Brynn leaned against a fir, watching the curtain of white fall from the sky. From under the boughs the view was utterly gorgeous.
“Remember the dude with the glasses?” Ryan took a long swallow from his water bottle during their brief break. He squatted on his haunches with his pack in the snow beside him. The group huddled under a group of firs, hiding out from the snow while grabbing a bite to eat and catching their breath.
Jim shook his head in exasperation at Ryan’s question, and Brynn saw Thomas crack the smallest smile. Oh, yeah. How could any of us forget?
Alex studied Ryan’s big grin, but directed his question at Brynn. “Bad story?”
“One of those rescues where everything is going against you.”
Alex gestured at the snow. “More than this?”
“This is just Mother Nature. Try working against human nature.”
“It wasn’t his fault. The guy couldn’t help what happened,” Jim argued.
Ryan hooted, and Thomas shook his head.
Ignoring them, Alex raised a patient eyebrow at Brynn. “Could this be one of those stories to help me stay sane?”
She grinned. “Could be.” His eyes begged for a distraction.
“Then get on with it.”
She took a deep breath, enjoying the shock of cool air in her lungs as she thought back to that search. She closed her eyes and could almost see the blue sky. “It was almost two years ago. Summertime. Gorgeous weather. Must have been in the nineties that day.” She heard Alex grumble, and she hid a smile. “It was real hot that day. Wasn’t it, Ryan?”
“I don’t remember it being hot.”
She rolled her eyes. Ryan had totally missed her gibe at Alex. Spoilsport.
“Well, it wasn’t raining. Or snowing.” She watched Alex’s lips twist. He knew the heat remarks were meant to harass him. “Anyway, we were called out for a hiker who got separated from his group, and we had a huge area to cover. There were about thirty of us looking on foot. Thankfully we had helicopter help.”
Everyone glanced up at the low clouds. They knew the weather was supposed to clear sometime in the next forty-eight hours, but it wasn’t showing any sign of it. Until then there was no chance of support. It was simply too stormy.
“Two of the search groups had found single human tracks, but they were over a mile apart. Each group followed a set.”
“How’d they spot the tracks?” Alex raised a brow. Kiana had taken up residence at his feet, and he rubbed an occasional hand through her wet fur.
“There’d been a light snowfall the night before.”
“You said it wasn’t snowing.” He glowered.
“It wasn’t snowing during the day. It was sunny. And we were really high up. In the summer there’s usually snow on the ground all the time up there. Anyway, these tracks seemed to lead all over the place, no rhyme or reason to them. They trailed through valleys and around giant rock formations. Up and down and around in circles.”
“Two different people? Or was someone drunk?” Alex cut in.
“Neither.” Brynn raised one arched brow to admonish him for the interruption. “One team followed their set of tracks down to a creek where the hiker had apparently crossed the river within thirty feet of a footbridge.”
“He didn’t take the bridge? Why wouldn’t he cross on the bridge? Was he trying to throw searchers off his tracks?”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard him, enjoying his focused attention. “Then one of the teams heard someone responding to their shouts and whistles. But they were having a hard time locating him. The rough terrain was making it difficult with dead spots and echoes. But they could hear a human voice shouting back replies to their calls. They kept searching, expecting to find him just over a ridge or on the other side of the next peak, but no luck. They’d yell for him to tell them where he was, but he kept saying he didn’t know.”
“What the hell? He was drunk,” Alex stated.
“We had the chopper fly over the area. The lost man would shout that he could hear it and said he was waving his arms, but he couldn’t see the chopper. And no one in the chopper could spot him. Then no one on the ground could hear him anymore because the chopper was so loud. The chopper was nearly out of fuel and ready to turn around when they spotted him.”
“So what was his problem?” The marshal was impatient.
“He couldn’t see,” she said simply.
“What?”
“He’d lost his glasses. He couldn’t see a thing. That was why he didn’t take the bridge over the first creek. He didn’t know it was there. And he couldn’t describe his surroundings to searchers because it was all a big blur.”
“Jesus Christ. Something so simple…And it made your search a dozen times more difficult.” Wonder rattled Alex’s voice.
“But we found him. That’s all that mattered.”
Ryan coughed, giving his opinion of that statement. She saw him exchange a smirk with Alex.
“Let’s move out.” Jim slung on his pack and motioned for Brynn to take the point. Alex lifted her pack, motioned for her to turn around, and held it in place as she slipped in her arms. She nodded her thanks, briefly meeting his gray gaze. His eyes reflected a measure of relaxation she hadn’t seen before. She hid a smile, pleased she’d cracked that cold shell again.
Getting him to loosen up was a challenge. And she liked it.
She stepped out from the shelter of trees and caught a gust of snowy wind in her face. Her lungs shivered, protesting the icy air. At least it looked like the snow was easing up a little. It wasn’t falling nearly as thickly as when they started their break.
Her boots sank into six inches of snow. She glanced back at Ryan to get a heading. He’d already consulted his GPS and pointed toward two o’clock. The men fell into line behind her.
Along the makeshift trail, Ryan continued complaining about the blind hiker, telling Alex more details of the problems the man had created for the search teams. Brynn tried to tune Ryan out but soon glanced over her shoulder in irritation at the weird blowing noises he was making.
The noise wasn’t coming from Ryan. Ryan was looking backward over his own shoulder. Jim and Thomas had pulled out their guns and were pointing them to the left, at a dense area of rhododendrons.
“Brynn.” Jim’s voice was urgent. “Get back here.”
Heart speeding, Brynn spun around and darted the fifteen feet back to the group, her gaze trying to penetrate the dark of the underbrush. She knew that rough sound. It blew harder and louder.
Where is Kiana? She sucked in a breath and scanned for her dog, thankful for the dog’s absence. Hopefully, Kiana was hot on the trail of a rabbit or squirrel.
“What is making that fucking noise?” Alex’s voice was low, his gun and Ryan’s had joined the other two. Now four men had handguns trained on the bush.
“Bear. Black bear,” Ryan spoke from the side of his mouth.
“I can’t see anything.” Alex’s voice was a forced whisper.
“It’s definitely out there.” Ryan’s trigger finger lifted from the side of his gun.
Brynn grabbed two snow-covered rocks near her feet and hurled them into the brush. “Oh, for God’s sake. Yell, damn it! Don’t shoot the thing. Just make a lot of noise and yell.” She let out a holler that made Alex’s eyebrows jump. The male team members let out piercing whoops, and she was rewarded with the sound of crackling brush and blowing as the bear ran in the opposite direction.
The men let out a collective sigh as their gun barrels drifted down. Except one.
“Fuck.” Alex stared into the brush, arms stiff.
“He’s gone.”
“How can you be sure?” His gaze didn’t leave the woods.
“He was just curious. They don’t usually attack.”
“Usually,” Alex said flatly.
Jim slapped Alex on the shoulder. “Put it away. We’ll hear him if he decides to come back.”
Alex slowly lowered the gun but didn’t tuck it back in his shoulder holster. “I can’t believe this.” He shook his head, his stunned gaze traveling from one searcher to another and then darting back to the forest, disbelief distorting his forehead.
Brynn sympathized with his shock, remembering the first time she’d come across a black bear while camping. She couldn’t have been more than six. The bear snatched the fish her dad had just caught and promptly ran off. She could still see the black, furry tush darting down the gravel road, a huge steelhead flopping in its mouth.
“I couldn’t see its brain,” Alex muttered.
Brain? Brynn cautiously eyed him. What in the hell is he talking about?
Ryan shouted with laughter, bent over, scooped a handful of snow, and nailed Alex with a snowball. “Next time I’ll tell it to hold real still so you can line up your shot.”
The second dose of ibuprofen was working on Alex’s head and leg as they pushed through the forest. His stomach had settled and the shakes in his hands seemed to have subsided. The relief felt as good as a heated blanket tossed over his shoulders. Could the ibuprofen be helping his withdrawal? Hopefully, Brynn had enough to medicate him for three days. Three days? He shook his head in wonder. Was he going to be in the mountain snow for three days?
Would the results of this mission help him sleep better at night?
He had his doubts.
He absently touched his coat pocket. He’d placed his Beretta in the pocket because earlier he’d fumbled away precious seconds as he’d wrestled off his gloves and thrashed under his coat for the gun. He wouldn’t be caught unprepared again. He stared hard into the trees.
“Hey! Look at that!” Ryan’s shout brought Alex out of his mental bear-encounter preparations.
The line halted as four sets of eyes followed the direction of Ryan’s hand pointing up into the trees. Something pale billowed and fluttered thirty feet above their heads. Alex’s feet froze in midstep. A parachute?
“Is that a parachute?” Brynn voiced his thoughts.
His Beretta instantly in hand, Alex quickly scanned their surroundings for signs of life, his heart in his throat. Nothing. All was quiet as microscopic flakes fell with silent speed. He raised his gaze again. Next to the white of the snow the parachute was yellowed and dirty. Ripped.
“It’s old,” Thomas muttered. “It’s not from our plane.”
Not from our plane.
Alex slipped his handgun back in his pocket and felt his lungs contract in regret and relief. Then pity. Who’d used the parachute? How long ago?
He concentrated on watching Brynn as she searched the ground, making a roundabout pattern that circled out from the trunk of the tree.
“I can’t see anything under all this snow,” she complained.
“Who’d it belong to?” Ryan whispered.
“Lots of people have gone missing in these woods,” Thomas said quietly. “Planes too.”