Canyon Standoff

by Valerie Hansen

  Whatever the reason, she was about to tell him the story he’d asked her about so many times.

  She was about to trust him.

  SIX

  Morgan crossed her arms over her stomach to hold in her emotions. If she told him the truth, that she’d failed in a thousand ways, it had to be a completely rational thing. She’d have to stand against the sting of judgment in his eyes when he realized she was, at her deepest core, more fear than anything else. “Where I’ve been is not a lighthearted frolic in the sunflowers. Just so you’re forewarned.”

  “Because where I’ve been was oh so sunflower filled. Although, I can say I’ve seen my share of poppies in Afghanistan.” He arched an eyebrow. “And it’s nothing like The Wizard of Oz.”

  Oh my. It was a carbon copy of the look he’d given her the first time he’d kissed her. Half amused, half serious, all attention focused on her.

  No. Too much had happened in their lives and in their shared history for him to look at her like that again.

  Anxiety and hunger drove her spiking heart rate. That was all. “You remember I was a police officer for a year before I went to work for the Park Service and met you.”

  “In San Diego. You liked the open air better than the city.”

  “Sort of.” If I panic anytime I’m in a crowd counted as open air.

  Morgan dug her teeth into her lower lip. She wasn’t really going to tell him the entire story, was she? It would change everything.

  Then again, everything had already changed. “I had a friend who was opening a concert venue and in my off-hours I did some part-time work for him, helped him hire security staff, pulled some off-duty security for him.”

  “Friend or boyfriend?” Eric focused on relacing his boot, not looking at her.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No. I just wondered.”

  “Boyfriend.” Although they’d talked about becoming more someday, Kevin had never been the kind to truly commit, and Morgan had known it all along. Every time she tried to walk away, though, he charmed her right back. Something about his lazy grin and those ocean-blue eyes.

  Blue eyes that had grown so icy cold.

  Morgan fought a shudder. It was hard enough to tell the story without bringing Kevin into it. “On opening night he has this local band come in, a group that had started to make a name for themselves in the Southwest, Absence Blockade.”

  “I remember them.” Eric shifted and bent his knee to rest his elbow on it. “Used to listen to them when I was in high school. They were getting huge until the lead singer was killed when a...” His eyes caught hers, understanding drawing deep lines in his forehead. “When a bomb went off in a club in San Diego.”

  The carnage when a backpack near the stage detonated with a force that blasted out doors and killed ten people... The subsequent days of manhunt and fear with a bomber on the loose... No one on the outside could fully understand what it was like to hunt for a man who spent days taunting the police. What it was like to halt transportation and walk streets as silent as any ghost town, methodically searching for a killer who ultimately went out in a blazing gun battle that killed a police officer and a firefighter.

  For months afterward, the city had closed in on her. Even small crowds sucked the air from her lungs and accelerated her heart rate. Morgan had never known a panic attack before, but they came at her almost daily, usually when she was off duty and unarmed.

  “We can summarize it by saying wide-open spaces and very few people became my friend. Leaving law enforcement didn’t feel right, so I looked at the Park Service, went through training and was hired. A small park in the Virginia mountains was my first assignment. I was there for a year, and you pretty much know the rest.” She shrugged. “Now I spend ten days patrolling land very few people have ever seen, taking in views most people can’t even dream of. Basically hiding from the world and labeling it a good cause.” Okay, had she seriously said that last part? Morgan dropped her head against the rock.

  Eric didn’t say anything for a long time.

  The opposite of Kevin, who’d told her to get over it. He’d blamed her for not spotting a backpack no one else had seen either. He’d called her a weak coward.

  Had ultimately walked away with the manager of his club, a woman who was tough, strong and unafraid. Everything Morgan wasn’t.

  Everything Eric had made her feel like she could be again.

  In his look there was a flash of the perfect harmony that had once fueled their lives, back when she’d made him her everything.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost as though the conversation was sacred to him and required a certain respect. “I’ve seen too many things happen in crowds, so I can understand completely what you’re saying.” He sniffed. “That’s why gunshots don’t make you flinch. It’s not death. It’s not bullets. It’s the fear of missing something again. Of not seeing the backpack... Or the trash can. It’s the out-of-control need to watch every move every single person around you makes. There’s a drive that has nothing to do with self-preservation. It’s rooted in the need to make sure everyone around you is safe. If you miss something...” He turned away, his profile sharp in the semidarkness. “If you miss something and somebody else pays the price, then you can’t shake the feeling of failure.” Eric’s eyes were dark, shadowed by flashlight and emotion, and he studied the small opening through which they’d entered the cave. “I was in a Mexican restaurant once. Saw a guy reading a book about Charles Manson in the corner. Alone. He walked away from his table and left his briefcase beside his chair.”

  Morgan’s heart beat faster thinking about it. The image in her mind was enough to make her want to run screaming deeper into the backcountry. “There’s the dilemma... Do you raise the alarm and make a fool of yourself because maybe he’s simply a guy reading a book?

  “Or do you keep quiet and risk the whole place explodes?” It was a fact they lived with every day. “I almost crawled out of my skin before he came back, grabbed his bag and left.” He cleared his throat but didn’t look at her. “I never ate there again.”

  She imagined not. The walls closing in. The roof sinking lower. All focus on the abandoned bag she could almost see in her mind, even though he hadn’t described it. “I wouldn’t have eaten there again either.” Morgan understood him, and he understood her. No one else ever had.

  If they were as close as they used to be, she’d move to his side and lean into his shoulder, so great was the sagging feeling of relief his words brought. Here was Eric, a man in need, searching for his sister...saying the one sentence that was the balm to her lonely soul. “I was close enough to take shrapnel to the cheek, and I never saw the backpack.” If she had, maybe those people would still be alive. Maybe her life wouldn’t have run off the rails.

  But then she wouldn’t be here now. Somehow sitting in a cave with Eric, even with the grim circumstances surrounding them, was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  Eric was watching her again and then he was beside her. He smoothed a wayward strand of hair from her cheek and lingered on the scars there, intent on watching his thumb lightly brush a circle over them. “I always wondered what happened, and you’d never tell me.”

  “I was afraid.” She choked on the words, her voice strangled.

  His touch froze, then his hand cupped her cheek as if he could somehow cover the scars and protect her from the past. “Of what?”

  Now his eyes grabbed hers and held on, erasing the years between them.

  Her voice was a breath, a whisper. “You’d leave.”

  The force of truth would have knocked her off her feet if she hadn’t already been sitting. She’d allowed their marriage to fall apart, had let him walk away from her not because she didn’t want to leave her job and her safe place in the canyon...but because her heart had never fully been his. She’d walled it in with fear he’d see
the real her and abandon her in some random spot around the globe. He’d see weakness and shame her.

  Like Kevin had.

  Eric lifted his other hand and gently turned her to face him, not letting her look away. “Who hurt you?”

  His touch made her heart beat faster, made her remember how she’d once loved this man yet had been unable to receive his love in return. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her. “I’m a coward.”

  “According to who? The guy before me? The idiot who let you go?” His voice was low and husky. “He was wrong. You spend weeks alone in some of the most dangerous country in America. You got to your feet and took charge after one of your worst fears came true and a bomb exploded in the park. You stood your ground when a man tried to kill me. No.” He leaned forward until his lips whispered against her ear. “No. You’re the bravest person I know.” He brushed a light kiss over her scars, then rested his cheek against hers, warm and way too inviting. “I’m the coward, the other idiot who let you go.”

  She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he was too close. He stole what was left of every argument she’d ever used to push him away. Something in the back of her mind said she should push him away again. They were in danger and his sister was still missing, but...

  But she couldn’t. The dormant part of her heart that loved him had started to beat again.

  Instead of running, hiding, protecting her emotions, she tilted her head and let her lips brush his.

  * * *

  The shock of her butterfly-wing kiss almost rocked Eric backward. As many nights as he’d thought of her, remembered her, wondered how she was doing... He’d never, ever imagined he’d be in her presence again, let alone she’d kiss him again.

  It completely ripped his world in two.

  No, it didn’t tear at his world. It almost killed him. His lungs refused to breathe. He should pull away, because if he accepted her kiss... If he returned her kiss... Then everything would change. Because with Morgan Dunham, a kiss wouldn’t be just a kiss. It would be handing his heart and life to her until the day he died.

  It would change everything and solidify the decision he’d been wrestling with for months.

  A decision he now realized had very little to do with Hannah and everything to do with Morgan. The nagging idea to leave the army and join the Park Service was every inch about rebuilding his life with Morgan Dunham.

  He made his choice. He kissed her, pouring his heart and his life into a gesture he hoped said what words never could. He still loved her. He had spent every day of his life regretting his decision to walk away from her. He would never put his career above her again.

  In the moment, his restless mind settled for the first time in nearly a decade. His heart fell into rhythm.

  And his whole life changed. He stopped fighting Morgan. Stopped fighting God.

  He surrendered.

  When he broke the kiss, he realized his fingers were damp with her silent tears. Eric moved to sit beside her and pulled her close.

  Morgan swiped at her cheeks and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Silence reigned for who knew how long. He didn’t care to count. For one brief span of time, he was going to sit with the woman who had grabbed his heart eight years ago during the search for his parents. He was going to rest in this holy moment of hearing God’s purpose for his life and of having no emotional barriers between Morgan and himself.

  Because he had no idea what tomorrow would bring.

  Morgan sniffed and straightened, pulling her head from his shoulder and her warmth from his side. “I came here because I wanted to hide, because I was scared. Because I wasn’t good enough to be anywhere else.”

  He wanted to argue but sensed she needed to say more. Reaching for her hand, he laced his fingers through hers in silent support.

  “I never let you love me. I refused to move with you and told you it was because of my career, but it was because I couldn’t bear to be left again. If I pushed you away, if I had a reason for you to go, then it wouldn’t be about me. It would be about the job. Somehow I thought it would hurt less.” Her fingers tightened around his. “But it only made me wonder every day if I’d done the right thing. So I resented you. I got angry at you. I never realized checking casualty lists online every week and tracking your hikes through the canyon with Hannah every year...” She drew a shaking breath. “It all meant I never stopped...”

  For the first time in his life, Eric was speechless. He wanted to tell her she’d never loosened her firm grip on his heart, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he kissed her fingers and hoped the gesture would be enough.

  “But you know what? Our timing is all wrong again.” Morgan’s smile was resigned and sad as she pulled her hand from his, rising to walk to the small cave entrance. “And who’s to say what we’re feeling is even real? We could be reacting to the threat of death, to the pressure of the situation...”

  Eric stood and started to argue that these feelings weren’t new, but she talked over his objections. “We need to focus on finding Hannah and getting all of us out of here alive. We can worry about this later. Talk about it when everyone is safe and whoever is behind these attacks on us and the other rangers is in custody.”

  Eric eyed her, balling his fist against his thigh to stop an argument that might only push her further away. Was she being wise? Or was she once again running scared?

  SEVEN

  Morgan focused on the ground in front of her, each step methodical in the bluish moonlight. The skies had finally cleared during the day while they’d hidden in the cave, not speaking, trying to conserve energy and water.

  Trying not to think about what might have been and what could be.

  The moonlight was a blessing or a curse. They were several hundred yards off the route most backcountry hikers chose, and the ground was uneven and sometimes unstable. In the daylight it would be a tough hike. In near darkness, it was downright foolish, but it was the only way to keep them partially hidden and physically safe.

  Though she’d cast emotional safety to the wind.

  After their intense discussion—and ground-shaking kiss—they’d spent the rest of a very long day in near silence. They’d managed some rest, with Eric sleeping near the cave entrance and Morgan farther back against the cool rock wall.

  Now, although it was dark and the hike was treacherous, she was glad to be in open air and moving again. The atmosphere in the cave had been still and heavy with the words they’d said.

  Morgan was terrified of being abandoned again. What if her decision to let him leave had nothing to do with her job and everything to do with her emotions? The idea made the ground under her feet feel shakier than it already was. Talking to him, baring her soul to him, left a raw wound in her spirit, one she needed to hash out with God and with herself before she made any more rash decisions.

  Still, even if her choices in her marriage were born from fear, she still had a life to consider. Following Eric around the world to various duty stations would make her dependent on him and would signal a long pause in—and possibly the end of—a career she’d spent a decade building. One she loved.

  But did she love it more than she loved him?

  Morgan had no idea where he was stationed now. Did she know anything about him? Her foot slipped into a hole, and Eric’s hand caught her elbow. “You okay?”

  Leaning into his grasp, Morgan rotated her ankle and lofted a prayer of thanks for sturdy hiking boots. An injury could prove deadly. “Yeah, it’s...” She knelt, running her hands around the edges of the hole that had nearly taken her out. It was about two feet across and sloped gradually, about three inches deep at its center. It was more of a depression, but no canyon animal dug a perfectly circular hole like this one. No canyon animal could dig through rock like this.

  But humans could.

  Eric crouched beside he
r and scanned the immediate vicinity, likely vigilant for threats. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s not good.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, nearly toppling him into the hole before he caught his balance. Placing his hand on the rock at the base, she guided his fingers over what she’d felt. “Shovels can’t cut into the rock like this. There are ridges here, possibly made with some sort of pickax. Someone scraped through the topsoil until they hit rock, then took some more hits for good measure.”

  Morgan released his hand and rocked back on her heels, making a slow survey of the area for what could be seen in the near darkness. It had rained quite a bit since the hole was dug, which explained the curvature at the sides. She’d guess someone had overnighted here, but no one in their right mind would try to camp on this awkward path along the side of the slope. They wouldn’t even hike here.

  “Think it’s an old archaeological dig?” Eric mimicked her posture with his weight on his heels.

  “No. Digs in the canyon are rare. The Park Service has a ‘preservation in place’ mandate. We protect artifacts where they are. Digs are only allowed if a site is threatened by erosion, to save any artifacts from being lost or destroyed.” She tapped her finger against her knee. “It’s been a few years since the last authorized dig. It was along the river when it became obvious the Glen Canyon Dam allowed for more erosion to jeopardize some sites.” Bracing her hands on her knees, she stood, and Eric followed suit. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing. Someone could have decided to make camp here or there could be another equally mundane explanation.”

  Eric wandered a few feet away, watching his steps. “I doubt it. There’s too much of a slope and too many rocks. No good shelter, no good sleeping space. And it’s too far from any workable campsite to be a latrine.”

  Yeah, she’d noticed. “I’ll make my best guess of where we are and report it when we get communication, since there shouldn’t be any digging in the canyon at all. But if this is the only spot, it was probably nothing.”