Montana Rescue (The Wildes of Birch Bay Book 2) (16 page)

The car stopped, and Harper opened the passenger door, and Nick finally recognized Jewel in the driver’s seat. He tossed up a hand to Jewel. She waved, then drove off. Harper didn’t look his way as she got into her jeep.

Nick’s chest ached. Was she seriously going to leave without saying a word?

The jeep remained silent, the engine not turning over—but neither did Harper get back out. Nick maintained his position by the barn. Any discussion at this point had to be initiated by her. When the vehicle’s door once again opened, Nick released a sigh of relief. She stepped out, and the minute her footfalls headed in his direction, he moved toward the house. They met about thirty feet from the deck.

“Can we talk?” Harper asked. She shaded her eyes as she looked up at him.

“Of course.”

They walked side by side to the deck, and when Harper lowered to a wicker chair sitting in the corner by itself, Nick kept his opinion on her choice of seating to himself. He pulled out a chair at the patio table and waited. They’d not parted on the best of terms, and he had zero idea where to start. He’d let her figure that out.

“First of all,” she finally began. She licked her lips and scrubbed her palms down over the denim covering her thighs. “Don’t call me honey.”

He lifted a brow. “Excuse me?”

“You called me honey the other day when we were fighting. I’m not your honey. We’re just having sex.”

He held his palms up as if in surrender. “My bad. I will never again call you honey. It was an unacceptable crime on my part to indicate through words that I like you.”

She rolled her eyes at him, and for the first time since she’d lost control at the wheel of the Ferrari, he began to breathe marginally easier. “And don’t make me laugh while I’m still mad,” she grumbled.

“That one I can’t promise.” He gave her a small smile. “It’s part of my charm.”

She blew out a breath then, and a slight curve finally found her lips. She shook her head at him, as if unsure where to start, then opened her mouth and her words tumbled out. “I scared myself the other day. When I wrecked. You were right. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die. And I swear, I don’t want to die. But my life flashed before my eyes in that moment. All the things I once wanted. All the things I haven’t done.”

Her voice broke, and Nick rose and dragged his chair over to sit in front of her.

“But you
didn’t
die,” he said calmly.

“And then there’s . . .” She blew out another breath and looked away, and Nick reached out and captured her hand.

“Look at me. Tell me what’s going on in your head.”

“You weren’t wrong, okay?” Her eyes were hollow when they turned back. “I do tempt fate. I do. I know it. But the thing is, I had no idea that’s what I was doing. Because I’m so angry.” Her fingers squeezed his. “Thomas died, and he shouldn’t have.”

He nodded. He understood that kind of anger. “Do you want to tell me about the accident?” he offered. “Would that help?”

He knew of the details because he’d read about it in the news. But she’d actually been there. She’d jumped from the plane with him, and her husband had died in front of her. Nick couldn’t imagine that kind of experience, nor its impact on a person.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered. “All this anger . . . it’s exhausting. But I can’t figure out how to move past it. Or if I even want to. And I lied to you.” She stared at him, the intensity on her face breaking his heart. “I did panic. Once. Just once in my whole life. And because of it, Thomas is dead.”

“No,” he began, but she covered his mouth with her fingers.

She nodded. “It was my fault. He would be here today if not for me.” She let out a dry chuckle. “Or he’d be in California if he’d never met me.”

Nick no longer cared if she wanted her space or not. She needed him. And he was here for her. He picked her up and resettled them both in the chair she’d been sitting in.

Chapter Fifteen

F
ear had dried out Harper’s throat, but now that she was here—now that she’d started talking—she didn’t want to stop. She’d kept so much bottled up, maybe sharing
would
help. And if not, she certainly couldn’t imagine it would hurt at this point.

“As you can guess,” she began, “Thomas’s death was hard on me.”

Nick’s arms hugged her tight, and she tilted her head to look up at him.

“You know how he died, right? And that I was there?”

“I do. And I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well. We all have burdens to bear,” she said softly. “This is mine.” She tucked herself back against his chest. “Anyway, it was a gorgeous day that morning. Perfect jumping weather. We jumped all the time, and had for years. But that morning, our jump was a celebration.”

“What were you celebrating?” Nick asked.

She looked up at him again, trying to decide how much to share, and settled on the facts as they’d been known at the time. “The start of our family.”

“You were pregnant?”

“We planned to get pregnant. We’d been playing for years, living our lives for the moment, but we’d always promised each other that when the time was right, we’d settle down and focus on a family. Less about adventure. And the time was right.”

“So you jumped as one last hoorah?” he guessed.

“Exactly.”

Only, she hadn’t told Thomas that morning that her period was late. And she was like clockwork. It had only been one day, but she’d known.

She’d just known.

So she’d picked up a pregnancy test before heading out, intending to take it with Thomas after they’d made it back to the ground. She swallowed the details that she wasn’t willing to part with and continued. “It’s a simple story, really. My chute didn’t open.”

“And your backup chute?”

She grimaced. “That’s when I panicked. All I could think . . .” Was that she was going to kill the baby that might be growing inside her. That she shouldn’t have jumped given her suspicions. That they could have celebrated by having a nice romantic dinner, instead.

But she’d always wanted to do things big. Hadn’t that been the basis for her in-laws’ hatred? Not only had she convinced Thomas to live
here
, but she’d then encouraged his irresponsibility.

“I couldn’t think straight,” she said, forcing herself to continue. “It didn’t even occur to me to open my backup chute. My mind just froze. Thomas saw what was happening and dove through the air to get to me. I was flailing. Literally. As if it were my first solo jump and I had no clue what to do. It was ridiculous.”

Nick gave her a squeeze, and the reminder that she was in his arms soothed her.

“He calmed me. He caught up with me and held on to me. Kissed me.” She stared off in the distance toward the lake as she told the story. Her nose burned. “He looked me in the eye and got me focused. We’d dropped low at this point, but we still had time to get down safely. He got the cord for my backup chute in my hand, then he gripped his cord. On the count of three he pushed off, and we both opened our chutes. Only . . .”

She blinked as the lake went unfocused.

“Only, our chutes got tangled,” she said more softly. “I’m not sure why. He didn’t get far enough away before I opened mine, I guess. But we got tangled up, and though both partially opened and they did slow us, we were still dropping too fast. And we weren’t heading for open land any longer. When we looked down, it was trees or power cords. With no time to avoid both.

“We tried again to get apart, but . . .” She had to pause and catch her breath. Her breathing had sped up.

“Stop,” Nick said. “You don’t have to finish.”

“No.” She shook her head, almost frantic with the need to get through the story. “He died because of me. Because I panicked. If I’d just pulled the backup chute, he wouldn’t have been there beside me. We wouldn’t have gotten tangled. And then”—she gulped—“when we headed for the tree, the idiot wrapped his entire body around mine so
he
would be the one to take the brunt of the fall. Stupid—”

“He saved you,” Nick interrupted.

“Yes.” The word came out as hard as she felt. Thomas shouldn’t have died. Not for her.

She thought about his last words.
Don’t quit living because of this. Promise me. Don’t ever let anything slow you down.

She’d refused to make that promise. She’d refused to consider life without him.

When they’d crashed, and she’d heard so many snapping sounds, she’d sworn to herself that none of them were from him. That she hadn’t honestly just heard her husband’s body breaking into pieces.

But she’d been pretty sure she was wrong.

She scrubbed at her face with the heel of her hands as if expecting to find tears there, but her skin came away dry. She stared at her palms, holding them up in front of her. As if the lines marking her skin had the answers. Thomas had died. And on the very same day, she’d gotten confirmation that she was pregnant. That the baby was fine.

“I’m sorry for the things I said the other day,” Nick said, and Harper looked up at him. Dazed. She’d forgotten that he was there. “About you panicking,” he added. His skin seemed pale, and she put her fingers to his cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he finished on a whisper.

“You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“I do. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I shouldn’t have—” His jaw clenched, and he pressed into her hand. “I hurt you with my words.”

“You were just trying to help.” She traced her thumb over the line of his jaw. “I get that. And I actually think it did help. I mean, I’m here now, aren’t I? I’m facing my anger. I’m talking about the accident. It’s the first time I have, by the way. I did rant to my mom
about
the accident at one point, but I didn’t talk about it. Not like this. I could never talk about it like this.”

He didn’t say anything else, so she put her head back on his shoulder and enjoyed the feel of his heartbeat underneath her body.

“Tell me about him,” Nick said after a few minutes.

“About Thomas?”

“Facing the accident brought back awful memories. It’s hard on you.” He glanced down at her, and she saw concern in the tenderness of his gaze. “You should remember the good things, too. Tell me about him.”

Her hand shook as she touched a single finger to the center of Nick’s mouth. It had softened along with his eyes. “Okay.” She nodded. She liked that idea. “Where should I start?’

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Tell me what you loved most about him.”

That was easy. “That he was willing to try anything.” Though she’d sometimes questioned if his parents had been right in their accusations. “And that he had a heart of gold.”

She shifted on Nick’s lap, bringing her legs up and draping them over the arm of the chair. Her move pulled her away from his chest, but he left his arm behind her. He dropped his other hand to her lap, and she leaned back and tilted her face up to the sky. There were no clouds today, only blue as far as the eye could see. And she couldn’t help but think that Thomas was looking down on them.

Would he be happy to see her sitting in another man’s lap? To see her less sad for once?

She brought her eyes back to Nick’s. “I once told you that he had no siblings, but that’s not quite true. He had an older brother who died. Thomas idolized him as a kid. Harry died when Thomas was ten, and Thomas decided on the spot to spend the rest of his life honoring his brother. Harry had wanted to go into the army, so Thomas went for him. Harry had never seen a challenge that he wouldn’t take, so you couldn’t have made Thomas back down.”

“What killed him?”

She swept a hand out in front of her. “This place. He was in the area with a buddy for a birthday trip. He’d just turned sixteen, and his parents had let the two of them stay at the lake house for the week. They’d gone to Huckleberry Canyon but got trapped in a thunderstorm. He broke a leg trying to get to shelter. Clear through the skin. So his buddy went for help. Search and rescue was called out, but by the time they found him, Harry had apparently tried to move again. Possibly he’d been dazed due to his pain. They found him seventy feet below a nearby ledge.” She recalled Thomas’s pain as he’d told her the story. “His body had been so broken. I don’t think any of them ever recovered from his death.”

“I can imagine. The elements here can be brutal.”

“When Thomas first told me about it, I remembered hearing about the accident. I’d been ten at the time, too. And I’d wanted more than anything to go out and help find that missing boy. I was certain I could locate him if only Mom and Dad would let me go.”

Nick’s fingers danced lightly along the skin of her arm. “You used to do similar things a lot, didn’t you? Rescue animals, raise money for needy people. All kinds of causes you led the charge for, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“I always had a mission.”

Until lately. These days, she merely flew her helicopter when she felt like it. And pretty much sat in her house the rest of the time.

“Anyway,” she continued, pushing
that
thought away to reexamine later, “after his brother’s death, his parents sold their vacation home and refused to come back.”

“Thomas falling for you . . . that had to be tough.”

“For them,” she said. “Thomas had actually always intended to come back; they just didn’t know it. Thomas tried to change his parents’ minds about this place. About me. But they wouldn’t listen. Threatened to disown him. But he had a trust fund from his great-grandfather. His parents couldn’t keep him from it. And to rub salt in their wounds, when Harry died,
his
trust transferred to Thomas, too. The day Thomas got access, he bought the helicopter. We came home and started volunteering in the Flathead Valley Search and Rescue program right after.”

She saw the surprise on Nick’s face. “He was a pilot, too?”

“No, he was a flight medic. But we made a good team. Of course, we had paying jobs, as well. I had my flight business, and he’d gotten hired locally as a paramedic until he could get on full time with the SAR program. We refused to simply live off his trust. That’s not who either of us was.” Her voice grew melancholy. “I’d had interest in SAR most of my life. It’s why I wanted to fly in the army. Then I met Thomas and learned about his brother, and our dreams became one. It seemed like what we were meant to be, you know? Fate,” she finished on a whisper.

She pressed her check into Nick’s palm as he brushed a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Are you still involved with search and rescue?”

“No.” She squeezed up her shoulders in a tight shrug. “I can’t. Not without him.”

And that made her feel hollow inside.

Nick put his arms around her and held her tight, and as she sat there in the comfort of his lap, she became grateful for two things. That he’d pushed her to talk about Thomas. And that he’d been here when she’d needed him. She’d had no idea that simply talking would help ease her grief.

Not that it was gone.

But for the first time since Thomas had died, she could feel the good of what they’d once been. Her anger sat behind her memories now. Instead of front and center.

She tilted her mouth up and touched the warm skin on the underside of Nick’s chin, and when his caring eyes peered down at her, she said, “Make love to me.”

He didn’t immediately respond. Just studied her as if trying to determine her reasoning.

“You make me feel,” she explained. “More things than anger and pain. That’s what I need. That’s why I invited you into my room that first night. No one has done that for me since Thomas.”

He stroked his hand over her hair. “You’re okay? We can keep talking.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”

There might be more to the story, but not more she was willing to share.

She stared at Nick. Waiting. She needed him to understand. She’d given him all she could. When he finally nodded, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. He kissed her. His lips gently touching hers. Clinging. But he kept it PG. And when he lifted his head, she could see such tenderness in his eyes. “You’re sure?” he asked.

“I am.”

So he kissed her again, and this time didn’t pull away nearly as fast. One hand slid along her outer thigh, and she felt like a cat, readying to stretch in the sun. “Where to?” he muttered against her lips. “It’s private back here. No one would see us. Or we could go inside.”

Out here?

She pulled back and looked around. The idea had merit. And it turned her on. She caught Nick’s chin with her fingers, then rubbed the pad of her thumb over the length of his bottom lip. He was a good man.

“Out here,” she said. A shiver shook her when he sucked the tip of her thumb into his mouth. “It’s a beautiful day,” she continued. “And I want to live right in the middle of it.”

He nodded in agreement and stood with her in his arms. He moved them both to the matching sectional and stretched her out before him, but when she reached for the top button of her shirt, he stopped her.

“Let me.” His words were low and heavy, and he sat beside her and moved her hands to her sides. “Let me take care of everything.”