Hold Me

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ua2db14b0-04a2-534e-b7ec-4b8fcef1a5d1)

NO ONE WOKE UP in the morning and thought to themselves, Today I’m going to get lost in thewoods. But even without a plan, it happened.

Maybe it was simply that innate human need to explore. Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe it was just people being idiots. Grandma Nell had always loved to say, “Beauty is skin deep, but stupid goes clear down to the bone.” Not that Destiny Mills was going to be judgmental either way. People got lost, and her job was to make sure they got found. It was kind of like being a superhero. Only instead of laser vision or invisibility, she had a brilliant computer software program and a finely honed search and rescue team.

Well, technically the team wasn’t hers. It belonged to whatever town or county had hired her company. Her firm had created the software program, and she was one of three facilitators who helped those wanting to use it. She showed up, trained the search and rescue group and then moved on to the next assignment.

If it was Monday, she must be in Fool’s Gold, she thought humorously as she stepped into her small, temporary office. Fool’s Gold, California. Population 125,482 per the sign she’d seen on her way in. Nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the town attracted tourists by the thousands. They came in winter to ski, in summer to hike and camp and all year long to attend the dozens of festivals that had put the community on the map.

None of which concerned her. What was of more interest were the literally hundreds of thousands of acres right outside the city borders. Uncharted wilderness with plenty of slopes, gullies, streams and caves. Places where people got lost. And when someone was lost, who you gonna call?

Destiny chuckled as the Ghostbusters theme music played in her head. She didn’t know about anyone else, but for her, life was a soundtrack. Music was everywhere. Notes formed melodies, and melodies were little more than memories to be recalled. Hear a song from your high school prom and you were back in your boyfriend’s arms.

She settled in her chair and plugged her laptop into the docking station. She only had a week or so to get up and running before the real work began. For the next three months she would be mapping the terrain, feeding the information into the incredibly intelligent software her company used and training the local search and rescue team. She was the point of contact, the human connection. And in three months she would move on to another part of the country and do it all again.

She liked the moving around. She liked always being somewhere new. She made friends easily and then just as easily left them behind when it was time to go. There would be more friends at the next new place. Sure, there was a lack of continuity, but on the upside, she was spared the emotional drama that went with long-term friendships. Whether it was her getting close to them or them getting close to her, relationships could be exhausting.

She’d grown up in a family that made any of the “real housewives” shows look as interesting as reading the phone book. Reality TV had nothing on her parents. As an adult, she got to choose whether or not she wanted that drama, and she’d decided she didn’t. Destiny had deliberately picked a job and a lifestyle that allowed her to forever be moving on.

But for the next few months she would enjoy the small-town quirkiness of Fool’s Gold. She’d already read up on the place and was looking forward to sampling plenty of local flavor.

Right on time, the door to her small office opened. Destiny recognized the tall, blond, good-looking guy standing in the doorway. Not that they’d met before—she’d been hired by the mayor, not by him—but she’d seen him on plenty of magazine covers, television interviews and internet articles.

She stood and smiled. “Hi, I’m Destiny Mills.”

“Kipling Gilmore.”

His eyes were a darker blue than she’d expected, and he had that easy grace that most likely came from a lifetime of being an athlete. Because he wasn’t just Kipling Gilmore. He was the Kipling Gilmore. Famous athlete. Superstar skier. Olympic gold medalist. The press had called him G-Force, because on skis, at least, he went for speed. Rules of physics be damned. He could do things that had never been done. At least until the crash.

They shook hands. He handed her a small, pink bakery box. “To help you settle in.”

She lifted the lid and saw a half-dozen doughnuts. The scent of glaze and cinnamon drifted to her. It was intoxicating and made her instantly want fifteen minutes alone with her sugar fix.

“Thank you,” she said. “Way better than flowers.”

“I’m glad you think so. When did you get to town?”

“Yesterday. I got to Sacramento the night before and made the short drive in the morning.”

“You’re settling in okay?”

“I am, and I’m excited to get to work.”

“Then let’s get to it.”

They both sat. She angled her laptop toward him and tapped on several keys.

“There are two major parts to getting the search and rescue software functional,” she began. “Mapping the physical geography of the area and then getting you and your team trained on how to use it.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“It always does, and then reality sets in.”

One eyebrow rose. “Is that a challenge?”

“No. I’m simply saying the process takes time. STORMS can adapt to nearly any situation. The success or failure of a search is usually a combination of information and luck. My goal is to take luck out of the equation.”

STORMS—Search Team Rescue Management Software—worked with the rescue team. Data was fed into the system, and the program then projected the most likely areas to search first. The more information known about the person missing, terrain, time of year and weather conditions, the faster the search went. Each searcher had GPS tracking information on his or her person. That information was sent back to the software so the search could be updated in real time.

As more areas were eliminated, the search was narrowed until the missing person was found.

“I’ll start mapping the area in the next day or so,” she continued.

“How does that happen?”

“First by air. We use a helicopter and various kinds of equipment to supplement the satellite data we already have. The heavily wooded areas and steep mountainsides will have to be mapped on foot.”

“You do that?”

While the question was polite enough, the tone suggested he wasn’t a believer. Silly man, she thought with a smile.

“Yes, Kipling. I can hike when necessary. If the areas are too remote, I take in local guides.”

“I thought you were a city girl. Didn’t someone tell me you live in Austin?”

“That’s home base for me, yes. But I grew up near the Smoky Mountains. I can hold my own in the great outdoors.”

What she didn’t mention was that when she’d been younger, she’d spent several years living with her maternal grandmother in those same mountains. In addition to knowing her way around rugged terrain, she could fish and knew three ways to cook squirrel, but she wasn’t going to share that. Tell someone you grilled a mean steak and you were applauded. Mention squirrel stew with root vegetables and they looked at you like you were in league with cannibals. People were funny, but she’d known that for a long time.

“Then I’ll trust you to take care of business,” he told her. “When does your helicopter arrive?”

She checked her calendar. “By the end of the week. It’s going to be a busy summer. Once we get the geography into the database, we’ll start testing the system. That means looking for people who aren’t really lost.”

Humor pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I read the material.”