Chapter Twenty-Six

Willow

“So how did you choose?” I asked Rose, who had just finished telling me about the love triangle she’d found herself in the middle of. Apparently where you sat at her school’s lunch table was the step before an engagement ring, and while she always sat next to Addison, her best friend, her other side was the hottest commodity at Alba Elementary.

“I haven’t yet, but I have a plan,” she told me as we made our way through the crowd that had gathered for the ribbon-cutting at the mine. It was hard to believe it was already the Fourth of July, and even more unbelievable that Cam had made enough progress for this soft opening. We still had a few hours to go, but locals and tourists alike had made their way up to the Rose Rowan already.

“What is this plan?” Cam asked, sneaking up behind us.

“Hi, Cam!” Rose’s smile was instant and bright.

“Hi, Rosie.” Cam picked her up in a hug before kissing me quickly.

“Rose apparently has to choose between two boys,” I told him as he took my hand in his.

“What? I thought boys had germs and stuff at your age.”

Rose flat-out rolled her eyes at him. “There they are.” She not-so-subtly pointed to two boys who stood near the punch table.

“Wait, this showdown is happening here?” Where was her mother when I needed her? I rose on my tiptoes to see if Charity stood out in the crowd, but it was too thick to find anyone who wasn’t as tall as Cam.

Speaking of tall, there was Alexander, having his picture taken over by the podium. Now I was the one rolling my eyes.

“It’s not a showdown. It will be easy, see?” She slipped her Rose Rowan backpack from her shoulder and pulled out two glittery unicorn pins. “I’ve been conducting an experiment, and now it’s time to test out my hypoth…” Her forehead puckered.

“Hypothesis,” I offered.

“Yep!” She grinned and put her pack back on.

“Do you want to explain?” I asked, noting that one of the boys was shorter with glasses and the classic underdog haircut, while the other could have modeled for Fourth Grade Weekly or whatever.

“Later,” she promised.

“Need some muscle?” Cam offered, eyeing the boys.

“I can take care of myself, but thank you!” she called over her shoulder as she walked toward the boys.

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” I muttered.

“Ditto,” he agreed, squeezing my hand.

We watched as Rose presented the boys with the pins.

“I wish we could hear what they’re saying.”

“If I’d known, I would have wired up a mic.” His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward like he could wish himself into supersonic hearing.

The taller boy took the pin and forced a smile, then slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. The shorter one grinned at Rose and then stuck it to the front of his Star Wars shirt.

Rose smiled at the shorter boy, said something that made him grin even wider, then ran back over to us.

My heart melted into a puddle of goo as I realized what she’d done and what the man I loved had inadvertently done for her.

“It worked!” she said, her eyes shining with the wisdom of childhood.

“What worked?” Cam asked, his gaze darting back to the boys.

“My experiment!” She raised her hands in victory.

“Well, I think it’s about to get interesting,” I said as I spied the taller boy coming over. He fumbled with the pin but eventually got the back through his polo and fastened it.

“Rose!” he called, waving enthusiastically. “Look!” He pointed to the pin.

She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Drake, but it’s too late.”

“And way too early,” Cam muttered, earning him a poke with my elbow.

“But I like it! I really do!” he proclaimed with big blue eyes.

“No you don’t.” She shook her head emphatically. “You just want me to think you like it. There’s a difference.”

“Burn,” Cam drawled.

“No one says that anymore,” Rose lectured him, but she did it with a smile.

“Fine,” Drake snapped, ripping the pin from his shirt and leaving a hole in the fabric. “Keep your stupid unicorn. I don’t want it anyway.” He thrust it at Rose, and when she didn’t take it back, Cam reached over and took it for her.

The boy looked up and up, and when he finally met Cam’s eyes, his widened. Then he ran.

“Thank you for proving my hypothesis!” Rose shouted after him.

“That’s the word! Good job!” I told her with a high five.

Cam had already fastened the pin above the Rose Rowan logo on the button-down shirt he wore. I had zero doubt the white fabric would be stained with dirt by the end of the first train run, but I loved that he had the sleeves rolled up, not caring what anyone thought of his tattoos.

“Camden, the newspaper is here all the way from Denver. They’re hoping to get an interview with you and Xander and maybe your dad?” Walt asked with more than a little hesitation. “It’s understandable if you want to say no or if you’d like to use his camera to violently bash your brother over the head.”

A smile ghosted Cam’s lips, and he sighed. “It’s okay, Walt. It’s good for the mine, and with the cost of at-home care, I’ll take all the free publicity I can get.”

“Don’t have too much fun,” I told him.

He kissed me as a reply. He was doing that more often, too—kissing me in public, ignoring what anyone thought about him or us. It wasn’t an act of rebellion like it would have been when he was younger. Now it was because he genuinely didn’t care what anyone thought and knew I didn’t, either.

We were happy, and that made all the difference.

“I should have brought one for you, too,” Rose mumbled.

“I don’t need one,” I assured her, spying Charity standing with her boyfriend. “You already know I don’t care what people think about me.”

Her eyes widened. “You get it.”

“Cam? The ice pack?” I asked.

“First, you have to answer a question.” She pinned me with her stare as people moved around us, heading for the buffet or the display of historical pictures.

“Okay?”

“Your unicorn pin. Who gave it to you? You know, the one you lost in the mine?” She tilted her head toward the Rose Rowan.

“Cam. He bought two at the Mother’s Day shop at school that year. One for me and one for his mom.” Lillian had been buried with hers.

She frowned. “I bet you really miss it.”

“The pin? Well, of course it would be nice to have it, but I made peace with losing it a long time ago.” Seeing how sad that seemed to make her, I pushed forward. “But you know, the mine is opening today! There’s always the chance that someone finds it. Who knows! I don’t remember where I was, but Cam has the 1880 tunnel ready for exploration, so any one of these thousand tourists might stumble onto it.”

“But what if one of them thinks it’s treasure and keeps it?” she demanded.

“I can’t really control that.” I kept my voice soft, trying to soothe her.

“Why didn’t you look for it?”

“I was too scared,” I admitted. “Even now, the mine scares me at times. Reminds me of being trapped and lost and hurt.”

“Still?” she whispered.

“Yep. Sometimes fears don’t die just because you get bigger. They just get bigger, too.” I shrugged.

She nodded, as if mulling something over in her head. “I’m going to go find Mom, okay?”

“Sure thing. She’s right there.” I pointed to the lone grove of aspen trees, and she hugged me before taking off.

I made my rounds, stopping to talk with Dad and John Royal before getting called over to Mom and the Ivy’s crew. They all wanted to know how Cam was after that horrid display Milton Sanders had put on.

None of them mentioned that he’d done so at Xander’s request. In that regard, he’d come out of last month’s hearing squeaky-clean. Sure, it was sad that he wouldn’t give Art the DNR, but if the doctors and the judge said Art didn’t know what he was asking for, then really, he was just a son defending his father’s life.

After about twenty-five minutes of that crap, I made my excuses and snuck out of their gossipy clutches, with Mom mouthing, Run.

I chatted with Julie Hall and flipped off Oscar Hudgens when he walked by, then took Julie and her boys over with Thea and Jacob to see the trains, telling them all about the history of the ore carts.

“Willow, will you ask Rose if she wants to grab lunch now or after the ceremony?” Charity asked, walking over with her boyfriend.

I noted with a smile that she’d finally brought him out in public and that the Salida resident was wearing a unicorn pin.

“What? You ask her,” I teased. “Hi, I’m Willow,” I introduced myself.

“Travis.” He smiled as he shook my hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Same here.”

“Yes, yes, now you know each other. Willow, seriously, grab Rose for me.” She looked over at the train and waved to Thea and Julie.

I blinked in confusion. “Rose is with you.”

Charity moved her sunglasses to the top of her head. “No. She was with me. She said you needed her for some kind of ore hunt with the kids and ran off to find you.”

Dread filled every cell in my body, and the noise of the crowd faded in my head, only to be replaced by a roaring in my ears. “When?”

“It must have been an hour ago.” Her eyes flew impossibly wide. “Willow, where is Rose?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, my head swiveling left to right, searching for her familiar braid.

“Well, when is the ore hunt? Maybe she’s setting up for it?” Travis asked.

“There’s no ore hunt.” I looked Charity square in the eye. “I never asked her to help me with it because it doesn’t exist.”

“Oh God.” She pushed past me and ran for the reconstructed gatehouse that served as a ticket booth and launchpad for the train.

“She never lies,” I told Travis. “Something is wrong.”

“Excuse me,” Charity said into the microphone, and her voice blared across the crowd through the speakers Cam and his team had rigged for the event. “Has anyone seen Rose Maylard?”

The crowd murmured, but no one threw up a hand or answered.

“Rose?” Charity shouted into the microphone, the panic in her voice grating on my heart like nails on a chalkboard.

I scanned the crowd again, then looked at the trains…and past the trains.

“Oh no.” My heart sank. “Tell Charity to wait here,” I ordered Travis. Then I ran into the crowd, pushing my way through the thickest parts until I reached the construction trailers that had been moved to the far end of the cleared space to accommodate the crowd.

I took the stairs two at a time and flung the door open. Everything looked the same at first glance. But there, above Cam’s desk. No. There sat Cam’s hard hat and my hard hat, but Rose’s was missing.

I barely felt the ground under my feet as I sprinted from the trailer, jumping the stairs and racing through the crowd, which was now thickest at the steps that led up to the gatehouse.

“Move,” I ordered as someone blocked my path.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but only—”

“Shut the hell up and move, Scott!” I screamed at the man who’d been the biggest bully in my class.

“Willow, sorry, I didn’t see you.”

I shoved my way past him and ran up the stairs, where Charity stood under my father’s arm. Mom and Travis watched nervously while Cam and Gideon conferred with Xander and Tim Hall.

“Cam!”

He looked over at me and immediately came my way.

“I know where she is.”

“Where?” Tim Hall demanded, but Cam just watched me, steady and calm.

“Her hard hat is gone,” I told him.

His eyes flared wide, and he pivoted to look down the long black tunnel of the mine. “Why would she?”

“She said something about me having that pin. The one I lost that day. And she was really upset that someone might find it before I did.” My knees weakened. “Cam, I think she’s looking for the ventilation shaft I fell down.”

He glanced back at the mine, and when everyone burst into questions and demands, he was already gone, already mentally down that shaft.

“What do we do?” Dad asked Tim Hall.

“We get search parties going,” Tim answered.

“How far was the shaft, Willow?” Charity grabbed my arms. “What do you remember?”

“You were there!” My voice pitched high. “You were with me until you weren’t!”

“I was eleven,” she whispered. “All I remember was walking so far, and then…it was dark, the batteries died on the lamp—at least that’s what we thought—so we put our hands on the wall of the tunnel and started walking back out. When the headlamp turned back on, you were gone. It was just us. I was eleven, Willow. I don’t remember the rest until Cam found us near the entrance.”

“I was nine,” I whispered.

The same age as Rose.

“Everyone get in the trailer,” Cam ordered. “Gideon, you start rounding up volunteers to search.”

“How far was that drop?” Dad asked Cam as we walked to the trailer, the crowd parting as we approached. “The shaft you pushed Willow up?”

“At least fifty feet,” he replied. “I don’t know how she survived it.”

“You did, too,” I told him as he took my hand.

“I had a headlamp and could more or less skid my way to the bottom. It was a miracle that all you did was break your nose.”

We filed into the trailer, and Cam pulled the blueprints of the Rose Rowan onto the drafting table. “We figured the shaft had to be one of these two.” He pointed to the longest ventilation shafts the mine had. They traversed three levels of the mine. “Xander, what do you remember?”

Xander shook his head as he studied the blueprints. “God, it was so long ago.”

“You were fourteen!” Charity cried. “That’s older than the rest of us. You have to remember!”

“I can find her,” Art said as he walked into the trailer with Walt and Nikki at his heels.

“Dad, not now,” Xander said gently.

“Tim, get ten search parties of five together if you can. That’s how many hard hats and lamps we have on hand.” Cam looked at the police captain. “Now, Tim!”

Tim nodded and left.

“I can find her!” Art declared again.

“Dad, what do you mean?” Cam asked, moving Travis out of the way so Art could come closer.

“No one knows that mine like I do. I think I know where she is.” Art looked at the blueprints. “It’s not on the map. Not this one, at least.”

“Dad, we don’t have time for this. Why don’t you go with Nikki?” Xander urged.

Art ignored him and pointed to the blueprints. “It should be right there. I know I’ve seen it there on another set.” His forehead puckered. “It’s where the 1880s meets the 1930s.”

“Dad, those tunnels don’t intersect,” Xander argued.

“Be quiet. You never wanted to listen to me about the mine when you were younger. I don’t know why you’d start now.” He swiveled to look at Cam. “I can find her. Take me.”

“No way!” Xander shouted.

“Take me,” Art demanded, not even bothering to look at Xander.

“You know what putting him under emotional strain does! He’ll lose it down there, and then you’ll both die.” Xander folded his arms across his chest.

“Camden, I’m her best hope. There are only four people who have been there.” His brow wrinkled. “Five, when you count Willow.”

Me. Xander. Charity. Cam. Who was the fifth?

“I’ll go,” I said, already moving to grab my hard hat and Cam’s.

“You’re terrified of the mine,” Charity countered, tears silently running down her face.

“I’m the one who fell down it in the first place,” I told her. “Cam and I are the only ones who have actually been there.”

“I’ve been there, too. That’s what I’m saying,” Art interjected.

“Right. And Art.” Which made sense, seeing as he was the expert on the damned mine. “Charity, you have to stay here in case another party brings her back, in case they find her before we do.”

“Are you sure, Pika?” Cam asked.

“I’m sure.” I handed his hard hat to him, then put mine on the desk and began to braid my hair.

“Take me, Cam. I’m the best chance you have at finding that little girl alive.” Art moved directly in front of Cam.

“You can’t even be sure Rose can find that ventilation shaft! If you couldn’t find it again, then how can she? It was a miracle you stumbled onto Willow back then!” Xander argued.

“I told her how to get there,” Art admitted. “It wasn’t on the map I had, either, but I showed her where it should be.”

“It wasn’t on the map because it’s not there. He’s not going. I forbid it. I’m his guardian.” Xander’s voice rose with each word. “You can’t take him down there!”

Cam locked eyes with his dad for a long minute, then nodded before stepping up to Xander. There was no physical comparison between the two, and Xander knew it, but Cam had never used it to his advantage before. “Stop me.”

…

Ten minutes later, Cam, Art, Gideon, Dad, and I piled into the train. Cam drove us into the mine, speeding faster than we had when Rose had been with us. I kept my eyes peeled for her pale-pink jacket and yellow helmet but came up empty.

We sliced through the stale air of the tunnel, and I gawked at the difference now that it was lit. We passed the first antechamber we’d stopped at, then made our way past two ventilation shafts and several displays Cam had set up with historically accurate mining equipment.

We finally stopped, and I marveled that we’d managed to walk this far in all those years ago, if this was really where I’d fallen.

Cam showed Dad how to work the train so he could take it back for more search parties. “You’re sure about this?” Cam asked me, his hands cupping my face.

“You won’t let anything happen to me,” I answered. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He leaned his hat against mine and took a deep breath. “Just promise me you’ll stay close. I almost lost you once in here, and that’s not going to happen again.”

“I promise.”

He nodded, but I knew he wasn’t happy about me being down here. Well, that made three of us, if the way my dad was staring at me was any indication.

“It’s okay, Dad. Go.”

“I love you. Your coat is too big. Are you going to be warm enough?”

“I love you, too. And I’m fine. It’s Cam’s.” I didn’t bother arguing the logic of his statement.

He turned to look at Camden. “You brought her out of this mine once, and I expect you to do it again. Do you understand me? You bring her and Rose out.”

“What changed your mind?” Cam asked, hefting his pack over his shoulders.

“When did I realize you didn’t break her nose?” Dad asked.

Cam nodded.

“First I pulled her X-rays when you started dating. The break was too symmetrical. Like she’d literally fallen flat on her face or walked into the wall. Then I realized I didn’t need the damned X-rays. Willow is a smart girl, and she would have kicked your ass if you’d hurt her.”

Cam nodded again, but a smile lifted his lips. He didn’t demand an apology for the last twenty years of my dad being an ass to him; he simply accepted that Dad knew he was wrong.

I took his hand, and we waved to Dad as he took the track switch and headed back to the mine’s entrance.

The lights were on, but the smells, the sounds… They were all the same.

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” Cam suggested gently as we started walking.

“This way,” Art said at a random offshoot.

“Dad…” Cam said. “I don’t remember coming this way or taking any downhill path until I found that shaft.”

“That’s because you took the long way. I told your little Rose how to find the shortcut.” He sounded like he was slipping into an episode, but his eyes were clear and certain.

“What shortcut?”

“It was a ventilation shaft. What did you think it was ventilating? Look, you can trust me or not. I’m telling you it’s this way.” Art turned and started walking.

“This should be a great story to tell at my funeral,” Gideon muttered.

“Okay, I guess we’ll trust you,” Cam said, then took my hand and followed his dad.

“How far do you think it is?” Gideon asked.

“Probably ten minutes if you stop whining and start walking,” Art chided.

Cam smiled and shot Gid a knowing look over his shoulder.

The tunnel narrowed, and we passed the demarcation line of where it had been reinforced. The lighting ended, leaving us with only our headlamps as the tunnel began a steep descent into the mountain. The beams that supported the sides and roof were mostly intact, but there were a couple I had to climb over.

“Here’s where it starts to get sporty,” Art said with a grin.

Starts? I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth, then trudged on into my personal hell, praying we’d find Rose in time…or at all.