find Esme, because then I could convince myself that maybe God wasn’t still punishing me—for what happened to Allison and Daniel.”
She frowned at him, shook her head to disagree, as if the loss of his wife and child in Katrina wasn’t God’s punishment—but he kept talking.
He ran his fingers into the shag on his chin. “I hated that Esme was seeing Dante. I wanted her to go to college and I knew that anyone she met here would hold her back. You remember our fight. How I told her that after the camping trip, I wanted her to go out east. I hoped that she’d eventually forget about Dante. Esme was smart, beautiful, and I didn’t want her to make my sister’s mistakes.”
He looked away from her. “My sister married the first boy she fell for, and he left her pregnant and alone two years later. She nearly lost custody of Esme twice before I convinced her to send her to me.”
“You’re not to blame for her wanting to run away with Dante.”
“I gave her an ultimatum.” He shook his head. “I practically pushed her into his arms. And now she could be dead too.”
He looked at her. “And I did the same thing to you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t control my life, Ian. And you had every right to fire me.”
His throat closed, and he looked away. “Maybe, but I shouldn’t have. I jumped to conclusions and led with my anger . . .”
“Is that why your hands are marked up again? The hanging bag in your weight room getting a workout?”
Oh, she’d noticed. He looked at his knuckles, the angry red skin.
“And without tape and gloves, I see.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “The problem is, I’m just not good at personal relationships, Sierra. I sort of forgot that, with you.” He looked at her. “You’re too easy to be with. Too nice. And you took way too good care of me. I got that mixed up a little.” He shook his head. “You were right to keep this all professional, because frankly, if you get too close, you just don’t know what could happen. I’m probably cursed.”
“Ian!”
He held up a hand. “Face it. I’m to blame. God has a right to punish me.”
She just stood there then, looking stricken. “God is not punishing you.”
“Then what would you call it?” He turned, walked back to the sofa, tossed the map on the floor, sat down. “Bad luck?”
“Well, right now I’d call you an idiot. And obsessed with punishing yourself. And frankly, a little bit narcissistic to think that God would let innocent people die because of you. By the way, if you think you’re going to control a teenager in love, you really have a complex.”
He couldn’t tell if she was kidding, or . . .
She lifted her mouth in a smile.
“I suppose, however, you’re just being you.”
Was that a good thing? He didn’t feel like it.
She came over to a chair, lowered herself into it. “Listen. I understand feeling responsible for Esme. But you’ve wrapped yourself up in finding her for so long, it’s become a prison. Maybe instead of punishing you, this is God setting you free, showing you that you had no control of Esme’s disappearance. Maybe he’s trying to help you let go.”
“What are you talking about?”
She reached over and picked up the map off the floor. “If she’s alive, we have to ask, why did she go to Saint Mary? Why didn’t she just come back? Especially if Dante was dead?”
He shook his head.
“Ian, maybe she didn’t want to come home because she had something to do with Dante’s death.”
He sat there, unmoving. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to piece this together. But it might have absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with something that happened out there on the mountain. Something Esme is running from. And that something is not you.”
He looked up, ran his hands down his face. Scrubbed. “I have to know if whoever Lulu drove to Saint Mary Lodge was her. That she’s at least alive.”
“Then maybe you’ll shave?”
She smiled at him again, and the sense of her being here so filled him up, nearly choked him. Maybe . . .
“Listen, I know you’re working for PEAK now, but maybe—”
“Yes, Ian. I’ll get on the phone to Saint Mary. See if we can track down a connection.” She stood up then. “But first, I’m making you some coffee and calling in for some sandwich delivery. And you are going to clean up this mess.”
He glanced up at her, and she winked at him.
But he longed for her words to latch on, become truth.
Clean up this mess.
Yes.
Finally.
Somehow.
11
Ben hadn’t been so nervous since his first arena show. He sat in his truck, Audrey’s gift propped on the seat beside him, sweat trickling down his back in a single, hot line.
Today he became a father.
When exactly should they tell her? Before he gave her the gift—special ordered from Nashville? Or maybe after the party, when it could be just them, a family.
Family. The word swept through him.
He hadn’t realized the enormity of his longing until this moment.
Ben had never been to the Fairings’ new house before last week, but he couldn’t help being impressed with the estate. A few other hybrids and SUVs parked in the circle driveway, and he’d spotted a parent dropping off a carload of kids as he sat muscling up courage.
He felt like he had the night he’d proposed. Even if he knew Kacey would say yes, so much of their future hinged on her answer. His heart had been in his throat as he’d driven her out to the old river bridge, to where he’d arranged candles, a blanket, a moment under the stars.
He’d hoped, by redeeming the mistake made there months ago, he might also erase the guilt that roamed behind his proposal.
Now, he had an even bigger redemption looming.
But he could hardly sit here all night, just hoping it would happen. He got out, pulled on his old brown Stetson, and reached for the gift.
The sun hung low, slipping just behind the mountains, twilight turning the sky purple and bruised. Laughter, music, and chatter lifting from the backyard suggested the party’s location, and he steeled himself as he walked around the house.
“It’s just a get-together, some ice cream sundaes, a movie outside, a few games.”
Kacey’s description of the event matched nothing of what spread out on the back lawn. Sofas, whether rented or haul
ed out from the house, lined up before a giant wooden wall draped with a long white sheet. Bowls of popcorn sat on wooden spools, arranged like cocktail tables in the lush grass. From the speakers scattered around the yard, he heard the pearly tones of a talented up-and-comer in the Nashville scene whose music, in his humble opinion, might be a little too old for a fourteen-year-old girl.
Kids stood in clumps of conversation, the girls laughing on one side, the boys on the other. He recognized Nate propped up on crutches, his leg in a cast.
A few parents congregated on the deck, and the smell of hot dogs and burgers sizzling on the grill seasoned the air.
He spotted the honorable Robert Fairing standing on the deck wearing a green apron and wielding a spatula.
Ben paused as the past put a hand to his chest.
“Leave, Ben, and make something of your life. And let Kacey do the same.”
He stood there, trying to find his footing, reaching out for Kacey’s words, the confirmation that, yes, he had permission to walk back into her life.
Maybe he’d read too much into her invitation, but even though he’d texted her twice, just to confirm, she hadn’t suggested she’d changed her mind.
It did nothing to stop the crazy daydream forming in his mind, the one where he started over, stayed in Mercy Falls, rebuilt his life—one that included Kacey as his wife and Audrey living in a home he built for them.
The life he should have had.
Then he spotted her. Kacey walked out on the deck carrying another bowl of popcorn. Her auburn hair hung long and loose, glinting copper and gold in the fading sunlight, and she was wearing a pair of cutoff jeans, cowboy boots, and a T-shirt topped with a flannel shirt tied at the waist.
She looked about eighteen, and his heart skipped, the memories so tangible he could nearly feel her lips on his, smell her skin, hear her whispering in his ear.
“I think I love you.”
Oh shoot, yes, he wanted this way, way too much.
And then, as if she knew his heart had climbed outside his body, running full-speed ahead toward her, she turned and spotted him.
Smiled, her eyes shining.
He was a goner, and as she put down the popcorn and came over to him, he scrambled for words.
Her gaze went to the gift. “Really?”
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