“SHE’S EXACTLY THE reason why I want to set up several teams to cover the whole area,” Jack said, looking up the path he and Palloton had descended the night before. “For people who think they know what they’re doing when they don’t.”
Like Carrie, unfortunately.
And while he was trying to hold back his judgment since he didn’t know what had happened back up on the mountain, he didn’t have a good feeling about anything. Not about why she’d gone missing. Or why she’d deliberately gone against his orders. Or if she was hurt. Or worse. Nothing made him feel good or optimistic. But he was ready to face it, to do what had to be done.
“Well, it’s going to take us a while to get up there, since it’s a whole lot worse now than it was last night.” Palloton slung a hank of rope over his shoulder and waited until Jack had laced up his hiking boots before he picked up his end of the empty litter. “Litter’s packed?” he asked.
“With everything we’ll need to get her back down.”
“Maybe she can hike,” Palloton said.
“She’s injured,” Jack replied. “Or else she would have already made it down on her own, one way or another. She’s stubborn like that. Which is why I believe she’s…” No, he wasn’t going to think it. Wasn’t going to think anything except how to pull this rescue off. “I’m glad you’re the one going back up there with me, buddy. I don’t think I could do this with anybody else.”
“Well, I’ve got a wager for it,” Palloton said, adjusting his backpack and following Jack to the path that would take them back up.
“Of course you would. So what is it? And what do I have to ante up?”
“Your heart and soul.”
“And you?”
“The knowledge that you’re doing the right thing.”
But was he? Or could that even happen because he couldn’t keep her in the program. Not now. That was one hard and fast rule he couldn’t break, part of the hospital’s rule, and he couldn’t go against that. Not for Carrie. Not even if he loved her. “First things first. Let’s hope she stayed put, like I told her to do if we got separated.” Yeah, right. Carrie following orders? No way in hell that would happen.
“So, what are you going to do about her, Wiwa, once we find her? Because, admit it or not, you’re in love with her.”
“Mind your own damn business,” Jack said, with absolutely no fight or animosity in his voice. The truth was, he was scared. He didn’t know how he was going to face this if… “Ready?” he asked, leaving the flats to begin the climb.
“Look, Jack. My business, right now, is watching your back. And that’s going to be hard to do if you’re distracted by your feelings for her. So get your head in the right place. Admit your feelings instead of fighting them, because if you don’t, you’re going to be brooding about this the whole way up. And a brooding rescuer isn’t a good rescuer.”
Palloton was right, of course. Maybe if he said the words out loud, they would stop rattling around in his head, disturbing him, confusing him. “I might have some feelings,” he said. “Not that it’s going to matter once I do what I have to do with her.”
“You always make things too complicated,” Palloton said, as he nudged the litter forward. “Remember that time when we…”
* * *
Carrie examined her ankle and decided it wasn’t broken. It hadn’t swollen up any more than it had last night, the pain hadn’t changed, and she could grit her teeth and range it in small circles. That was good. What wasn’t good was the snow. She’d kept it off her most of the night.
She was so light-headed, though. And cold…so cold. Drowsy, too. Sleep had overtaken her a couple times against her will, and she was fighting it off right now. Plus, it was getting more and more difficult to concentrate and to breathe. All signs of hypothermia. Bad signs. Sighing, she repeated the words she’d repeated over and over for the past couple hours, to assess her speech pattern, hoping she wouldn’t start slurring. “Your hypothalamus is your brain’s temperature-control center. Its purpose is to raise body temperature by triggering the things that heat and cool the body. Then there’s also vatho…vatho…”
Damn. She swallowed hard, and concentrated on that one single word.
“Vatho…” Vaso…vaso… Not vatho.
It was closing in on her. She could hear it. The slurring was now starting. After that, what? She tried to pull the answer from her memory, but couldn’t quite grasp it. Was confusion or memory loss part of the process? She couldn’t remember.
Shifting positions against the tree that had protected her all night, she laid her head back against it and shut her eyes. She wanted to sleep so badly. Just a minute or two, she promised herself. “Your hypothalamus is your brain’s…what?” She couldn’t remember. In fact, the only thing she could remember was Jack, and it was his face she could see so clearly when she finally gave herself over to sleep.
* * *
Jack wasn’t in the mood to talk on their ascent, and Palloton respected that by keeping quiet himself. Occasionally, one or the other called out Carrie’s name, hoping to hear a response from her but not expecting it. They’d climb for several minutes, then stop at every point that could have been a falling-off place for her. Because, yes, Jack did expect she’d gone off the trail somewhere. So he scouted left when they stopped, while Palloton scouted right. Then they switched, eventually meeting back up on the trail and moving forward a little farther. Stop, repeat, then move on.
It was a damn slow process, but right now it seemed slower than it ever had before. “I’m betting she’s up at the rock she wanted to climb,” Jack said, discouraged by the idea that it was still a good hour ahead of them at a normal pace. And in the snow, and they had to stop every few yards to look around.
“Then I say we go straight there,” Palloton suggested. “Trust your gut. Besides, the other team is bringing up the rear, should be about thirty minutes behind us, and they can cover the rest of the way up while we go on.”
Jack blew out an icy, discouraged breath. “I hate this,” he said. “It was like that day…” Like the day Evangeline died, he almost said. But he didn’t because he wasn’t worthy to speak her name. But that day played in his mind now: the knock on the door that had woken him out of a sound sleep; the heavy rain; the drive out to the spot where her car had gone over. And the waiting…the damned, interminable waiting. And hoping.
“Nobody blames you, Jack. It was one of those unfortunate accidents. I know things were said to you at first, but people changed their minds when they got over the shock.”
Accusations. People saying how everybody knew that Evangeline hated to make that drive herself. That it was dangerous, that it scared her. That he shouldn’t have let her do it. Like he shouldn’t have let Carrie make the trip back down with them last night. That he shouldn’t have worked thirty-six hours without sleep, otherwise he’d have been able to fulfill his promise to drive Evangeline. That he should have stopped her when he knew how bad the weather was, like he should have stopped Carrie.
Yes, people had said things…the same things he’d thought all those hours when he’d sat at the side of the road, waiting for other rescuers to bring Evangeline and Alice up out of the ravine. “But I didn’t change my mind,” Jack replied bitterly. “And everything they said was true. Every damn word of it.” Words that still spun around and around in his brain.
Words that stayed with him as he and Palloton picked up their pace to get to the first steep drop-off where they could last account for Carrie.
That was where she had to be. In his heart, he knew she was there, but he didn’t want any feelings of Carrie in his heart. Too late, though. She was there, despite how hard he’d tried to keep her out. Unfortunately, the minute he found her, if she was still alive, that would all end. That was the only way it could be. The only way he would have it.
* * *
The predicted hour up took two, but when they reached the place where’d she’d said she wanted to climb the rock, they stopped, and Jack immediately called her name, as Palloton prepared to explore the front face of the rock, while Jack took the back. “Carrie, can you hear me?”
He strained his ears to hear her, or anything, but it was so still, the only sound that split the air was that of his labored breathing. “Carrie!”
“Carrie!” Palloton called out from a little farther down the trail.
Jack called one more time, but knew that if she was somewhere near here, she wasn’t conscious. At least, he hoped that’s how far her condition had gone. Get it together, he told himself. This is a rescue, it doesn’t matter who it is. But it did matter, and as he headed off the trail, all he could think of was how much it mattered.
Five, maybe ten minutes into exploring the area, he saw a lump in the snow that warranted a better look. It didn’t strike any kind of hope in him because he’d learned a long time ago that the leads he came across in a search usually didn’t amount to anything. But still… “You OK over there?” he called out to Palloton, as he made his way through a snow drift to the thing he wanted to explore.
“Fine. Not seeing anything, and if I go any farther I’m going to have to do some climbing down. Rather wait for you to come over here before I do that.”
“Then meet me on this side,” Jack yelled as he finally reached the lump. He bent down, shoved back the snow and… “Now,” he yelled urgently. “I’ve got Carrie’s bag.”
Picking it up, he stood, then looked around but didn’t see her. But he did see the ravine. Another damned ravine. Another woman he loved. “I may have something,” he said, taking care not to get too close to the edge, lest it give way and he fell.
“On my way, Wiwa,” Palloton called, and within a couple of minutes he was standing by Jack’s side, looking down, as well.
“She’s got to be down there,” Jack said. “Given the proximity of her backpack…” He lifted his protective goggles, as if that would give him a better look, then turned to his friend. “I’ve got to go down,” he said.
“Well, I’ve got everything packed on the litter—helmet, harness, crampons, rope. Top-roping, I assume.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, getting into his gear. “It shouldn’t be very far down, and if she’s there, we’re going to have to get her up. So that’s probably the best way to go.” It was slower than free climbing, which was simply taking on the rock without the aid of equipment. But he needed the steadying of Palloton on a second rope at the top, and because they’d done this hundreds of times before, they had their own rhythm. So Palloton fixed the ropes as Jack secured an anchor in the ground, then strapped on his own medical bag. “If she’s down there, radio the other team to come up, because we’re going to need some strength to lift her out.”
“She’s going to be fine, Jack,” Palloton said, as Jack stepped to the edge, turned around, and prepared to go down.
Rather than replying, Jack pulled the goggles back over his eyes and lowered himself off the edge, found his footing, and started his descent. It didn’t take long, even in the snow, as the drop-off wasn’t very steep. But if she’d fallen over it… “Carrie,” he called out the instant his feet hit solid ground. “Are you down here? Can you hear me?”
“Anything?” Palloton called from up top.
“Not yet.” But he was looking. Taking only a few steps at a time, then stopping and looking at everything within his view. She was here. His heart was still telling him that. But more, his instinct was telling him the same thing, and in a rescue, instinct always counted. He trusted it more than he did his heart. “Carrie,” he called again, then looked. Nothing. Not a sound. No sight of her. So he moved and did the same thing, then did it again and again until…
Had he heard something? Something besides his own breathing?
“Carrie?” he called out, taking in a deep breath, then holding it so he could hear everything around him. And sure enough…a moan. Very faint, very brief. But it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
“She’s down here,” he called up to Palloton. “Let the other team know she’s alive and we’ve got to move fast.”
Which was exactly what he did. He picked up his pace, heading in the direction from which her moan had come. He was fighting the snow, fighting the ice, the rocks, the tree limbs…all the obstacles in his way until he saw her, huddled up in a fetal position. She was covered in branches, her back to a tree. Smart, he thought immediately. Just the way he’d have taught her, when they got to that lesson. That was Carrie’s instinct at work. A very good instinct. He was proud and sad all at the same time because it was also an instinct that wouldn’t get tested again under his supervision.
“Not sleeping,” she said to him when he reached her and dropped to his knees in the snow. “Hypothermic, but not sleeping. You wouldn’t let me,” she whispered, as Jack pulled her close and hugged her at first, then went into doctor mode to examine her.
“You are going to fire me, aren’t you?” she asked, as he took her blood pressure.
“Yes,” he said gently, as her pressure registered low but not dangerously so.
She looked over at him, attempted a half-frozen smile, and said, “I knew you would. It’s what I’d do, too, with someone like me.” Then she finally shut her eyes and went completely to sleep.
“I love you,” he said, giving her a kiss on her cold forehead. Of course, she didn’t hear that, which was fine with Jack, because he didn’t want her to. There was no point. Absolutely no point.
* * *
“Priscilla’s fine,” Jack said, pulling up a chair and sitting next to Carrie’s hospital bed. “The trip down the mountain was pretty rough on her…lots of bruises. And she’s complaining about that, but not as much as I thought she would. Also, I think she’s ready to move to civilization. Not sure how that’s going to work…there’s a house about a mile down the road from me coming up for sale, so I might grab it for her.”
“And her cats?” Carrie asked, trying to sound interested, even though she wasn’t. Right now, nothing interested her other than the fact she had no place to go once she was out of the hospital, and nothing to do.
“Plenty of room.” He settled back, crossed one leg over the other, and looked straight at her. “So, do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about? You gave me an order, I disobeyed it, I got myself into trouble, and I should pay the price for that. No blame, Jack. It’s what you have to do and I’m good with it.”
“But I want to know why you did it, Carrie.”
“You mean disobey your order, Jack?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t. Not really. What I did was to go look for a way to get up that rock, but I wasn’t actually going to climb it. I wanted to show you it could be done. That there was a way. And I thought, well…maybe since you didn’t want me doing the climbing, if I could find the way, maybe you or Palloton would go up and leave me to the carrying. That’s how I’ve always been, Jack, trying to find something better. And I haven’t hidden my past from you. You knew that was in me.”
She shut her eyes, grappling for the right words. “I know I shouldn’t have gone off the way I did. But that’s me, and apparently I haven’t overcome that in myself. I still need to prove everything. Prove I’m better or smarter or more capable than anybody else. But not because it matters to them. Because it still matters to me. I always feel like…” She swallowed hard, and her lower lip trembled.
“I always feel like I’m only a step or two away from sliding right back into my other life. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, it won’t let me go. Just like your past life won’t let you go. And I’m sorry about that, Jack. For both of us. But spending that night up there alone gave me a lot of time to think, a lot of time to come to terms with what I was doing, and why. Before, when I was a cop, it was only my life, and that didn’t matter so much. But this time it was you, Palloton…Priscilla.”
“Your life matters, Carrie. I can’t relate to where you come from, and I truly don’t understand the kind of struggles you faced to get yourself where you are now, but you’re a smart, capable woman who has so much worth and potential, and I’m only sorry you can’t see that. But you’re right. I know what it’s like to be blinded by your past. So much so that moving forward is too difficult. Sometimes you’re on the right path, but as often as not you’re on the wrong one, trying to prove to yourself that you really do belong here, or you do have worth.”
“Your wife and daughter?” she asked, swatting back a tear sliding down her cheek.
“I don’t talk about them. I haven’t. Not to anyone since… But, yes. My wife and daughter.” He turned his head away, shut his eyes. “Evangeline and Alice.”
Carrie didn’t say anything. This was about Jack now. Maybe for the first time, what she needed to do was put someone else before herself. Not dwell in her world but try to understand his. So she waited until he spoke again, which took several minutes.
“That’s the first time I’ve said their names aloud since they died,” he finally said.
“I noticed you don’t have any pictures of them in your cabin.”
“Pictures are reminders, and I didn’t want to be reminded.”
She understood that. There was nothing in her past she wanted to be reminded of. But the more she resisted the reminders, the more she was reminded. “Of what? That you loved them?”
He finally looked straight at her. “I did. And I do.”
“But you hold on to a lot of blame.” He blamed himself, and she blamed others. It was a habit, a very detrimental one but one she knew they both needed to let go.
“All the blame. I didn’t want to marry Evangeline in the first place. We were friends. That was all. But we decided to cross that line to see what would happen, and what happened was Alice. So we married, and I was happy enough. Not ecstatically, but it worked. I loved Alice with all my heart, and grew to love Evangeline in a different kind of way. But it was never passionate or exciting, and after a while I realized how much I missed that.”
“You cheated on her?”
Jack shook his head. “Not in the traditional sense. More like I went on a work frenzy just to keep my mind off what I was missing. To fill the void. And in doing that, I simply quit trying to connect to Evangeline. I took her for granted. And she didn’t deserve that, because she tried so hard to be what I needed. I would never have cheated on her, though. That’s not in my makeup. But I really should have divorced her so she could be free to find the kind of man she needed to make her truly happy. Except I didn’t. Instead, I kept working, kept ignoring everything.”
“Meaning you gave up on your marriage?” Carrie asked.
“Pretty much. In fact, I told her she should leave me, that she was too good to be saddled with the likes of me. But she wanted to keep trying, for Alice’s sake. So I agreed. But I didn’t change. I don’t think I even tried. I mean, what I had was fine. Not great, but good enough. And I really did want to do what was best for my daughter. Traditional ways to Evangeline meant a two-parent family, so I respected that, even though I didn’t necessarily agree with it.
“Anyway, I’d promised to take her to the reservation. She was a social worker and she had a client to see there. But she hated making that drive. So I told her I’d drive her. Except I didn’t. I chose to sleep in. I told her to postpone her appointment or wait until I was awake. I’d worked thirty-six hours straight, knowing I had to make that drive, knowing that she had an appointment with a client she’d been trying to arrange for weeks. But as usual, I’d worked hard, needed to catch up on some sleep, and what was important to her wasn’t important enough to me to help her.
“To cut a long story short, I slept, she made the drive on her own in the rain. And she crashed and died. Alice died a few days later. Now here I am, five years later, still having nightmares, still not able to face what I did. So when it comes to self-worth issues, I know them all because what I did cost the lives of my wife and daughter.”
“It was an accident.”
“And I was a better driver than Evangeline.”
“You were tired.”
“Because that was my way of avoiding reality. See, Carrie, I have all the excuses because I caused it. There’s no other way to look at it. You jumped your scene, I ran away from mine.”
“But you came back. Was that because you finally wanted to face up to it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve told people it was because my mother needed me to take over for her, but that’s not really the truth since Caleb and Leanne Carsten are here, and Sinclair Hospital has a nice list of part-time doctors who will come in on a regular basis. So, while my mother did ask me to come help for a little while, I was the one who chose to turn that little while into an indefinite stay. And I really don’t know why.”
“Maybe because it was time. I faced that on the mountain the other night, Jack. My time. My own truths. So, maybe that’s why you’re here now, because staying meant that, at some point, you’d have to go to Saka’am again. Like I said, maybe it was your time, too.”
“Could be,” he agreed. “Or maybe it wasn’t about the time so much as the proximity.”
“To what?” she asked.
“You,” he said quite simply.
“I heard what you said to me up there on the mountain,” she said. “That you love me.”
“Because I do, and I shouldn’t, and I can’t.”
“Why not?” Nothing good was going to come of this. She knew that. But she had to know if she’d done something wrong other than the obvious. It was closure, she supposed. He’d just pronounced the end to something that had never got started and now she wondered if something could have come of it. Because she loved him. Wanted to be more for him, to be better, to think of him first…to think of him all the time. Even though she’d never known what love was, that had to be it. And it was something she’d never thought would happen to her. But being with Jack, taking care of him, being everything for him, that was what she wanted love to be.
Except it wasn’t what he wanted. But she wasn’t going to put up her walls this time. She wasn’t going to try to come out on top because losing him was at the very bottom. The worst. The ache she knew was only going to get worse once she left Marrell. And there was no deflecting it because the pain was very real, and she was starting to feel it.
“What could I offer you?” he asked. “Unresolved issues, a life I haven’t come to terms with yet? You need better than that, Carrie.”
“But don’t you think I should have some say in what I need?” OK, so the fighter in her wasn’t quite ready to give up. Maybe that was one of her positive attributes after all. Because she didn’t want to give up on this before she’d had a chance to experience it. “Jack, you fired me from your program, which is what you had to do. I came to Marrell to find another life, because that’s what I had to do. I may have some backlash from my past going on, but I do know what I need and want, and that’s you. You’re the only one. Ever.”
“You’d stay in Marrell with me?”
“If you want me to, yes.”
“But only as an experiment? Only as a way to improve yourself?”
She shook her head. “No experiments, Jack. This time I want the real thing. And the only way to improve myself is by having you there to help me.”
“Like help you make coffee?” he asked, smiling, then reaching across to take her hand.
“I’m willing to learn. Anything. Everything. I mean, I know we’ve both got a lot of things to deal with before we know what we’ll get on the other end of it, but wouldn’t it be easier if we were dealing with it together? And I’m not suggesting marriage. But maybe building on the knowledge that I love you and you love me. That’s got to take us somewhere better than where we both are right now, doesn’t it?”
“You’re willing to take that risk with me, knowing what you know?”
“You were a good man trapped in a bad situation. I know what being trapped that way is like. I also know we do things we might not normally do because we don’t know where to turn, where to get help. You were trying your best, but the results were horrible. I was trying my best but the results were misguided. We’re human. We have our weaknesses. And I’m so sorry for what happened to you. But you didn’t cause it, much as you want to think you did. Someday maybe you’ll understand that. Or maybe you won’t. But you don’t have to suffer it alone anymore. I know who you are, and I love who you are. And I don’t consider you a risk.
“So, now I have to ask you—are you willing to take a risk with me, knowing what you know? Because I am a risk, Jack. You saw that. You know what I do.” She patted the bed beside her, then scooted over to make room for him. “And I’ll always work hard to get what I want. Which, right now, is you.”
“No hard feelings about me kicking you out of the program?” he asked, as he sat down next to her.
“We’ll talk about that later,” she said, smiling. “After I’ve proved that I’m good enough for you to take me back in.”
“That’s your goal?”
“One, among many. Oh, and putting a roof over Bella’s head.”
“You’re not going to let that dog sleep in bed with us, are you?”
“Her name’s Bella. And she can sleep next to the bed. But you’re going to have to be the one to tell her.”
“You think so?”
“What I think is getting back together with your friends is a good thing. I’m still a paramedic, and I’m still going to keep my job at the hospital, which means when you go out to Saka’am, and you will, I’ll be there with you.”
“And Bella, of course.”
That was the first time he’d ever said her name, which gave Carrie so much hope for so many things in their future. She would be there to help him through the rough spots when the sad memories from Saka’am overtook him. Which they would. And he would be there to help her. That was what love was about. Finally, she knew. Without a shadow of a doubt, she knew, and understood. “And Bella,” she said.
“I need to go out there tomorrow,” he said. “There’s something I have to do. Would you be up to going with me?”
She nodded. She didn’t ask why. Deep down, though, she knew. And it would be a very difficult journey to the cemetery for him, but she would be there to help him. Because she did love him. “So, about taking the risk…”
“My biggest risk is not doing this.” Then he kissed her, and held her. And loved her the way no one ever had. Or ever would.
* * *
“Do you think he’ll come in?” she asked Jack, as she watched Chief Charley stand in the road outside the community center. His arms were folded across his chest, and his face had the same stoic expression he always wore.
“Palloton invited him but he wouldn’t commit to it, so who knows?”
Carrie looked inside to the community room, where everyone from Saka’am had crammed into every available space, and where her few friends from Marrell had also found their spots. It was a wedding day like nothing she’d ever planned. No wedding dress. No flowers. Just people…people who cared. All dressed casually. And that was all that mattered. This was her life now. This was where she finally belonged.
In a few weeks Jack would start another program, and she would be in it. Then she would come to Saka’am three days a week and do what she needed to do. In a while, she would head her own rescue team. Then someday…maybe a child. They hadn’t talked about that too much yet. His memories of Alice were still too painful and she wasn’t sure he was ready. But they had time. And each other. And such a good life ahead of them.
Her dream. The nice dream she’d thought she’d never have. She was ready for it. No more moving on for Carrie Kellem, soon to be Hanson. This was her life.
“You ready?” Jack asked, taking hold of her hand.
She glanced over her shoulder again at Chief Charley. “Will he be OK?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Jack said.
She nodded, then looked up at Jack and smiled. “I’m ready. Now, tell me how we’re going to get through all these people to get to the front.” There was no aisle. Just people standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at them. Smiling. Happy.
“Got that covered,” Jack said, then raised his voice. “Could you make room for us? I’ve got to marry this lady today.”
With that, everybody stepped aside, and Mary Whitestone begin to play a tradition Salish song on the piano while her husband, Ben, drummed the rhythm. Jack handed Carrie over to Palloton to walk her down the aisle, while he went forward to take his spot.
“It’s a good thing,” Palloton whispered in her ear, as they began the slow march forward.
“I know,” she said, smiling. Halfway up to the front, she stopped and turned back to the door, where Chief Charley was standing. Not inside. But close enough to watch. And not smiling. But not frowning either. It was a little thing, she knew. But it was part of Jack’s healing. And Chief Charley’s, too. Which made a perfect wedding day even better.
She didn’t smile at Charley but gave him a nod of recognition, then turned back to look at Jack. Yes, this was a really perfect day because she was truly, for the first time in her life, home.
* * * * *