by Nicole Helm
His truck.
Sarah got out of the passenger seat and Jamison pulled a baby’s car seat out of the back. Every grumpy, angry, pain-fueled thought emptied out of him as she came over, smiling.
“I thought you might like a chance to hold your baby.”
Dev didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded. Jamison and Sarah fiddled with the car seat and wrapped the little bundle up in layers and layers.
After a few minutes, Sarah placed Paul in his arms. She settled a blanket around both of them. “There’s your daddy,” she whispered to Paul. “We’ve been missing him. Haven’t we?”
Paul was bundled head to toe, pretty much only his eyes and mouth showing. Those eyes were wide and alert and gazed right at Dev.
“Look at you,” he murmured, bowled over, body and soul. Heart and mind. Just...blank because all he could do was stare at this baby—his son—and feel.
He had no idea how long he simply held his son against him and looked, tried to memorize every expression, every inch. Eventually he raised his gaze to the woman he loved. Who’d given birth to this baby on his grandmother’s couch. Who’d survived and was standing there smiling. And he was just saturated with gratitude. With love. And hope. “Thank you,” he managed to say, though his voice was rough.
“For giving birth?” she asked with a laugh. One hand rested on his shoulder, and the other gently touched Paul’s cheek. “I didn’t have much of a choice. He was coming out one way or another.”
“No. Thank you for saving me.”
She looked from Paul to him, smoothed the hair on his forehead. “You’re muddled. Grandma Pauline did that.”
“She saved my life, probably more than once all things said and done. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about...me. Without you, I’d still be...missing.”
“Without us,” Sarah said, nodding toward their son in his arms.
“Yeah. Yeah. We have to get married.”
Her smile died, turning into a confused frown. “You couldn’t even phrase it like a question?”
“Why would I do that?” He grinned up at her. “You’re going to marry me.” There were no doubts, and Dev wouldn’t waste another second of his life.
Never again.
Epilogue
One Year Later
She married him. In a small intimate ceremony on the ranch as soon as Dev got out of the hospital. Their families, their dogs, their horses had been there as they’d promised to love and cherish each other forever.
They’d moved into the Knight house, since Grandma Pauline had Brady, Cecilia and later on baby Paula living with them.
Grandma Pauline had quite the array of great-grandchildren named after her.
They put to rest the ghosts of Ace and Anth—together and with their family. As another Christmas dawned, life was good.
Dev stepped into the mudroom and wiped his boots on the mat. He hung his coat up on the peg, shaking the snow off of it. His leg ached, but his wife had snuck out early and done most of the chores before he’d noticed she’d gone.
She’d let him handle the evening chores, and so he’d gone out with his father-in-law and done the work of keeping the Reaves and Knight ranches running, even on Christmas.
When Duke had gone inside Grandma Pauline’s, where the festivities would be, Dev had begged off a few minutes. The moon shone bright above. They’d had a blizzard last week so the entire area was covered in snow. Glittering, Christmasy snow.
He and Sarah had taken Paul out to play in it this morning, and Dev didn’t know when he’d ever been so happy.
Actually, he did know. Never. Never in the whole of his life had he been able to access this well of happiness. Because he’d had brothers who’d sacrificed for him, a grandmother who’d given him a foundation to build on, but it had been Sarah and Paul who’d finally brought him to this.
The families had grown and the living room was packed. Nina and Cecilia had given birth to healthy girls. Jamison and Liza had adopted three siblings ranging in ages from five to fifteen. It wasn’t smooth sailing, but Liza and Jamison were well-equipped to deal with the unique challenges of adopted older children touched by tragedy.
While Cash and Brownie lived with his family at the Knight ranch, Brady and Cecilia had adopted two dogs, and Rachel had gotten a guide dog. All five animals were curled in various spots around the house, because Grandma Pauline had shocked them all and lifted her ban on having animals in the house.
For the great-grandchildren’s sake.
Dev took a moment to watch, to enjoy. Sarah had taught him how to do that too. When Paul caught sight of him, he let out a squeal and wriggled away from Sarah.
Dev grinned and crouched down, holding out his arms. “There’s my guy. You going to walk to Daddy?”
Paul gurgled an answer, his hazel eyes lighting up with mischievousness. The boy got into everything, loved horses and dogs more than anything else, and held his parents’ hearts in his small pudgy hands.
He was this close to taking his first steps.
Sarah picked him up and placed him on his feet. The boy bent his knees, over and over again, before taking one step forward. He immediately collapsed, but chortled merrily as his butt hit the ground. Then he crawled the rest of the way to Dev, squealing when Dev picked him up and gave him a little toss.
“Da!”
“You’re going to be a walking machine before we know it, aren’t you?”
Sarah came over to stand next to him. “I think we’ve got some major baby proofing to do then.”
Paul babbled happily, flinging himself over to Sarah and then wiggling back down to the ground. He crawled over to Grandma Pauline and began babbling happily to her, one small hand resting on Cash’s head.
Dev would have gladly slid his arm around Sarah’s waist and enjoyed the moment, but Jamison came over.
“Come on,” Jamison said, nodding toward the kitchen.
Dev frowned, but got to his feet and followed his brothers back into the kitchen. Gage was getting beers out of the fridge, handing them out. Everyone except him and maybe Tucker seemed to know what was going on.
Though it dawned on Dev eventually that this is exactly what his brothers had done for him last year. Dev grinned.
“What are we doing?” Tucker asked.
“We’re inducting our newest member,” Jamison said with mock seriousness. “Welcome, Tuck. You’ve officially joined our ranks.”
All eyes turned to Tucker.
“What are you guys... Wait. You know?” He frowned. “Who told?”
“Your wife isn’t great at keeping secrets,” Gage offered. “And neither am I, since I was the one who overheard her telling Felicity.”
“And spread the word,” Tucker said disgustedly.
“Just to the club,” Jamison said, raising his beer bottle. “The father’s club. Welcome.”
Tucker rubbed his fist over his chest. “Is it going to be this terrifying the whole time?”
“Worse,” Dev offered.
“And worse and worse and worse,” Cody added. “I’m going to have to survive two girls going through puberty, Tucker. Nothing is as terrifying as that.”
They laughed and chatted, razzed Tucker about the coming responsibilities and sleepless nights. It was good, and it was right, but Dev couldn’t help but think about last year. There had been so much terror and pain and suffering. He wanted to commemorate that somehow. How far they’d come from six scared boys in their father’s gang.
“You know, it’s been a year now,” Dev said. “A year of peace and stability, aside from the fear of puberty and whatnot. We’ve...had to fight a lot to get here.”
“Survived a lot to get here,” Gage said.
“Yes, we have,” Jamison agreed. He smiled, raising his bottle. “And now we get to live.”
Dev clinked his bottle with his brothers. As toasts went, it was the best he could think of. He glanced into the other room, where their wives and grandmother, the women who’d helped save them in a variety of different ways, sat with their children.
So that they could be here.
Living.
Which was finally exactly where Dev Wyatt wanted to be.
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Investigation in Black Canyon by Cindi Myers.
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Investigation in Black Canyon
by Cindi Myers
Chapter One
Sun glinted off the hood of the late-model black pickup, the glare almost blinding. Rocks and cactus ground under the tires as it rolled toward the canyon rim. The walls of the canyon glowed red with the early morning light, in shades from pink and orange and deepest vermillion. But the man behind the wheel had no appreciation for the view. His hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles ached, his jaw clenched in concentration, he forced himself to keep his foot on the gas pedal when everything in him screamed for him to put his foot on the brake.
The front tires skidded in loose shale at the canyon’s edge and then, in the kind of slow motion he had thought only happened in movies, the truck launched forward, rear wheels momentarily hanging up before the pickup plunged downward. Somersaulting in the clear, thin air before striking the rocks with an impact that sent steel and glass exploding outward, the screech of metal and the shattering of glass reverberated against the granite cliffs.
But there was no one around to hear the crash. No one to see the truck as it careened off the rock and hurtled into the dark abyss.
* * *
CARA MEAD PULLED her Toyota Prius into the visitor’s lot near the entrance to Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park. She wiped her sweaty hands on her black slacks and breathed deeply, trying to slow her racing heart. She didn’t want to be here, speaking with these people, but she owed it to Dane to try. Something was very wrong and she was determined to keep talking until she found someone who would listen.
Feeling bolstered by the thought, she shoved open the driver’s door and stepped out. The intense heat of the Colorado sun was mildly tempered by a stiff breeze that swirled dust across the gravel parking lot and set the small sign at its entrance swinging. Ranger Brigade Headquarters, the sign read. Cara frowned. Was she in the right place? Should she drive to the park headquarters instead and ask to speak to a ranger?
No. She had read enough articles in the local paper to know that the Ranger Brigade was the law enforcement agency charged with investigating crimes on public land in this corner of Colorado. Land that included Black Canyon National Park.
She crossed the lot quickly and pushed open the entrance door to the plain, low-slung building.
A middle-aged woman behind a metal desk looked up. “May I help you?”
“I need to speak to an officer,” Cara said. “I need to report a crime.”
The woman’s eyes behind her blue-framed glasses widened. “I’ll see who’s available.”
She disappeared behind a door and emerged a few moments later with a man in a khaki uniform. Tall and clean-shaved, with short-cropped brown hair, he looked like a law enforcement recruitment poster boy. Though boy wasn’t exactly the word she would have used, if they had met under different circumstances. “I’m Officer Beck,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I need to report a missing person,” she said.
“You might be better off talking to local law enforcement,” Officer Beck said. “Would you like me to put you in touch with the sheriff’s office?”
“I’ve already spoken to them,” she said. The woman who had taken her report there had showed no sense of urgency. “The person who’s missing said he was headed to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. If something has happened to him here, isn’t that your concern?”
“Why don’t you come back here where we can talk?” He motioned for her to follow him and led her down a short hallway to an unadorned gray-painted room furnished with a table and three chairs. He sat on one side of the table and indicated a chair for her to sit across from him. He waited until she was seated before he spoke again. His eyes met hers. “I’m going to record this for our records. Start with your full name, then tell me who’s missing and why you think something might have happened to him.”
She had thought Officer Beck was ordinary until that moment—just another jaded man with a badge who had already made up his mind about her and her situation ten seconds after she’d walked into the building. But when Beck’s eyes met hers, she felt the jolt of his concern and an almost physical connection that startled her. She glanced at the microphone between them, swallowed hard, then began with, “My name is Caroline Mead—Cara. The person I’m concerned about is Dane Trask. He’s my boss at TDC Enterprises. He’s been gone two days—and that’s really not like him. He hasn’t contacted me or anyone else at work. I haven’t been able to reach him. None of his neighbors has heard from him. His daughter is out of the country and I haven’t been able to reach her, either.”
“Maybe he went camping or decided to take a few days to himself.”
“But it’s not like him to just take off without telling anyone anything.”
“Why do you think he’s in the national park?”
“The last time I saw him, on Wednesday, about six o’clock, he had his backpack and said he was coming here to the park to hike and try to clear his head. When he didn’t show up for work the next day, I knew something was wrong.”
Officer Beck plucked a clipboard from the end of the table and took a pen from his shirt pocket. “Let’s start with some vital statistics.”
Cara gave him the details she had memorized—Dane was forty-one, six feet two inches tall, and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. He had brown hair and blue eyes, a tattoo of a coiled snake on his right biceps, and he drove a late-model black Ford pickup. That last time she had seen him he’d been wearing sunglasses, khaki hiking pants, hiking boots, a black cotton shirt over a black T-shirt, and was carrying a black backpack.
“Has Mr. Trask ever done anything like this before?” Beck asked. “Gone off and not told anyone?”
“Never. He’s always meticulous about giving me his schedule. He’s really dedicated to his work and to his volunteer activities. I don’t think he’s even taken a vacation in the three years I’ve known him.”
Beck nodded. “Was hiking in the park something he did often?”
“Sometimes.”
“What kind of shape was he in?” Beck asked. “Do you think he might have been injured or suffered a heart attack or something while he was hiking?”
“He was in great shape.” She leaned across the table, searching for the right words to convey just how capable Dane was. “He’s a former Army Ranger and he still works out like he could be called back to active duty at a moment’s notice. He hikes and runs and bikes and lifts weights. He definitely doesn’t look like a desk jockey.”
“TDC—that’s in that big new building on the edge of the park?” Beck asked.
“Right. They’ve had a satellite office in Montrose for years, but two years ago they decided to relocate their main headquarters here and built the new campus.”
“What kind of work does Trask do there?”
“He’s an environmental engineer. TDC does all kinds of infrastructure projects, from building schools and factories to hazardous materials mitigation. There are about three hundred employees at this location, but thousands worldwide.”
“And you’re his assistant?”
&
nbsp; “Administrative assistant.” She knew Drew Compton, one of the partners at TDC, still referred to all the admins as secretaries, but his suits still looked like they were out of the eighties, too. She stared into Beck’s eyes, determined not to let the intensity of his gaze unnerve her. At least she had the impression he was really listening to her, unlike the woman who had taken her statement at the sheriff’s department. “Will you try to find him?”
He sat back and his gaze shifted away. “Do you know if anything was worrying Mr. Trask? Has he seemed preoccupied? Depressed?”
“Not depressed, but he was preoccupied. Something was on his mind, I just don’t know what.” Dane had been spending more late nights at the office and had been a little absentminded the past couple of weeks, which definitely wasn’t like him.
“If you had to guess, what would you say was bothering him?” Beck asked.
“I don’t know.” She had lain awake much of last night, reviewing every conversation she and Dane had had, searching for any clue as to what might have happened to him. “I thought maybe it was something at work. He’s been putting in a lot of late nights and early mornings.”
“Was there a specific project he was working on?”
“Several. He did everything from analyzing concrete samples to reviewing environmental testing reports. At any point in time, he might be involved in dozens of jobs.”
“What is your relationship with Mr. Trask?”
“He was my boss. And my friend.”
“Were you involved with him romantically?”
“No!” She fought down a flush. “Dane and I are both professionals and we had a professional relationship.” Yes, Dane was a good-looking, even charming, man. But she had never felt attracted to him romantically and she was sure he felt the same about her. They respected each other and they cared about each other—as friends. Sometimes friendship was even more important than romantic love.
“Was he involved with someone else then—someone who might know better what was bothering him?”
