Troubled Waters Read online

  “Am I sure? Please. Who taught you how to ride your first dirt bike?” Dex grinned at him, the curls of his hair just ducking out of his helmet. “And after we make it, I’ll spring for dinner at the Hondo.”

  “It doesn’t count if you own the place,” Ian said. And then he smiled. “Fine. Keep up.”

  Then he gunned it.

  Arms bent and loose, his body over the center of gravity, Ian loved the surge riding the bike gave him, the power, speed, the thrill of danger.

  He’d never pinpointed exactly why he loved it—the hot adrenaline of jumping out of a plane, the surreal power of standing on top of a mountain peak, even the ethereal freedom of flying a glider, a hobby he longed to return to once he . . .

  No. He probably needed to seriously consider selling the ranch, investing the funds in the rebuilding of Dawson.

  And that began with admitting that his life in Montana might be over.

  Gunning the throttle, he wound through prickly pear and yucca, ducking away from their spears, then shot out onto the canyon floor.

  Dex’s bike roared behind him. Ian had always wanted what Dex had—family, legacy, land.

  But according to Dex, Ian was the son John Crawford always wanted.

  Maybe they both needed to break free, soar, even for a few milliseconds.

  Ian had geared up for his ride—chest protector, knee and shin pads, reinforced pants, elbow pads—and now sweat dripped along the ridge of his helmet and down his spine as he flew across the rutted land. The sky arched blue and bold in the distance, and the roar of the engine boiled up through him as the creek edge approached.

  Sixty feet seemed like the Grand Canyon from here. And if he failed, he’d slam into the rocky bluff on the far side, then drop the twenty feet onto a boulder the size of a buffalo, crushing his bones to dust.

  Sure, he’d jumped plenty of times in Dex’s practice arena, two dirt hills they’d crafted, now grassed over, for exactly this trick.

  He’d nailed it there at least, well, five times.

  Yes, this was really stupid.

  He dug in, gunning it hard to keep ahead of Dex, and shot toward the takeoff.

  Behind him, Dex whooped.

  The lip came into view, a tiny launchpad where the land rose naturally. “Keep your throttle steady!” Not that Dex didn’t know that, but Ian had learned the hard way that if he gave it too much gas, the front wheel wheelied up and he could flip backward.

  “And don’t be a coward!” Because if he eased off the throttle, he’d nose right into the creek.

  “And try and land on both wheels!”

  Probably Dex couldn’t hear a word he was shouting, so maybe his words were for him, because his last jumps had nearly yanked the handlebars from his grip when he’d landed too hard on the rear wheel.

  Ian bent low and shot toward the ramp.

  Relax. Keep it easy.

  At the apex, he throttled hard, just for a second. Straightened his legs.

  Launched.

  And then he was airborne.

  Flying.

  Floating.

  Time slowed, midair, just like it did when he skydived. Or stood at the apex of a mountain, breathing in the immensity of the view.

  And in that moment, Ian didn’t have to think, didn’t have to plan, maneuver, calculate.

  He had nothing but the roar of the bike and himself, soaring. Weightless.

  He let out a yell, a burst of pure thrill, then extended his legs and watched the ground come at him.

  The landing shook through him, rattling his bones and jarring loose his gut. But he held on, bouncing across the far side.

  He braked, skidded, and turned to watch.

  Oh no.

  Dex had gunned it too hard coming off the ramp, and now his front wheel flipped up. “Straighten your legs! Get over the bike!”

  But Dex had frozen, jammed up.

  The crash happened fast, but Ian saw it in slow motion even before Dex hit. He’d given the bike enough gas to clear the creek, but the rear wheel smashed into the soft soil, unseating Dex even as the front wheel slammed into the earth.

  The bike spun out beneath him, and Dex flew off, peeling through the brambles and grass, carving a swath into the dirt.

  “Dex!”

  Ian parked his bike and ran over to where Dex lay sprawled on his back, unmoving.

  “Please don’t be dead.” He knelt next to the man, afraid to touch him. He lifted his visor.

  Dex’s eyes were closed.

  “C’mon, Dex. Don’t die on me.” His brain scrambled for help. Not for the first time, he regretted not getting the first-responder training his buddy Sam had taught to the PEAK team and other volunteers way back when they were searching for Esme.

  In fact, this might be exactly why he started PEAK. For stupid people like him who talked their buddies into reckless acts of bravado, only to get them—

  “Stop your bawlin’, I’m fine.” Dex’s voice dragged through a groan. But his eyes opened. “We made it.”

  Ian just stared at him.

  “Calm down, Shaw.” He held up his hand for Ian to help him sit up.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Clearly you haven’t figured out that I’m unbreakable.” Dex popped to his feet, but Ian saw the slightest wince. “But this means you’re paying for dinner, pal.”

  Ian went over to examine Dexter’s bike. Nothing broken, and he lifted it up, wheeled it over to Dex. “I hope you don’t mind if I wash dishes, because as of this afternoon, I’m broke.”

  No one got left behind. Not if Sierra could help it. And if the best she could do was stay here all night until Jess checked in, then she wouldn’t abandon her post.

  “Jess, this is PEAK. Come in.”

  Sierra sat at the dispatcher desk of PEAK HQ. The sun hung low, long shadows pressed into the room, and the smell of burned cookies saturated the air. Silence except for the static of the radio.

  She wasn’t a rescuer, didn’t know the tactics, strategies, and methods of the trained EMTs and mountain rescue specialists of PEAK Rescue.

  But even Sierra knew Jess Tagg could die on that charred mountain if the team didn’t find her soon.

  “Jess, if you can’t answer, just know we’re not giving up. We’ll find you. I promise.”

  Sierra leaned back, running her hands down her face.

  “Anything?”

  The voice made her turn. Chet had come into the office, looking as exhausted as she felt. He wore a PEAK team gimme cap and a blue windbreaker, lines of worry aging his face.

  “No,” Sierra said.

  “How far has the fire progressed?”

  She glanced up at the radar, the fire display Pete had procured for them to track the wildfires in the park. “It’s heading toward Goat Mountain,” she answered, her voice taut.

  Chet ran his hand over a layer of white whiskers as he bent over the giant topographical map in the center of the room. “According to Miles, the fire has cut off the Ranger Creek Trail. The forest service is closing Going-to-the-Sun Road.”

  Oh no. After a year as the team’s administrative assistant, Sierra possessed a thorough knowledge of the terrain of Glacier National Park.

  Of course, the daily weather reports, the giant map plastered to the wall, and the numerous callouts that brought PEAK Rescue to all four corners of Glacier National Park helped.

  Going-to-the-Sun Road traversed the park, east to west. “If they close the road, how will Jess get out?”

  Chet stood up, and his mouth tightened into a grim line.

  Don’t cry.

  Because rescuers didn’t give up. At least the PEAK team didn’t, and right now, she wanted to be just as brave, just as smart, just as dependable as Gage, Ty, Jess, Kacey, and Sam.

  “Keep trying,” Chet said.

  She nodded and turned back to the radio, keeping her voice even, calm, just like Chet had taught her. “Tagg, PEAK, come in.”

  She should have guessed t
hat the routine call would turn south.

  With the firestorm on the mountain creating its own weather, what should have been a simple drop and extract had turned precarious.

  Chet had filled her in when she’d arrived at PEAK. The wind had been cycloning at the top of the cliff, and Kacey struggled to hold the chopper steady enough to rig the ropes and haul the litter in. Thus, she’d lowered the chopper to the cliff’s ledge. There, she held it while EMTs Gage Watson and Jess Tagg loaded the first injured firefighter into the chopper.

  Sierra had heard enough stories from Pete Brooks and Miles Dafoe, their wild land firefighter experts, to visualize the flames torching the treetops, the choking black smoke, the toxic creosote and ash that hung in the air. The chopper only churned that debris up, clogging the air, blinding them, and whipping the fire back into a fury.

  And with it, a rescue rope. It flew up and tangled in a rotor, and the rotor sheered off, crippling the chopper. Miraculously, Kacey managed to put them down at a nearby campground. All passengers safe.

  Well, except for Jess. Who’d been left on the cliff.

  And, in the two hours since then, unaccounted for.

  Sierra had mixed up a batch of cookies as she listened to the follow-up rescue on the radio, where Ben and Sam took four-wheelers into the crash site. Her silly attempt at helping. Small comfort when lives hung in the balance, but that was her job. Pay the bills, clean the office, run the schedule, and make sure PEAK ran on all engines.

  Which included the traditional, fresh-baked cookies for the team when they returned. She was responding to the timer beeping, turning it off and reaching for her oven mitts, when she heard Ben’s words.

  “Jess is missing. We’ve patrolled the riverbed—she’s not here.”

  Sierra forgot the cookies, ran back to the dispatch desk. “Keep looking. Maybe she climbed up to the top of the cliff.”

  Next to her, Chet King shook his head in a sort of frustrated eruption. Mumbled something about wishing Pete was still around.

  Yeah, well, her too. Because as their climbing expert, he would simply scale the cliff like a goat and find her. And maybe too, Jess wouldn’t be walking around like a zombie, her heart in so many pieces Sierra didn’t have a clue how to help her paste it back together.

  Maybe. Or maybe, with Pete around, it would only worsen the heartache of seeing someone daily that you could never have.

  That, Sierra knew too well how to deal with. Ignore and pretend.

  While she called out for Jess, the cookies roasted to a crispy black, and smoke fogged the kitchen.

  Oh yeah, she was a real asset to the team.

  Somehow when she’d left her job as Ian Shaw’s executive assistant over a year ago, she’d envisioned herself actually contributing. She didn’t have the bravado of EMT Jess Tagg, or the mountaineering skills of EMT Gage Watson, or even the smarts of Sam Brooks, their deputy liaison, but she longed to be someone who made a difference. Like Ty Remington. Sure, he wasn’t flying anymore, but he still went on callouts, assisted in searches, helped coordinate rescues. And with Pete Brooks gone, moving on to greener pastures as a disaster incident commander with the Red Cross, she sort of hoped there might be a slot open to her.

  Not that she had any training, really, but she could learn.

  Someday wear the jacket, be a part of the PEAK team roster.

  “I’m going out to the barn to check on the retrieval of the chopper,” Chet said now. “Let me know if you get ahold of her. We’re running out of time.”

  Sierra nodded, sank again into her chair, and repeated for the thousandth time, “Please, Jess, come in.”

  Please.

  2

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, BROKE?”

  Dex had chased him back to the ranch, the expansive ten-thousand-square-foot lodge home that sported a separate wing for Dex, along with guest quarters. Ian hit the showers before the inquisition could start.

  Dex saved it for the moment after the hostess sat them in Dex’s favorite alcove at the Hondo, San Antonio’s most popular steakhouse and Dex’s flagship restaurant.

  Steak sizzled on an open barbecue pit at the far end of the restaurant, a great stone fireplace hosted a flickering fire, and the French doors opened to a patio on which a local country singer crooned covers. The Hondo boasted decorations made from cattle country—from the cowhide barstools to a mounted longhorn over the bar—and smelled of hickory, the craft beer made on-site, and not a little Texas swagger.

  “Define broke,” Dex said as Ian opened the menu.

  “Are the mussels fresh?” Ian asked.

  “Handpicked, every day, right out of Galveston. Again, how broke?”

  Ian closed the menu, put it down, pressed his hand on the leather exterior. “Okay, how about all my liquid funds, bank accounts, a few stocks, money market accounts and mutual funds, drained as of today. I’m even selling my plane.”

  It wasn’t as if he couldn’t pay the electric bill, but until next quarter’s dividends, he was a man without ready cash. More, the feds had frozen his funds, lest he try and move them to some untouchable offshore account before they finished totaling up all his fines.

  “And I’m not done. I need to raise more cash.”

  Dex held up his hand to the waiter who stopped at the table. The man backed away.

  “I could use some water,” Ian said.

  “What happened? Start at the beginning. I mean, I saw the news, the fires, but how did it happen?”

  Ian took a breath and grinned at the woman at the door just approaching the hostess stand. Long blonde hair, shapely, smart, and dressed like the gorgeous businesswoman she was, Noelly Crawford knew how to enter a room.

  She turned as many eyes as Dex had, walking in with his easy Texas saunter. Dex, with his tousled golden blond hair and athlete’s build, dressed tonight in a sleek pair of black dress pants, a light blue shirt open at the neck, and shiny black boots, reminded Ian afresh of the difference between being born into money and eking it out of your sweat and blood.

  Ian still had to do a double take in the mirror at the man he’d become.

  Dex had stopped looking a long time ago.

  “You invited your sister,” Ian said now, his voice low.

  “Of course. She’d kill me if she didn’t get to see you.” Dex winked.

  Ian hadn’t seen Noelly since the charity ball in New York City, where he’d been auctioned off as an eligible bachelor—to Sierra, a move he’d engineered, hoping to take her to a romantic dinner.

  Confess his feelings.

  But before that, well . . . those memories of Noelly rushed back. Oh boy.

  “So,” Dex said, “make it snappy. How did you manage to set half of eastern Montana on fire?”

  Right. He looked at Dex. “An oil drill blew up in the eastern Montana fields this summer, causing massive fires in the oil fields there. The fire took out an entire town. The government needed someone to blame, so . . .” Ian raised a shoulder. “They started with thirty million dollars, but if I know the government, they’re just getting started.”

  Dex’s mouth opened. “Ouch.”

  “I don’t care about the fines. But the money needs to go to actually help these people rebuild their lives, their homes. I need to liquidate, raise more money. You wouldn’t be interested in buying the Montana Rose, would you? Hey, Noelly!”

  He slid out of the booth and gave her a smile. “You look fantastic, as usual.”

  Noelly wore a simple black dress that hugged her slender curves so sinfully that Ian popped her a kiss on her cheek but averted his eyes.

  Mostly because after spending the year watching Sierra avoid him, his emotions were stretched thin. And it felt too good to have a beautiful woman look at him with a gleam in her eye.

  Noelly curled her manicured fingers around his arm, caught his gaze with her pretty blue eyes. “You can’t just pop into town without warning like this. I was nearly in Paris.” She pursed her lips, shook her head. “If Dex hadn’t
called me this morning, I’d be having crepes under the Eiffel Tower right now.” She touched his neck where his collar opened. “Of course, we could still go. Have crepes by morning.”

  He caught her hand, glanced at Dex. Back at Noelly. Stop. Please.

  “I’m only in town for a day. I’m headed to Galveston tomorrow.”

  He slid into the booth, and she scooted in beside him. Her husky, dark scent stirred around him. And for a second, the crazy, forbidden urge to simply wrap an arm around her, pull her against himself—no.

  Except, why not? Because even though the thought of taking Noelly in his arms felt like a fist in his gut, he should probably figure out how to get over Sierra. Date.

  Start living again.

  “I’m selling the Montana Rose,” he said, reaching for the water the waiter had dropped off.

  “What? But I’ve never even seen her,” Noelly said.

  “He’s never taken her out,” Dex added.

  Dex had ordered a bottle of Cabernet, something from his private reserve, and now the waiter returned, uncorked it.

  “Why not?” Noelly asked.

  Ian shrugged. “No time.” But he saw Dex raise an eyebrow. His friend knew him too well.

  “He needs the cash,” Dex said. “Got a government fine. I found him on the corner with a cardboard sign.”

  Noelly grinned at Dex, then turned back to Ian. “Really?”

  “No. I was in the area.” He shot a look at Dex. That joke felt a little too close to home.

  “You should take the yacht out at least once before you sell it,” Noelly said. “Maybe I should go to Galveston with you.”

  Dex again, raising an eyebrow. Ian ignored him. “That would be, uh, fun, Noelly. But I need to get back to Montana. My foreman is working on cleanup from the fire, and I’m selling off some cattle and my breeding bull.”

  Noelly pressed her hand over his. “What about that assistant you had—Savannah? Can’t she hold down the fort? She always seemed so capable.”

  “Sierra? She doesn’t work for me anymore. But yes, she was fantastic.”

  More than fantastic—she’d kept his world from flying apart after Esme vanished.

  No, kept him from flying apart.