Her husband was dead.
Billie Bronson stood on the Cascade Mountain trail overlooking the steep drop down the side of the mountain. She took a deep breath and finally released the pain weighing heavy on her heart.
Pain. Anguish. Dread.
There, she’d finally admitted it. She’d been living under a cloud of dread during the last year of her marriage, nervous about Rick’s volatile moods and erratic behavior.
She tugged her fleece hat down to cover her ears. It felt as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees since she’d started out on her hike. But she had to finish this, had to visit the site where Rick had spent his last hours in her arms.
It had taken her a year to get to this place emotionally, the place where she accepted that what she needed most was closure. Closure and forgiveness.
“And I do forgive you,” she whispered, hugging herself. Forgiveness was a step toward grace, and it would help her heal.
Still, there were those occasional moments when she’d lie awake at night wondering if she could have done something to stop him from his downward spiral.
She glanced at the plateau below where Rick had shivered and groaned as she’d portioned out food to sustain them both until help had arrived.
If only they hadn’t argued; if only he hadn’t stormed off and tripped, falling over the edge and hitting his head on a rock below. But you can’t rewind the past, no matter how much you want to.
A sudden flash of Quinn’s blue eyes and confident smile haunted her thoughts. No, she wouldn’t think about search-and-rescue volunteer Quinn Donovan, not today. He may have rescued her from the mountains and helped her get back on her feet by giving her a place to live, but he was another lost soul like Rick, running from his pain.
“It’s good that I left,” she whispered.
She’d only seen Quinn sporadically since she’d started her new job at the Echo Mountain Resort. They’d agreed it was the best thing to do, the right thing, because they both had suspected she was leaning on him a little too much after he’d rescued her.
She was falling for him.
But she wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking what they had was anything more than an emotional condition brought on by trauma. Billie was smarter than that.
A sudden gust of wind whipped through the mountain pass. If she were so smart, she wouldn’t have gone hiking by herself. Although her friend Bree had offered to join her, letting go of the past wasn’t something you did with an audience. She interlaced her gloved fingers and closed her eyes. She said a prayer in an effort to completely let go.
“Lord, please help me make peace with Rick’s mistakes, with my own failures as a wife and—”
Snap!
She spun around and peered into the mass of trees to her left, but saw nothing, no wild animal or hiker. The hair pricked at the back of her neck.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a deep male voice said.
She spotted a man coming up the trail and relief washed over. It was a hiker, probably seeking solitude, like Billie.
“I’ll just...” The man motioned that he’d trek past her and give her privacy.
She stepped aside to let him pass. He was tall, about six feet, in his forties with brown hair combed back and a full beard. She noticed his lack of sensible gear. He wore a denim jacket over a purple University of Washington sweatshirt and sneakers instead of hiking boots. He wasn’t even wearing a hat.
Billie assumed he was a tourist passing through town on his way to Vancouver. Travelers often stopped in the town of Echo Mountain for day hikes in the North Cascades.
Yes, he was definitely a tourist. A seasoned hiker would be better prepared with warmer clothing and a backpack.
With a polite smile he edged past her and followed the trail. She thought about suggesting he go back to town, warning him that he was ill prepared for a mountain hike, especially when the weather seemed to be turning cooler, but she didn’t want to seem judgmental. He hiked about ten feet and hesitated.
“Hang on,” he said and turned to her. “I know you. You’re that woman who was stranded out here with her husband.”
Billie glanced at the ground, still ashamed that she’d been unable to save Rick’s life.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” he pressed.
“Yes, it was.”
She’d been a local celebrity of sorts for weeks after the rescue. Everyone wanted to know how she’d survived, how she’d managed to keep Rick alive until the search-and-rescue team found them. All that attention made her uncomfortable, which is why she’d welcomed getting out of town and moving into Quinn’s coach house.
“That must have been a traumatic experience, watching your husband die like that.”
“Actually, he died at the hospital,” she said, defending her failed efforts to treat his injuries.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Actually, I knew Rick,” he offered.
“You did?” She glanced up.
“Sure, he did some work for me. Seemed like a good guy. I would think you’d be too traumatized to return to this place.”
“Yes, well, there’s something to be said for closure.”
“Oh, I think you came out here for more than closure,” he said, his voice taking on a sharp edge.
He stepped closer and goose bumps prickled her arms.
“I think your husband left something behind and you came out here to get it,” he said.
“Excuse me?” A shudder racked her body as she edged away from him.
“And it’s worth a lot of money,” he growled.
Before she could take another step, he grabbed her arm in a viselike grip and shoved her against a tree. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the steep drop.
He leaned close. “Don’t run. I think we’d make a great team.”
His hot, stale breath on her cheek shot panic through her body. With a guttural cry she jammed the heel of her hiking boot against the top of his foot, stunning him enough to loosen his grip. She spun around and took off down the trail.
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
She had better gear, hiking experience and good instincts, but he had brute strength and what she assumed was a motivation to do her harm: retrieving something worth a lot of money. What had her husband gotten himself into?
“I said...where are you going?”
