Finding You

by Maureen Child

  Jackson stood up slowly, glancing from Tony to Carla and back again. “I’d like to help, but my daughter—”

  “Will be with me,” Mama interrupted him neatly, and looked at Reese. “We’ll bake cookies. Would you like that?”

  The child stared at her father for a long moment, then turned back to the older woman and nodded.

  “Good,” Tony said. “That’s settled. You can go with Carla. One more set of eyes, plus you’re new around here. We don’t need you getting lost, too.”

  Jackson arched one eyebrow in silent insult.

  “Carla’s not going,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, she is,” Tony countered.

  “You’ll find him.” Her voice sounded hollow, even to her own ears.

  “Damn right we will,” Tony said, crossing to his sister and laying both hands on her shoulders. “But it’d be a damn sight easier with you and Abbey looking, too.”

  “We’re retired.” She slipped out from under his grasp and backed up a step.

  “Fine. Look today; retire again tomorrow.”

  Carla felt the walls closing in on her. Just moments ago, she’d been laughing, and now she felt nothing but cold. Breath caught in her throat and her stomach churned. A search. She hadn’t been on one in two years. Not since … An invisible fist squeezed her heart and she winced with the ache of it.

  Two long years, and that day still hovered at the edges of her mind like a shadow clinging to her heels on a hot summer day. Always there, whether she chose to acknowledge it or not. She remembered it all. The hope. The misery. The soul-crushing pain. If she allowed herself, she would remember the scream that seemed to echo over and over again until the sound became a part of the day, etching itself into her heart.

  Her pulse pounded, thundering in her ears. Tears stung the backs of her eyes and Carla swallowed the cold knot of regret lodged in her throat. She couldn’t think about that now. Couldn’t remember his little face. Couldn’t let herself recall the sound of his laughter or the shine in his eyes or the strength of his hugs.

  Because then she’d have to remember that he was dead, now.

  “I can’t.” She shook her head, looking up at her brother, willing him to listen. To understand.

  But Tony wasn’t going to let her off. “Yes, you can, damn it. That’s why I need you.”

  Carla’s stomach pitched as she let her gaze slide from Tony, to Mama, to Jackson, and even to Reese, who watched her with solemn eyes. Abbey was on her feet, moving closer to Carla, as if offering silent support. She reached down and smoothed the dog’s soft golden hair and knew that Tony was right. She didn’t have a choice. Not today, anyway.

  Ignoring pleas for help was somehow easier when they came from a distance. When Mike was on the phone talking about some far-flung place, she could tell him no, because she didn’t have to look into his eyes. She didn’t have to live with the people she’d refused to help. But here, standing in her own kitchen with her brother asking for help, it was a different matter entirely.

  She fought down a rising tide of nausea and nodded. “Fine. Where do you want us?”

  * * *

  A strong, cold wind whipped in off the lake and eased the warmth of the sun. Jackson looked around at the area and wondered how in the hell they’d ever find one lone man. The lake itself was huge—he even noticed a few whitecaps dancing across the surface, pushed by the wind. A semicircle of forest backed up onto the lake and looked dense enough to hide an army of men, let alone one poor guy. And that wasn’t even counting the open meadow laid out in front of them. Dips and gullies in the land were hidden by the high grass, and for all they knew, the man could be stretched out in one of them.

  It looked hopeless.

  But that fact didn’t seem to bother Carla. She hadn’t wanted to help—she’d made that clear. But once she’d agreed, she’d been all business. In less than a half hour, she’d been dressed and ready to go. Now he stood beside her and Abbey, watching the two of them become a team.

  “What’s that for?” he asked as she laid a neon orange vest with the word SEARCHERS emblazoned in black across Abbey’s back, then snapped it shut beneath her belly.

  “Two things,” Carla muttered, not even looking up at him. “Number one, it tells Abbey we’re about to go to work. And number two … it tells any yahoos she might run into that she’s a search dog and they should leave her the hell alone.” She spared him a quick look. “It also makes her easy to see in case there are hunters wandering through the woods.”

  “Hunters?” He glanced toward the tree line. Hell, the missing guy’s family didn’t have to worry only about him being lost. They had to worry about some other guy mistaking him for a deer.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, as if knowing exactly what he was thinking. Nothing’s in season right now.”

  As soon as that vest was snapped on, the golden retriever’s attitude seemed to change. She stood a little straighter. Lifted her nose into the air. Her ears perked up as if listening for something they’d never be able to hear.

  “She’s done this a lot.”

  Carla nodded and stood up. “She was raised to it. And she’s the best, aren’t you, Ab?”

  The dog continued her silent study of the terrain.

  “What’s next?”

  Carla pulled a plastic bag from the backpack slung over her shoulder. Inside the bag was a crumpled shirt. She pulled it out, let the dog take a few good sniffs, then stuffed it back into the bag and closed it tightly. She flashed him a look. “Got to keep the shirt sealed. Otherwise, the scent would just confuse her.” She reached down, rubbed the dog’s head, and said, “Abbey, find.”

  The golden barked once, then took off like a shot, loping across the meadow, her lithe body slicing through the high grasses with speed and grace.

  Carla started running, too. A slow jog that gave her no chance at all of keeping up with the dog. Jackson moved alongside her, silently giving thanks that he’d been pretty good about visiting the gym in the last year.

  “She’s already out of sight,” he said.

  “She’ll be back.” Carla didn’t sound winded at all—annoying. “She’ll keep coming back to me. Then, if she finds something, she’ll take me to it.”

  “Smart dog.”

  “Great dog,” she said, and flashed him a smile that didn’t go anywhere near her eyes.

  That was the last time they spoke for nearly three hours. The only sounds were their feet thundering across the ground and the occasional crackle and spit of the walkie-talkie Carla carried. Jackson ran when she said and rested when she said. He couldn’t tell one part of the forest from another. One tree looked pretty much like another to him. But Carla seemed to know where she was going. And she trusted that dog.

  They were good. Hell, she was good.

  Why had she fought her brother so hard about taking part in the search? She was clearly an expert. Why back away from the very thing that you were best at?

  And why did he care?

  Sunlight splintered through the leaves of the trees, looking like golden sparks in the darkness. He eased down onto the closest rock when she called a rest, and watched as she pulled a water bottle from her pack and poured some into a small bowl she’d brought along for Abbey before offering him a drink.

  He handed Carla back the bottle, scrubbed both hands across his face, then studied her for a long minute before asking, “So, are we going to find him in all this?”

  She looked up at him and her eyes shone darkly. She took a long pull at the water bottle, then said, “God, I hope so. I can’t lose another one.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GOD.

  The very thought of failing again was enough to send a bone-chilling cold racing through her. Carla wiped damp palms against the legs of her jeans and leaned back against the tower of boulders known as Castle Rock. She shifted her gaze to sweep the surrounding forest. Splotches of sunlight dazzled the darkness but did nothing to ease the blackness crawling a
round inside her.

  Two years.

  Two years since she’d done this. She would have thought she—and Abbey—would have been a little rusty. But instead, they’d come together as the team they’d always been and gone right back to business. Maybe she’d just been kidding herself about being retired. Maybe Mike, her old boss, had been right after all.

  They hadn’t retired. They’d just been hiding. And damn it, she wanted to be hiding now. Back at the house. Back where it was safe. Where no one was depending on her. Counting on her. Back where she could pretend that none of this bothered her anymore. That she wasn’t haunted by the face of one little boy and the knowledge that she’d failed the one person she shouldn’t have.

  Abbey lay at Carla’s feet, steady gaze locked on her. The dog’s eyes were bright, almost energized, and Carla realized guiltily that Abbey’d missed this. Missed being out in the field, doing what she did best. But then, Abbey didn’t experience success or failure. Abbey simply did the job she was asked to do. If she found the missing person alive, that was great. If she found them dead … well, at least she’d found them. Some Search and Rescue dogs, after prolonged searches, had been known to become depressed at finding only death. But that hadn’t happened to Abbey … yet.

  It was Carla who had to live with the memories. Another chill raced down her spine and she shivered as she tried to push those memories away again … and failed.

  “What did you mean?”

  She shot Jackson a look and something inside her staggered under his steady gaze. In the indistinct light, his blue eyes seemed as deep and cool as the lake. His hair fell across his forehead as he leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. That now-familiar stab of sweet, hot lust slammed home, but since this really wasn’t the time, she ignored it. Still, ignoring it didn’t lift the haze from her brain.

  “Huh?”

  “When you said you couldn’t take losing another one. What’d you mean?”

  “Oh. Did I say that out loud?”

  He snorted a choked-off laugh. “In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve discovered you say everything you’re thinking out loud.”

  Oh, not everything. If she had, he’d already know that she’d pictured him in his underwear a couple dozen times. Boxers, she was pretty sure. And if he turned out to be a briefs man, she was going to be heartily disappointed.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, pushing that image out of her mind again, “you don’t have to listen.”

  “Hard not to.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “Okay. Have to give you that one. Candellanos are pretty hard to overlook.”

  “So tell me.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Do I look busy?”

  The walkie-talkie clipped to her belt crackled and hissed with the muttered voices of the other searchers. She listened with half an ear, as she’d trained herself to. Probably something like being a cop, she guessed. You could pay no attention at all to the radio traffic and then instantly be aware when someone called you. And she was stalling. She knew it. No point in lying to herself when she already knew the truth.

  Carla gave some serious thought to lying to him, though. After all, why should she tell him? She’d only known him a week. Plus, he was temporary. He’d be gone by the end of summer. It wasn’t as if she had to bare her soul, here.

  So why dredge it all up again?

  Because it’s already dredged, you idiot. Being here, in the woods, on a search, had brought it all back more clearly than she’d allowed herself to remember it before. And judging by the look in his eyes, he wasn’t going to let this go.

  Nosy.

  She smiled to herself. Hang around with the Candellanos long enough and you pick up some of their most irritating habits.

  Nodding, she let her gaze drift from his. She’d tell him, but she wouldn’t look at him while she did. She didn’t want to see sympathy, or, worse yet, accusation in his eyes.

  “It was two years ago. Up around Tahoe.”

  “Yeah?”

  She scratched behind Abbey’s ears and took just as much comfort from the action as the dog did.

  “I was living up there then. A small town, sort of like Chandler. Surrounded by mountains and trees. I loved it.” She pulled in a deep breath and let it go again. “My neighbors had two kids. A girl about three and a boy, Jamie. He was ten.” She smiled as that dimpled face rose up in her mind. “He used to come over every day after school. He’d play with Abbey and ask me questions about my job and tell me about how he was going to be a search-and-rescue man when he grew up.” Oh God. Carla swallowed hard again and lifted one hand to brush a tear away. “He was a Boy Scout, too. And one day, his troop got lost in the mountains.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter where. Mountains are mountains, I guess.”

  He didn’t say anything and she realized he was a pretty gifted listener. Knew when to prod and when to shut the hell up and let the person talk. Although right now she desperately wished someone would interrupt. Would keep her from saying it all out loud. But there was no last-minute reprieve headed her way, so she went on.

  “After the kids had been missing twelve hours, Searchers was called in.” She shot him a quick look before returning her gaze to Abbey’s understanding eyes. “That’s the company I—we used to work for. We’d been all over the world together. Going from one disaster area to the next. Working in mud slides and snow, complete with avalanches and earthquake rubble, terrorist attacks, and even once the aftermath of a volcano eruption.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “It can be.” She shrugged that off, though, as if it didn’t mean anything at all. But he felt a wild mixture of admiration and fear. For her. She’d been in some very hairy places, and yet she dismissed it all with a casual shrug. She had strength. Maybe more than she knew.

  Jackson watched her as she seemed to pull further away from him and this place, spiraling down into her memories.

  “Anyway,” she said, continuing in a voice so soft, it was nearly lost in the gentle wind rippling through the trees, “by the time Searchers arrived, Abbey and I were already looking for the kids.” She shot him a quick look. “It was Jamie, you know? I couldn’t wait. I had to find him. God, his parents were frantic—but so sure that I’d find him. Bring him home. They knew I—” Her breath caught again. “They knew I loved him, so they were counting on me. And it should have been a simple search. Half the town had turned out to help.”

  “Like today.”

  “Yeah.” She never lifted her gaze from the dog, but he knew she was looking at something else. Something only she could see. Pain seemed to radiate from her—like the waves of heat that pulsed off a road baking under a desert sun.

  “Those of us with dogs were each given a shirt that belonged to one of the missing boys. I had Jamie’s.” She sighed a little, remembering. “Abbey and I worked the mountain, just as we always had. We picked up scents that dead-ended. We followed trails that seemed to go nowhere. Hours passed.” A brief gust of wind kicked up, tousled her curls, then slipped away again. “And still, I figured it would turn out all right. It was summer. Weather was good. The boys had already been lost overnight, but with the mild weather…”

  She paused and the static from the radio bristled in the air.

  “It should have been easy. Well,” she added, “comparatively speaking anyway.” She shook her head and the black curls about her face trembled. “But it wasn’t. Abbey wasn’t getting a good scent. We heard on the radio as the other boys were located, one by one. But still, Jamie was out there somewhere. Missing. Scared. And we couldn’t find him.”

  Jackson knew what was coming. Regret pooled inside him. He shouldn’t have asked. Shouldn’t have prodded her into reliving this. He could see what it was costing her, but now he wasn’t sure if asking her to stop would be the right thing to do, either. Damn it, he knew what it was to live with guilt. To wonder about the what ifs. What if I’d done that differently? What if I’d taken a
right turn instead of a left? What if I’d been driving the car that day?

  Quickly, though, he closed a mental door on those questions. This wasn’t about him.

  “I should have been able to find him,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “I know he must have been waiting for me—hoping to see Abbey and me come walking up. And I couldn’t find him.” Carla lifted her gaze and looked directly into Jackson’s and he felt the impact of her pain slam into him. “None of it should have happened, damn it. He was only ten. They were on a camp-out. A fun trip with his buddies that turned into a nightmare.”

  “Carla…” He reached for her, but she shook her head and inched back.

  Her fingers curled around Abbey’s collar and she hung on as if depending on that grip to keep herself steady. “Oh, Jamie must have been so scared. He kept moving. Even though we always talked about what people did wrong when they were lost. He knew he should stay in one place, but he walked. And walked. Trying to find his way out. His way home.” A single tear trickled down her cheek, but he didn’t think she realized it. “Abbey and I covered miles that day. And at every turn, I told myself, This time. We’ll find him here. Or here. Or here.” She shook her head again. “But we didn’t. Not until much later.”

  “What happened?” he asked when she was silent for so long, he wasn’t sure she was even aware of his presence anymore.

  She turned her head to look at him and he saw those beautiful brown eyes of hers shimmering with tears that he somehow knew were always near the surface. Something inside him shifted, tightened, and the instinct to protect reared up within him again. He wanted to hold her. To soothe her tears and tell her everything would be all right. Which was ridiculous, since he knew by looking at her that nothing was all right.