Operation Mountain Recovery Read online

  When he got to the point of thinking maybe he should call his mother for advice, he burst out laughing at himself. Not that Mom didn’t give good—occasionally great—advice, but he knew perfectly well she’d be on the next plane back if she thought he was as...confused as he was.

  Thirty-two years old and running to Mom for advice.

  The self-chiding didn’t work, mainly because of that realization that his mother was far from a hovering mother type, and she was smart as a whip.

  Okay, maybe he would call her. Later. If he couldn’t work through this on his own. Although he had no idea how he would explain.

  Hey, Mom, I’ve gone from a fragile flower to a diagnosed crazy lady. Ain’t that great?

  With a great effort, he slammed the door shut on his roiling thoughts and contemplated the landscape as he got closer to the lookout. Last thing he needed was to end up over the side like Ashley had because he wasn’t paying attention. It was above freezing tonight, but sometimes it took the ice on pavement a while to get the message.

  He slowed, then parked in his usual spot safely off the road. It was above freezing, but not by a lot, so he grabbed his black knit hat and pulled it on. It was one of his most used pieces of equipment during the fall and winter, and he needed to remind his mother, who had made it for him, of that again. She’d done it with some superwarm fiber, knitted in a lining that doubled the warmth and added subtle flaps that covered his ears without making him look like an overaged skateboarder.

  It also had a small red heart knitted into that lining, which she’d told him was because her heart was always with him. It had seemed impossibly corny at the time, but every time he put it on, he thought of that, and it oddly made him more determined to live up to her love and faith.

  And reminded him of how lucky he was to still have her in his life.

  He got out, his breath sending clouds into the night air. He glanced upward. Miss you, Dad.

  He didn’t even need his flashlight, so bright was the moonlight. He walked past the front of the unit toward the narrow, short path that led to his spot, the boulder with the odd shape that was conveniently like a seat, positioned for that view out over the mountains that always brought him peace. It was a fluke, he knew, a happenstance of nature, but sometimes in his more fanciful moods, he wondered if some long-ago denizen of these mountains had carved it out and it had just been smoothed over time. But the origin didn’t matter—what mattered was that he could be alone to think here.

  Except...he wasn’t alone.

  He saw the person the moment he rounded the big evergreen. Standing on the edge a few feet from his rock, staring not at the incredible view but downward, and shivering in clothes far too lightweight for a night in the mountains in January. Something about the posture, the set of the head, the slight sway of the body, warned him. He’d seen it before, on a different edge, but with the same sway, as if the person were fighting inwardly. That time it had ended well, and he’d grabbed the young veteran in time.

  But this was a woman.

  His gut knew—and knotted—before his brain accepted the fact.

  Ashley.

  But then she turned, looked at him, and something else crashed into his mind. Her shirt, that too-light, almost summery shirt, was stained with something dark, in small spots on the right sleeve at the wrist.

  And although the moonlight leached out all color, he somehow knew this, too.

  Blood.

  What the hell had happened now?

  Chapter 11

  “Don’t, Ashley. Please, don’t.”

  Until he’d spoken she’d half thought she’d imagined him. Why would he actually be here at this hour, on a Sunday night? She supposed she was gaping at him, but she couldn’t help it.

  He took a step toward her. Instinctively she backed a step away, to maintain the distance. She couldn’t seem to think clearly when he was too close, and she needed to think clearly now. He froze, and she belatedly realized that step she’d taken had been toward the edge.

  “Why are you here?” she whispered.

  “I...needed to think. This is my spot to think.”

  As he echoed her own thoughts, something curled oddly inside her. “I know. You told me. So I came here. I needed to think, too.”

  “It’s the best spot for it I’ve ever found.”

  “I...can see why.”

  What she couldn’t see was why she was even talking to him. Because while she had come here to think, she had already reached her conclusion before he’d arrived. After what had happened tonight, she really had no choice left. This simply could not go on.

  She could not go on. Not like this.

  “Don’t ruin it for me, Ashley.” His voice was so soft, so full of pleading it made her ache inside when she thought she had no room for any more pain. “Don’t make this a place I can’t come to anymore.”

  She went still. She hadn’t thought of this, had been so wrapped up in her own internal pain that she hadn’t thought of what this might do to him at all. Which seemed beyond unkind, given that he’d saved her once. Of course, throwing away the life he’d risked his own to save was even worse, she supposed.

  Odd how her mind seemed to still work so reasonably, so logically on one level while descending into utter chaos on the other, the one she had to live with every day.

  “I...wouldn’t want to do that to you.”

  He gave her an odd look. “How did you get here?”

  The ordinary question startled her. “I...walked.”

  “Nearly a mile? Dressed like that?”

  “I...didn’t think to grab a coat.”

  “Come get warm in my car.”

  In that moment she wanted nothing more, but something held her back, some tug of a decision made, of a conclusion reached...oh yes. That. She had made that decision. It was going to end, all the pain, all the confusion, all the horror at an even worse future barreling down on her.

  “No,” she whispered. Because if she did that, she would change her mind. Just being with him now was tempting, so very tempting...

  “Then take this.”

  He was pulling off his own heavy jacket. He held it out, taking a couple of steps toward her as he did. She’d swear she could feel the warmth of it—his warmth—even from here. And it was irresistible.

  She took the jacket. It was much heavier than she’d expected. Insanely—God, how often people threw that word around—she wondered what he had in the pockets. Moving on instinct more than anything, she slipped it over her shoulders. And smelled his scent, that mix of pine and crispness, as if he’d absorbed the scent of this place he loved so much. Then the warmth enveloped her, the heat he’d given her, cousin to the heat he roused in her in very different ways, and she couldn’t help herself—she closed her eyes for a moment.

  Only a moment, but it was enough.

  She heard him move, heard the faint crunch of the snow in the split second before he was there, beside her, his arms wrapped around her as he pulled her gently back from the edge.

  And she found herself saying the only words she could find, the only truth she was sure of in this moment. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out, Ashley. Come on.”

  It was so soothing, that voice, that deep, solid voice she could almost feel rumbling out of his chest, the broad, strong chest her cheek was pressed against. So soothing she almost believed him, that it was all right, that there was hope for her. But she knew better. Didn’t she? Hadn’t these past few months taught her well enough what was in store for her?

  She was vaguely aware they were moving, walking back the way she had come. Vaguely, because all she could really think about was how good it felt to be warm again. Very, very good.

  The only thing that felt better was him, and his arms so steadily, strongly around her.
And when he urged her into the front seat of his SUV, then left her to get in and turn on the motor and the heater, she missed those arms with an ache she shouldn’t have the capacity to feel right now.

  Then he came back around to her side, reached in to adjust the heater vents to blow warm air on her, then leaned in and asked gently, “Where are you hurt?”

  “What?” she said, feeling disoriented again.

  “There’s blood on your shirt.”

  Reality slammed back into her mind with the ferocity of a charging bull. “I...it’s not mine.”

  She saw her words register in his sudden, rigid stillness. She knew what she sounded like. Begging. Pleading. And what she—what all of this—looked like. Her out here, like this, blood on her shirt. Blood that wasn’t hers. She was certain she was about to be arrested.

  That it was this man, of all men, who would do it seemed, in that moment, the most horrible thing of all.

  * * *

  Brady was swearing silently, mostly aimed at himself for letting her somehow get a grip on him. If he’d kept her at arm’s length, this would be no different than any other case. Potential suicides weren’t frequent around here—the one he’d remembered while staring at her was only the second one he’d ever handled. The first had been an after the fact, when he’d been left to merely wonder how bad it must have been for the man to eat a shotgun shell and be glad he didn’t have to do the actual cleanup. Sometimes gallows humor was all they had to get through things like that.

  But he hadn’t kept her at arm’s length. He’d let her creep in. The moment he’d had her in his arms, he’d known, with grim, fierce certainty, that somehow this had gotten much more complicated than a simple urge to rescue and protect. Because what he’d felt when he’d held her was much more than an urge—it was a compulsion he’d never felt before in his life.

  Now here he was, looking at bloodstains she said weren’t hers, wondering who they were from, what she had left behind, and dreading the moment he saw heading straight for him when he was going to have to arrest her. He would—

  He heard the barking at the same moment he heard the car. Startled, he pulled back out of his unit and straightened up in time to see a familiar SUV, a dark one with a heavy-duty winch on the front, pulling over behind them.

  Oddly, the first one there was the dog, who had quieted the moment the Foxworths had pulled off the road. The animal was out of the vehicle—what, did they let him out before they even stopped?—and racing over to them before Quinn, who was behind the wheel, even turned the engine off.

  Cutter brushed a nose across Brady’s hand as if in acknowledgment, but he clearly had a different goal in mind. The dog jumped up onto the front floor of the unit, and Brady, remembering how the animal had comforted her before, instinctively moved to give him room in the small space.

  Ashley looked bewildered, but when Cutter nudged her hand, she laid it on his head. And as if it were a visible thing, Brady saw some of the dead look leave her eyes.

  Damn dog’s a miracle worker.

  He nearly grimaced at his own thought. And then Quinn and Hayley were there.

  “Let me,” Hayley whispered to him.

  “Let her,” Quinn recommended, just as quietly. “She’s got the knack.”

  Brady went with his gut—and perhaps a bit of his inner reluctance to see any more of Ashley’s pain up close—and backed away a couple of steps to stand beside Quinn.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked the man.

  “Cutter brought us.”

  Brady blinked. “What?”

  “I told you he was...unique.” He explained how the dog had erupted into fierce barking and refused to stop until they got into the car, and then “guided” them by more barking whenever they weren’t going the right direction.

  “So...he’s quiet as long as you’re going where he wants, but if you miss a turn...”

  “Chaos.”

  Brady looked over to where Cutter and Hayley were gathered around Ashley, who looked, amazingly, much calmer. Then he looked back at Quinn. “You’re not saying he...knew, are you? That she was here, about to—”

  He cut himself off, unable to form the words even in his mind.

  “Was she? That bad?”

  “I think so. But there’s more to this, and it’s not good.”

  The moment the words were out, he wished he hadn’t said them. He didn’t really know this guy, only knew of him secondhand, and no matter how upstanding he seemed he shouldn’t be sharing details of what was obviously going to have to be an official investigation with him. The bloodstains weren’t extensive, more smears than anything, so he was hoping there wasn’t a body lying somewhere, as yet undiscovered.

  The blunt realization drop-kicked him back to reality. “I need to make some calls.”

  “I know you don’t know me,” Quinn said, so eerily echoing his thoughts Brady stared at him, “but I guarantee you Foxworth won’t get in the way of your duty.”

  “What, exactly, are you saying?”

  “That she—” he glanced at Ashley “—needs help. That there’s more to this than meets the eye. That Foxworth specializes in righting wrongs.”

  “Look, Mr. Foxworth—”

  “Quinn, please.”

  “All right, Quinn, I know a bit of your reputation, and I know Alex would swear you’re golden, but this is different.”

  “And you’re a straight-arrow cop. I get that.” Quinn kept his gaze on him, although Brady suspected he was very aware his wife had left Ashley and was headed toward them. The dog stayed put.

  “I’d love to chat about ethics and duty,” Brady said dryly, “but there’s some urgency involved here.”

  “If you mean the blood,” Hayley said as she got to them, “it’s not hers.”

  He somehow wasn’t surprised at her quickness. It would take a smart, steady woman to keep up with the likes of Quinn Foxworth. “So she told me. That just means there’s somebody bleeding somewhere else.”

  “Her mother.”

  Brady drew back, rather sharply. “What?”

  Hayley glanced at her husband, who nodded, then back to Brady. “It’s her mother’s blood.”

  Brady swore, low and harsh.

  Chapter 12

  Ashley was pondering how odd it was, with everything that had happened tonight, that a dog—well, this dog—could still make her feel better. Although Mrs. Foxworth—or Hayley, as she suggested she call her—was really good at comforting. There was something innately calming about her, not as if she didn’t ever get excited or upset, but as if she’d been through enough that she knew when it was warranted and, more importantly, when it was not.

  As she thought it, the woman came back.

  “The place we’re staying at isn’t far,” Hayley said. “We’d like to go back there, get you out of the cold and maybe get something warm to drink for all of us? Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  Some part of her brain that was hyperaware of what had almost happened, what she’d almost done, laughed rather sourly at how good that sounded. You were about to put a final end to this, in a very cold and painful way, and now you’re wishing for warmth and comfort?

  “Brady will follow us,” Hayley said.

  Brady. The B in B. Crenshaw stood for Brady. How had she not known that until now?

  You almost went to your death not knowing it.

  And in this moment, that seemed the greatest shame of all of this.

  The Foxworth dog unexpectedly insisted on staying with her. She had the crazy thought that at least that would keep... Deputy Crenshaw from carting her off to jail. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t already, anyway.

  She stole a glance at him as he got into the driver’s seat. Funny how every time she saw him she was struck anew by how...amazing he was. Not just his height and obvious strength, or
his breath-stealing looks, but that steady, solid core of him that fairly radiated. It was as if each time she saw him, it was new, as if her tortured mind refused to accept he was real and so was surprised all over again when confronted with the proof that he was.

  He didn’t say anything until they were rolling again. Then it was in a low, rough-edged voice that made her think he was fighting to keep it level.

  “It’s your mother’s blood?” She nodded, clenching her teeth to keep from letting out a moan of pain, pain that wasn’t in the least physical. “What happened?”

  “I don’t...know. Exactly.”

  “Ashley—”

  “I know, I know how crazy that sounds, but what I remember...makes no sense.”

  “Is she dead?”

  Ashley gasped, and her chest spasmed into a tightness that made it almost impossible to breathe. She had just enough air to get out a strangled “No!”

  “Well, that’s a start,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t. I would never.”

  “You’d never what? Kill her? Or kill anyone?”

  “Unless my life depended on it.”

  “But you were ready to jump. To end that life.”

  “I’m nothing if not a paradox, it seems,” she said, trying not to sound bitter but not succeeding very well.

  He didn’t say anything more. The dog at her feet nudged at her, and she petted him again. And again it was oddly, strangely soothing. That or the warmth blowing out from the vehicle’s heater was thawing her out to where she felt normal again. At least, as close to normal as she ever got these days.

  When she saw the Foxworths slow, then turn, she looked around. They were pulling into a long driveway that wound through some trees, toward a lovely, lodge-style home that looked back the way they had come, down the moonlit mountain.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  He stopped behind the Foxworths, who had pulled into a large garage that also held an ATV and a skimobile. For some reason Quinn Foxworth gestured Brady to also pull into the garage. After a moment’s hesitation he did, and she suddenly understood this would hide his marked sheriff’s vehicle from any casual passerby.