As he reached for her in the firelight, River closed her eyes and let him sweep her away.
Chapter 21
Getting on the plane in Anchorage was the hardest thing River had ever done in her life. Even harder than the day she stuffed her things into her car and moved to LA.
The airport in Alaska wasn’t LAX. Anchorage was small, busy but cozy. Filled with the smells of cinnamon rolls and hot dogs, the low murmur of people talking, the scent of cortado coffee, and vacations of a lifetime. LAX was simply noise. Once, she had loved this. The bustle and the energy had been a drug to her younger self. A part of her still did love it, but River had seen the other side now.
Coming home didn’t feel like home. It hadn’t for a long time.
The plane ride hadn’t been horribly long, but with every mile it took her away from Moose Springs, her heart had fought her. And she’d made the right decision…that town was Easton’s home, not hers. But she missed him terribly.
As she made her way toward baggage claim, River was so lost in thought about the man she’d left behind, she forgot that her face had been on the television a lot more recently. She should have worn a hat of some sort, or maybe a hoodie, if she hadn’t wanted to be recognized.
“Excuse me. Are you River Lane?”
Darn it. River turned to give a polite wave to the woman who had said her name, but she found herself looking down at a child instead. The young girl in front of her had pigtails and the shiest, sweetest look on her face. Behind her, the girl’s mother stood with her phone, videoing her. Instead of giving an excuse or asking that the camera be turned off, River knelt so she was face-to-face with the child.
“Hello,” she said, smiling encouragingly. “What’s your name?”
“Jacie.”
“Jacie wants to be an actress,” her hovering mother supplied.
“Do you?” Did she? Or did Jacie’s mother want her to be an actress? The child seemed so shy. But she was also beautiful like her mother. River tugged the ear of Jacie’s toy moose. “I like your moose. I saw some in Alaska.”
The child’s wide, toothy beam was the first thing to make River feel better since she’d gotten up that morning and gotten on her plane. “I want to be a moose.”
“Well, Jacie, I want you to know that you are amazing. You’re smart and you’re strong, and you can be anything. An actress, an adventurer, a cowgirl. Anything you want.”
“Even a moose?”
“Even a moose.” River shared a chuckle with the girl’s mother.
Without warning, Jacie hugged her. Until that moment, River hadn’t realized how badly she needed a hug. While the mother took pictures and they both thanked her, River used every single trick in the book to hold it together. Then she walked calmly to the bathroom, locked the stall door behind her, and burst into tears.
When someone asked if she was okay through the stall divider, River mumbled, “I’m fine. Bad breakup.”
“Oh, I’ve been there.” The stranger in the next stall told her over the sound of tinkling. “Have yourself a good cry and then go drink them away. I’ve never met a person who wasn’t two shots of tequila away from a bad memory. In fact…” A bottle appeared under the door. “Here. Start now.”
Startled, River scooted away from the uninvited hand in her stall. “Oh. Umm, I couldn’t.”
The bottle waggled at her. “It’s no bother, I have plenty. Drink him away, darling.”
When one is faced with the option of drinking the bathroom tequila or not drinking the bathroom tequila, one…well…shouldn’t. But screw it. She’d survived Mount Veil. She’d survived leaving Easton. She could survive anything.
As always, the freeways in LA were packed, so River had plenty of time to miss her mountain man as her rideshare driver drove her to the studio in Hollywood where her friends were already editing their documentary. When she reached the studio, River knocked before sticking her head in the door.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked playfully.
Only one of the two figures inside turned around from their laptops, but when Bree jumped up, coming over to her, Jessie at least pulled off his headset and waved his hand absently.
Bree hugged her tight. “River, there you are. Jessie and I had a bet on whether you would actually leave.”
“How are you feeling?” River asked, fighting through the sadness Bree’s comment caused.
“My ribs are still sore, but I’m tough.”
“That you are. How’s the whiner?”
“The whiner is currently busy editing your cluster of a documentary.” Jessie swiveled around in his seat. “Okay, we lost a lot of footage when we lost the second camera, but we had enough backed up that it isn’t too bad. The best stuff was on the handheld anyway. Check this out. It’s only an early mock-up, but I think it has potential.”
River sat in Bree’s vacated chair, taking Jessie’s headset as she watched his laptop.
At first, it was exactly what she’d wanted. Exactly what she’d expected from two people as amazing at their jobs as they were. But the longer she watched, the more River started to shift uncomfortably in her seat. Her jaw clenched as she finally hit pause.
“No.” Absolutely not.
Bree looked at her. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You keep showing us together.” River shook her head. “The focus of this is all wrong.”
Bree and Jessie shared a look.
“Listen, River, we need to talk. When we were up there, we kind of…” Jessie hesitated, searching for the right word. “Documented.”
“Of course you documented. That’s what you do on a documentary, as you love to remind me.”
“Yes,” Jessie agreed. “But we documented everything.”
Bree put a hand to her ribs, wincing as she leaned into the back of River’s seat. “Show her what we were looking at earlier.”
At Bree’s suggestion, Jessie twisted around and clicked on his keyboard, pulling up a new file. The computer screen was large enough that there was no pretending what she was looking at wasn’t her and Easton, sitting hip to hip at camp, his hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her. The handheld camera filming the moment bobbled slightly, then zoomed in on River taking his hand and tugging Easton to his feet, leading him toward the tent.
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked quietly.
It was beyond cruel.
“Because we thought we were going up there to film about Moose Springs. But every shot, every scene, there’s this stuff.” Jessie pulled up another file, snow blindingly white as they stood high on the southern face of Mount Veil. Easton’s arm around her waist as she took in the vista. Then another file, with River yelling at him for putting himself at risk in the Veil and Easton growling right back.
“It’s you and him.” Jessie shrugged. “Everywhere, every scene. This is a real-life love story, River.”
She shook her head in a curt gesture. “Love stories have happy endings. I hate to break it to you, but I’m here, and he’s back in Moose Springs. Whatever you’re trying to spin this as, it isn’t real. And the Alaskan Tourism Board won’t care that he and I had a fling. They care about bringing more visitors to Moose Springs.”
“Actually, it’s the most real you’ve ever been. Look at him, watching you do your interview. He can’t take his eyes off you. And you fronted the bill on this. Your only contracts right now are with us. No one’s successfully made a film about Moose Springs. Maybe you’re one more.”
“And the alternate option is?” River really didn’t like where this was going.
“We turn this into the indie film it deserves to be.” Jessie rarely sounded this calm when discussing his work, which meant he was trying to sell her on what he wanted. By the look of excitement on Bree’s face, River knew he wasn’t the only one.
Bree leaned forward and click
ed to another file, labeled “summit.” Easton had placed the camera down and joined her on the very peak of the mountain.
“What did he say?” Bree pressed. “Up on the summit? We can’t get the audio.”
River’s fingers flexed at her side. “I can’t tell you. I don’t think it would be right.”
“But, River—”
“No.” Closing her eyes, River tried to compose herself. “Okay, you’re right. It was real. And now it’s gone. It’s done. What Easton and I had was one of the best things I’ve ever known in my life, and I won’t let you make this into some sort of sideshow. I can’t do this to him. Let’s stick to the original plan.”
Jessie wasn’t ready to give up the fight. “You realize the kind of film we’re looking at here could be huge, right? We could turn this over to the tourism board and cash a measly paycheck, or we could turn it into the documentary it deserves to be. This could turn your career around, River.”
“The answer is no. Trust me, if Easton were here, he’d agree with me.”
As she left the studio, River knew that whatever they’d had, it was going to stay on that mountain. She cared about him way too much to exploit him, even if it didn’t get them anywhere professionally.
And if it tanked her filming career before it even started? Well, that was a risk River was willing to take.
• • •
The problem with being in a small town was everyone knew when you’d gotten your heart broken. When he found out they’d even started a thread about him in the town chat room, labeling sad Easton sightings, he seriously considered going back out and finding the marmot. It understood his pain.
For a man as private as Easton, being the topic of interest particularly sucked.
It didn’t help that everywhere he went had been touched by her in some fashion. His house. Places around town. He couldn’t even turn on the highway without seeing her walking down it, suitcase of rocks in hand, those brilliant blue eyes challenging him for stopping to help. Even his favorite coffee shop had been ruined.
He couldn’t remember how she’d ordered her coffee that day they’d done the gear check. He’d gone for a cup after failing to successfully return to his routine without her. For some reason, Easton was so upset by his inability to recall the proper combination, he almost crushed the offending drink in his hand. Instead, he sat on a bench outside, looking at the park where she’d handed him the worst coffee he’d ever tasted.
Damn, he missed her.
“May I join you?”
Easton’s jaw twitched, but he kept his tone controlled. It wasn’t Tasha’s fault his heart was thousands of miles away. “I’m not commenting on the climb, Tasha. Or on River.”
He didn’t need to, not with her face plastered on every television station he turned to. More than a few regional papers had reached out for interviews, but Easton had nothing to say to any of them. There was nothing to say. It was done. She was gone.
End of story.
Tasha sat next to him, her pen and notepad in her purse. Once, he’d enjoyed her presence. Now, it reminded him that the one he wanted, the right one, wasn’t there.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Tasha asked quietly, taking a sip of her coffee. “Off the record?”
He snorted. “What’s the angle?”
“We’re still friends, Easton,” she reminded him. “I’m capable of caring and listening without a recorder in my hands.”
Sighing, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
She waited, and when Easton didn’t continue, Tasha nodded. “You know, I thought I loved you once. I even thought you might have loved me. But then I saw you and River together after we talked last time, and I knew what we had wasn’t even close. It was nothing compared to the way you looked at her. And I’m okay with that. I’m just worried about you.” Taking his hand, Tasha squeezed it. “You look like someone hit you with a truck.”
He felt it too.
“It doesn’t matter,” Easton finally said. “River left because her life isn’t here. She was only here to film a documentary that I screwed up for her. It was my job to keep her safe, to get her to the summit and back down again. Instead, they lost half their footage, and all three of them ended up in the hospital. She never did complete the climb down. I’m not real sure how to make that up to her.”
Tasha nodded. “Easton…you don’t run a diner for a living—”
“Thank goodness. Thirty minutes of that was more than enough for me.”
She smiled. “You don’t run a diner. You don’t write articles for a paper. You climb mountains. The tallest, most dangerous mountains. And just because your record is so good doesn’t mean that there won’t be climbs that go wrong.”
When he started to interject, Tasha squeezed his hand again. “The difference is, you’re in love with your client. As someone whose been lucky enough to get close to you, I know how deeply you care about the people you love. It was never me, but it is River. If you’re trying to find some way to process losing her, beating yourself up over a tough climb isn’t it. You did your job. The rest of it…got messy.”
Taking a final sip of her coffee, she added, “Sometimes messy is the best part. Sometimes it’s worth it. You always were for me. I’m betting you were for River too.”
When Easton didn’t answer, Tasha left him to drink his coffee alone, but her words stayed with him. The climbing season was over, meaning Easton should have been focused on scheduling his off-season work. Guided alpine climbs were his bread and butter, but teaching people to climb these mountains, even indoor climbing, was what Easton excelled at. He could have helped Ash or bothered Graham at the diner. Instead, he stayed in the woods the rest of the day, taking refuge from prying eyes as he tracked the local wildlife to practice his skills. He wandered into town on foot and eventually found himself at Rick’s, on a stool toward the end of the bar.
As Easton sat nursing a beer in between his hands at the pool hall, he didn’t look at the mirror behind Rick’s shoulder. He wasn’t interested in seeing the loss in his eyes or the fact that he could use a shower and some fresh clothes.
“You know, most guys your size nurse getting their guts ripped out in the solitude of their own homes. You’re scaring off all Rick’s customers with your death face.”
Easton didn’t look up at Graham’s voice. “My death face?”
Ash dropped down in the seat on his other side. “That’s his clever way of saying you look terrible. Whew, you’re ripe smelling. Rick, how many has he had?”
The pool hall owner tilted his head toward the fridge, where he kept the supply of bottled beer. “I haven’t been counting. He’s so big and takes so long to drink them, he might as well be drinking water.”
“Two whole sentences in a row. See that, East? Even Rick here is worried about you.”
Easton refused to rise to Graham’s baiting.
“I think it’s time we switch to hard liquor,” a third voice decided. Easton had never been as close with Jackson Shaw as Graham, but they’d spent enough time together socially that he wasn’t surprised by Jax’s presence.
Finally looking up from his beer, Easton frowned at them. “What is this, an intervention?”
“Figured you could do with a reminder you aren’t alone, buddy.” Graham clamped a hand down on Easton’s shoulder as Jake pressed tight to Easton’s leg. “L, the first round is on you.”
“Of course,” a feminine voice said kindly.
When Easton turned in his seat, he saw Lana standing behind him. Lana gave him a sad look, then she hugged him, all but disappearing in his arms when he hugged her back.
“I’m so sorry, Easton.” Lana’s arms tightened around him. “If there’s anything I can do, tell me.”
There was nothing anyone could do to fill the gaping wound in his chest where
his heart used to be. But Easton was a pack animal and always had been. He took comfort from having the people who mattered surrounding him.
The only problem was his mate was gone, and…well…wolves mated for life.
“A real drink would be good,” he told her. “Fireball whisky.”
Because even if he was going to drink, he might as well lose himself in River the only way he had left.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of shots and voices. He drank until he was numb, and then he drank more. Finally, when it was determined he’d had enough, Easton and his empty bottle of Fireball parted ways.
“We keep sayin’ goodbye, whisky,” he told her softly, wondering if somewhere she was drinking him away more successfully than he was her.
Well and truly drunk, it took Rick and Graham both to pour him into the passenger seat of Graham’s truck while Ash, Zoey, and Jax hopped in the back seat. Lana pressed a kiss to his cheek before closing the door, standing back with her arm around Rick’s waist. Another day, he’d be embarrassed at being three sheets to the wind in front of them, but…well…he was far too drunk to care.
“You okay up there?” Ash asked him from her seat behind his, idly tugging on the seat belt they’d strapped around him.
“Nope.” He closed his eyes against the spinning of the world. “Wish she coulda been more like Z-Bear. Or the marmot. The marmot was all in. Shoulda been a marmot.”
“Does anyone understand the marmot stuff?” Ash asked.
“River said what happened on the mountain stayed on the mountain, especially the marmot stuff.” When Graham groaned, Zoey asked, “What?”
“You said the ‘R’ word,” Graham reminded her.
“S’okay, Z-Bear.” At some point, Easton had started calling Zoey that, but he couldn’t remember why.
Settling Jake on her lap in the back seat, Zoey corrected him, “I didn’t stay for Graham.”
Graham made a playful, wounded noise as he started the truck. “You’re damaging my masculine pride here, Z-Bear,” he teased.
“Hush, only Easton’s allowed to call me that. And I didn’t. I stayed for me, because this was where my heart was. You have to follow your heart if you want to find happiness. Graham being here was the icing on the cake.”
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