Phoenix

by Crouch, Janie

  “Okay, yes. Personally too.”

  She was too discombobulated to even pretend like she wasn’t about to lose her mind over what had happened.

  They’d already examined Baby. He was bruised, and his hands had taken some abuse even under his gloves, trying to hang on to Riley, but besides that, he was basically fine.

  Shaken, and more reserved and pensive than Riley had ever seen her friend, but physically fine.

  Riley’s body had taken the brunt of the abuse.

  “He’s going to be okay.” Anne rubbed Riley’s back. “If there was anything serious, Zac would’ve sent him to see us rather than take him into a meeting.”

  Anne’s words were true. Boy Riley wouldn’t have been able to hide it if his shoulder were dislocated or something equally damaging. He probably had some bruises, abrasions.

  She just needed to see him with her own eyes. Touch him.

  “How could something like this happen?” She started her pacing again.

  “Zac and Wyatt inspected the rigs themselves a couple hours ago. It looks like it was just a horrible accident.”

  Riley shook her head. She knew these things happened in a situation where the athletes wanted to use every time advantage they could get—safety concerns took a backseat to speed.

  “The equipment was checked when it was put out yesterday, but something could’ve happened. Plus…” Anne faded out.

  “Plus what? Just say it.”

  Anne lowered her voice a little further. “Riley is accusing Bo of cheating. Said that he moved Riley’s puzzle box during the navigation portion yesterday and then did this today.”

  Riley rubbed her eyes with a weary hand. This explained the weirdness happening between the two men yesterday. “Honestly, someone moving the box would make more sense than Riley just not seeing it. And everybody knows how much Bo wants to win.”

  “Maybe. But it’s a huge step to go from hiding a puzzle to sabotaging somebody’s rappelling rig. Plus, it wasn’t even Riley’s, it was Baby’s. Baby is barely in the top ten—it wouldn’t make sense for Bo to go after him.”

  Anne was right. “Either way, it was scary as hell. I don’t even know what I would do if something happened to Riley.”

  As soon as she said the words, she realized how ridiculous that sounded.

  Thankfully, Anne didn’t point out that she was a complete moron. “Why don’t you go over to the RV and start refiling everyone’s paperwork? We left it a mess. With that big storm coming in, our jobs are just going to get more hectic.”

  Anne was giving her busywork. Riley couldn’t blame her. She was as big a mess as the paperwork in the RV. “Okay.”

  “Write in Johnson’s sprain and the two stitches in Iceland’s hand. Keep Boy Riley’s file out. We’ll need to add to it after I examine him.”

  Riley wanted to growl at the thought of anybody else examining him. But Anne was the doctor, a very well-respected trauma physician.

  Not to mention a little more neutral when it came to Riley.

  But still… growly.

  When Riley looked over at the cabin door again rather than heading straight for the RV, Anne stood up and got right in front of Riley. “Remember that time you got me all fancied up in red cowboy boots and sent me out on my date even though I was scared to death?”

  Riley dragged her eyes away from the cabin door. “Yes. You looked really hot, if I do say so myself.”

  Anne dropped her hands on Riley’s shoulders. “You have always been a good friend to me, even though when I first moved back, I was a stuttering mess and just wanted to bury myself in my work. You encouraged me to take a chance on Zac, and now we’re getting married in a couple of months. That might have never happened if it weren’t for you.”

  Riley brought her friend in for a hug. “It would’ve happened. I saw the way Zac looked at you that very first moment in the hospital. He would have needed to hit his head a hell of a lot harder than that to not have wanted you.”

  Anne actually blushed. She might not be so socially awkward and suffer from so much anxiety anymore, but the doctor was always going to tip on the shy side. Riley had always felt protective of her, although she didn’t need to anymore—Zac Mackay would stomp all over anyone who dared hurt his sweet fiancée.

  “Anyway.” Anne pulled back from the hug with a smile. “You were very kind to me when you didn’t know me at all. I’ll never forget that.”

  “It was nothing—”

  “And my point is now it’s my turn to help you a little bit. You head back to the RV and get your mind off Boy Riley. I promise I will grab you if there is anything you need to know about his condition. Anything.”

  Riley grimaced. “I know I’m acting like an idiot.”

  “You’re not acting like an idiot. You are acting like something, but I’ll leave you to figure that out on your own. Right now, go do the filing.”

  Riley almost pressed Anne on what she meant but was afraid she already knew. Riley was acting like a woman who was worried about the man she loved.

  Yeah, better to leave that alone.

  She walked to the RV and opened the door, startled at the silhouette of someone sitting at the back table, studying the medical files.

  What the hell? Those files contained confidential medical information. No one should be accessing them except for her, Anne, or someone officially tied to the race.

  “Excuse me, you shouldn’t be in here without permission.”

  As she stepped closer, the long blond hair of the woman at the table came into view.

  “Amber?” Regardless, she still shouldn’t be going through the files.

  Amber didn’t turn around or move from the table.

  “Really, you’re not allowed to be reading those. You shouldn’t be in here at all.”

  She crossed back to grab the files and realized the other woman wasn’t looking at the files at all; she was just hunched over them, crying.

  Shit. “Amber, oh my gosh, are you okay?” Riley knelt down next to her and put her arm around the other woman’s shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” Amber finally got out. “I know I’m not supposed to be in here, I just needed somewhere where no one else was around.”

  “I understand. This race is really stressful. It can get the best of everyone.”

  Amber began to cry even harder. “That should have been me out there today. If I hadn’t been such a coward, I might’ve been on the line Baby was on.”

  “What?”

  Amber nodded. “I stood up at the top of that cliff wall, trying to get up enough nerve to use the hard rappelling stations rather than going back down to the easy ones. I looked over that edge and all I could think about was the pictures of my brother’s mangled legs after his skiing accident. He lost control and went over a small cliff and broke his back.”

  Riley hadn’t known Felix personally, not the way Boy Riley had, but she remembered hearing about the accident when it had happened last winter. Felix’s paralysis had hit Boy Riley and his inner circle pretty hard.

  “Amber.” She grabbed a box of tissues and pushed them in her direction. “Anybody would understand you not rappelling down the hard section after what happened to Felix, and thank goodness you didn’t. I’m sure your brother’s fall and paralysis has been hard on you and him.”

  “Hard enough on him that he killed himself.”

  “Holy hell, Amber.” Riley scrubbed a hand across her face. She wasn’t a great counselor at the best of times. “No wonder you’re upset. Hang on, let me go get Anne for you to talk to. She’s much better with stuff like this than I am.”

  Amber grabbed her arm. “No. Please. I don’t want anybody else to know I was in here having a breakdown. Everybody already worries about me because of what happened to Felix. They think I shouldn’t be at the race at all.”

  “That’s not true. What happened to Felix on the ski slopes was a tragedy and everybody hates that it happened. But nobody thinks you shouldn’t be here. I�
��m sure they all respect what you’re doing in his memory.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to do it. I wish he were here doing it himself. He loved all of this stuff.”

  “I’m so sorry. It has to be so hard.” She patted Amber’s back. Jeez. Could she be any more woefully inadequate?

  “I’m just so pissed off all the time. I’m so angry.”

  Riley nodded. “That’s understandable.”

  “Felix never should’ve been out on that ski slope to begin with. I wish someone had just told him to go back to the chalet. To sit this one out.”

  “You know how these guys are.” She imagined someone trying to tell Riley he couldn’t do a stunt. He would never listen to them. “They are convinced of their own immortality. If your brother was anything like Riley and his crew, he wouldn’t have listened even if they had begged him not to ski.”

  Tears welled up in Amber’s eyes again. “I knew from the moment they told Felix he was paralyzed that it was just a matter of time before he took his own life. I tried to get through to him, but I was never anything more than his kid sister. He was never going to listen to me.” The anger was back in her features.

  “I don’t blame you for being mad. It sucked for everybody, not just him. You have a right to be angry.”

  Amber’s laugh was bitter. “I’ve been seeing a therapist, you know, to talk through my feelings. I’m not sure how helpful that really was. I decided I’d rather take action and do something than just sit around and talk about how losing Felix makes me feel. I want to do something about it.”

  “Like this race?”

  “Yeah. Felix was still on the Wild Wyoming Adventure Race mailing list. When I got the notification about his race spot, I decided to take it, to do something about his death rather than just sit around talking about it.”

  Riley wasn’t sure that competing in WAR had or would actually help Amber process any of this tragedy any better, but who knew? “Doing is almost always better than sitting around, I think. But talking things through is good too.”

  Riley was probably the least qualified to give advice on how to work oneself through a trauma. Look at how she’d been handling her diagnosis.

  “Yeah. My therapist was skeptical when I told her I was doing WAR. But I thought it might give me some perspective.” Amber got up and began pacing, her movements jerky. “I’m here to put the past to rights.”

  At least she wasn’t crying anymore. Riley wasn’t great with crying.

  But anger, she understood.

  Riley looked at the files on the desk. The drops from Amber’s tears could be seen on a few of them. And, of course, Riley’s was open on the very top.

  It was like she couldn’t escape him. He was everywhere.

  She closed his file. She was glad she’d caught Amber in here having her breakdown. Everything they’d talked about had made Riley realize something important.

  She needed help. If she couldn’t turn to Boy Riley, then at the very least she needed to talk to a professional. How many times had she suggested grief counseling for someone in the hospital? It wasn’t just for when someone died. It was for all sorts of traumatic life changes.

  Like a multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

  “I’m such a coward,” Amber whispered, jerking Riley out of her thoughts. “Maybe nothing would’ve happened if I had gone on that rappelling line. I may not be super experienced, but I’m a lot lighter than Baby. Maybe if I had just faced my fears and gone over that ledge, everybody would have been safe and okay.”

  Riley slapped the files down on the table. “No offense, but that’s bullshit. First, let’s remember that everybody is safe and okay. And you know what I think? I think you got to a point where you were over your head, but instead of powering through it like your brother”—or like Riley had been trying to do with her MS diagnosis—“you reevaluated and made a wise choice.”

  Amber stopped her pacing and stared at Riley, brows furrowed. “If Felix had done that, he would still be here.”

  “Exactly. So maybe it was his spirit or whatever telling you to turn around and stay away from those harder rappelling lines. Baby and Phoenix both ended up being fine.”

  At least she hoped so. She was still itching with the need to see him.

  “Yeah.” Amber nodded. “You’re right. It worked out for the best. Of course, if Riley had been on that rig rather than Baby, it might’ve been different. Riley weighs more. Baby might not have been able to support him.”

  A shudder ran through Riley. So many things could’ve gone impossibly wrong. “Yeah.”

  “I guess none of us ever know what the future holds.”

  Chapter 16

  The storm moved in overnight.

  Wyoming storms weren’t to be trifled with at the best of times. They definitely weren’t to be messed with when you were out in the wilderness fifty miles away from the nearest substantial shelter.

  Zac and Wyatt, in their uncanny Linear Tactical/former Special Forces voodoo way, had known the storm was coming long before the sky started pouring. They’d warned all the race volunteers and competitors.

  But a change in weather didn’t stop WAR. It just made the competition more miserable for the competitors.

  Boy Riley was most miserable of them all. Everyone else had already left to start their racing for the day, but because of the time penalty from the navigation and puzzle segment two days before, Phoenix was starting an hour and a half after everyone else.

  “It’s like watching a kicked puppy, isn’t it?” Anne shook her head as she joined Riley at the RV window to look out at him.

  Riley sighed. “It really is the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Phoenix looked absolutely miserable. Since the camp location was moving today, all the tents had been taken down after the athletes had gone. Some of the athletes had waved to Riley as they’d left.

  Bo, classy as ever, had flipped him off. Amber, the last one to leave, had yelled at Bo not to be an asshole, then given Phoenix the most awkwardly endearing hug, nearly falling into him.

  It was almost sweet enough for Riley not to have her fingernails digging into her palms at the sight.

  Once Amber left, Phoenix had then been left alone to sit under the tiny overhang of the lone cabin at the campground. It wasn’t keeping him dry at all, and there was only so much a waterproof jacket could do.

  Not only was it cold and rainy, his need to get moving was strumming through him. He’d looked down at his watch four times already in the past thirty seconds.

  Girl Riley wanted to do something. She wished she could offer him a cup of coffee like he’d given her the past three mornings, or even shelter inside the RV. But she couldn’t. Any of those things would be considered outside help and would just add more minutes to his time penalty. So all she could do was sit there and watch him be miserable.

  “In case you’re wondering, that’s pretty much the same expression you’ve had on your face ever since the official MS diagnosis came through.”

  Fitting. “Probably because that’s pretty much how I’ve felt since the diagnosis came through.”

  Anne shook her head. “You’re being an idiot. You need to tell him. You know he’s going to find out eventually.”

  Riley stared out at the man she loved. Yes, he looked miserable, but that didn’t diminish his strength or virility.

  Some people didn’t take Riley seriously because he did crazy stunts on motorcycles and jumped out of airplanes. They wrote him off because he’d mastered the art of entertaining viewers on YouTube. They thought he didn’t have much depth because he sought out thrills and danger.

  But anybody who thought Riley Harrison was shallow or empty made that mistake at their own peril. There was so much more to him than his tattoos and reckless smile would lead people to believe.

  “He would stay,” Riley whispered so softly she wasn’t even sure Anne could hear her. That didn’t matter; she wasn’t sure she was talking to Anne anyway. “If
I walked out into that storm right now and told him about my MS and that I needed him, he would drop everything for me. He would stay here and take care of me. He would give up the life he has for me.”

  Her fingers came up to touch the glass of the window, as if she could reach through it and touch Riley himself. “Because that’s the man he is. The man I fell in love with.”

  “Riley…”

  She dropped her fingers, wiping the drops of condensation on her pants. “So, the answer is no. I won’t let that happen. I’ll work through this myself and figure out a plan. By the time he hears about it, there won’t be any ties between us anymore. He loves me because I’m capable of handling things. I’m capable of handling this too.”

  But, oh God, she didn’t feel like it sometimes. Hated that her own body was turning against her in a way she couldn’t understand or fight.

  “While I appreciate the tragic backstory and your willingness to fall on your sword so completely unnecessarily, I feel like you’re being a little melodramatic here, bitch.”

  Riley spun around with wide eyes to stare at Anne. She’d never heard such language come out of her friend’s mouth.

  “Good,” Anne was smiling. “See, I can use the bad words when they’re called for.”

  Riley couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve got my attention. Say your piece, Anne.”

  “After what happened with the rappelling yesterday, I’ve been thinking. I know I said I would support you either way, but I’d be remiss if I don’t kick you in the ass a little bit.”

  “You think I should tell him. You’ve never made that a secret.”

  “Well, first of all, you’re making it sound like you’re going to be in a wheelchair tomorrow morning. Hell, you may never be in a wheelchair. You may outlive us all. You may only have the most minor of MS symptoms. There’s no reason to think that things are going to be the worst-possible scenario. Multiple sclerosis is a spectrum. We don’t know yet where you’re going to fall on it.”

  “I know, but—”

  Anne held out a hand to stop her. “MS is also a timeline. We don’t know how quickly or slowly you’re going to move in your progression. But based on your initial tests, there is no reason to think it’s going to be a rapid onset of symptoms. Hell, Riley, you could have good days ninety-five percent of the time for the next twenty years. That’s more than the average non-MS person has.”