GOD.
The very thought of failing again was enough to send a bone-chilling cold racing through her. Carla wiped damp palms against the legs of her jeans and leaned back against the tower of boulders known as Castle Rock. She shifted her gaze to sweep the surrounding forest. Splotches of sunlight dazzled the darkness but did nothing to ease the blackness crawling around inside her.
Two years.
Two years since she’d done this. She would have thought she—and Abbey—would have been a little rusty. But instead, they’d come together as the team they’d always been and gone right back to business. Maybe she’d just been kidding herself about being retired. Maybe Mike, her old boss, had been right after all.
They hadn’t retired. They’d just been hiding. And damn it, she wanted to be hiding now. Back at the house. Back where it was safe. Where no one was depending on her. Counting on her. Back where she could pretend that none of this bothered her anymore. That she wasn’t haunted by the face of one little boy and the knowledge that she’d failed the one person she shouldn’t have.
Abbey lay at Carla’s feet, steady gaze locked on her. The dog’s eyes were bright, almost energized, and Carla realized guiltily that Abbey’d missed this. Missed being out in the field, doing what she did best. But then, Abbey didn’t experience success or failure. Abbey simply did the job she was asked to do. If she found the missing person alive, that was great. If she found them dead … well, at least she’d found them. Some Search and Rescue dogs, after prolonged searches, had been known to become depressed at finding only death. But that hadn’t happened to Abbey … yet.
It was Carla who had to live with the memories. Another chill raced down her spine and she shivered as she tried to push those memories away again … and failed.
“What did you mean?”
She shot Jackson a look and something inside her staggered under his steady gaze. In the indistinct light, his blue eyes seemed as deep and cool as the lake. His hair fell across his forehead as he leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. That now-familiar stab of sweet, hot lust slammed home, but since this really wasn’t the time, she ignored it. Still, ignoring it didn’t lift the haze from her brain.
“Huh?”
“When you said you couldn’t take losing another one. What’d you mean?”
“Oh. Did I say that out loud?”
He snorted a choked-off laugh. “In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve discovered you say everything you’re thinking out loud.”
Oh, not everything. If she had, he’d already know that she’d pictured him in his underwear a couple dozen times. Boxers, she was pretty sure. And if he turned out to be a briefs man, she was going to be heartily disappointed.
“Yeah, well,” she said, pushing that image out of her mind again, “you don’t have to listen.”
“Hard not to.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Okay. Have to give you that one. Candellanos are pretty hard to overlook.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Do I look busy?”
The walkie-talkie clipped to her belt crackled and hissed with the muttered voices of the other searchers. She listened with half an ear, as she’d trained herself to. Probably something like being a cop, she guessed. You could pay no attention at all to the radio traffic and then instantly be aware when someone called you. And she was stalling. She knew it. No point in lying to herself when she already knew the truth.
Carla gave some serious thought to lying to him, though. After all, why should she tell him? She’d only known him a week. Plus, he was temporary. He’d be gone by the end of summer. It wasn’t as if she had to bare her soul, here.
So why dredge it all up again?
Because it’s already dredged, you idiot. Being here, in the woods, on a search, had brought it all back more clearly than she’d allowed herself to remember it before. And judging by the look in his eyes, he wasn’t going to let this go.
Nosy.
She smiled to herself. Hang around with the Candellanos long enough and you pick up some of their most irritating habits.
Nodding, she let her gaze drift from his. She’d tell him, but she wouldn’t look at him while she did. She didn’t want to see sympathy, or, worse yet, accusation in his eyes.
“It was two years ago. Up around Tahoe.”
“Yeah?”
She scratched behind Abbey’s ears and took just as much comfort from the action as the dog did.
“I was living up there then. A small town, sort of like Chandler. Surrounded by mountains and trees. I loved it.” She pulled in a deep breath and let it go again. “My neighbors had two kids. A girl about three and a boy, Jamie. He was ten.” She smiled as that dimpled face rose up in her mind. “He used to come over every day after school. He’d play with Abbey and ask me questions about my job and tell me about how he was going to be a search-and-rescue man when he grew up.” Oh God. Carla swallowed hard again and lifted one hand to brush a tear away. “He was a Boy Scout, too. And one day, his troop got lost in the mountains.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter where. Mountains are mountains, I guess.”
He didn’t say anything and she realized he was a pretty gifted listener. Knew when to prod and when to shut the hell up and let the person talk. Although right now she desperately wished someone would interrupt. Would keep her from saying it all out loud. But there was no last-minute reprieve headed her way, so she went on.
“After the kids had been missing twelve hours, Searchers was called in.” She shot him a quick look before returning her gaze to Abbey’s understanding eyes. “That’s the company I—we used to work for. We’d been all over the world together. Going from one disaster area to the next. Working in mud slides and snow, complete with avalanches and earthquake rubble, terrorist attacks, and even once the aftermath of a volcano eruption.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It can be.” She shrugged that off, though, as if it didn’t mean anything at all. But he felt a wild mixture of admiration and fear. For her. She’d been in some very hairy places, and yet she dismissed it all with a casual shrug. She had strength. Maybe more than she knew.
Jackson watched her as she seemed to pull further away from him and this place, spiraling down into her memories.
“Anyway,” she said, continuing in a voice so soft, it was nearly lost in the gentle wind rippling through the trees, “by the time Searchers arrived, Abbey and I were already looking for the kids.” She shot him a quick look. “It was Jamie, you know? I couldn’t wait. I had to find him. God, his parents were frantic—but so sure that I’d find him. Bring him home. They knew I—” Her breath caught again. “They knew I loved him, so they were counting on me. And it should have been a simple search. Half the town had turned out to help.”
“Yeah.” She never lifted her gaze from the dog, but he knew she was looking at something else. Something only she could see. Pain seemed to radiate from her—like the waves of heat that pulsed off a road baking under a desert sun.
“Those of us with dogs were each given a shirt that belonged to one of the missing boys. I had Jamie’s.” She sighed a little, remembering. “Abbey and I worked the mountain, just as we always had. We picked up scents that dead-ended. We followed trails that seemed to go nowhere. Hours passed.” A brief gust of wind kicked up, tousled her curls, then slipped away again. “And still, I figured it would turn out all right. It was summer. Weather was good. The boys had already been lost overnight, but with the mild weather…”
She paused and the static from the radio bristled in the air.
“It should have been easy. Well,” she added, “comparatively speaking anyway.” She shook her head and the black curls about her face trembled. “But it wasn’t. Abbey wasn’t getting a good scent. We heard on the radio as the other boys were located, one by one. But still, Jamie was out there somewhere. Missing. Scared. And we couldn’t find him.”
Jackson knew what was coming. Regret pooled inside him. He shouldn’t have asked. Shouldn’t have prodded her into reliving this. He could see what it was costing her, but now he wasn’t sure if asking her to stop would be the right thing to do, either. Damn it, he knew what it was to live with guilt. To wonder about the what ifs. What if I’d done that differently? What if I’d taken a right turn instead of a left? What if I’d been driving the car that day?
Quickly, though, he closed a mental door on those questions. This wasn’t about him.
“I should have been able to find him,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “I know he must have been waiting for me—hoping to see Abbey and me come walking up. And I couldn’t find him.” Carla lifted her gaze and looked directly into Jackson’s and he felt the impact of her pain slam into him. “None of it should have happened, damn it. He was only ten. They were on a camp-out. A fun trip with his buddies that turned into a nightmare.”
“Carla…” He reached for her, but she shook her head and inched back.
Her fingers curled around Abbey’s collar and she hung on as if depending on that grip to keep herself steady. “Oh, Jamie must have been so scared. He kept moving. Even though we always talked about what people did wrong when they were lost. He knew he should stay in one place, but he walked. And walked. Trying to find his way out. His way home.” A single tear trickled down her cheek, but he didn’t think she realized it. “Abbey and I covered miles that day. And at every turn, I told myself, This time. We’ll find him here. Or here. Or here.” She shook her head again. “But we didn’t. Not until much later.”
“What happened?” he asked when she was silent for so long, he wasn’t sure she was even aware of his presence anymore.
She turned her head to look at him and he saw those beautiful brown eyes of hers shimmering with tears that he somehow knew were always near the surface. Something inside him shifted, tightened, and the instinct to protect reared up within him again. He wanted to hold her. To soothe her tears and tell her everything would be all right. Which was ridiculous, since he knew by looking at her that nothing was all right.
She sucked in a breath, released it in a rush, and said, “Just at nightfall we found him.” She looked away again and stared off into the shadowy forest, as if it was just too much to meet his gaze. “It wasn’t a big creek,” she said, her voice soft, wondering. “Nothing more than a stream, really. The kind you go wading in on a warm summer’s day. Something a kid would leap over without a second thought.” She cleared her throat, uncurled her fingers from Abbey’s collar, and took another deep breath. “But Jamie must have fallen. Hit his head on a rock.” Cupping one hand across her mouth, as if she could keep the words from being said even as she spoke them, she finished. “He fell face-first into that damn creek and he drowned. In a couple of inches of water.”
“Jesus.” In a quick flash, Jackson felt pity for that kid and what his family must have suffered. But looking at the woman who’d tried so hard to save the boy, he also felt a wave of tenderness that surprised him with its strength. It had been a long time since he’d felt sorrier for someone else than he did for himself.
Lifting both hands, she scraped at her face with her palms, rubbing away the last of the tears. But she didn’t quite succeed in wiping the pain out of her eyes. It still shone in those brown depths with a brilliant clarity. And he knew she lived with that memory every day. Despite the wiseass comments and the ready laughter, she harbored this dark knot of old pain with her wherever she went.
But then, everyone carried their own crosses, didn’t they? It was just that some people made more noise about the size and weight of theirs than others did. Carla, on the other hand, spent most of her time trying to convince everyone around her that she didn’t have a cross at all. Intriguing woman. One who could slide into a man’s soul.
If a man had a soul.
“He didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”
“What?” He looked at her, found her gaze fixed on him, and told himself to get a grip. This sure as hell wasn’t the time to go getting philosophical. “What?” he repeated.
“Jesus,” she said. “God. He wasn’t involved that day. That day it was just me, Abbey, and Jamie. That little boy needed me. Was counting on me. And I failed. All the times I’d saved strangers … people I didn’t know, people I’d never see again. And the one time I desperately needed to succeed, to bring someone safely home, I couldn’t do it. He died on that mountain, when he should have been at home.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” It came instinctively. Yet even as he said the words, he knew she wouldn’t hear them. Hadn’t people been saying the same damn thing to him for the last year? And he hadn’t believed it any more than she would.
“Right.” She nodded, stood up, and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Jamie’s parents even said that to me, y’know? After the screams and the tears and the wailing, they thought of me. They knew what losing him did to me. And even in their pain, they tried to make it easier for me. But that only made it worse. I let him down. I let them down.” She sucked in air and blew it out again. “Nobody’s fault. Just a tragic accident,” she said, in a singsong voice that mimicked everyone who’d ever said the words to her. “Sometimes these things happen. The Lord works in mysterious ways.” She flipped her hair back from her face and gave him a long, steady look. “Jamie was ten. He liked baseball and jelly sandwiches. He loved Abbey and he trusted me. He was my friend. He hated girls yet doted on his baby sister. He was his parents’ pride and joy. And he died. If I’d moved faster … worked it harder … found him just a little sooner … I loved him. And I couldn’t save him because I just wasn’t good enough.”
“Carla—” Jackson stood up and faced her. Reaching out, he laid both hands on her shoulders and felt the tension coiled there. A part of him wished she’d kept quiet. Hadn’t brought him closer. But another, stronger part wanted to somehow comfort her. And God knew he wasn’t used to those kinds of impulses.
But she didn’t give him a chance, anyway. She shrugged him off, gave him a smile, and said, “Glad you asked?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s honest.” She sighed and glanced down. Abbey’s head swept back and forth between them like she was watching a fascinating tennis match. “Can’t blame you, though. Not a pretty story.”
“It’s not that.” He reached for her again. But before he could actually touch her, he let his hand fall to his side. Probably not a good idea to touch her again just now. “I just … didn’t mean to bring it all back.” To make you feel so crappy, he added silently.
“It didn’t have to come back,” she said sadly. “It’s always there.”
Jackson nodded. Just as he’d thought. “I know what that’s like.”
She laughed shortly, but the sound carried no humor in it. “Right. Sure you do.” She blew out a breath that ruffled the curls lying on her forehead. Then she gave him that smile that seemed to hit him a little harder every time he saw it. The fact that today he saw the grief behind it only added to the punch. “Okay,” she announced, “self-pity party officially over.”
Carla wanted to get moving. Get back to the search. Heck, anything was better than standing here, watching him watch her and wondering what he was thinking. For chrissakes. What had she been thinking? Why did she have to go and open her big mouth?
Because you’re a Candellano and it’s genetically impossible to keep your mouth closed.
Plus, she was female. If pushed or offered the slightest bit of encouragement, a woman will confess her deepest, darkest secrets. A man, on the other hand, was somehow able to hold back—at least until after sex. At which point, men did one of two things. They either opened up and shared, or they ran for the hills and all you saw of them was the soles of their feet.
Hmm.
Maybe they were on to something.
She snapped her fingers and Abbey jumped to her feet, muscles bunched and ready to work. She pushed her nose into Carla’s thigh as if reminding her that the clock was running.
“Carla…”
“Hey, I’m okay. Honest.” Embarrassed but okay. Usually she managed to keep memories of Jamie locked up tight inside her—at least until the dreams came. The dreams where she saved him. Where she found him in time and she could feel his tears on her neck and his sturdy arms wrapped around her shoulders. Every damn night, she saved him. She just hadn’t been able to do it when it had mattered. “Don’t know why I spilled my guts like that, but rest assured, that’ll be the end of the spillage for today.”
“You’re back to your old self, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight.” Pulling the walkie-talkie from her belt, she held up a hand for silence, then punched the button. “Tony?”
A second or two of static, then, “Carla. Find anything?”
“Not yet.” She turned her head and gave a good look around. “We’re about a mile east of the lake at Castle Rock. We’ll check out the rest of the woods here, then circle back around.”
“Got it.”
Carla clipped the radio back into place on her hip.
“What do we do now?”
“Now,” she said, “we work.” And try to forget, for a little while at least, that some sort of bond had been formed between them, here in the forest. It wasn’t something she’d been expecting, and trying to deal with what it meant right now would be useless. Better to work. Looking down at Abbey, she whispered, “Find.”
And they were on the run again.
* * *
Tony scanned the map in his hands for the dozenth time in twenty minutes, then lifted his gaze to the blue sky. At least they had several more hours of daylight left. With any luck, they’d find the man and be out of here by suppertime.
Of course, lately, luck was in short supply.
He yanked off his hat, swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then jammed that hat back on again.
It was days like this that made him wish he’d become—hell, anything other than the sheriff. Even Nick’s job looked good to him right now. And ordinarily he wouldn’t have considered being attacked by three-hundred-pound middle linebackers a wise career choice.
“Sheriff?” his deputy’s voice came over the radio, clouded by a burst of static.
Tony snatched up the handheld, walked off a few paces, and turned in a tight circle until the interference eased up. “Yeah, Dave. What’ve you got?”
“Our missing guy. Walked out of the woods, went right up to Joe Hauser, and asked for a scotch, straight up.” Laughter rang in his tone and Tony couldn’t blame him. It had been a long day.
“Good news.” Hell, best news he’d had in a while. He looked around the busy base camp they’d set up and mentally started closing up shop. “Call everyone in and let’s pack this up.”
“You got it, Sheriff. We ought to have him back to you inside a half hour.”
When he signed off, Tony stared at the radio for a long minute before punching it up again to contact his sister.
“Carla?”
“What’s up?”
“We found our man.”
“How is he?”
Tony winced at the question, asked in a breathless, worried voice. Okay, he knew what he’d asked of Carla to come out and join the search. She never talked about what had happened two years ago. But then, with family, she didn’t have to, did she? They all knew what losing that boy had cost her.
Still, seeing her lock herself away was driving Mama nuts—which meant everybody suffered.
“Alive,” he answered, “and looking for a bartender.”
What might have been laughter rustled through the radio and he smiled. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m good. So. I’ll see you at Mama’s.”
“What?” He stared at the radio, as if it could explain exactly why in the hell he’d be going to his mother’s house after the day he’d had.
“It’s Sunday.”
“Shit.”
* * *
Jackson had never had a meal quite like this one before. Noise rocketed around the dining room, bouncing off the soft yellow walls lined with china cabinets that were stuffed with glassware and what looked to be the world’s largest collection of bells. The oak table they sat at was old, but the wood fairly gleamed from years of careful polishing. From the kitchen came scents that would have graced any four-star restaurant, and blasting in from the living room came the practiced voice of a professional announcer calling the play-by-play on a baseball game.
The whole Candellano clan was gathered around that table and Jackson still wasn’t sure why he was there.
All he knew for certain was, he’d entered Angela Candellano’s orbit and been sucked in. He glanced up as she bustled in and out of the room, carrying bowls of fresh garlic bread and steaming pots of spaghetti sauce that smelled good enough to make him grateful for the invitation to dinner.
The noise level, though, was incredible. There was no give-and-take conversation. This was a free-for-all. Every Candellano talked at the same time, as if they were afraid they wouldn’t get a chance otherwise. Even the toddler, Tina, was banging her spoon on her high chair and babbling loud enough to prove she belonged. The shouting, he guessed, was a by-product. You had to shout just to be heard.
“The hospital says the guy checked out fine.”
“It’s good you found him,” Mama said, passing by Tony and giving him a loving pat on the shoulder.
“Wasn’t me,” he admitted. “The man just walked out.”
Paul pulled a small calculator from his shirt pocket.
“Do you know what the odds of that were?”
“Don’t care,” Tony told him. “It’s over.”
“Astronomical,” Paul muttered, punching in a few more numbers.
Tony looked at Nick. “So are you going to start this season? Half the town’s asked me how you think the Saints are gonna do this season.”
Nick scowled and rubbed his knee. “Don’t know about starting, but the team looks good.”
“Your leg,” Mama asked. “It still hurts?”
“I’m fine.”
“The hero of Chandler speaks,” Paul said with a grin.
“Anyone want iced tea?”
“Mama,” Carla ordered, “sit down already and eat.”
The older woman waved her off. “In a minute. More pasta?” she asked, strolling around the edge of the table like a fussy waitress, making sure everyone had everything they wanted even before they wanted it. She laid one hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “You should eat. Have a sausage. You’re too thin.”
“According to Mama,” Paul told him, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, “you have to eat twice your body weight daily just to keep from wasting away.”
“You should eat more, talk less. And put your little toy away,” Mama told him before turning back to Jackson. “So, you’re a lawyer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good manners,” she said, beaming at him like he was a child winning a spelling bee. “That’s nice.”
“Mama…”
She frowned at Carla. “What? I say something nice and I’m in trouble?” Without waiting for an answer, she asked Jackson, “You make a good living?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Carla muttered.
“Uh … yes. I do fine.” Jackson glanced around the table, noticing that all eyes were on him now, and he suddenly felt like a dancing bear.
“Good, good.” Mama nodded, smiling. “So, Wyatt. Is that Italian?”
“I don’t think so.” Where was this going? he wondered, and had the uncomfortable feeling he was being interviewed for a job.
“That’s a shame.” She clucked her tongue.
“Lots of people aren’t Italian, Mama.” Paul said it, then ducked his head when his mother shot him a look.
“Catholic?” she asked.
“Don’t answer that,” Carla told him.
Stunned, Jackson just stared at the older woman, but one of Carla’s brothers saved him from answering.
“Jesus, Mama,” Nick teased, “why don’t you check his teeth while you’re at it, too?”
“Was I talking to you?” she asked, then frowned when she saw Nick shift uncomfortably on the chair. “You all right, Nicky?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is it your knee?” Carla leaned over the table toward him.
“No, it’s not my knee.”
“Thought the knee was better.” His twin sounded more curious than worried.
“It is better!” Nick shouted. “Jesus, can’t a man move around a little without everybody thinking something’s up?”
“I was wondering the same thing myself,” Tony muttered, and threw a glance at his wife. Beth, though, didn’t take the bait, just kept her gaze fixed on her untouched plate of pasta.
But Carla heard him and Jackson saw the glare she shot her older brother just before she kicked him.
“Hey!” Tony looked at her. “What was that for?”
“Gee,” Carla said, blinking innocently, “was that your knee? I’m so sorry.”
Beth smiled faintly, but Tony grumbled a minute or two before scooting his chair farther away from his sister.
Nuts, Jackson thought. The whole family was crazy. In a weird, warm, wonderful sort of way. He wondered what it must have been like growing up in this house. With these people, who so clearly loved one another despite the shouts and carrying-on.
Then he looked down at his daughter, sitting on the chair beside him. A smile curved her mouth as she happily ate up every bit of the pasta in front of her. Naturally, Abbey was right beside the little girl, head in her lap, soulful brown eyes locked on Reese’s fork, hoping for a spill.
Reese had spent the day here, with Angela, baking cookies. Probably eating half of what she’d made. But she was happy. Relaxed.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Jackson felt the tension that had become a part of him begin to slip away. Carla glanced at him and gave him that smile again.
And this time, he gave it right back to her.