Ben knew then she was rested enough to climb.
The valley began to narrow and the scenery grew even more dramatic as they entered Cimarron Canyon.
“It’s beautiful, Ben.”
“I love this place. The hiking is great too.” He slowed the truck so they could take in the aspen trees growing along the riverbank. As the sheer cliffs of the Palisades came into view, he heard Dana gasp. Looking over at her, he saw the worry lines were back and fully in place.
“Don’t worry. We’re not climbing there.”
She let go of the breath she’d been holding and gave him a nervous smile.
Ten minutes later he parked in the small dirt pullout on the right, stepped out of the truck, and was surrounded by memories as sweet as Dana’s smile.
Twenty-four
They sat on the tailgate and had a snack of granola bars and water, then walked the ten-minute hike to Maverick Cliff and began unpacking Ben’s equipment. Ben went over the basics of clipping on and rope safety, then helped her into the gear.
Dana stood staring at the fifty-foot-high cliff.
“What did you say it’s called?”
“The Block Head.” Ben checked Dana’s harness one more time. “There are plenty of jugs and in-cut edges.”
Dana touched her helmet and peered up at the top again. They had passed a few other climbers. At least someone might hear her body when it fell to the ground, broken and busted.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispered.
“Trust me,” Ben said. “We’ll go slow. You remember how to clip on?”
“Yeah. I’ve got that part.”
“Good. You’re going to clip on where I clip on. You’ll also be tied to me. You can’t fall, Dana. It’s like parachuting in tandem.”
“Only we’re going up.” She smiled at the comparison.
“Exactly.”
“Unless we fall.”
“We won’t fall. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
The south-facing sandstone was warm to her touch. As she climbed behind Ben, she focused totally on where her hand went, the placement of each foot, clipping on carefully. Pressing her body against the cliff, she forgot to worry about what was happening in the office thirty some miles to the south.
And each time she came to a difficult hold, she would reach and find Ben’s hand there—strong, firm, tanned. The muscles in his forearm and bicep would flex and tighten as he reached for her, reminding her of a finely honed machine. She never doubted he could help her to the in-cut edge. By the time they gained the top, the bond between them was as strong as the dynamic ropes that kept them from falling to the ground fifty feet below.
“That is an amazing view,” Dana whispered breathlessly. Her fingers, toes, arms, and legs ached. And she couldn’t wait to do it again.
The sun was nearing the horizon. A painter’s cascade of color spread out before them.
“I’m glad you like it, Miss Jacobs.” Ben fished in his pack for energy bars and handed one to her.
“I seriously hope this is not your idea of dinner.”
“What? You want more? I bring you to the best table, with the best view—”
“But not the best food.” Dana grimaced as she tried to swallow the bite she’d taken.
“They do take some getting used to.”
“Yeah. They’re a little like oats.”
“So you’ve eaten oats, have you?” Ben slugged his bite down with water, then poured the small amount left in his bottle over his head, causing Dana to laugh outright.
“What is it about men that makes them cool off like a dog under a water hose?”
“We’re beasts at heart, I suppose. And I’ll have you know I do have better dinner plans. First though, you have to go down.”
“Not yet.”
“No, we can wait a few more minutes.” Ben leaned back on his elbows and looked out at the panoramic view.
Dana realized one of the things she appreciated the most about him was his ability to be silent with her. They could share a quietness that wasn’t uncomfortable. The sun was dropping like a giant beach ball, and the nightingales were calling to one another. A light breeze cooled the sweat on her face.
Within her soul, something like peace began to blossom.
Then she remembered she still had to climb down.
Twenty-five
Dana peered over the edge and frowned. “Maybe I’ll sleep here.”
“Until?” Ben reached for his pack and pulled a second bottle of water from it.
“Until the helicopter comes?”
Ben smiled his slow, lazy smile, and Dana knew she was in trouble. Of course, she’d suspected as much the minute she’d climbed into his pickup.
“Trust me,” he whispered as he stood and held out his hand to her. He once again checked her harness, then tapped the top of her helmet. “You’re good, Jacobs. We’ll be on the ground in no time.”
Dana pulled on her gloves, readjusted her knee pads, and tried to think of something else she could do to put off the inevitable.
“Ready?” Ben asked.
“No.”
“Lean into the harness, sweetie. I’ll do all the work up here. Put your feet against the wall, maintain your balance, and I’ll ease you down as gently as your mother set you in a cradle.”
Dana closed her eyes and pushed down the pain that any mention of her mother brought. When she looked at Ben again, he had turned away and was adjusting his pack and their ropes.
Walking to the edge, he motioned her over. “Let’s do it. The sooner we start, the sooner you get to eat.”
“I’m not so hungry now,” she admitted.
Ben put his arms around her in a bear hug, then pivoted so her back was to the void.
“How will you get down?” Dana asked.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m a veteran.” Ben backed up five paces.
“I’m not talking about your military status, Marshall.”
“Step off, Jacobs. Hold on to the rope and lean into it.”
One minute she was looking at Ben’s lopsided smile, the next she was suspended in air, staring into a sky as clear as the surface of the river they had passed. Although the sun had set, light lingered. Squinting, she could make out the first of the evening’s stars, struggling to find its place among the heavens.
Then she realized she was dropping.
The feeling was exhilarating and terrifying.
If she made it to the ground she was going to kill him for talking her into this. No, first she’d fire him, then kill him. If she survived.
Her feet touched rock, and she heard his words reminding her to relax. A calm assurance chased away her fears. She knew Ben wouldn’t drop her. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she watched The Block Head disappear as she slid down it—like a baby being laid to sleep.
The strangest thing happened in those few moments. She suddenly did remember her mother’s smiling face—not with her, but with Erin. She’d been seven when her mother had brought her baby sister home. Looking up at the sky and rock, she could clearly see her mother placing the baby swaddled in pink into her arms.
She’d been every bit as terrified then as she was the moment she’d stepped off the rock face above. All those years ago, her mother had whispered to her as Ben had. “Trust me, Dana.”
Erin had been soft and warm. She’d looked up at her, made little cooing sounds, then gone back to sleep.
Her feet scraping the ground brought Dana back to the present. She unclipped the rope as Ben had shown her. She tugged on it twice, and Ben pulled it up. Stepping back, she watched as he made his way down the rock face.
He made it look so simple. Somehow Ben made much of life look easier than it was.
He’d given her something precious tonight though. More than an evening to relax, he’d given her a memory she’d buried somewhere along the way.
Maybe she’d wait to kill him.
“Easier than going up?” Ben asked.
“Much.” Dana smiled as he gave her a congratulatory hug.
“You did it,” he said.
“Yeah.” She picked up the rope and helped him store it back into the pack. She thought of telling him about her mother and Erin, but the images were still too fresh, too raw. Instead, she seized on a safer memory. “Coming down reminded me of an exercise we did during Homeland Security training. It was supposed to help with our trust issues.”
“Yeah. They have something similar in the military.”
Dana stopped and looked at Ben, suddenly realizing this hadn’t been training though. Her life had rested in his hands as she repelled down the cliff. And it was okay, because she did trust him. Not only was she sure he knew what he was doing, but she knew he wouldn’t allow any harm to come to her.
“What?” Ben reached up and wiped at his face. “Am I wearing chalk dust?”
“Nothing, Marshall. Let’s go.”
“Sure you don’t want to do it again?” he teased as they walked back to the car.
“In the dark?”
“People do. Lights on the helmets and all that.”
Dana shivered. “No, thank you. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to do it in broad daylight.”
“You have plenty of courage,. More courage than any woman I’ve ever met.”
Dana peered at him in the gathering dusk. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The compliment. And this. Everything. For knowing what I need when I don’t know what I need.” An owl hooted as they made their way down the path. They paused to look for it, spotted it on a low branch to the south. Staring straight at them, the Great Horned didn’t move or speak again until they continued down the trail. “It does help to get away from the pressures of work. It helps to push myself physically… in a different way. I jog, but lately I can’t turn my mind off even when I’m running.”
She felt his hand encircle hers more tightly.
“Couldn’t think about much while I was afraid of falling to my death,” she admitted. “It was nice to forget everything for a few hours.”
“Did you manage to work up an appetite in the process?”
“Oh yeah, Marshall. You definitely owe me food.”
Twenty-six
Ben thought he might starve before they finished pizza negotiations.
He understood women dug veggies. He was a healthy guy himself, or so he thought.
“You’ve really never had a mushroom on a pizza?” Dana pulled a slice off the platter before Ben could even set it on the table.
Grabbing his own piece, he bit into the warm, cheesy bliss and shook his head no.
“It’s good,” Dana declared, reaching for her iced tea. “You should try it sometime. I tried mountain climbing for you.”
“Rock climbing,” Ben corrected. “And you wouldn’t agree to sausage. Everyone loves sausage.”
Dana rolled her eyes as she continued devouring her piece. He did admire a woman who enjoyed the finer foods of life, though burning a thousand calories probably had something to do with her appetite. For a few moments they focused on the food.
“Great mom-and-pop shop,” Dana said as she considered a third piece. “I take it you’ve been here before.”
“Yeah. Joe and I would come here every time we went out to Cimarron Canyon.”
Ben felt the pizza stick in his throat, so he reached for his Coke. The sweetness of the drink couldn’t wash away the sudden, bitter taste in his mouth.
“Tell me about Joe,” Dana said. “If you want to. I mean, if I’m not intruding.”
Ben looked across the old, oak table at Dana, knew what Joe would think of her, and couldn’t stop the smile that worked its way across his face. It hurt though, like new skin stretched over a fresh wound.
He reached for another piece of pizza. “Joe was great. I guess he was the first real friend I ever had.”
Dana looked surprised. “I imagined you with lots of friends in high school.”
“I guess I did have—in a way. But those are childhood friends, people you’ve known since you can remember being you.” Ben dropped the half-eaten piece on the plate and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Joe was different. He was the first real stranger to befriend me.”
He looked across the pizza place, saw it as it was back then. “I spotted this help wanted ad for Taos, New Mexico. It sounded so far away, so adventurous.”
Ben let his gaze wander around the room. The place hadn’t changed much in the last eight years. “I was nineteen and had finished my freshman year in college. I didn’t want to go home for the summer. Things there were better, but still not quite right.”
He stopped, tried to think of how to go on.
“And you had the truck,” Dana said.
“Yeah. There was the truck. Plus I knew it all then.”
“All what?”
“All everything. Surely knew enough to come down to Taos and work for a few months.” Ben laughed and took another drink from his glass. “By the time you deducted what it cost to get here and go back home, plus all we spent hiking, fishing, and chasing girls—I didn’t go home with a dime more than I left with.”
Dana poked at a piece of pizza with her fork. “But you didn’t regret it?”
“Nah. It wasn’t about the money. It was never about the money. And meeting Joe, well, it goes back to the coincidence thing we talked about.”
“You think it was your destiny to come here and make friends with him?”
Ben pushed the plate of pizza out of the way, and leaned forward. He ran his fingers through his hair and finally looked up at Dana.
“I don’t have all the answers. You know? I wouldn’t trade that summer for anything. Wouldn’t trade time spent with Joe Tafoya. He was one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
Dana had finished eating and was watching him closely, so he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and set it down on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
When they were again in the truck, facing the road and watching the occasional car go by, Ben continued.
“We weren’t quite men though, and I think we knew it. We wanted to be. And we had such big plans. Both of us were interested in the same things.” He turned and looked at Dana in the dimness of the parking lot lights.
“Like rock climbing and chasing girls?”
“Yeah. Rock climbing we were fairly good at. Chasing girls we somehow hadn’t got the knack of.” He reached out and pulled her hand into his lap, ran his thumb up and down her palm. “Sometimes I worry I filled his head with the wrong ideas. Even then I knew I was going into the military. Joe, he wasn’t so sure. But when I started talking about it…”
Ben wondered if she really wanted to hear this, or if he just needed to unburden himself.
“What happened to him?” she asked gently.
“That’s the odd part. We ended up deployed at the same base in Fallujah. What are the chances?” He studied her. “Coincidence? I knew he’d signed up, but I had no idea he was deployed in the area until I walked out of my barracks one morning and heard someone holler my name. Turned around and there he was. I never was so happy to see a familiar face.”
“How long had you been there?”
“Twelve months. I was due for a furlough, but I’d been extended to eighteen. Then Joe showed up. Suddenly, it was fine. We were like kids again, but bigger.” He looked back down at her palm, ran his finger up and down the lines he could barely see. “Doing what we were supposed to do, and we were good at it. Until…”
Dana said nothing, only clasped his hand.
“I was with him.” Ben felt tears sting his eyes and didn’t move to wipe them away. “He was going into this barn to look for kids. I had the perimeter. We’d already checked it from a distance through our scopes and with spybots.”
He watched her reaction closely as he shared that most intimate of losses he’d shared with so few others. “Joe turned around and gave me this grin. Said he’d be back in f
ive. He walked across the doorway of the barn and it… it exploded into the sky.”
Dana reached out and rubbed the tears from his face. “I’m sorry, Ben.”
It was the first time she’d touched him on her own initiative, and one part of Ben recognized the victory. Another part of him was still over seven-thousand miles away.
Dana moved closer to him and snuggled into the circle of his arm. “You two needed each other.”
Ben swallowed, looked out the front windshield of the truck. “Joe didn’t regret going. He told me so the week before. He missed home, but he knew he was making a difference over there.”
“Did you come back here because of him?” Dana asked.
Ben didn’t answer right away. He shuffled through the prayers and questions he’d had for the last year.
“I can’t honestly say why I’m here. I know I don’t believe it was a chance happening for me to meet Joe, then reconnect with him four years later. I can’t pretend to know why he died over there and I didn’t. Maybe I’m here to figure it all out. Or possibly I’m here because this is a good place to be—a place God wants me to be right now.”
He felt her stiffen under him, then pull away.
“It’s late. We should go.”
Ben nodded, started the truck, and pulled out into the night. He’d known Dana wouldn’t want to hear his answer, felt any mention of faith would scare her like a rabbit to its hole. But he also knew that hiding his true feelings would be basing their relationship on a lie.
And he did intend to have a relationship with Dana Jacobs, whether she was his boss or not.
Somewhere he could sense Joe Tafoya sitting back and giving him a thumbs-up. No, they’d never been any good at chasing girls, but Joe had predicted the right woman would cross Ben’s path one day. And when she did, he’d realize explosives were easy to deal with—comparatively.
Women, on the other hand, had to be handled with care.
Twenty-seven
Dana stood up from her desk Tuesday morning and winced. She was sore in places that didn’t have a right to hurt. She was also more rested than she’d been in weeks. Truth was, she’d slept like a baby last night.
Hidden (Jacobs Family Series Book 1) Page 10
