Phoenix

by Crouch, Janie

  Maybe her energy was feeding off his strength. God knew he had enough of it.

  And how she missed him.

  Lord, how she missed him being hers.

  He handed her the cup once more, not saying a word as promised. He just sat with her to enjoy the sunrise. She’d thought falling in the lake and losing control of her body had been the most stressful part of the MS diagnosis.

  She’d been wrong.

  This was the most stressful part of her MS so far: not having her best friend to talk through it with.

  “Thank you for the coffee,” she whispered.

  “Thank you for sharing the sunrise with me.”

  Only a couple of other racers were starting to peek their way out of their tents. The start wouldn’t be for another couple of hours. Everyone wanted to stay in their warm sleeping bags as long as possible—but they had to get up sometime.

  “Was the river what you’d expected yesterday?”

  Inviting conversation with him probably wasn’t the best of plans, but she couldn’t help herself. She missed just talking to him. She just needed a little more time with him.

  “Yes.” He tilted back the mug to get the last sip of coffee. “Remember the Youghiogheny River? When we decided to explore that offshoot and almost got ourselves killed?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. God yes, how she remembered. Boy Riley had world-class athletic abilities; almost everything came easy to him. But water activities—kayaking, canoeing, white-water rafting, even snorkeling and scuba diving—had always been where she was most evenly matched with him. “And in that storm in Bali when we were out in that canoe? We almost died that time also.”

  He slid up the jacket she’d returned to him yesterday to expose his forearm. A stunning tattoo depicting a beach with the sun trying to peek out from behind angry clouds. “How could I forget?”

  She touched the tattoo, one of dozens that covered his body. How could either of them forget? They’d found shelter inside a cave and spent hours making love waiting for the storm to pass.

  She swallowed. “That was quite a storm.”

  “We’ve ridden out a lot of storms together.”

  “And experienced a lot of sunrises.”

  What was she saying? What was she doing? He was going to push now, want to know why she’d broken up with him.

  But instead, he just looked back at the sun, which was now over the horizon. “Yes, we have.” He didn’t say anything else, just folded the collapsible coffee cup back down into its smallest form.

  “You’re not going to push?” Fuck. Did she want him to push? Shut up, Riley.

  “Nope. I promised this morning was just for coffee and sunrise.”

  She relaxed. She couldn’t help it. This. This closeness. They’d had lots of exciting moments over the course of their relationship, but it was these moments where Riley was just Riley, not Phoenix the international superstar, that had made her fall in love with him. “You worried about the navigating today? I hear the puzzles are a bitch this year.”

  He looked over at her and grinned. And her heart flip-flopped.

  That grin. That cocky grin. She couldn’t deny she’d fallen in love with that too.

  How was she supposed to fall out of love with him at all?

  “Today is where I’ll stop screwing around. It’s time to win.”

  She wasn’t surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth. One, Riley didn’t know any other way than to win, to be the best. Plus, she’d seen his face during last night’s briefing, when Zac had been talking about what the athletes would face today. Some of the course’s most challenging running, then navigation and puzzles.

  It was the sort of stuff Phoenix loved to do.

  “Bo is gunning for you. You better watch your back. He thinks it’s his year to win.”

  “Let him think that. It’s not going to happen.” He stood up. “Thanks for sharing the sunrise with me, Wildfire.”

  She stood also. “Thanks for sharing your coffee. And for teaching me how to drink it black over the years so I can enjoy it anywhere.”

  He smiled and looked like he was going to say something but stopped himself.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Sunrise—a new day. I’ll see you later today after the navigation. Be on the lookout… I’ll be coming in first.”

  Chapter 10

  “You’re grinning like a pretty big idiot for someone who is barely in the top five on day three of a six-day race. There’s no way you’re going to win, Phoenix.”

  Riley just grinned bigger. Bo was right; Riley had been smiling all day despite his standing in the race, which had neither gone up nor down in this morning’s running segment.

  The running had been brutal. A lot of hills, which required the athletes to either slow down or burn through calories they didn’t have with their limited food supplies. Rough terrain that made the backpacks more cumbersome and everything just more difficult.

  And Riley wasn’t a runner. Not like Iceland was. The slender, quiet man had been gaining ground all morning. The best Riley could do was just hold his own and not lose any ground. He was still in fourth place.

  Fourth place didn’t sit well with him.

  But Bo was right; Riley was smiling. He’d basically been smiling since this morning, when Wildfire had touched the tattoo on his arm with such a wistful look on her face.

  She. Still. Loved. Him.

  He didn’t know what was going on, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to fix it, but she still loved him. That was the best possible starting-off point he could hope for.

  “Don’t you worry, BoGo,”—Bo hated that nickname—“you’ll still be crying at the end of the race when I beat you once again.”

  “Whatever, asshole. Just remember I’m a full lap ahead of you.” Bo filled his water bottle from the tank the race provided.

  Riley’s smile didn’t slip. They were in the middle of running four three-mile loops that brought them back around to camp each time. Each loop took them out into a different direction, with different terrain, each progressively more difficult to navigate with their packs.

  And like Bo said, he was in fact a full lap ahead of Riley. Bo thought it was because he was so much faster, but it was really because of Riley’s physical ailments.

  So many physical ailments that had required he stop and be checked out by the race medical staff—Wildfire—every time he came back through camp.

  Riley would gladly move into last place if it meant he got to talk to her every time he came through.

  “I’m sure I’ll catch you during the navigation section.” He winked at Bo. “I’m not worried about it for a second.”

  Bo muttered something under his breath and took off from the camp down the new trail. Riley couldn’t help but chuckle. Bo was young, almost ten years younger than him. He still hadn’t quite developed his game face or a genuine respect for the experience of racing.

  All Bo could see right now was the destination. The journey was lost on him.

  Riley had been that way for a long time also. It had only been in the past few years, mostly since he’d met Wildfire, that he’d started to appreciate the race, the journey, the sunrise…not just the winning.

  Of course, he still liked the winning. And planned to win this race.

  Planned to win all the way around.

  He slipped the backpack off and watched Wildfire rush over to him from the RV, worry clear on her face. Let Bo get ahead. Riley had more important things to do at this moment.

  “You’re stopping again?”

  He almost felt bad that he was putting that look of concern in her eye, although he could admit he was happy to see it there. She was right to be a little concerned. Under normal situations, he would’ve been near death before stopping for medical attention three times in a row.

  She put her hands on the rotator cuff of his shoulder, pressing to check for inflammation or soreness, since this was the “injury” he’d ha
d last time he’d come through camp about forty minutes ago. “Does this hurt?”

  Hurt? Hell no. He had to hold back his groan at how good her hands felt on him. He shook his head. “No, it’s feeling better.”

  She narrowed those hazel eyes at him. “Let me get this straight. Your knee was hurting when you came in here the first time. That was feeling better when you came back around the second time, but your shoulder was hurting. Now you’re telling me your shoulder is not hurting, yet you’re stopping again?”

  He could barely keep from smiling. He’d known Wildfire was too smart to fool for long. He was surprised he’d even made it to the second round.

  He slid both his sleeves up, then held up his elbow and pointed to it. “I was injured going through the woods and got scratched. Zac has us on the most menacing trails out there.”

  Her eyebrow was raised so high she looked like an emoji.

  “What?” he asked, all innocence. “I think I might need stitches.”

  She finally looked down at his elbow. When he heard her little chuckle, he thought his heart might actually burst out of his chest.

  That’s what was wrong.

  It came to him so suddenly it almost floored him.

  Wildfire hadn’t been laughing. At all. Not with him, not with anyone else. She was so lively and full of life that the absence of her laughter was completely foreign and unnatural. Her laughter had been the first thing he’d ever noticed about her.

  He’d been going about this all the wrong way, thinking about their breakup from a purely selfish standpoint—why had she broken up with him? That wasn’t the question he needed to be asking at all.

  What had caused her to stop laughing?

  And even more importantly, how could he bring the laughter back?

  He definitely couldn’t bring it up directly. He knew her well enough to know that. Whatever was going on, he couldn’t force the details out of her. He was going to have to gentle the details out of her.

  Court her. Woo her. Make her understand there was nothing in this world she couldn’t trust him with.

  She shook her head, looking down at his arm. “I can tell it really hurts by the way you’re holding up the wrong elbow, Harrison.”

  Shit. Ha ha. He quickly brought up the other elbow, which did, in fact, have a tiny scratch on it. “Yeah, this one. I have elbow dyslexia.”

  She touched his arm, then looked up at him, fighting off a smile, and shook her head. “Stay right here while I go get my amputation kit. There’s no saving a limb with a wound this terrible. Almost like the first time.”

  She remembered the first race. Their first time talking. Good. He wanted her to remember.

  He nodded solemnly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “What are you doing, Ry?” she whispered.

  “Just spending a little time with my favorite nurse, getting myself checked out.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I think you need to get your head checked out.”

  “We’ve both always known that.”

  She opened the first aid kit in her hand and pulled out a bandage. He gave her his best scared face.

  “Is it going to hurt as you cut my arm off?”

  She chuckled again as she opened the bandage. “Only if I accidentally slip and chop off your head instead.”

  She placed the bandage over the tiny scratch. “There. Now get out of here with all your boo-boos.”

  He winked at her. Someday soon you’ll be kissing my boo-boos and making them better again.

  He was wise enough not to say it out loud, but there was no doubt in his mind that it was true.

  “If you’ll come watch me rappel tomorrow, I won’t stop next time unless I’m actually injured.”

  She shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. But yes, if I can.”

  He slipped his pack back on and took off at a sprint. He had a race to win.

  Chapter 11

  The next time around, as promised, Riley didn’t stop to have any of his wounds tended. He gave Girl Riley a little salute as he ran past, grinning as he heard her call out, “What? No amputations this time?”

  God, how he loved that woman.

  It was time to move on to one of his favorite portions of the race: navigation and puzzles.

  So much of what Phoenix did on a regular basis was physical in nature—after all, physical danger made for exciting viewing. But that didn’t mean he didn’t like mental challenges also.

  The navigation portion of the race wasn’t physically difficult, but if a participant wasn’t careful, these puzzles could add a lot of minutes to their overall race time. The race had been won or lost here before.

  Every competitor’s route was different in this segment. They each had a particular color that corresponded with their puzzles and were given only a compass and a rudimentary map. They had to complete each puzzle to gain the flag and move on to the next segment, puzzle, and flag.

  It required patience and mental acuity, both of which weren’t always easy to find when your brain and body were exhausted from two and a half days of brutal racing already.

  Riley pulled his focus inward, blocking out everything else: his exhaustion, discomfort, real and pretend booboos, and even what was going on with Wildfire. He’d need all his focus and concentration to make it through this segment as quickly as possible.

  This was where being a world-class athlete came in handy: he knew how to focus his mind.

  It was time to make up for lost ground.

  He moved competently for the first two hours through the easier clues and puzzles, running into various other athletes on their quests. Since everyone was looking for different colored flags, it didn’t matter that they were all roaming the same woods, and it certainly wouldn’t help a competitor to follow someone else.

  He studied his map and the natural markers it provided—rivers, boulder, ledges—then used his compass and found where the next puzzle should be—near a tree where a small creek turned south.

  But it wasn’t there.

  Riley looked all around in case it had fallen but didn’t see it anywhere.

  Finally, with a curse, he backtracked to where he’d found the last puzzle box, completed it, and gotten the flag. He must’ve made some sort of error in his navigation.

  He recalculated everything, forcing himself to slow down and follow the map more closely in case he’d made a mistake. Even the smallest of errors could have pointed him in the wrong direction.

  But even that slow, he ended up at the same place. Still no puzzle. Without the puzzle, he couldn’t get the flag. Shit. He could continue, but he’d be penalized.

  Out of the corner of his eye Riley caught sight of someone. He turned to ask the person if they had seen the puzzle box or were having difficulties.

  But no one was there.

  Okay, so now this was getting a little weird. He’d been talking to various people all afternoon. All of the competitors were crossing paths during this event. Talking to each other and egging each other on had been part of the of navigation camaraderie.

  It was pretty damned suspicious that someone would take to hiding at the same time and near the same location where Riley’s puzzle box was missing.

  Riley wanted to know who it was.

  He walked casually in the opposite direction until he reached a large fallen tree, then ducked behind it and doubled back to where he’d first seen the unknown person near some low shrubs.

  There was no one there.

  Goddammit. Riley looked around, crouching down to the ground. Someone had been here. He’d spent enough time with the Linear Tactical guys, Dorian—Ghost—in particular, to have picked up some tracking tips.

  He could see where someone’s knee had made an indentation in the muddy dirt closest to the bushes. A little bit further over, some branches were bent and broken, most likely from the person trying to move in a hurry once Riley headed that way.

  But regardless, it didn’t matter. Whoever had been
here was gone. If they’d had something to do with why he couldn’t find his fourth navigation puzzle box, he wasn’t going to be able to prove it anyway.

  With a curse Riley headed back one last time to where he’d finished the previous puzzle. He worked his route out again, hoping this time it would be different, but it wasn’t, of course.

  Damn it, he was going to have to take the penalty. An event that should have been helping him catch up in the race was now going to put him further behind.

  He went back to where he knew the puzzle should be and began the last segment from there. He wouldn’t get the points from his missing flag at stage four, but he could still get the flag for stage five.

  He used his map and compass to figure out the location of the fifth puzzle. That basically proved that he’d been in the correct location for the fourth stage. There was no way he could’ve gotten to the fifth stage correctly if he’d been wrong for the fourth stage.

  This wooden puzzle box was the most difficult, but Riley forced himself to say calm and focused, ignoring the frustration eating at him over the missing flag.

  The puzzles used the same part of his brain that designed and organized his stunts. He took his safety seriously. Before he ever jumped off a cliff or tried a new motorcycle flip or launched a skydive trick, he made sure the science worked. That same thorough thinking and logical approach worked in his favor now. It wasn’t long before he had the puzzle box open and was accessing the flag inside. From there he sprinted back to camp.

  He was in second place coming in for the day, behind only Amber. Good for her. Riley didn’t have any recollection of Felix being particularly good at navigation or puzzles, but that didn’t mean his sister wasn’t a whiz.

  And Amber should at least be safe from Damon’s advances for a few hours. He would take a huge hit in time today—probably knocking him out of the top five. Mental challenges weren’t his strong suit. He was much better at the physical ones.

  Iceland, Baby, Bo… Riley wasn’t sure how they would do.

  Especially Bo.

  Riley walked over to the check-in table where Zac was sitting.