Rescued By The Marine

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u763d1fd9-adff-54dc-9b52-253f97212a2b)

Jason Hunt hung by his fingertips 7,400 feet up in the air. And his phone was ringing.

Another 600 feet and he’d have been out of cell range.

Relying on the strength of his arm, and the sure grip of his hand, he relished the last few milliseconds of silence between each ring. The summer sun was bright overhead, its rays warm on his skin, its heat reflecting off the granite outcropping he’d been scaling for the past hour. Sure, he could have stayed on the marked trail like the tourists, but then he would have missed this view.

Wide-open sky. Miles between this mountain and the next. Snow at the peaks, then silvery-gray granite that gave way to the deep rich greens and browns of the tree line. He even caught a glimpse of Jenny Lake’s crystal gray-blue outline from this vantage point. He shifted his grip to swing around the other way, inhaling air that was cooler and cleaner than any part of the world he’d seen. And he’d seen more than he cared to. From here, he could see all the way past the lower peaks into Jackson Hole, the natural valley between the Tetons and Wind River Mountain Range where he’d grown up.

But his phone was ringing.

He eyed the rough granite cliff for the next handhold, doubled his grip of the rock and continued his climb. His next breath wasn’t quite as free and calming, but he grounded himself in the unshakable strength of the rock itself and kept moving. These mountains had endured, and he would, too.

He appreciated the quiet of how alone he was between each urgent ring. Save for the wind whistling through the narrow cave a few feet to his left, he’d found the reprieve he needed today. No mortar fire. No grinding of tank and truck gears, no orders to engage or pleas for help shouting in his ear.

Jason found a toehold and pushed himself up another three feet, nearing the top of the rock face. He lived in these mountains. Worked in these mountains. Escaped the memories that time and therapy could never fully erase. He needed the silence. The solitude. The space. No tight quarters here. No small huts or narrow streets filled with fire and booby traps and too many vehicles and people to know his allies from his enemies.

There was no woman dying in his arms up here.

With every ring, Jason’s serenity and forgetfulness was shattered. It was a lonely life here in Wyoming. But it was a life.

Until his phone rang.

Mentally bracing himself for the reality of answering that call, he swung himself up over the top ledge.

He shrugged out of the small pack he carried, pulling out both a bottle of water and his cell. The number was no surprise. Neither was the sudden heavy weight of responsibility bearing down on his broad shoulders. With his long legs dangling over the edge into the Teton Mountains’ rocky abyss, he swallowed a drink of water and answered his phone. “Yeah?”

“Captain Hunt?”

He pulled off his reflective sunglasses and squirted some of the cooling water on his face before squeegeeing it off his cheeks and beard stubble with the palm of his hand. “We’ve been stateside for two years, Marty. I told ya you could call me Jase.”

“Yes, sir.” Marty Flynn was only a few years younger than Jason, and they’d both retired from the Corps once their last stint had ended. But he still spoke to him like the stray puppy he’d first been when he’d been attached to Jason’s unit over in the Heat Locker of the Middle East. “Um. Right. Jase.”

“What’s up, Lieutenant?” Although he already knew. These mountains weren’t just his escape now, they were his world.

“Very funny.” Yeah. He missed laughter. Not much call to tell jokes when you lived as far off the grid as he did now. “I know it’s your day off. Thought you might be locked up in your cabin, shaggin’ that pretty girl who was throwin’ herself at you at—”

“Talk to me.” Like anything resembling a relationship was going to happen after losing Elaine over in Kilkut. Like he’d ever be interested in some brainless twit who couldn’t talk about anything but the size of his truck and how hard it was to find sexy clothes at the local boutique. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the young woman’s feelings when his search and rescue team had stopped at Kitty’s Bar in Moose, Wyoming, to toast their commander’s pending retirement. She seemed to think getting laid by a veteran Marine was some sort of badge of honor. In his book, it wasn’t. He’d left the celebration early. Alone.

“So, you and Lynelle didn’t hit it off? You wouldn’t mind if I—”

“Marty.” Jason exhaled an impatient breath. “You called me. I assume there’s an emergency?”

“Right.” Marty might be a natural-born flirt, with more charm than discipline in his repertoire, but he was a damn fine helicopter pilot. He’d saved the lives of Jason and most of his men by flying into an ambush to evac them to the safety of the base. That was the only reason Jason put up with his goofy idol worship—the only reason he’d agreed to take the job with the search and rescue team Marty worked for. He owed him a life. “We’ve got a missing hiker. Family excursion hiking the String Lake Loop. Little boy wandered off this morning west of Leigh Lake. He’s been missing four hours now. Parents searched an hour on their own before calling it in.”

Jason climbed to his feet, surveying the mountains in every direction. He assessed the quickest path, the weather, the position of the sun in the sky. “It’s already midafternoon.”

“And it’s summer. Kid doesn’t have any bear spray on him. No jacket. Nothing but the clothes on his back. Predators will be out after dark. We need to find him before they do.”

Jason tucked the water bottle into his pack and pulled out his vest with a large green search and rescue cross on it. “Or he succumbs to exposure or drowns in the lake.”

“You got it. The team’s been activated, but we need your expertise in the backcountry. We need you to save the day, big guy.”

Right. Because he was so good at that. At least, stateside, nobody had died on his watch.

Jason put on his sunglasses, adjusted the brim of his cap and started moving.

“I’m about fifteen minutes away from the clearing up by Solitude Lake. You can land the chopper there. Come get me. You can drop me at the trailhead, and I’ll track the kid from there.”

“Will do.”

He slipped his search and rescue vest on over his T-shirt and doubled his speed. “Hunt, out.”

Chapter One (#u763d1fd9-adff-54dc-9b52-253f97212a2b)

Nine months later... The Midas Lodge outside Jackson, Wyoming

“Samantha, what are you doing?”

Wishing I was anywhere else.

Hearing her father’s tsk-tsking tone above the white noise of conversations, laughter and chamber music drifting in from the reception area of the Midas Lodge’s main lobby, Samantha Eddington bit down on the ungrateful thought and stretched up on her toes on the arm of the leather chair she’d pulled from the neighboring window alcove. She closed the back of the mantel clock and screwed the casing shut with her thumbnail before pushing it back into place over the two-story stone fireplace. “Hi, Dad. It stopped at four twenty this afternoon. Fortunately, it was just the batteries.” She showed him the oxidized rust stains on the paper napkin wadded up in her hand. “I cleaned them and put them back in, but they won’t last for long. We’ll need a new set.”

Walter Eddington had the build and face of a bulldog, an ironic contrast to the expensive tailored suit and diamond-studded lapel pin he wore. A self-made man who’d served in the Army before Samantha was born, he was as at home in the backcountry with a hunting rifle as he was in the boardroom of the hotel empire he’d purchased on a dare and built into a fortune over the past thirty-five years. Too bad she hadn’t inherited either of those skill sets. She didn’t share his love for a good party, either, like tonight’s shindig that mixed hotel with family business.

But she did love him. Adored him, in fact. After losing her mother when she was seven, they’d become a team—sharing grief and comfort, and helping each other pick up the pieces of their fractured lives. She’d never quite been the tomboy he wanted, nor was she poised enough to serve as the dutiful hostess and helpmate a businessman of his standing needed. And while she understood the numbers and demographics of the lodging and tourism industry, she’d never shared his interest in running a corporation. She loved analyzing the architectural designs and engineering strategies that went into building hotels and resort lodges, but her intellectual acumen and aversion to board meetings, press conferences, and parties like tonight’s grand opening celebration with investors and local bigwigs kept her from being the heir he’d hoped for to take over the Midas Group and run the family business one day. Still, Walter Eddington loved her anyway. He was her daddy, the first man she’d loved. And even at twenty-nine, she was his little girl.

“Come down from there.” He held out his broad, calloused hand. She took it and smiled as he helped her down from her perch. He dropped a kiss to her cheek, just below the rim of her glasses. “This is supposed to be your party. I realize we’re combining business with pleasure by scheduling the grand opening of the new lodge with your engagement announcement to Kyle. But you know how much I want to change the press’s perception of you as some kind of eccentric recluse who never recovered from your mother’s murder. Hiding out from our guests doesn’t help change that image.”

“I’m not a recluse. My mind just gets occupied with other things.” Too many other things. Like the guilt she felt at putting that worry dimple between his silvering eyebrows.

“I know that,” he assured her. “But the last time your picture was on TV and in all the papers, you were only seven. You were so brave. So sad.” He captured both hands and backed up to skim his gaze from the loose bun at the nape of her neck to the unpolished wiggle of her bare toes on the woven throw rug in front of the fireplace. He smiled. “You look pretty tonight. All grown up. A woman of the world.”

His eyes, the same shade of green as her own, turned wistful. He was losing himself in the past until Samantha squeezed his hands, bringing him back into the present with her. “I miss Mom, too. Tonight of all nights, especially.”

Walter nodded, pulling her into his barrel chest and capturing her in one of the bear hugs she’d always loved before he set her back on her feet. He chucked her lightly beneath the chin. “I know you take after my side of the family, but...” He brushed aside a rebellious lock of dark blond hair that had caught in her glasses and tucked it behind her ear. “I see your mother in you tonight. How I wish Michelle could be here to share this with us.”

Samantha reached up to straighten the knot of his tie and smooth his lapels, the tender ministrations more of a comfort than a need. “Me, too.”

“It’s been twenty-two years tonight since that bastard murdered...” Muttering a curse, he blinked away the moisture that glistened in his eyes and pulled something from his pocket. “I want to show you something.”

Samantha lit up when she saw the familiar engraved locket on a silver chain that dangled from his fingers. “Mom’s necklace. The one you gave her when you got married.”

“It’ll be yours one day. But tonight, I’m carrying it for luck. That everything goes smoothly, and that Kyle makes you as happy as she and I were. Even if it was for too short a time. I wanted you to know she’s with us.”