Page 8 of Mountain Men Heroes
She pushed into the small opening that led deeper into the cavern, passed the initial wide chamber and into a place the cold wind couldn’t follow.
In a few steps she kneeled by the crates and thumbed through the contents. Nothing stood out.
If she wanted to make it down before she lost all light she had to hurry. She returned to the entrance and scanned the horizon. He’d said she’d find it here, that all she had to do was look hard enough. Only, she wished she knew what it was. Frustration tore a gargled scream from her throat.
“Why can’t you ever just tell the truth? Why! Why the riddles and games?” She kneeled in the growing amount of snow, placing the bag by her knee.
“This was such a terrible idea.” She pounded a fist into the snow and let the horror and anger of coming all the way out here for nothing feed the drive behind her force. He fostered such a soul-deep hatred for anyone with the name Savage, why the hell would he send her back into the town that carried their name? Maybe the medicines had messed with his mind? Maybe she needed meds.
She’d come a long way and risked more than her neck to play some kind of game.
Anger forced her to her feet in a rush, and she stormed to the ledge. She had to be the biggest fool. With jerky movements, she gathered her bag. Thunder pounded against the earth. “What the heck is that?” Crouched low she scanned the horizon. Since when did thunder come from the ground?
Esmeralda turned a one-eighty as fear gripped her in its ironclad fist. Her throat closed the second a startled scream worked its way up her windpipe.
Her head jerked around and she froze in place as a bear of a man came barreling toward her.
Four
Drake’s cock throbbed in time with the beat of the rotor blades. He clenched his fists around the cyclic and leveled out Betty for decent, trying really hard to quell the urge to belt out a soul-cleansing roar. Or punch someone, mainly his nosy little brother. “Man, I don’t know if you have the best timing or the worst.”
“Probably all a matter of perspective.” Ethan’s retort crackled over their closed coms system. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
Red tinted his vision. That perpetual nothing ever bothers me stupid, little smirk was parked on his brother’s face just to taunt him. He knew damn well it irritated the hell out of him on normal days. Today, it downright made him see red.
“How could I? And why the hell did you do that?” Only in the last fifteen minutes of their flight did the turbulence level out enough for him to nail his brother with a glare that could melt polar ice caps. He needed more time to formulate a plan to tell her that her father had reached out to him a few days ago. Her being here meant the man he once hated had passed.
Being thrown together with Esme before he could get a handle on the scrambled emotional mess he called a brain sat like a pound of rocks in his gut.
“What?” Paying attention to Betty’s controls, Drake maneuvered the chopper between the sea of pines and touched down in the designated spot big enough to accommodate the size of their bird.
Perfect every time.
Back to glaring at Ethan, Drake flicked the dial on the radio to call in their position. “Home base, this is Big Bear, we’ve landed and are on site. Base One will be in contact. Have paramedics on standby.”
“Copy that, Big Bear. We’ll be here. And guys, be careful up there. This looks bad.” Their kid sister’s ominous warning of the approaching storm took a little air out of his sails.
Base One was just the beginning and they had a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. From here they had to hike around the base of Savage Ridge to reach where the climbers were last seen by the patrolling rescue crew with boots already on the ground.
“Playing coy doesn’t suit you, Ethan. You know damn well the more time I spend with her the worse off we all are.”
“Look, you told me yourself you were expecting her. You don’t get answers by keeping people at a distance. No matter if you have a past with her or not. From what you say, her father called you for the favor and not the other way around. The least you’re owed, hell we’re all owed, are some answers.”
“It’s not just about that.” Damn. If shit would just stop happening, he could figure out what the hell he wanted to say to her that didn’t start with I wanna fuck you until we both can’t go anymore. Those things required finesse, more than what he had available at the moment.
“I love Esmeralda like a kid sis, but you, brother, need to face emotions head-on or it’ll take you down. The last five years have been hell with you only everyone else has been too polite in telling you.”
He shot a glare at his brother.
“Yeah, I can see it written all over your face. You more than just miss her.”
“How would you know?”
“I have eyeballs.”
“Let’s see what you’ll do when it’s your turn and you meet someone everyone says you can’t have.”
“Nah, that ain’t happening. I don’t give a shit what everyone says, unlike you. But back to you. Don’t think I haven’t seen you wallow around in your own self-doubt for the last week solid.”