by Dale Mayer
“Easy Stevie,” Royce said, accidentally picking up Stevie’s old nickname.
“I am taking it easy.” Stevie gave a broken laugh. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” Stacy said loyally, “Nothing at all.”
He snorted. “Really? Well, you wouldn’t go out with me, so there must be something.” He threw back half the glass of Scotch in his hand and wheezed as the hot liquor burned its way down his throat.
The others waited for him to stop coughing, keeping a careful eye on him. Stacy had forgotten this part. The maudlin side to Stevie’s character that always came out when he got drunk. Something he didn’t do often. Considering the circumstances, she’d love to find oblivion herself.
But she didn’t dare. She stayed quiet, hating that anything of this trip would be connected to her last trip. She’d come to honor her friends and the memories they’d had together and get past it so they’d not hold her back from enjoying the rest of her life. To a certain extent, she’d done that. She’d feel much better if their bodies were found, but at the same time, she could deal with the reality of their grave. To think that someone had somehow connected the two trips in their mind was incredibly unsettling.
If it were true, if her brother and her friends had been worried about her mindset these last years, had they all missed someone else’s deteriorating mindset as well? Someone maybe who’d been alone through tough times. She’d been blessed to have her brother watching over her.
She had no idea who it could be. Stevie had been devastated. Mark less so. George had felt guilty. She herself had gone to pieces.
She knew now that there was no saving Janice or Francine. And if it hadn’t been the avalanche, it would have likely been something else. Those two were hotheaded, rash, and careless. She doubted either would have reached their thirties.
She’d often wondered why the three had been such great friends. Stacy had been the staid, safe, shy contrast to their bubbling, outgoing adventurousness.
God, she missed them.
“Stacy?”
She glanced over at Royce. He nodded toward Stevie, who tossed back another hefty slug of Scotch while she watched. Time to put aside her own grief. She stood up and walked over to Stevie and took the bottle of Scotch away. “Bedtime, buddy.”
He glared at her. “Not ready to sleep.”
She smirked. “Lie down and you’ll be out like a light in no time.”
A heavy sigh slid out from his chest. “I hurt, Stacy,” he muttered, “I miss them.”
She knew how he felt. She wrapped her arm around him. “Come on. Let’s get you to your room.”
With stumbling steps, she walked him down the hallway to his bed. He stared at it and took a couple of steps forward. She turned him around, gave him a little push, and he sat down with a heavy sigh.
“I miss them so much,” he said again as he flopped sideways, his head hitting the pillow. She bent down and lifted his feet until he was stretched out. He never was one to make his bed, and this morning was no different. That was a good thing as his covers – an open sleeping bag – was shoved along the back of the bed against the wall. She reached over and dragged it forward, covering him up.
She started to walk away when he reached out and grabbed her hand.
“Don’t you miss them too, Stacy?”
“I do, Stevie. So much.” She bent down, gave him a good night kiss on his cheek, and said, “Now sleep. We’ll go home in the morning, so we have to be up in good time to pack.”
“Don’t wanna,” he whined, but it was more of a whisper. He followed that with a huge jaw-cracking yawn. “So tired.”
“Then sleep.”
She watched him for a long moment as he fell deeper and deeper into a nice peaceful slumber. “At least you’ll sleep tonight, buddy.”
Royce spoke from the doorway. “The others are heading to bed, too.”
“Good.” She walked toward him, her hand out for his. “How is George?”
“He’s sitting beside the fire.”
“Then that’s where I’m going first.” Still holding hands, she walked over to her brother and sat down beside him. “Will you sleep tonight?”
He shook his head. “Not likely. I should be at the hospital.”
“And that can’t happen, so you might as well get some sleep so you’re in decent shape to watch over her tomorrow.”
“A good idea in theory, but the last thing I feel like doing is putting myself at risk here,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know if we’re in danger, but what if one of us did attack those women?”
Royce sat down beside her. “I understand, but I’m not sure how we’re supposed to solve that issue.”
“I want to solve it. I figure if I beat everyone up, at least I’ll be assured of getting the right guy in the mix.”
She snorted. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You’re exempt,” George said. He ran his hand down over his weary face. “I feel like shit. I keep thinking that if I hadn’t gone up to the peak, she’d be sitting beside me right now. But no – I had to do one last run. Damn it.” He glared at the two of them, as if they could turn back time and give him a chance to make the right decision. “Why do I always have to push it? She was tired. I was tired. I knew that. But I also knew that our time was coming to an end and that I still had enough energy for a couple of last runs. Plus she doesn’t like the peak, and I wanted to hit that run at least once.”
“So what? There’s no way to know that you could have stopped this anyway. You didn’t have a crystal ball to say this would happen,” Stacy said. “You can’t know everything.”
“But we all knew it could happen,” he curled his hands into fists as his voice broke. “And I ignored it.”
Stacy didn’t know how to help him. He needed rest. They had a lot to do in the morning to get ready to leave, and she knew he’d want to go at the first break in the weather. Hell, if it wasn’t for that storm out there, they’d be driving toward Kathleen right now.
“I know your emotions are all over the place,” she said quietly. “But you need to be wide awake and alert to help us in the morning. Plus it’s a long drive.”
“I’ll be fine.” He brushed off her concerns with a wave of his hands. “Go to bed. I’ll stay here for awhile and doze if I need to.”
She reached over and kissed his cheek. “Okay, but if you can sleep, please do.”
He looked over at her and smiled. “Go and rest.”
She rolled her eyes at him and got up. With her brother still up to watch the fire, she checked that all the food had been put away then carried on to the stairs. The others had gone to their rooms. As she passed the room George had been sleeping in with Kathleen, her footsteps slowed. That’s why he didn’t want to go to bed. He’d be surrounded with reminders of her.
Royce nudged her forward again. “Let him stay up. He’ll be fine.”
She nodded and kept moving up the stairs to the loft. She was too keyed up to sleep, yet at the same time, she was exhausted. So much going on. So much turmoil. And the grief…the fear…it was all so crippling.
And it made her tired. A bone-deep weariness that she couldn’t recharge because that same tension sat inside, nagging at her. Not allowing her to ever let her guard down. How could she? Someone had attacked her friends. Was maybe still looking to assault her. None of it made sense. And her head ached trying to figure it out.
“Stop thinking about it. Get into bed.”
She nodded and quickly changed her clothing. She wanted to lie down before she dropped. She tugged her long johns on and crawled up to her pillow and crashed.
*
Royce watched her settle down on top of the blankets. “Hey, Stacy,” he said quietly, trying to roll her over so he could tug the blankets free. She murmured and rolled where he led, but it was like rolling a sleeping child, only much larger. Finally, he had the covers out from under her and could cover her up.
He hadn’t r
ealized she was so tired, but she’d hit that bed and was out like a light. He sat protectively at her side and stared over the railing. He could see George nursing a beer on the couch where they’d left him. It would be a while before he forgot his role or lack of role in today’s events. Royce knew Kathleen had a good chance of recovering, but if they’d been any later… The medical center at the resort was top-notch and knew how to handle cases like hers. That she’d been flown out to the closest hospital meant they were doing the best for her. It was up to her to fight for survival now. She’d done that in the cave, he just hoped she still had a little more fight left in her.
For George’s sake, too.
He was tired but had no plans to sleep. Someone had to watch over Stacy. She was the only female left. And he had a bad feeling about why that was. He could well believe Christine wanted nothing to do with them now. He wanted to go home and spend life becoming reacquainted with Stacy. Not regretting that he hadn’t done enough.
There were no movements from the others. He didn’t know if they were lying wide-eyed in bed or sleeping. He hoped sleeping. Stevie needed to sleep the booze off. But if it gave him a good night’s rest, then so be it. There were worse things one could do. He stared down at his empty hands, thinking he should have brought up a bottle himself. But he wouldn’t want to lose control.
God, what a nightmare.
He shifted to lean back against the railing. Stacy slumbered gently beside him. Lord, it was going to be a long night.
*
What a silly air-clearing bonding session. Did anyone believe the lies they’d all told? Stacy and Royce might have been together the whole time – except for when Stacy left Royce alone with Kathleen to go to the front of the cavern for help. He smiled, his teeth flashing in the darkness. He’d seriously wondered about taking Royce out right then and there. But he had nothing against the guy. Royce was good people, and the world needed more like him.
But the opportunity to finish off that nosy bitch Kathleen would have been perfect. He could only hope the cold did the job for him. Then Royce had been rejoined by Stacy and Stevie and he’d lost his opportunity. How damn wrong.
So close and yet so far.
Still, it was what it was.
He was in the clear and still moving forward to his goal.
But he was running out of time. Or was he?
He thought about the vehicle configurations as to who was leaving with whom and if he could change the seating arrangements. Isolate the one person he needed to isolate – and preferably in a place where there were lots of people to confuse the issue again. He needed suspects. Lots and lots of suspects.
He fell into a deep sleep as his mind worked on options.
It was all good.
Chapter 40
Stacy woke the next morning with tears clogging her throat and burning her eyes. She’d dreamt of her beautiful friends all night. Painful memories. Emotional memories. She wiped the tears away and sniffled. Instantly, a warm hand landed on her shoulder and tugged her close.
Damn if that didn’t turn on the waterworks. No, she was stronger than this. She’d never had anyone to hold her close before and was scared to come and rely on it now. She couldn’t stand it if that was pulled away from her. The loss would be so difficult.
“Wake up, Stacy,” Royce’s sleepy voice murmured in her ear. “You’re having another bad dream.”
She smiled through her tears and nestled against his bare chest. Another bad dream? Had he been watching over her all night? Of course he had. That was Royce. Why had she pushed him away for so long? All the reasons seemed so frivolous right now. So not important. His history was his alone, and his behavior – well, she wasn’t sure it was ever as bad as she’d made it out to be.
She’d believed it to keep him at a distance and hadn’t yet updated her vision of the old Royce to the new Royce. He’d lost that big playboy act years ago, but she wouldn’t let herself acknowledge it. If she did, she wouldn’t have a reason to keep pushing him away. And without that, she’d have to acknowledge the feelings she’d kept locked down inside since forever. To let those feelings out meant to actually honor them and feel them, and that would mean being vulnerable. A possibility of getting hurt. If she lost him, that would be something she might never recover from. Look how she’d gone off the deep end with her friends.
To have Royce in a relationship where she gave everything was frightening to her. To lose him would be to lose herself.
And that couldn’t happen. Not again.
She lay there, tears gathering in the back of her eyes. God, she was such a coward.
How had that happened? She’d always been the cautious one, but she’d assumed that was because she was the sensible one. Now as she looked at her brother’s wild lifestyle, her friends’ crazy lifestyle, and what she’d assumed Royce’s to be back then, it wasn’t the common sense side of her that drove her actions; it was the coward side. She could lose so many people she cared about because of their lifestyle choices that she’d locked down and refused to let them in any further.
After losing her friends, well, she’d damn near slammed the door to her heart closed forever.
Maybe George was right. Maybe Kathleen had felt a wall up between them. It was also true that she was like twelfth on that long string of George’s girlfriends, but at the same time, Stacy had shut the door to letting her in. She was just going to lose her. Like she had all of George’s other girlfriends. As she thought deeper and deeper about it, she realized she hadn’t let anyone new into her life in these last few years at all.
At work, she was polite and professional. Mark and Stevie were there, and they’d known her since before the accident and refused to be kicked out of her inner circle. But it had closed around them, not letting anyone else in. Royce was someone who had managed to get in, and she could see that over time, Kathleen would make it too, but she hadn’t yet because dear safe, cowardly Stacy was still protecting her heart.
Fool.
She wondered how many times Royce had woken her up last night to calm her down as her subconscious worked on her grief and fears. She wished she’d woken up with energy and a sense of closure, and maybe for her two friends, she had. She knew she’d never see them again. That they were never going to walk into her room regaling her with tales of their colorful evenings and the games the two of them had gotten up to. There’d been no malice to either of them, but there’d not been much ‘substance’ either, as her father would have said. “‘Flighty, frippery women,”’ he’d have called them. And maybe he’d have been correct, but that in no way devalued who they were. The world was a big place and had space for people of all kinds – even fireflies.
As she lay there, it slowly dawned on it that it was almost light in the cabin. That there were noises happening downstairs and she should be getting up. She wanted to leave, but safe in Royce’s arms, she didn’t want to move.
She slowly disentangled herself from his arms and sat up.
He shifted beside her. “Is it time to get up?”
She looked down at the sprawled lion in her bed and thought, What a waste.
“Someone else is up, too.”
He sighed. “Well, the sooner we get moving, the faster we can get home.”
“I hear you there.” Whoever was moving around downstairs hadn’t been up long as the fire crackled cheerfully but the warmth hadn’t reached the loft yet. Moving quickly against the bite of cold air, she pulled on her pants, wool socks, and a heavy sweater. Her eyes had a gritty feel to them. A combination of a lack of sleep, too many tears, and dry air.
She turned back to Royce, who hadn’t moved, bent to kiss him, and found herself tugged down on top of his broad chest. She laughed.
“You could stay here for a little bit,” he murmured against her lips.
Her own curved in response. “It wouldn’t be a ‘little bit’ as you know. Wait until we’re home. Then we’ll have all the time in the world. I don’t go back to work
until Monday.”
“So the rest of today and tomorrow is mine, right?”
“It’s a date. But I get a hot bubble bath when I get home first.”
He looked interested in that concept then said with a wicked grin, “Is the tub big enough for the two of us?” His gaze heated as he stared at her, waiting for her answer.
Images of the two of them flooded her mind, making it hard to breath. “Deadly. You are so deadly.”
She got up, plucking her sweater away from her chest as if to cool herself off, and walked to the stairway.
“Wait,” he called softly, “you didn’t answer my question.”
She smirked. “That’s because I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out though.”
And she headed down the stairs.
*
Royce lay back down. He couldn’t stop grinning. Despite everything that had happened, life was damn good. Now to pack up and get home. That hot bath for two was sounding pretty damn fine.
Checking the time, he sat up and quickly got dressed. It was damn cold, but he couldn’t hear the wind outside anymore. That was a good thing. There were no windows in the loft so he couldn’t see out, and what he could see from the downstairs windows was nothing but sheer white. He realized they were likely going to have to shovel the vehicles out this morning. Given that, he quickly packed up his gear and left his single bag beside Stacy’s unpacked belongings. She wouldn’t need more than a few minutes to collect her stuff. He walked downstairs and lifted his nose appreciatively. There was nothing like the heady aroma of coffee on a chilly morning in the mountains. And from the intensity of that smell, it was almost ready to drink. He wandered into the kitchen to find Stacy already pouring.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she said as she handed him a mug. “Just in time.”
“As you only came down five minutes ago, it’s hard to call me a sleepyhead,” he protested.
“Ha, it wasn’t hard at all.”
She grinned and walked past him toward the fireplace.
