скачать книгу бесплатно
“Buzz and I are going to hike the trail where Eddie was lost,” Kelly said.
Taylor released Buzz’s hand abruptly and gave her a sharp look. “I was planning to take you back to the motel where I’m staying.”
“No. All my things are here. You go. I’m going to join the search.”
“Well, then, I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have any gear,” Buzz cut in, then motioned toward Taylor’s Italian loafers. “You’d just slow us down.”
The other man’s annoyed gaze swept from Kelly to Buzz, and then back to Kelly. “Do you want me to go—?”
“No, I want you to go back to the motel,” she said firmly. “Make sure the rangers and sheriff’s department have the number there, so they know how to reach you.”
“They do.”
“All right.” Pulling away from him, she sighed. “You’ve got my cell number. Please, call me the instant you hear anything.” Her eyes intensified. “Anything.”
“You got it.” Leaning forward, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
Unwilling to witness any more of the exchange, Buzz turned away and started toward a couple of sheriff’s deputies holding a thermos of what he hoped was coffee. He might be divorced from Kelly, he might even be fine with it, but he sure as hell didn’t like seeing another man put his hands on her.
A moment later, Kelly drew up beside him. “All right. I’m ready. Let’s go.”
All too aware that he was annoyed as hell and his heart rate was up to a dangerous level, Buzz risked a look at her, but he didn’t slow down. “You finished with Mr. Corporate America?”
“His name is Taylor Quelhorst, and he’s my boss.”
“Seems friendly.”
“We’re friends. He cares for Eddie.”
“I’ll bet.”
Buzz stopped walking on reaching the two deputies. Setting his pack on the ground, he offered his hand. “I’m Buzz Malone with RMSAR.”
A young, muscle-bound deputy grinned and shook his hand enthusiastically. “You guys found that lost Boy Scout last summer. Good going. We’re glad to have you here.”
“This is the lost boy’s mother, Kelly. What’s the stat?”
After introductions were made, one of the deputies poured coffee from a thermos and handed a cup to Kelly, another one to Buzz. The other young man updated Buzz and Kelly on the search. “No sign of the subject yet. Someone reported tracks up on Cougar Ridge, but they didn’t pan out. We’ve had so many volunteers, the area is pretty trampled. Most of the volunteers have gone home for the night, but they’ll be back first light. What are you folks going to do?”
“We’re going to hike up to the site where the child was initially lost.”
Grimacing, the deputy glanced down at Kelly. “You sure you want to do that in the dark? You can’t see much. You’ll have a better chance of spotting him tomorrow if you’re fresh.”
Buzz knew the deputy was experienced enough to know that many times the parents of lost children exhausted themselves early and then weren’t much good to anyone—including the child—thereafter. What he didn’t know was that Buzz intended to make sure Kelly got some rest tonight whether they were on the trail or not.
“I’ve got a halogen spotlight and a whistle.” Buzz finished his coffee and passed the empty cup back to the deputy.
“That’ll help.” The deputy collected Kelly’s cup as well. “You got a radio with you?” he asked Buzz.
“VHS. What frequency are you guys using?”
“Emergency channel 16. All agencies involved.”
“Got it.”
“You folks be careful.”
Hefting his pack, Buzz slipped it over his shoulders and started toward the darkened trail. Kelly had to trot to keep up with his long stride.
“I don’t have a pack,” she said.
“I’ve got everything we need in mine.”
“I didn’t know you had a whistle,” she said. “That’s a good idea. I wish I’d thought of it.”
“I do this for a living now, remember?”
She didn’t answer, but Buzz knew what she was thinking. The way he made his living had been another point of contention between them—they’d had a lot of those when they’d been married. Early in their relationship, the love between them had been so strong it didn’t matter that he was a cop and spent his days wrestling with armed criminals who wouldn’t think twice about capping a cop. But the dangers of his job had taken a heavy toll on their marriage.
After the shooting, Kelly had made it clear she could no longer take the pressures of being a cop’s wife. With a bullet lodged mere millimeters from his spinal cord, Buzz hadn’t been able to go back to active duty. The department had offered him a desk job, but the position held little appeal. Kelly had wanted him to take the corporate security job that had been offered to him by an established firm out of Denver. But the thought of sitting behind a desk all day, devising ways to keep employees from stealing pencils was about as exciting as his own funeral. When the team-leader position with Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue had become available, Buzz had jumped at the opportunity. That had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Buzz had never fully understood why she hadn’t been able to accept his need to be on the front line. He suspected her father had a lot to do with it. Buzz had never met Jack McKee, but the man was a legend. He’d been a smoke jumper back in the early 1980s. A breed of man who lived for the rush and the heady taste of danger that came with putting his life on the line. They’d called him Jumpin’ Jack Flash back then. He’d been the best of the best. Courageous. Daring. Kelly would have been about fifteen when he’d died. Buzz didn’t know the details, but he’d heard that McKee’s chopper went down on the front line of a forest fire. Her brother had been on board too. Both men had perished.
Knowing what he did about her father and brother, Buzz figured Kelly deserved a man who didn’t like gambling with fate. The worry and sleepless nights had torn her apart during their marriage. When she’d asked for a divorce, he hadn’t contested it. He’d let her go, first, because he couldn’t stand to hurt her, second, simply because she’d wanted to go. She wanted him to change, but Buzz hadn’t been able to stop being who he was no matter how much he loved her.
He’d moved on with his life, but there had been no other women. No woman would ever come close to touching him the way Kelly had. Buzz knew no other woman ever would.
Even frightened and disheveled with a cut on her temple and pain in her heart, Kelly was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. That was a hell of a thing for him to be noticing at a time like this.
No, it wasn’t a comforting thought at all to realize that the divorce hadn’t diminished his attraction to her. They might be compatible when it came to the bedroom, but all compatibility ended there. Sex was the only facet of their marriage that they’d agreed upon unequivocally. It hadn’t been enough.
With a long night stretching out ahead of them, Buzz figured he would be wise to keep that in mind.
Chapter 3
“This way.”
The sound of Kelly’s voice jerked him from his reverie. Buzz’s flashlight illuminated a fork in the trail. Kelly motioned left. “How far are we from where you fell?” he asked.
“Maybe another quarter mile or so.”
“This was a long hike for a young kid.”
“He’s a bundle of energy, Buzz. I know him. I know his physical capabilities, and I know what he likes. He’s always been fascinated by the outdoors. Trails. Camping. Animal tracks. Even flowers. We were having so much fun, I just didn’t realize how….” Her voice trailed off.
Buzz practically felt the rise of guilt. “I didn’t mean to imply that this is your fault, Kel.”
“I know. I just…if I’d just used my head, none of this would have happened.”
“You know what they say about hindsight being twenty-twenty.”
She shot him a grateful look. “Yeah.”
They walked in silence for a while, the only sound coming from their feet on the trail and heavy breathing. “Do you know the tread pattern on his sneakers?” Buzz asked.
“The deputy said the tracks had been—”
“You never know when you might get lucky.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Small circles with an arrow pointing toward the toe.”
“That ought to be easy enough to spot.”
“I didn’t see any when I looked, but I was pretty frantic. I could have missed something.”
Buzz tried to approach this mission with the same emotionless determination with which he approached other missions, but the cool objectivity he’d always been able to achieve eluded him. He couldn’t stop thinking that it was his son out there this time. A little boy who was too young to keep himself safe. A child who still carried his stuffed animal with him.
“This is the place.”
Buzz halted. Kelly stood a couple of feet away, her breath puffing out in a thin white cloud. The night had grown cool. A preschooler with nothing but a light jacket to keep him warm would be cold.
Dropping his pack to the ground, Buzz dug the whistle out of his jeans pocket and blew into it twice in quick succession.
“Eddie!” Kelly turned in a circle, looking out into the surrounding darkness. “Honey, it’s Mommy!”
Putting the whistle back in his pocket, Buzz put his finger to his lips. “Quiet, Kel. The whistle carries farther than a voice. Let’s just listen a moment, and see if we get a response.”
She nodded, then stood motionless and stared into the surrounding darkness. For a full two minutes, Buzz listened to the chirping of crickets, the call of an occasional night bird, the crack of a twig beneath the weight of a fat raccoon, the rustle of an owl’s wings as it swooped down to pluck an unsuspecting mouse from the grass.
“Exactly where did you fall?” Buzz asked.
“To your left. Eddie dropped Bunky Bear down the ravine. He’s had that bear since he was born, and he was upset.”
“Don’t tell me you went after it.”
“The bear fell only a few feet down.”
Shining the light down the incline, Buzz frowned. It was steep and rugged, but not vertical. “You should have known better than to try something like that without a partner.”
“I thought I could get to it, then get right back up. But I grabbed a branch. The branch broke….” She shrugged. “Well, there’s that hindsight thing again.”
Buzz knew all too well about hindsight.
“I’m going to go down there and have a look around,” he said.
“Buzz, what did you just tell me?”
“I’ve got an adult partner. You.”
“I’m not EMT certified.”
He shot her a small smile. “I’m not a rookie.”
“No, you’re just foolhardy.”
“Same goes, evidently.”
She frowned at him. “I guess I had that coming.”
“You did.” He handed her the spotlight. “Keep the light out of my eyes and on the ground below me so I can see, okay?”
Nodding once, she accepted the spotlight. “Be careful.”
The light flickered over her delicate features like firelight. Her gaze met his, and Buzz felt his heart give a weird little lurch.
Kelly wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. Like the world was at his beck and call, and she was right at the center of that world. She was no longer the idealistic young woman who’d fallen crazy in love with him a lifetime ago. She wasn’t the same woman he’d married. Wasn’t even the same woman he’d divorced. The world had taught her a few things since then. Lessons Kelly wouldn’t ever forget. Lessons that had made her too smart to make the same mistakes all over again.
But looking into his eyes, she believed everything was going to work out. The fierce determination that was so much a part of him, the force of his personality, his inability to take no for an answer. All of those things made her believe they were going to find Eddie unharmed. That was why she was here, she realized. If anyone could find her son, it was Buzz. So she’d come, even though she’d known both of them would pay a price.
Kelly had never been able to pretend when it came to Buzz. The mere power of his gaze wrenched the truth from her no matter how painful, no matter how deeply she tried to lock it away. She knew this was going to change their lives irrevocably. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she knew from experience that sometimes things didn’t work out for the better.
Trying not to think of the darker possibilities, she watched him step into the rappel harness and loop the nylon rope through the carabiner, then anchor the end to a sturdy-looking pine. She knew better than to notice the way that harness accentuated his long, muscular thighs and lean hips. But she noticed anyway. And the sight of him, even after all these years, still made her mouth go dry.
“Kel, the spotlight.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, jerked the light to the steep incline just below him. “Be careful of the rocks,” she said.
“I’m always careful.” Never taking his eyes from hers, he stepped backward toward the ledge. Glancing quickly behind him, he stepped down and disappeared over the edge. She could hear the nylon rope humming through his gloves as he descended, his hiking boots thudding against the rocky face of the ravine. Holding the spotlight steady, she guided him over jagged granite, through juniper and the spindly roots of the occasional pine that clung to the side of the mountain, all the way to the ravine floor thirty feet down.
“I’m in!” came Buzz’s shout a moment later.
The rope went slack and Kelly knew he’d disengaged the rappel harness. She squinted through the darkness. “Do you see anything?” she shouted.
She could hear him breaking through brush. Hope burgeoned until her chest was so tight she couldn’t breathe. Please, God, let my son be down there. Let him be all right.
The need to hold Eddie tight and safe in her arms was an ache so deep she almost cried out with the pain of it. That need twisted inside her now, like a knife, cutting her at the very core of her being. She knew better than to get her hopes up, knew how acute disappointment could be, but her heart kicked hard at the thought of getting him back safe and sound.
“I need for you to put on the harness.”
Kelly started so abruptly at the sound of Buzz’s voice, she nearly dropped the spotlight. She’d been so embroiled in her thoughts, she hadn’t seen him climb back up the ravine wall. One look at his face, and fear snarled like a rabid beast inside her. She tried to shove it down, refusing to give it free rein, but it was a cold, mean fear and clamped over her like a predator’s jaws.
“What is it?” she blurted. “Is he down there? Is he—?”
“Easy, Kel.” Buzz grimaced. “He’s not there. But he was. I almost missed it, but there’s a sneaker print.”
“Are you sure? He was there? But how did he—” She closed her eyes, a strangled sound escaping her. “How did he get down that ravine?”
