Authors: Tamara Morgan
Tags: #Best Friend's Sister, #Beta Hero, #Brother's Best Friend, #Christmas, #Winter, #Holiday, #Novella, #Short Story, #Romance, #Contemporary Romance, #Search and Rescue, #Love, #Hero is Madly in Love with the Heroine, #Unrequited Love, #Crush
In the Clear (11 page)
“Later,” he lied, reaching for the tent zipper. There was no way he’d get any sleep with her this near, and even he had his limits when it came to self-torture.
Before he could think better of it, he leaned in and brushed a kiss on her forehead. It was light, brotherly even, barely a touch.
It almost killed him.
“Good night, Lexie. Sweet dreams.”
And then he left before he had a chance to screw it up even more.
# # #
Sleep was impossible.
In all her life, Lexie had never felt so tired. She had yet to take off her super-wicking socks, but she was pretty sure blood crusted between every one of her toes, adding a layer of protection and warmth. Her muscles ached with the exertion of climbing mountains, and her head throbbed right in the center—a feeling she knew from experience had the potential to transform into a full-blown migraine, yet another in her long line of personal failings.
And even though she was cocooned in a sleeping bag that had probably cost more than her car, and was being lulled to sleep by gales of wind so loud they could be mistaken for the Caribbean Sea, her eyes refused to stay closed. They were too busy reliving the expression on Fletcher’s face as he’d kissed her goodnight.
Fletcher Owens. The man she knew but didn’t know, the friend she’d taken for granted for so long, had willingly placed his lips on her skin. And her skin liked it.
Her skin freaking
loved
it.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she told herself firmly. “You will not start having inappropriate thoughts about Fletcher. It’s one thing to be an annoying tagalong. An annoying, lovesick puppy is ten times worse.”
Misreading his overtures was all she needed to make her life officially a one-way train wreck—especially since he’d made it so patently clear that even sharing a tent with her was out of the question. The look of downright fear in his eyes when she’d taken off her coat hadn’t helped matters, either.
She sat up and pulled at the cord that locked her into the sleeping bag. It was almost possible to hear the hiss of her body being released from the airtight seal. There was no use pretending to sleep when her services could be used outside. And if all that blood was already crusted in place on her feet, it seemed like a shame to waste it.
In the act of reaching for her coat and boots, Lexie dislodged Fletcher’s bag, a smaller, more serviceable canvas sack she’d seen him pull out of his Monster Pack earlier. The bizarre thought that it must contain things like his underwear flitted through her head.
Boxer briefs.
She couldn’t say for sure how she knew, but the fact that Fletcher wore boxer briefs was cemented in her brain in all the best possible ways. Probably because she loved them, all tight in the right places and sexy without trying too hard. Men’s underwear had come a long way in the past few decades.
And it was the underwear that compelled her to open the sack—she swore. She was a lot of things that drove people crazy, but a snoop was not one of them. She hated those women who obsessively checked their boyfriend’s cell phones and internet history, thought it smacked of desperation. This was a matter of research—a study of the age-old question of what sort of packaging came with the . . . package.
The T-shirt on top smelled like him, a soothing combination of mint and the outdoors. She only held it to her nose briefly, though—none of that creepy deep inhalation stuff. Or only for a second or two, tops.
She should have stopped there. When a girl started clandestinely sniffing a man’s clothes, she’d hit a new kind of low, one that she ought to have been ashamed to even record in a diary. But when she saw the familiar glint of silver next to a pair of thick woolen socks, she couldn’t help but reach for it.
Fletcher’s compass was the same piece of equipment that had held virtually no meaning a few hours ago, but it contained a thousand questions now—all of them wrapped up in the biggest one of all. Why had he been so concerned about whether or not she opened it? Was it something more than a tribute to the man whose death had so deeply affected him?
Her fingers reached for the clasp, and she couldn’t have stopped them any more than she could have prevented her pulse from picking up, leaping in her chest with an erratic thump-thump.
With a furtive glance around—made all the more ridiculous by the fact that the tent was zipped shut—she opened the compass. The mechanics of it were simple and elegant, a lovely, if worn, design along the dials. But Lexie would have been lying if she said she noticed the mechanics of the thing. The real draw was the picture carefully cut and fitted into the upper panel.
It was her.
She didn’t know where the picture had been taken—it was one that hadn’t been shot by Sean or a third-party friend who’d then updated it to Facebook. From her clothes, it was obviously summertime, but the yellow sundress she wore had been tossed in the Goodwill bin forever ago, so it had to be a few years old. She was in profile, watching some kind of commotion on the street, a smile-but-not-quite-a-smile on her face. She looked pretty. Serene, even, which was something few people could accuse her of making a habit of.
Fletcher has a secret picture of me. Fletcher has a secret picture of me that he keeps in his most prized possession.
She snapped the compass shut and shoved it deep in Fletcher’s bag, surprised to find that her hands were shaking.
It was just a picture. It didn’t mean anything. Lots of people carried mementos like that. Police investigators looking for missing people. Parents showing off their new babies. Lovers separated by time or distance or pure, unadulterated desire . . .
That can’t possibly be it.
The unmistakable crunch of heavy booted footsteps on snow approached. Lexie panicked. There was no other word for it. She tossed the bag into the farthest corner of the tent, hoping gravity would rustle the contents enough to give the impression that it had remained untouched. Shoving her feet deep in the sleeping bag, she pulled the rest of it over her body and slumped in the opposite corner just as the zipper began to move.
It was an uncomfortable position, a boot under her face and her arm twisted so far under her torso a sneeze would probably dislocate her shoulder. Still, she forced herself into immobility, doing her best not to wheeze her state of panic into the air.
“Lexie?” Fletcher whispered.
She held her breath.
“Are you asleep?”
How cute was that? Like she could answer if she was.
When he didn’t say anything else and just rustled around for a second near the door, she thought she might actually get out of this alive—or at least before she passed out. But then she felt the sleeping bag shift around her face, followed shortly by the gentle swish of Fletcher’s fingers as he brushed her hair away from her face.
And then nothing. Just a long, still moment in which Fletcher presumably watched her sleep. In all the guidebooks of how to survive as a single woman in this world, one of the top rules was to run, screaming and without looking back, at a man who stood over your bed and merely watched.
The guidebooks were wrong.
Maybe it was the lack of oxygen to her brain, but Lexie suddenly felt as though she were floating. Buoyant, light, held aloft by a power that was greater than herself. Love. It kind of felt like love.
Eventually, she had to breathe. She drew the air in slowly, oxygen filling her lungs and bringing reason back to her thoughts.
But by then, Fletcher had once again disappeared into the night—this time, with his sack and his compass carefully in tow.
Chapter Ten
Fletcher placed a hot, steaming mug in Lexie’s hand, laughing when she made a face. “It’s laced with eight sugars and four creamers. You can barely taste the coffee,” he assured her.
“It’s not the taste,” she muttered. Still half-flushed from sleep, she had the adorable, rumpled look of someone who didn’t enjoy mornings. Especially mornings that took place in the middle of the night, with her breath puffing out among receding stars and newly fallen drifts of snow. “It’s that you can tell with one look how much I need it.”
He didn’t dare contradict her. Telling her that her tousled waves of hair and rosy glow made him long to carry her straight back to bed wouldn’t further his cause. Nor would it help them find the missing woman. “You have a few minutes to let it take effect. Our search party should be heading out in about half an hour.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” Getting Lexie coffee in the morning was something he could definitely get used to.
She rested a hand on his forearm. “Not just for the drink. I meant for . . . everything. But most especially for not asking if I’d like to sit out this one and go back to sleep.”
“You’re part of the team now. In fact, I’m pretty sure they prefer you over me.”
As if on cue, Ace leaped between them, letting out an exaggerated stretch and yawning so wide it was possible to see every last one of his molars. He slung his arm around Fletcher’s neck. A few hours in a tent together, and Fletcher doubted he’d ever be able to retain a cool distance with this man again.
But for the first time, he realized that might not be so bad. Ace was a good guy. He didn’t ask Fletcher any questions about Lexie. He didn’t ask any questions, period.
Ace ribbed him in the side. “There’s no question who we prefer. Hot women always win out—it’s some kind of natural law. I remember this time in Hungary with my buddies, four of us sharing a one-room apartment, no room to scratch our . . . you know whats. No offense, Lexie.”
“I have a brother, Ace. I know what you scratch.”
Ace proceeded to tell a long-winded tale of a fellow world traveler—female, of course, and obviously way out of his league—who eventually kicked them out while they continued to pay her rent.
As he always did in moments like these, Fletcher sort of drifted a step or two back, watching the other two interact. It was fascinating how easy they both made it look.
“You do realize that woman was a con artist, right?” Lexie laughed and shook her head. “She took one look at you guys and took you for all you were worth. Fletcher here would never fall for a pair of fine eyes. You should always travel with someone like him to keep you grounded. Let that be a lesson.”
Ace nodded and scratched his chin, appraising Fletcher with renewed interest. “You might be on to something here. I bet you make a killer designated driver, Fletch.”
Fletcher had to laugh. How had they managed to pull him into this conversation? “Thanks,” he said wryly. “I can see how valuable a boring lump like me could be to your operation.”
“Are you kidding?” Ace clapped a hand on his back. “You’ve got that whole Silent Assassin, Cool Man of Mystery thing going on. We don’t have any silent assassins on our team.”
Lexie nodded, but her expression was hidden behind her coffee cup. “He’s right. I’m beginning to think none of us really knows you.”
“You guys ready to head out?” Lisa interrupted them before Fletcher could make the mistake of saying anything in response. “Max is leading you three plus two more down the south slope. One of the scouts thought they might have seen some abandoned gear that way.”
Fletcher and Lisa exchanged a look. “Clothing or pack?”
Lisa frowned. “Sounds like it might be a jacket. Possibly some gloves.”
That was all they needed to hear. Wordlessly, he and Ace gathered their things—the heavy packs with the first aid gear, radios clipped to their belts, sunglasses for when dawn finally came. Lexie did the same, moving with the kind of efficiency that came with regular practice in the field. She was a natural at this.
“Why is that bad—the gloves and jacket stuff?” she asked.
“It’s not necessarily bad,” he hedged.
“Fletcher.” She didn’t have to say more—he could read that tone loud and clear. She hated being handled with kid gloves. She hated being made to feel small.
So he told her. “It could be either hypothermia or dehydration—probably a little of both. People tend to get confused once it becomes bad enough. They think they’re hot, start taking off layers and leaving them. Usually it also means they’re wandering, not headed for a specific destination anymore. It’s not a good sign, especially since we don’t know how long ago this might have happened.”
She nodded firmly, though he also noticed her lower lip trembled. “Okay. Let’s find her.”
“You’re all set?” he asked. Unable to help himself, he reached out to check the straps of her borrowed pack, tucking in a loose flap and giving a firm yank. When he looked up, it was to find her staring at him with a soft, almost pained expression on her face. It was the kind of expression that made him think she was about to stab him in the heart and wanted to apologize for it ahead of time.
“Fletcher, there’s something I need to ask you . . . ”
He stretched his face into a smile that felt more like a grimace and probably looked like it belonged on a clown. “Ask me on the way. Max is waving us over.”
He turned and stalked away, leaving her to make her own path in his footsteps. That look—it was one he’d had etched into his heart for a long time. It was the look of a woman about to crush a man’s hopes, about to say the words that could never be taken back. It was the look he’d striven to avoid getting from Lexie his whole life.
I must be showing too much.
This was why avoidance was preferable to confrontation, why he tried so hard to keep the spheres of his life separated. He’d much rather keep Lexie an arm’s length away than have her slam the door on their friendship forever.
“All right, team. I want us to keep up a good, stable pace. Communicate. Keep up your fluids. Help one another out. We’re finding Martha today.”
They all nodded, and Fletcher was glad to shove his uncertainties aside to focus on the here and now. It was day two. They had to find Martha today.
Or they risked not finding her at all.
# # #
Fletcher was the first to spot her.
Lexie wasn’t sure what to expect. At the back of the search party, struggling to keep up but not willing to show even an ounce of fatigue, she thought she might have missed something when a cry went up and everyone moved at once.
From the tales she’d heard around the site, the act of finding a missing person was always different—especially when the health of the individual was in question. You wouldn’t think that to look at them right now. Max, Ace, Fletcher, Lisa . . . all of them clicked into action at once. Lisa jumped on the radio to signal the basecamp. Max and Ace ran to the side of the woman slumped against the side of a rock, her bright purple sweater almost a beacon in the snow. Fletcher began efficiently unpacking things they needed.
“Lexie?” he called.
At first, she thought he was making sure she was all right, but then she noticed the nylon bag dangling from his hand and realized he was asking for her help.
Yes.
Help. She could do that. She dropped to her knees next to him.
“What do I do?”
“Pop this up and arrange it over the top of Martha. It’s insulated and should help keep her warm while Ace and Max assess her condition.”
She got to work. As was the case with all their outdoor gear, the tent was a mastery of packaging—almost a full-size tent contained in a bag small enough to fit in the average lunchbox. When she released the catch, it sprang to life and she rearranged it as best she could without getting in the way.
It didn’t work, of course. There was no way to stand next to a woman shivering with fright and favoring a leg wound that looked like it had bled through several layers without feeling positively inept, especially as Ace and Max worked to get her laid out on a stretcher. They started to cover her with thermal blankets, all while making an assessment and asking questions in calm, ordered tones.
“Where does it hurt?”
“How long have you been immobile?”
“Any feeling in your extremities?”
As the questions were sluggishly answered—her head, six hours, none below the site of her injury—Fletcher came forward with a pack of what looked like Capri Sun but was probably some electrolyte-saturated cocktail from space.
“See if you can get her to drink,” Fletcher said, his voice low so as not to interrupt the steady flow of conversation between the two medics.
“Me?”
He nudged the drink closer to her. “And keep her talking, Lexie. Make her comfortable. You’re good at that.”
She met his eyes and nodded. That much she could do.
“Martha?” she asked, slipping off her gloves. Placing a hand gently on Martha’s cheek, which was so cold to the touch it might have been carved of stone, she waited until the woman turned and acknowledged her. “Hey, there. Sounds like you had kind of a rough night, huh?”
A slight movement of the woman’s head signaled her acknowledgment. Lexie smiled and placed the straw between the woman’s lips, which were red and cracked and looked incredibly painful. “Drink up. I don’t know much about this rescue stuff, but I do know they like to push liquids on us. Which is a pain, but it’s the one thing I learned not to argue about. I don’t know how you’ve managed so far, but I’ve had to pee behind no fewer than five trees.”
The woman didn’t respond other than to wince as the men continued working at her feet, so Lexie kept talking. She talked about the roll of biodegradable toilet paper each rescue worker carried in their pack and how she never knew they made gloves with special sensors in the tips so you could still use your smartphones. She talked about how she’d decided she was going to knit each and every last one of them a scarf made of the same neon yellow color they wore on their vests. She talked about how happy Martha’s family was going to be to see her and how they’d probably have a Christmas tree at the hospital and that spending the holiday in a cafeteria would be a story they’d all someday laugh about.
She could have kept going, dwelling on nonsense for hours, but Martha gave her hand a squeeze, and the weathered lines of her face relaxed. It was with some surprise that Lexie noticed the beverage was empty—especially when Fletcher lifted it away from her and smiled his encouragement.
“See?” he said. “Tell her, Martha. Isn’t she great at this? You wouldn’t know it, but this is Lexie’s first rescue.”
“You’re a natural,” Martha croaked. “Don’t let any of them tell you otherwise.”
Lexie felt a profound urge to cry. More than once, she’d heard the murmurs of Max and Ace reach her ears regarding sepsis and frostbite—and she was pretty sure Martha had heard them too. Yet she was providing
her
comfort, telling
her
it would all be okay.
“We wouldn’t dare.” Fletcher looked down on her from his unfathomable heights, a little blurred and multiplied as she tried to blink her vision back to clarity. In a lower voice, he added, “Are you ready? We’re about to carry her out.”
“You, personally?” Lexie asked, horrified. The path they’d taken up here wasn’t an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. Winding back down with an injured woman in tow would be no easy task.
“That’s how this works.” With a grim smile, he turned away to consult with the team.
Lexie’s task from there on out was easy—stay out of the way. She applied her whole concentration to the task, standing quietly aside, watching as they strapped Martha to the stretcher. And as they lifted her up and started moving down the mountain, she had nothing more to do than follow.
The conversation settled down to a low hum of concern as the team moved briskly and efficiently, their steps determined as they arrived at the base of operations. Lexie had never felt so much a part of something and so useless at the same time.
In fact, it felt an awful lot like being placed inside someone’s compass. She was there, and she was valued, but not in any capacity that mattered. Not enough for anyone to actually
need
her.
“They won’t let me ride with her.” Martha’s daughter, a woman about Lexie’s age, appeared at her side. She wore the anxious look of a woman who’d replaced sleep with guilt, food with worry. Lexie took her hand in her own and pressed it, the pair of them watching as radio communications filled the air and Martha was loaded into the waiting ambulance. “I only got to see her for a minute. She seemed okay. She’s okay, right?”
“She looked great to me. I’m no expert, but she was coherent enough to know what was going on. I think that’s what they want.”
“Her leg was bad.”
“It looked that way.”
“They say she might lose it.”
Lexie smiled firmly, unwilling to let this be a sad day. This was a good day. This was the best day. This was Christmas Eve. “Yes, but you still have her. That’s what’s really important here.”
A choked sob escaped the woman’s throat, and Lexie pulled her into a fierce hug. She could feel her tears, warm and wet, on her jawline, and simply held her for as long as she needed. She was exhausted, her arms like a pair of Jell-O tongs, and she could really use a cookie, but not nearly as much as this poor woman needed a friend.
When at last she pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she offered a misty smile. “Thank you so much for finding her.”
“I didn’t do much,” Lexie confessed. She caught a glimpse of Fletcher talking to one of the paramedics who’d arrived with the ambulance. “But I might be able to do this. Wait here a second, would you?”
Not waiting for a reply, she moved to Fletcher’s side and tugged on his sleeve. She was grateful for the layers of material between them. Touching him right now—actually coming into contact with his skin—would have proven too much. All she really wanted to do was plunge into his arms and cry into his neck until she was ready to let go.
She didn’t know why. She wasn’t
sad
. This story had a happy ending. The woman was found, the heroes had done their duty, a family would share the holiday together.
And the best part was, she got to witness it firsthand. These things should have made her content, at peace. But looking up at Fletcher, his solemn face easing at the sight of her, she wasn’t sure peace was something she could ever look forward to again.
“About thirty more minutes, Lex, and we can head out.” He smiled. “I bet you’re regretting the impulse that brought you out here now, aren’t you?”
Despite the warmth of his smile—or perhaps because of it—she spoke up. “It wasn’t an impulse. Why do people always assume that the choices I make in the heat of the moment are the wrong ones? Maybe the fact that it takes you years to decide anything is the real problem.”
Fletcher looked as though she had struck him, growing white and then red, hurt sweeping across his brow.
“Oh, God,” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Except she did. Fletcher had been secretly participating in this group for years, refusing to share what was obviously one of the most important parts of his life. So how long had he kept a picture of her in a compass, never once doing or saying anything to indicate she meant more to him than a friend?
It wasn’t fair. Maybe she made mistakes. Maybe she sometimes acted without thinking, gave in to flights of fancy, leaped without looking. At least she was doing
something
.
“You know what? I take it back. I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry at all.” Before he could respond, she continued with her request. “Martha’s daughter really wants to ride in the ambulance. Do you think you could talk to Lisa to make that happen?”
“It’s not really Lisa’s jurisdiction . . . ”
She didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “Figures. I’ll find a way to make it happen by myself.”
In an unprecedented Fletcher move, he grabbed her by the hand, holding her back from the killer self-righteous stomp-off she’d been planning. They both had gloves on, but that didn’t change the fact that they were palm to palm, fingers very close to entwining. In all the years they’d known each other, they’d never once held hands.
“Lexie—what is the matter with you? If it’s that important to you, let me see what I can do. There’s no need to yell at me.”
“Isn’t there?” Yep. She was definitely yelling now.
Fletcher looked around, clearly taken aback at making a scene in front of his people. Lexie knew it was immature of her, that the right thing to do would be to take care of Martha and her daughter and have this conversation somewhere private later. There were obviously some important things that needed to be aired between her and Fletcher, and she felt a sudden urge to rip everything open and throw it out right there. Messy and dramatic and out of place and
human
.
“Would it kill you to just say it? Would it really be the worst thing in the world to let go and see what happens?”
The shock on his face gave way to a firm resignation. “You’re making a scene for no reason. I don’t understand what it is you want me to say.”
“Yes, you do.”
Firm resignation gave way to horror. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw it, Fletcher. I saw the picture. I snooped in your bag and I fished out the compass and I looked inside. It was a horrible, invasive thing to do—the sort of thing I do all the time because I have no boundaries.”
“You had no right to do that.” Even though Lexie was still yelling, Fletcher’s voice dropped to barely a whisper.
“I know. And I did it anyway.”
“What did you—” He seemed unable to finish the sentence, so Lexie gave him a few full-volume options to choose from.
“What did I think? What did I feel? What did I plan to do about it?” She hadn’t really had time to process any of these answers, so she said the first thing that came to mind for each one. “I think your subconscious left it there for me to find. I feel like I don’t even know you. And I don’t know what I plan to do about it. I think the real question here is what do
you
plan to do?”
Her answer was a big, fat nothing.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “It’s just an old picture I found.”
“And that’s what you’re going with?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’ll talk to Lisa for you. I’m sure they can coordinate something with Martha’s daughter.”
She waited. She was prepared to wait much longer, determined to force him into saying something, revealing more, sweeping her into his arms and putting an end to the constant whirling inside her stomach.
But before she could do more than wish, he turned on his heel and made for the ambulance.
# # #
The car ride down the mountain had to be one of the longest of Fletcher’s life.
He’d been able to do what Lexie asked, and a tearful, exhausted-looking woman had hugged her thanks moments before she disappeared into the waiting doors of the ambulance. If he’d thought such a tiny act of heroism would redeem him in Lexie’s eyes, he’d been sadly mistaken.
But what did she expect him to do, on the mountain, in the cold, with everyone he respected watching? If she’d seen the picture, she knew. She knew how he felt, knew his last secret. He’d never thought Lexie, of all people, would be so cruel as to demand an answer without first providing her own.
And now she was punishing him. With silence and an unyielding grip on the steering wheel, her eyes never leaving the road.
“First thing I always do when I get home from a winter rescue is take a shower. As hot as I can stand.”
“Hmm.”
“And I usually eat much more than is good for me.”
Her noise this time was less articulate than the last one.
“Sleep is always hard, though.” Speaking to an angry wall was turning out to be much easier than speaking to an actual human. “I have a hard time turning everything off inside my head. It’s even harder with the ones that don’t end well.”
She pulled the car over. It wasn’t a great spot for it, what with a snow bank cutting down most of the shoulder and a two-lane highway just inches away, but Fletcher refrained from commenting. He thought for a minute that she was going to order him out, make him walk the ten miles or so back into town, but she merely turned the car off and adjusted herself to face him.