into her lungs. Her heart bucked and stomped in her chest. She hated fighting like this. Hated opening up those painful old wounds. It had been bad enough when they were married. But with her son lost and the fear pounding like a drum inside her this was infinitely worse.
“It’s not that simple,” she said after a moment. “There was nothing simple about our marriage.”
“Marriage is cut and dried. Either you stay and try to work things out. Or you walk away and don’t look back. We both know which choice you made.”
Her temper rose like hot mercury. Memories rained down on her, pieces of her life that had gone up in smoke, fluttering down like smoldering ash, burning her. “I walked out because I know what men like you do to the people who love them.”
“Now I guess we’re getting to the heart of the matter, aren’t we?”
“You put me through three years of hell, Buzz.”
“Oh, for chrissake!”
“I saw you the night they brought you in on that stretcher. You had a bullet in your back. You were bleeding internally. You couldn’t even breathe on your own, for God’s sake! You nearly died that night. The doctors didn’t know if you’d ever walk again.”
“I was a cop, Kel. Cops get hurt sometimes. It goes with the territory. I couldn’t stop doing my job just because you didn’t like it.”
She didn’t tell him those were the same words her father had used to placate her mother. The same words her brother had used the last time she’d seen him alive. They’d scoffed at her worry. She couldn’t tell him that she would rather lose him on her terms than on the more vicious terms set forth by fate. “You had a choice.”
“I made the only choice I could,” he snapped.
“Yes, you did. And that was when I knew it wasn’t going to work.”
“That’s when you realized you didn’t have the guts to stick by me.”
“Don’t lecture me about guts!” The anger came with such force that her voice shook with it. “You turned down that corporate security position for the job with Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue. This could have turned out differently.”
“Don’t blame what happened between us on fate, Kel. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out no matter what I did for a living.”
She stared at him, speechless, not sure how to disagree without opening doors she knew were better left closed and locked.
“You made a conscious decision and stuck by it,” he said.
“I stuck by it because I don’t want my son to have his heart ripped out by a man who doesn’t have the good sense to know when to retire. A man who would eventually draw the short straw. And I know Eddie will never have to see his father die before he’s old enough to understand how exactly final death is.”
“I guess you think it’s better that he doesn’t have a father at all?”
She thought back to when she’d lost her own father and brother. She’d only been a teenager, but she’d never forgotten the agony of that day or the dark months that had followed. Her mother had never been the same, and had quietly faded away until she was nothing more than a shell of the vibrant woman she’d once been. While her sister, Kim, had gone away to college, Kelly had cared for their mother, and she’d sworn she would never let her own children suffer the same fate.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I do.”
Buzz remained silent, but his eyes never left hers.
Shaken by the exchange, by the truths on both sides and the echoes of pain clanging through her heart, Kelly tugged the flashlight out of her fanny pack and moved ahead of him, shining it over the tall grass. “I’m not going to discuss this with you now.”
Not waiting for a reply, she found the subtle trail in the grass and followed it. A moment later, she heard Buzz behind her. She knew eventually they would have to talk about how they were going to handle this. About whether Buzz wanted to be part of his son’s life. About whether Kelly could accept Eddie bonding with a man who spent his days jumping out of helicopters and rappelling down sheer cliffs and putting his life on the line day in and day out. Just as her father and brother had all those years ago.
Kelly knew that before this was all said and done she would have to decide if she could live with the very real possibility that she might one day have to watch her son have his heart ripped out by a man who thought he was immortal.
Chapter 4
Buzz was too angry to talk, so he lagged behind a few feet. He’d promised to give her an hour before stopping for the night, but an hour came and went and he didn’t mention it. He knew she was exhausted and running on little more than nerves and that steel determination he saw in her eyes every time he looked at her. But the truth of the matter was he didn’t want to have to sit down and look into her eyes and see all that pain or, God forbid, talk about how they were going to handle their having a son.
He knew that’s what would happen if they made camp. He simply wasn’t up to talking. He was too angry. Too off-kilter. Too damn…everything to do anything but make the situation infinitely worse. He figured they may as well keep walking until they were both too tired to talk.
The three-quarter moon was sinking low in the west when he finally spoke. “Kel, let’s pack it in for the night.”
He’d expected her to argue, felt a sharp retort sizzle on the tip of his tongue in preparation. But surprising him, she stopped and just stood there, staring into the darkness as if listening for a cry in the night that never came.
Her face glowed pale in the dim moonlight, her eyes dark and troubled. When he stepped closer, he saw the exhaustion and defeat and the tired remnants of fear in her eyes and a pang of compassion gripped him despite his efforts to remain distant.
“We’ll sleep for a few hours and start again first light,” he said.
“It’s so cold,” she said tonelessly. “I wish it wasn’t so damn cold.”
For a moment, Buzz thought she was referring to herself, then realized her own physical comforts were the last thing on her mind. She was worried about Eddie. The night was uncomfortably cold, but it wasn’t harsh enough to cause hypothermia to a child with a jacket. As long as he wasn’t wet.
Because Buzz didn’t know what else to do to comfort her, he dropped his pack and stooped to dig out one of two compact thermal sleeping bags he’d packed. Rising, he handed one to her. “Unzip this and put it around your shoulders.”
She obeyed without objection. Then, huddled within the blanket, she just stood there, staring into the darkness, listening, waiting.
Buzz had been through some intense moments with Kelly. But in all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her like this. Bleak and filled with despair and utter hopelessness.
At a loss as to what to do next, he looked around and spotted a semi-protected area where they would be out of the wind. Picking up his backpack, he walked over to it and began unpacking. He removed the stove first and lit the wick. The flame cast yellow light on the surrounding trees and nearby
