What might have been a disaster had ended in general rejoicing. But Jenna was tired of being the only medic on the Ridge. She wanted to be able to hop in her truck and drive to the Hanover Free Clinic in twenty minutes. She wanted her patients to come to the clinic instead of her having to drive through a downpour to their houses. She wanted the backup of doctors and hospitals and medical tech.
What she needed was some supper and a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t like her to whine over what couldn’t be fixed. On the Ridge, you took things as they came and made the best of it. When she got feeling overwhelmed, it was a sure sign she needed some down time. Well, she would eat, talk to her mom and go to bed. With any luck no one would need a midwife this New Year’s Eve.
* * *
Major Zeke Bascom had been a paratrooper for twelve years with the 75th Rangers. He was as tough as they came. But right this minute he was six foot seven of soaking wet, disgruntled Ranger and had been for days. He was fed up. He was tired of being cold and sodden. In fact he was tired of life.
This year’s mild winter in the Pacific Northwest had turned to cold rain two weeks ago. The soil in the deep woods was waterlogged. His campsite on the high ground had been flooded out three days earlier when a river of mud had appeared out of nowhere and flowed down the hillside he had pitched his tent on.
He had thought that the solitude and the beauty of nature and the novelty of being outdoors in a new place would improve his mood. Instead he had been trapped inside his two-man tent while the elements tried to wash him out of the National Forest. The hikes he’d planned had turned into endless days of sitting and reliving the horror of his last mission. As if he didn’t get enough of that in his dreams.
He’d have been better off staying in Colorado. Camping in a fricking blizzard. The worst of it was he knew he could be comfortable if he could just bring himself to take bear. He could climb up a tree and sleep until the rain stopped. But, if he ever took bear, he didn’t trust himself to return to human. Not in the mood he was in. Going feral beckoned him. But he had to resist the lure.
If he ever surrendered to the black dogs chasing him, he was pretty confident that would be it. He craved the peace and finality of death, but he had to remember that taking the easy option wasn’t the Ranger way. He owed it to his country to stop bloody whining and carry on, even if it looked like the Army was done with him.
The Rangers wanted him gone. The medical discharge crap was just an excuse. The truth was they didn’t want an officer they couldn’t trust. And why the hell should they trust an officer who had led his team from behind — into ambush? Seven good men dead. And it was all his fault. He couldn’t blame the brass for wanting him discharged. He was lucky not to be facing a court-martial.
The army had been his whole life since he was a seventeen-year-old cadet at West Point. He didn’t know what he would do with himself if he wasn’t a serving soldier. He felt adrift without his buddies. Not only had he lost his best friend when his team was taken out in Syria, but he couldn’t bring himself to contact any of his other buddies. Not when they knew the truth about that last mission.
He had thought that camping in the deep woods would restore his spirits. And maybe, if the weather had been better, living close to nature would have done the trick. Instead he had spent the last two weeks sitting in a leaking tent with the bunch of ghosts he was trying to elude. The flooding of his bivouac had been the final straw.
He was having a crappy Christmas. Which went with the crappy six months he’d already had since he had been put on medical leave. And meshed perfectly with the shitty time he had had since Great-granddaddy Clive’s will had been read. This lousy weather was just another reason to off himself.
But he had as good as promised Laura he wouldn’t eat his gun. Or let himself die of exposure. And he was flirting with hypothermia right this minute. But Laura wouldn’t like it either if he took bear and went feral. He’d better call it quits and head out of the forest. He should go to Hanover. See if he could find any of those Enrights who called Bascoms cousins.
He’d served in Joint Operations with Navy SEAL Will Enright. And been taught bomb disposal in Afghanistan by Col. Douglas Enright who was Will’s older brother and a distinguished graduate of his own alma mater, West Point. Of course they had made each other as bears the moment they were introduced — shifters could always identify other shifters. But none of them was dumb enough to ever speak about their bears. The army had more than its fair share of shifters, of all varieties, but it was a secret fraternity that was seldom acknowledged.
Will Enright had just nodded knowingly when he heard Zeke’s surname. “My father’s mother was a Bascom,” he’d said. “I’d guess we’re cousins.” And maybe they were. Like the Enrights, Granddaddy Clive had been born in Washington State, close to where the Enrights lived.
Col. Douglas Enright was as grim as death. He had just looked Zeke over from head to toe and nodded once. “You have a look of some of my kinfolks,” he had said gruffly. Hard to tell if he thought that was a good thing. He was a good man, but dour and taciturn. Not the guy to cut a fuck-up any slack.
Will Enright was okay. But it was possible that he had heard about the fiasco that Zeke had made of his last mission. Zeke didn’t want to see loathing instead of welcome on his buddy’s face. He might deserve it, but he was too cowardly to face it.
But he still ought to get the hell out of these woods and find someplace to warm up. He’d kept eating even though the incessant rain had put his camp stove out. But congealed tins of stew weren’t improved by the addition of rainwater. He felt physically and mentally exhausted. Lying down in the mud was beginning to seem like a good idea. It was time, and maybe past time, he found shelter.
CHAPTER THREE
“No, Mom, I’m not going to change my mind,” Jenna Bascom assured her mother cheerfully. “It’s been raining hard for over a week. The roads are a total mess. I’m not going to risk driving down mountain tonight. To say nothing of getting trapped in French Town after the party. Besides, I’m exhausted.”
“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” Sharon Bascom protested.
“I’ve been slogging up and down Yakima Ridge in the mud and rain for most of two weeks, Mom. In bear for the last week. I’m tired of fighting with the roads and the weather. Besides, there’s a new rock fall on the Culver side road.”
“I didn’t hear about that one,” Sharon said worriedly. “Were you able to get to Mrs. Bull’s place?”
“Hmm. She’s fine. Her son is staying with her while the bridge is out.” Jenna didn’t think twice about passing along information about her patient’s living arrangements. Like everyone else on the Ridge, Mrs. Bull was family and Sharon was concerned about her. Now, talking about Mrs. Bull’s blood pressure, that would be wrong.
“Why were you calling on Hannah?” Sharon backed up. “I thought you said their cubs were all big and healthy. What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re fine,” Jen reassured her mother. “Good weights for dates, good size for triplets. Breathing well. Gaining nicely. But preemies just the same. I’ve been checking on the four of them every day — just to be safe. But they’re doing well. Besides, they let me change at their place and take Hannah’s SUV to the clinic.”
“Oh. I did wonder where you were cleaning up. I’m glad Hannah is doing well,” Sharon said clucking her tongue. “But triplets should be born in hospital.”
“I agree. But remember we lost the bridge Christmas night.” Jen said wryly. “It was me or nothing. You better hope that my diligence impressed the Enrights. Maybe Uncle Ed and Aunt Katy will decide to keep the Hanover Clinic going.”
The Enrights owned the lumber mill in Hanover and were both wealthy and civic minded. Jenna knew that they appreciated her leaving her Christmas celebrations to come — in bear yet — to deliver Hannah’s triplets. But whether they wanted to take on funding the Free Clinic was another matter. When it closed she was going to be out of a job, even th
ough there wouldn’t be any fewer pregnancies or emergencies on Yakima Ridge.
“You’d think a situation like this, with mudslides and rock falls preventing a woman in labor from getting to a hospital, would persuade the State to keep that clinic open,” Sharon pointed out tartly.
“You wish. It’s like some bureaucrat looked at the road map and worked out how long it should take to get to the hospital in Yakima from up here on the Ridge — if it wasn’t all switchbacks and bridges, and we were all birds — and decided, given our population stats, that the clinic was redundant.” Jen felt her ire rising just thinking about it.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve been told that my patients should just move to Yakima City for their last trimester, as if travel and accommodation were free. Or as if being away from their families and other kids for three months was optimal, even if it was possible. Don’t get me started, Mom. I do not want to think about this tonight.”
“That’s just why you should come and have some fun at the party,” Sharon persisted. “Uncle Pierre will be so disappointed if you don’t come.”
“Probably.”
“He’s an old man. How many more New Year’s dances do you think he will be hosting?”
Jenna laughed. “Many. Uncle Pierre will outlive us all. But he won’t be surprised if I choose not to take my truck out. Not when there are mudslides everywhere in Kittitas County. Uncle Pierre is a sensible old bear. You give him my love.”
“You’d be better off in town if the power goes,” Sharon coaxed. “You don’t want to get cut off up there.”
Jenna looked complacently around her cozy little cabin. It was snug and well provisioned. Her wood stove was keeping her toasty and the gentle light from its belly provided a soft illumination. She chuckled into her phone, “That ship has sailed, Mom. I haven’t had power in three days. But I turned on the generator and I’m fine. And before you ask, I have plenty of fuel.”
Sharon clucked her tongue. “What if you run out?”
“Unlikely. But if I run out of food, and wood, and diesel, I’ll take bear and come stay with you,” Jen assured her mother.
“I don’t know what you want to live so far out in the woods for,” Sharon said.
Her mom had been making similar remarks for eleven years, so Jenna didn’t rise to the bait. “Happy New Year,” she said instead. “I’ll call you tomorrow — if I still have service. Have a good time at the dance.”
She hung up on her mother feeling she had let Sharon down. It was hard for her widowed mother not having any of her four children handy for the holidays. Her sister’s husband had been assigned active duty on base. Brian had only had Christmas day off. So Jenna’s twin Joanna had opted to stay put in her own home. Brian’s folks had driven down to stay with them and their three kids.
Sharon had declined Jo and Brian’s invitation, convinced that their tiny bungalow would be crowded enough with two extra adults without cramming in a third. But it had been hard on Mom not to see her grandbabies for Christmas. Thank goodness for Skype. They had been able to watch those little devils ripping open their presents on Christmas morning. Of course, like sensible two-year-olds, Jo’s trips had preferred the boxes to the stuff in them.
But it was really the absence of Jenna’s brothers Matt and Nick that was dragging Mom’s spirits down. Jenna’s not-so-little brothers were both Marines, and both deployed with their units. Neither of them had had leave over Christmas. They had each been permitted five minutes of face time on Christmas afternoon. It had been good to see their faces, but both had looked haggard, and Sharon hadn’t exactly been delighted at that. And neither had Jenna.
These days, Jenna was all Mom had of her four children. Sharon had been a comparatively young woman when her husband had been killed in action. But, like most bears widowed young, she had not been able to replace her dead mate. It was the downside of the strong bear bond that mated bears formed. And another reason not to marry a soldier.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise that Mom wanted her to share New Year’s Eve with her. Jenna knew the dance at the French Town community center would be fun. There would be fiddling and step dancing and a midnight supper featuring the traditional meat pies. Of course, her own grandma’s tourtiere recipe was the best by a long way. But how could you be absolutely sure of its superiority, if you didn’t sample some of those other pies to make sure?
Tonight Mom would dance with her nephews and cousins and have a fine old time. The community center would be full of laughing, happy bears. Mom would have friends to gossip with. She would help out with the midnight supper, and smile when her tourtiere was complimented. And then she would go home to the house her husband had built her and sleep alone in the bed they had bought together.
What did it say about Jenna’s life that it matched her mother’s widowed existence so exactly? Except for the part about being a widow. She had never been married. Never been mated. Never had sex, come to that. Nope, she was just a pathetic old maid.
* * *
It was a fair old march back to where Zeke had left his old Ford parked. But moving warmed him through. Carrying his gear helped too. This he could do. Wasn’t any worse than basic training. Except in basic, you had your pals with you, and some cranky but knowledgeable old sergeant bawling at you and making sure you didn’t die.
The interior of his pickup was dry. He had topped up his tanks before entering the park and had jerry cans in the rear just in case. The heater was a marvel and he began to feel better in minutes. He found dry fatigues in the spare duffel he had left on the rear seats, and changed from the skin out. Dry clothes improved his mood. His parka was soaked through, and his poncho was wet on both sides. He spread them out with his watch cap and gloves to dry in the warm cab.
Okay, he would leave the National Forest and head down the mountain into a town. Find a motel and a diner. Reassess after a hot meal and some shut-eye. Maybe he would look for his relations, or maybe he would head back to Colorado.
The road was awash in mud and even his big, heavy truck with its winter tires found it hard to gain traction. Zeke kept his eyes on the ribbon of oozing brown goo and tried to decide well in advance if he had the clearance to go over fallen branches or had to go around them. Inevitably, he had to put his wet parka and poncho back on to go move branches. Twice he fired up his chainsaw and cleared tree trunks out of his way.
The rain kept coming. Thunder rolled overhead and lightning split the sky. Zeke kept driving. He was going slowly, conscious of how the road fell away from the shoulder. He could see nothing through the driver’s side window because of the pelting rain. Between the rain and the dark, the windscreen was barely better. His headlights hardly seemed to penetrate the gloom.
The hill the road had been cut through was steep. Even though the hillside was lushly forested, the ground under the trees had become waterlogged after weeks of rain. And rain had to go someplace. It had made new gullies, and streams of mud were washing out the gravel surface he was driving on. For the first time Zeke realized that he was in danger. Paradoxically, the thought gave him a shot in the arm. Adrenaline. Gotta love it.
Over the thunder, he heard a different roar. Not animals. Something more monumental. The road shook and he came to a halt. Up ahead there was violent movement. Through the overworked wipers the scene resolved itself into a twisted pile of trees and mud rushing past. No way he could clear that by himself. No way anything short of a tank could drive over or through it.
The crisis seemed to have fired him up. In moments Zeke snapped into take-charge-can-do mode. Just as if he had a team of newbies right behind him, hoping he could save their sorry rookie butts. He added an olive green wool sweater to his fatigues and put his sodden outer gear back on. He grabbed his big heavy duty flashlight and went out into the storm to have a look.
His headlights showed that the gravel track was piled high in broken trees and boulders and mud. The entire hillside had given way and slid down the slope. The trees on
the other side of the road had also been carried away downslope by the rush of debris. This was a major mudslide.
Two foot wide trunks had snapped like kindling. Roots as long as the trees themselves had torn out of the hillside and were jumbled in the broken timber before him. Now that the landslide had halted, he could see that the blockage was fifty yards wide and towered above him.
Well, hell, wasn’t this a situation? Automatically he calculated how long he could keep warm if he stayed in his truck with the motor idling. Didn’t seem long enough to guarantee rescue. His cell hadn’t had service in days. His satellite phone was charging in the truck. But he didn’t see who he could call.
Who the hell was he going to put into danger to rescue Major Zeke Bascom, late of the 75th Rangers? And wouldn’t that be a helluva story for the fricking media? A fricking Army Ranger mewling for help like some greenhorn civilian who expected his ass wiped when he got into a little trouble on a pleasure trip.
He’d get his bearings with his sat phone. Plot a course to the Ranger Station. Grab his gear and head downhill on foot. Simplicity itself. Feeling more cheerful than he had in six months, Zeke turned to trek back to his truck.
With another furious roar the rest of the hillside tore loose and hundreds of tons of mud and trees swept down. The landslide carried all before it. His big, heavy truck was just flotsam in the mess. It rolled over like a big red boulder and vanished into the darkness, taking his gear with it. Lightning split the sky and thunder punctuated the destruction.
Shit.
Zeke put the loss of his satellite phone and his truck and his rations out of his mind. He could do this. He scrambled over the unstable pile of mud and trees. It was hard going, but he was powerfully built. Besides, what else was he going to do? Staying put was probably suicidal. And if the debris shifted more and swept him away, it would be no great loss.
Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3) Page 23