Troubled Waters

by Susan May Warren

Had purchased not one but two helicopters for PEAK and funded the operations for three years.

  In fact, that was probably just a small dip in his resources.

  How could she have thought she would ever be in his league? She dropped her satchel onto the white fluff of her bed. Ran her hands over her bare arms, now prickled with the cool air of her room.

  “I’d be happy to fetch you something to eat if you’re hungry, ma’am.”

  “I’m here to work, just like you, Kelley.”

  In the light, she saw he did have blond hair, cut high and tight, a crisply shaven jaw, strong chin, blue eyes, and a tattoo sneaking down his arm. She indicated it.

  “It’s a Celtic cross. I got it after I got out of the Marines.”

  “And now you’re a bosun?”

  “It’s a start. Someday I’ll be captain.” He gave her a wink. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

  “Actually, I’d like to talk to the chef, make sure we’ve got everything.”

  “Yes, ma’am. By the way, your assistant is already here, and he updated your order.”

  Her what? “I don’t have an assistant.”

  Kelley frowned. “He arrived about two hours ago, told the chef about the change in orders.”

  “What change in orders?” She’d meticulously planned every meal according to Vanessa’s gluten-free diet, Hayes’s allergy to milk, and Dex’s penchant to have meat at every meal.

  She stepped out past Kelley. “Where is this fabled assistant?”

  “In the galley, I think.”

  She charged down the short hallway back to the dining area, found the galley door, and pressed open the swinging door.

  “Someone here is on the wrong boat because I don’t have an—”

  No.

  She couldn’t move, just stared as her “assistant” whirled around, probably alerted by her voice, and met her widened eyes.

  He wore a silly straw hat, a white T-shirt, a pair of khakis, and sandals on his otherwise bare feet.

  Ian flashed her a smile.

  “Hey, Sierra. Ready for our three-day tour?”

  At least Pete hadn’t left town.

  Yet.

  Over a week since he’d burst through the forest to save Jess’s life and he hadn’t done more than grunt training instructions at her.

  No showing up on her doorstep to take her into his arms, declare that he’d come home because he couldn’t live without her.

  Which meant that probably Willow had been correct. Pete had returned to Mercy Falls to see his mother, maybe even have a face-to-face with Chet King.

  Not because he desperately missed Jess Tagg.

  Truth was, she should probably attribute his daring rescue to his persona rather than any rampant panic sluicing through him.

  A smart girl, one who’d taken off her rose-colored glasses, would have seen the evidence in Pete’s rather cool demeanor the past two days as he’d dragged her, Gage, and Ty down to the Bitterroot Valley, an hour drive and two-hour hike from PEAK HQ, to “drill down on their climbing skills.”

  Translation: the fact that Jess had opted to climb up the relatively steep pitched grade into a field of ash instead of down a two-hundred-foot cliff to a riverbed where she’d find the chopper had apparently sent Chet into training overdrive.

  Which meant, according to Pete, she and her teammates needed to learn to emergency rappel with one rope.

  So, he’d hiked them up to a 5.11 climb and made them work their way to the top of the seventy-meter drop. There, he took off his harness and safety gear.

  Jess never stopped being amazed at Pete’s confidence around danger. Heights, fire, even skydiving—he seemed impervious to things that sent a shudder through her.

  She’d gotten into this gig to save lives. Not throw herself over a cliff.

  Now Pete stood at the edge of the cliff, the backdrop of the Bitterroot Mountains behind him. Gray granite peaks pierced the sky, rising above a halo of green balsam and pine. The wind whipped against his blond hair that was caught in a bun below his climbing helmet. He wore a pair of green cargo pants, dirty with chalk and rolled up at the ankles, and now he unbuckled his chalk bag that hung around his waist.

  He also reached into his pocket for the nylon shirt he’d shed before leading them up the ascent. She’d enjoyed a delicious view of the array of muscles cording his back as he’d scrambled up an intimidating overhang called the Cowboy Ejector Seat that jutted out over forty feet. Jess’s hands were sweaty just looking at it, her stomach curling into a fist. But Pete walked her through it, handhold by foot jamb, his voice steady.

  Calm.

  Not unlike how he’d been a year ago when they’d hid from a grizzly on Huckleberry Mountain.

  Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could still smell the musk of Pete’s skin, feel the length of his body hovering over hers, protective.

  So, better to not close her eyes.

  Pete routed them along a set of thick jugs and fixed draws that had her wanting to cry with the lactic acid burning in her arms. She’d fallen once, her belay rope catching her. But she’d slammed her hip into the rock so hard it sent tears to her eyes. Her cry had made Pete turn around, his eyes full of concern. But she shook her head, despite the scream in her hip.

  “I’m good!”

  He frowned, however, and waited until she caught up before he continued.

  They were all sweating when they reached the top, and even Gage and Ty had shed their shirts by then. But although Gage had once been a champion snowboarder and Ty regularly worked out, no one had the impressive bulk of shoulders and chest that Pete Brooks, former smokejumper, had honed.

  Yeah, this little training exercise had her a little woozy.

  Pete pulled his shirt over his head. It hugged his frame, and the blue fabric turned his own blue eyes so rich she had to look away. Her conversation with Sierra echoed in her head. “Everything about Pete is epic . . . Including his ability to break hearts.”

  “We’re going to practice an emergency rappel using a single rope,” Pete said. “In case your rope doesn’t reach the bottom.”

  No pointed glance at Jess, but she gave a nod. Shrugged.

  “So, the first thing you want to do is ditch your bulky clothing,” Pete said. “Along with your backpack. Lower it to the bottom.”

  She unhooked her backpack and set it at her feet.

  “Next, you want to set your anchor. Find a tree with deep, healthy roots at least six inches in diameter. Or a rock or boulder that’s solid, so your rope can’t slip underneath. If you were in snow, you’d want to dig a bollard, or a teardrop-shaped trench. And if you’re lucky and have an anchor in your gear, you could use that too.”

  He walked over to a boulder nearly two feet across, tested it, then dropped the rope around it.

  “You’ll loop the middle of the rope around the anchor, then coil both ends and drop them over the edge, making sure they don’t tangle.”

  He walked over to the edge, glanced over the side, then tossed the rope over.

  “Now, I’m going to stand facing uphill and straddle the rope. I’m going to pull the two cords through my legs, around my hip, over my nondominant shoulder, around the back of my neck, and down to my dominant hand. The friction of my body will brake my descent.”

  He demonstrated, then started backing toward the edge of the cliff.

  “Pete, you’re not roped in,” Gage said.

  “I know,” Pete said. “Keep your knees bent, shoulder width apart. Your dominant hand should be downhill, your other hand uphill, for balance. Let gravity pull you down, and adjust the feed with your dominant grip.”

  He cast a look at Jess, his face serious. “If you let go, you fall. So . . . don’t let go.”

  Don’t let go. The words resonated inside her, so similar to the ones he’d spoken at the fire. Just hang on.

  Oh, she wanted to, but what precisely was she holding on to? Because he hadn’t exactly—

  And t
hen he stepped over the cliff and disappeared. Jess ran to the edge.

  “Hey,” he said, grinning up at her.

  Oh, she wanted to hate him, the way he just dangled there, his arms thick with muscle, holding himself in midair.

  He was too cute. Too easy to fall for, to never forget.

  “When you get to a landing place or at the end of your rope, anchor in, unwrap the rope, and retrieve it by pulling one end. Then rinse and repeat all the way to the bottom.”

  He had climbed back up and now stood at the edge.

  Sure, no problem.

  “Who wants to go first?”

  Five hours later, Jess stepped out of the shower, her legs still trembling as she recalled the descent. She probably wouldn’t eat for a week. Her stomach was still in tangles from the stress of lowering herself to the ground. Sure, Pete had her on belay, but her hand had slipped twice and . . .

  Her hip ached where she’d slammed it again. She probably needed to ice it. Now she just leaned against the sink and stared at her watery visage in the foggy mirror.

  Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be on a rescue team. EMT, sure. When faced with a medical crisis, her brain slowed, separated the panic from the to-do list, and instinctively went into calm survival mode.

  But when the chopper crashed . . .

  She could still hear the explosion as the rope severed the rotor. Feel the heat erupt in her hip as her feet shot out from beneath her, the whoosh of the rotor above her head.

  A head not separated from her body, by the grace of God.

  Then the rush of horror flooding over her as the chopper lurched away from the cliff.

  She ran her hand through the fog of the mirror.

  For a long time, she’d simply sat there, unmoving, her heart choking off her breath.

  Then panic took over her bones and she’d scrambled back from the edge.

  Assessed her choices.

  Yeah, she still would have chosen to climb up to the charred surface instead of free-rappelling to the base.

  Maybe.

  Unless Pete had been there. With Pete she was braver. Stronger. With Pete she hardly knew herself.

  Pete seemed to be able to do anything, leap from tall buildings, climb sheer cliffs, defy a wall of fire, and on the way, he made her do the same.

  In fact, with Pete, she felt invincible, alive. She liked the Jess Tagg she was with Pete.

  Jess drew in a breath and took the towel off her head.

  Until Pete, she had simply been Jess Tagg, in hiding. Jess Tagg on her own, restarting her life. She’d left Selene conveniently on the shelf, a secret, waiting to see if Jess wanted her back.

  Then Pete walked into the picture, and suddenly she wanted to be the Jess Tagg she’d painted herself as. Brave. Not broken. Not stained. And especially not looking over her shoulder for her past to show up and destroy her life.

  Not Selene Jessica Taggert, the woman who’d destroyed lives, but Jess Tagg, the woman who saved them.

  “So, now that he’s back, you’re going to tell him, right?”

  Sierra’s words kept pulsing in the back of her brain, and she simply couldn’t escape them.

  “No, I’m not,” she said into the mirror as she pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail and reached for her clean sweatpants and a T-shirt. If she let Pete in, let him see her sins, she’d lose that image of herself. She’d no longer be the unbreakable Jess Tagg. She’d be blighted, stained. Ugly.

  More, he simply didn’t seem to care. And the longer she let him mill around her heart, the more it would hurt when he finally exited.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Pulling on the T-shirt, she opened the bathroom door and hollered, “I’ll be right there!”

  She couldn’t make out the form at the door, although by the outline she guessed it might be Sam, possibly looking for Willow.

  She swung the door open.

  He stood with his back to her, his hands shoved into his pockets, his wide shoulders rising and falling as if he might be contemplating something. His hair hung behind his ears, golden in the sun, and it looked like he might have showered, because his hair was still streaked with dampness.

  Then Pete turned, his gaze caught her up, and he smiled slowly, as if he’d been waiting right here on this porch all day to see her. “Hey,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

  He glanced down at her hip. “Checkin’ on you. You were limping today.” His smile turned rueful.

  “I’m fine. Just took a couple hard falls. Nothing a little ice won’t fix.”

  He nodded then. Stood there on the porch.

  “Really, Pete, what are you doing here?”

  And she really meant, What are you doing here, in Montana? Or even, What are you doing here in my life? Driving me crazy?

  “Can I come in?”

  Oh no, that was a terrible idea. “Yeah, sure.” She stepped aside.

  He walked into her now-furnished family room. “You’ve done a lot of work on the place.”

  “I stripped the floors, then we revarnished them.”

  “And the kitchen looks new.”

  “We put in a new countertop and I repainted the cupboards.”

  He turned to her. “We? As in you and Ty?”

  “No. Me. And, well, me. And sometimes Sierra or Willow.”

  He looked away then, his mouth a grim line as he nodded. Because he’d been her right-hand remodeler until . . . well, until . . .

  “Pete, I don’t know where to start, but we need to talk.”

  He nodded. “We do. I owe you an apology.”

  She blinked at him, frowned.

  He came over to her then, standing so close she could smell the soap on his skin. And then he reached out and touched her face, his fingers soft on her cheek. “You have a little scrub there from where you fell today.”

  Oh. She wanted to lean into his hand, but she couldn’t move, caught on his previous words. “An apology?”

  He dropped his hand. Nodded. “I know about your secret.”

  She stilled.

  “I’ve known for a while.”

  “You know—”

  “Selene Jessica Taggert? Daughter of Damien? The woman at the center of the biggest financial scandal of the twenty-first century? Yeah.”

  She hadn’t expected that, or the way her knees suddenly turned to wax. “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Ty?”

  He gave her a look, and she could see the hurt raging through his eyes. He swallowed, shook his head. “He didn’t give you up. It was Brette, that reporter. She recognized you.”

  She drew in a breath. “Oh, Pete, I should have told—”

  “Why didn’t you trust me?”

  She couldn’t bear the look in his eyes, suddenly red-rimmed, as if he might be fighting tears.

  “I didn’t—I don’t know. I just thought.” She pressed her hand to her eyes. “I didn’t want you to see that part of my life, I guess. I was so—so ashamed and—”

  His arms went around her shoulders, and he pulled her to himself. It happened so suddenly, she simply surrendered, unable to react, to hold herself away.

  Not that she would have. Because finally, finally, she had Pete in her embrace. A real one, without the ruse of rescue. She wrapped her arms around his amazing chest, and she let herself collapse into him.

  “Don’t be ashamed, Speedy. You did what you had to,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s okay. It’s over now. That’s the past.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “This is the future.”

  It was the way he said it, softly, a little tremulous, that made her raise her head.

  And the look in his beautiful blue eyes, a little earnest as he roamed her face, reached down and stirred something inside her that had been dormant.

  Waiting, perhaps, for this moment.

  Because then Pete smiled. “I have to kiss you. Please.”

  He didn’t wait for a yes—d
idn’t have to because Jess leaned up and answered him, pressing her lips against his.

  The past year dropped away, the ache of wanting him, of missing him, of fearing she’d lost him. All that remained was Pete, kissing her, sweeping her up, his mouth urgent on hers.

  He tasted so good. She hadn’t forgotten the taste of him. Pete. Epic, amazing Pete.

  She lifted her arms, tangled her fingers into his hair, and softened her mouth, letting him in.

  He groaned.

  Leaned back. Met her eyes, so much emotion in them she swallowed.

  “Wow, okay, yeah. That is exactly what I remembered. And more,” he said.

  Her face heated.

  He grinned at her, then took a deep breath. “Okay, so now might be the right . . . um . . . okay . . .” He held her away from him. Pinned his gaze to hers. “Jess, I came back to Montana because . . . I want you to marry me. You’re the only girl for me.”

  She blinked at him. What? “Did you say—”

  “Yeah. I . . . I love you, Jess, and—”

  She stepped out of his arms, her heart thundering. “Okay, okay—wait—”

  His smile dimmed. “I did that all wrong, didn’t I?”

  She stared at him. “You—well, wait. Stop. I’m sorry. Have I just woken up from a coma?”

  He frowned.

  “Because we haven’t even dated, Pete.”

  “Well, I know, but—”

  “You’ve been gone for the last eight months, right?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “And for the past week, you’ve given me nothing but a cold shoulder.”

  “I was trying to figure out how, well, I . . .” He made a face. “Sorry.”

  “No, no, that’s okay. Because you did save my life. And I guess that should count—”

  He stepped up and took her by the arms. She never did think straight with him this close to her.

  “Okay, I know I blew that. But I . . .” He found her gaze, held it. “I love you, Jess.”

  He loved her.

  “Do you love me?”

  She swallowed. Opened her mouth. “I . . .”

  Yes! I love you so much it hurts, right down to my bones. At least that was what her instincts leaped up to scream, but her mouth stammered out an incongruous, “I don’t know.”

  He took another long breath. “Fair enough. It’s fast, I know. Maybe I’ll just have to woo you a little.”