Freefall to Desire

A wolf. Maybe a cougar… No, she wasn’t okay. “Brianne?”

Brianne broke down and cried. Cried at the reality that her fiancé was lost in the middle of the Rockies, left to fend for himself in horrendous conditions.

In six days he hadn’t turned up. Five days of searching had produced no sign of him—until now.

A wolf. Maybe a cougar…

“Damn, Brianne. I hate this.” Alex cradled her head against his chest. She gripped his arms, holding on to him as she rode through the turbulent emotional wave.

After about two minutes, she shook her head and eased backward. “No. I won’t believe that he’s anything other than okay. Carter is strong. You know how strong he is. He’s got to be fine.”

“Brianne—”

“Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” she snapped. One minute she’d been bawling, the next biting Alex’s head off. She wanted this all to end.

“Brianne, listen to me,” Alex said. “I know exactly how you’re feeling. But it’s worse than we want to think.”

“Everything will be fine when they find Carter,” Brianne said, refusing to give in to despair.

“They’re not going to find him,” Alex said.

“How can you say that?” She felt a spurt of anger. “Why are you giving up already?”

“Because they’re calling off the search,” Alex answered matter-of-factly.

Brianne’s body went rigid. She looked up at Alex in confusion. “How can they call off the search? Carter’s still lost!”

“I wish it wasn’t the case, Brianne. God knows I do. But they’ve searched for five full days, and the snow has continued to fall, covering any possible tracks. It was a fluke they found his jacket. After all this time out there, they think it’s really unlikely—”

“I don’t care what they think,” Brianne interrupted before Alex could say the words she didn’t want to hear. “They found his jacket, so they know he’s hurt. He’s got to be close by. It’s critical that they keep searching so they can find him now!”

“I agree with you,” Alex said.

“Then do something!” Brianne yelled, not meaning to, but unable to stop herself. People in the hotel lobby looked in her direction. She knew they were wondering what was going on, but she didn’t care. She would make as big a scene as necessary if it got her the results she wanted.

Alex raised his hands in a helpless gesture and then let them fall against his thighs. “What can I do?”

Brianne shook her head in disbelief. “He’s your best friend and you’re giving up on him.” She turned around and marched back to the sofa where she’d left her coat. “Fine. If the authorities are giving up the search, then I have to find Carter.”

“Brianne, you can’t go out there.”

Ignoring Alex, she shoved her arms into the ultrawarm parka she’d bought. “Someone has to!”

“Brianne,” Shayna said gently. “If the authorities can’t find Carter…”

“No, don’t say it. Please, Shayna. Don’t say it.”

And then she started for the door.

Alex reached her before she could step outside. “Don’t be foolish, Brianne. Carter wouldn’t want you to get lost, too.”

And as she met Alex’s gaze, saw the pain she was feeling shimmering in his eyes, she knew he was right.

There was nothing she could do.

Her knees giving way again, she reached out and gripped Alex’s forearms. Gripped them for dear life as emotion overwhelmed her.

This time when she cried, she couldn’t stop the tears. Because she had most likely lost the love of her life. The man she was supposed to marry next year.

And her life would never be the same.

Chapter 1

Three years later…

Brianne held the heavy silver picture frame with both hands, staring fondly at the photo of the smiling couple behind the glass.

Three years, she thought. Three years since you’ve been gone.

Brianne wore an ear-to-ear grin in the picture, more giggle than smile. She’d been giddy with happiness as she’d posed with Carter Smith, the man who’d stolen her heart at a point when she hadn’t expected to fall in love. She and Carter were standing against a palm tree, the picturesque stretch of sand and blue water in Hawaii behind them. Even if Brianne and Carter hadn’t been in Maui for a romantic vacation, she would have remembered exactly when the photo had been taken.

It had been taken the day Carter had proposed to her.

The helicopter ride Carter had booked for them turned into the most memorable moment of all when he’d surprised Brianne with an exquisite cushion-cut diamond engagement ring. Soaring over a volcano, Carter had asked Brianne to marry him, and she had enthusiastically said yes. Emotionally, she’d been higher than any cloud, expecting that nothing would happen to destroy the happiness she’d been feeling at the time. Brianne had been in love and looking forward to a wonderful life with the man of her dreams. At the time, she couldn’t imagine anything ever going wrong.

But things had gone wrong. Barely two months after they’d gotten engaged. All at once, everything had changed.

Brianne’s eyes misted as she regarded the photo of her and Carter in happier times. It was still hard to believe what had happened, much less accept it.

And yet, here she was, without Carter. Today was the three-year anniversary since that tragic, cold day in the Rocky Mountains.

Gone. In an instant. Carter Smith had simply vanished.

That was the hardest part to bear, the not knowing if he was alive or dead.

The authorities had been of a different opinion than Brianne. No, they hadn’t found Carter’s body, but they had found remnants of the torn and bloodied jacket he’d been wearing. Given that finding, coupled with the unexpected snowstorm, they’d surmised that Carter had lost his way on the mountain and that the unthinkable had happened. Months later, hikers had stumbled upon Carter’s backpack—which included his passport—approximately ten miles from the spot where they’d found his jacket. That had solidified the opinion that he had died.

Brianne could not deny that the snowstorm had likely led to Carter getting lost. But what she did not accept— could not accept—was that the man who had so enthusiastically loved the outdoors and could cope in almost any circumstance could have become a victim of nature. The authorities believed one of two possibilities: the first was that Carter had died during the snowstorm and his remains had been eaten by animals. The second possibility was even worse to imagine—that Carter had been attacked and killed by hungry wildlife while alive.

Brianne shuddered. She didn’t want to let her mind go there. Thinking that Carter had died was bad enough, but imagining that his body had been eaten… That part was too much to contemplate. And yet, she had nightmares about exactly that.

But despite the nightmares, Brianne had been able to cling to some hope. The hope that since there had been no body, maybe Carter was still alive.

Before Carter’s disappearance, Brianne had seen stories on the news about people who had been missing for years, only to turn up unexpectedly one day suffering from amnesia. After Carter’s disappearance, she had become addicted to such stories. Four months after Carter was gone, she broke down and bawled when she saw a story on the news about a man in Oregon who had survived some mishap in the wilderness and had resurfaced across the country a year later. Brianne believed fervently that this would be the news she would one day get regarding Carter.

Shayna didn’t believe Carter was alive. Nor did anyone else in her family. But how could Brianne allow herself to think that Carter was dead when it was just as possible that he was alive somewhere, not knowing who he was and therefore unable to get back to her?

Perhaps she was naive to hope. But she hadn’t wanted to give up. Now, however, on the three-year anniversary of Carter’s disappearance, she was wondering if she had simply been lying to herself the entire time.