Risking It All

by Christi Barth

  Risking It All is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2016 by Christi Barth

  Excerpt from Wanting It All by Christi Barth copyright © 2016 by Christi Barth

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Wanting It All by Christi Barth. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 9781101965207

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: © curaphotography/CanStockPhoto

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Christi Barth

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Wanting It All

  Prologue

  TEN YEARS AGO…

  A bad day hanging with your best buds was supposed to be better than a good day doing anything else. Except maybe when that bad day meant your bus had crashed and torched in the middle of winter. In the middle of freaking nowhere. Griffin Montgomery kicked at the clump of wet leaves at his feet.

  Then sucked in a breath as pain rocketed from his knee up into a stabbing starburst in his head. Damn thing was already swollen to the size of a grapefruit beneath his torn jeans. No way would he be able to play in the final round of the La Sfida Internazionale soccer tournament tomorrow. Even though they’d earned one of only five spots from the United States and already won five rounds and were all so excited it’d been impossible to sleep for a couple of nights.

  Of course it was already dark. They couldn’t see the road. Couldn’t see any lights. Nobody had found them yet. So making it in time for the final round wasn’t their biggest problem. Not by a long shot.

  “I’m freezing my balls off,” grumbled Knox Davies. He huddled in a corner of the low-ceilinged cave. Probably smart to stay away from the entrance, since he didn’t have a coat. Knox, like all of them, had left it behind when they ran full tilt out of the smoking, crumpled bus right before it caught fire. No chance of rescuing that parka now. And no chance that this late March snowstorm would miraculously melt and turn into a beach full of bikini babes. Not on this unpaved, unlit excuse for a road in the middle of the freaking Italian Alps.

  Riley Ness kicked a ball of snow at Knox with a singed and blackened sneaker. The snowball fell way short of the mark. “Seeing as how you’ve never used them, not a big loss.”

  Griff limped heavily from the mouth of the cave to get a better look at Riley, huddled on the floor. Pale. Shaking. Shaking worse than Riley had when he’d stood at the end of the high dive for seven minutes before closing his eyes and somersaulting thirty feet into the pool during gym class. Of course, they all were shivering at this point. Still, Riley looked bad. Only way to get at the truth was to give him shit until he ’fessed up. “Hey, since when does Roosevelt Prep’s star striker miss his target?”

  “Cut me some slack.” Riley closed his eyes and gulped in a breath. It drained even more color from his face, a stark contrast to his jet-black hair in the bright moonlight streaming into the cave and reflecting off all the snow. “I think I dislocated my shoulder. Probably broke some ribs, too.”

  They’d been sitting there for hours. Yelling and amped up from panic at first, then quiet as the shock set in. Still, they’d slapped ripped-up shirts on everyone’s bloody gashes right away. Riley should’ve spoken up.

  Griff almost dropped to his knees. Remembered at the last second that his knee was swelling faster than a tick in summer, and twisted in midair to land on his hip instead. He dragged himself forward the last few feet. Felt every damn pebble and twig through holes in the jeans he’d shredded yanking free of the metal shards that had poked through the bottom of the bus and almost caged him into his seat. “Shit. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What’s the point? Or did you pick up some morphine in the duty-free shop at the airport?”

  “Are you kidding? Coach Robertson’s so far up our asses about playing clean, I was scared even to buy Gatorade.” Pissed him off, too. Everyone on the team was clean. They took a vow at the first practice every year, and stuck to it. Sure, there was beer at the random house parties when parents were away, but that was it. They’d earned this invitation to the international soccer spotlight.

  Josh Hardwick winged a pebble out the cave mouth. “Gatorade would be good about now. Or a burger. Or, you know, even one of those stupid meringue cookies the cheerleaders bring to every game, the ones that melt before you can chew them. Yeah, I’m starving enough to want one of those.”

  Huh-uh. They couldn’t start talking about food. Then all four of them would think about how hungry they were. How they hadn’t eaten since breakfast. How nobody had even so much as a stick of gum in their pockets. Griff flip-flopped between being scared shitless and starved. Yeah, he was pretty damn close to losing his shit.

  He swallowed hard. That wasn’t an option. Giving in to panic and, yeah, it was a serious enough situation to add despair as a real emotion—well, it was unacceptable. Griff was the team captain. That meant keeping morale high on and off the field. Holding himself together would help his friends hold it together, too. He started to rub the top of his head. Then Griff remembered the giant goose egg on it and slapped his hands back down at his sides.

  “Look, I know things are bad, but—”

  The dark, desperate laugh that Knox cut him off with echoed eerily off the cave walls. He rubbed his skinny bare arms—bare because he’d ripped up his flannel shirt to pack the deep puncture wound in his calf. “The driver’s dead. One minute, Santo’s telling us a joke about a fox and a soccer ball, and then we slide God knows how many hundred feet down a mountainside and watch him burn to a crisp. Along with our coats and our phones and our food. You call that bad? I call it fucking horrific.”

  Griff couldn’t let himself get caught up in the, yeah, horrific details Knox hammered at him. He was pretty sure he’d have nightmares about this day for the rest of his life. Remember the acrid smell of the smoke and fuel and burning rubber, the orange of the licking flames against the bright blue Italian sky. The fear that had clenched his gut when he hadn’t been sure if they’d all get out before the thing exploded. The whole other kind of fear that set in once they were out. Starving. Stranded. That was for later. If they ever got rescued.

  Instead, Griffin fell back on teasing his friend, like everything was normal. Like they were back home in D.C., hanging around the country club pool. Like there wa
sn’t a good chance they’d end up like that rugby team years ago who’d crashed in the Andes and eaten one another.

  Huh. If they did that, who’d be the first course? Knox would probably last the longest. The nerd was all skin and bones. Not enough meat to keep any of them alive. On second thought, maybe he didn’t have to be scared of starving to death—no doubt the cold would kill them before it got to that point. Which wasn’t a thought that cheered him up at freaking all. Shit. His thoughts were rolling around like a skeeball in a boardwalk arcade. Maybe that knot on top of his head signaled a concussion. Griff sucked in a breath. Right. Teasing. Normal.

  “Nice synonym usage there, Knox. Guess that’s proof all that time with the SAT tutor was worthwhile.” The joke fell flatter than Missy Constantine’s chest beneath the Miracle Bra that had fooled half the football team into sticking their hands up her sweater. Griff looked around at his friends. Sooty, ripped clothes and messy hair was apparently their new team uniform. They all looked ready to give up. He couldn’t let that happen. “We’re going to get out of this.”

  “We’re not back home in D.C., G-man,” said Josh. He crossed his arms and tucked his fingers in his pits for warmth. “We don’t even know if Italy has search and rescue teams up in this ass-crack of the Alps.”

  Knox scrubbed a hand across his brown flattop and snorted. “Or if their version of an SAR team is just a Saint Bernard and a wagon.”

  Riley tried to spread his hands wide, but winced in pain at the movement and let them fall to his thighs instead. “Who exactly do you think’s going to save us?”

  Shit. Good question. The full day that had ticked by without them being rescued thinned the possible answers down to only one. Griff tried to pretend he was on the field, in his red, white, and blue Roosevelt jersey. Being captain fit him as well as his cleats. He had no trouble telling his team—no, making them believe they were going to win a game. So all Griff had to do was channel that same feeling now. Be the captain. Tell them how it was going to shake out. He knuckled his fists into the cave floor.

  “I am.”

  Waiting around for help hadn’t gotten them anything but colder and hungrier. Riley, Knox, Josh…they weren’t just his friends. Along with Logan Marsh—and where the fuck was he, anyway?—they were his brothers. Blood brothers, thanks to a totally gross exchange of spit and blood that had felt sacred as hell around a bonfire last October. Better than brothers, too, ’cause there wasn’t any nasty family stuff to deal with between them.

  Getting them all to safety wouldn’t be simple. But there wasn’t any other choice. If they were going to die, it’d be while trying to save themselves, not while sitting on their asses. Griffin beckoned over all the guys with a snap of his wrist. “And I’m going to start by fixing your shoulder.”

  “What?” Riley tried to scramble backward, but came up against the cave wall. It was too dark to see fear flash in his blue eyes, but Griff sure heard it in his voice. “The hell you are.”

  “This isn’t a great idea, Griffin.” Knox crouched beside him. “You’ve had a couple good ones over the years. I’m a particular fan of the hidden floor in your tree house filled with porn mags. This is about as bad an idea as that was a good one. We all know you only watch those hospital shows on TV for the hot chicks.”

  True. There was always a girl in just a bra panting in a supply room. Griff made sure to TiVo every episode. But he didn’t appreciate Knox calling him on it and freaking Riley out even more. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Come on, G-man.” Josh crawled over to the other side of Riley. At least the big gash along his temple had finally stopped bleeding. Still looked woozy, though. Probably had a concussion, too. Nothing they could do about that except hope it wasn’t something more serious, like a skull fracture. What were the chances, though, of his walking away from such a bad accident with nothing more than a scar and a headache? “Playing doctor with Riley is pointless. He’s got no tits to grope.”

  “Coach made me take an advanced first-aid class when he appointed me captain. I know what I’m doing.”

  Riley’s mouth twisted into something halfway between a smirk and a grimace. “You swear this isn’t payback for me swiping that hot signorina out from under your nose at the trattoria last night?”

  Griffin tried to channel his dad, the two-star general who could make anything sound like a life or-death order. “Once I put your shoulder back in the socket, it’ll hurt way less.” After a minute of ultra-excruciating pain. That’s what the textbook warned anyway. The same textbook that had taught him how to deliver a baby. Given a choice, he’d rather be head up some chick’s skirt right now ready to catch a slimy baby than about to make Riley hurt so much he’d probably throw up. “And you only got her because I let you, Riley. You may be fluent in Italian, but I speak the language of love.” To make his patient laugh, Griff cupped his balls and waggled his eyebrows.

  It worked. Riley forced a smile even as Griff positioned the other guys to hold him steady. “Yeah? Well, I’m also fluent in bullshit, and I call you on it.”

  He’d give him an inch if it meant they’d all go the extra mile with him. “Okay, maybe there’s a chance Bianca prefers brunets over blonds. But I’m not bullshitting you when I say I’m going to get us all out of here.”

  “You swear?”

  “Yeah. Just like I swear this is going to hurt.” With a deep breath, Griffin threw all his weight on Riley’s shoulder. The resulting solid thunk and scream were almost simultaneous. He didn’t know which sound was worse. Griffin did know that, just like popping a shoulder back into place, things were probably going to get a hell of a lot worse before they got better. And it was up to him to get them through it all.

  Chapter 1

  PRESENT DAY

  “Lieutenant Montgomery, we need to abort this mission.”

  Despite the noise of the chopper’s rotors and the howling storm outside, the words Griffin never wanted to hear while in midair came through crystal clear, thanks to the Coast Guard’s state-of-the-art comm system. Well, that just meant his answer would be equally hard to miss.

  “Not yet.” They’d had to go back to refuel once already, searching the Atlantic along the Virginia coastline for a stranded sailboat. A boat holding a grandmother, mother, and teenage boy. Did that ping with Griff a little more strongly? Make the whole search a little more personal? Force him down memory lane of his own horrible high school accident? Every damn time.

  But not because he remembered what it felt like to be scared, staring death in the face. No, Griff’s single-minded drive that made him so tireless during every search and rescue wasn’t because he identified with the victims. It was because that tragedy in the Alps ten years ago had taught him that he could make a difference. That even when everyone else gave up, he could keep going and save people.

  So he throttled back in preparation to bank left and make a fresh pass on the search grid. The HH-65C helicopter reacted beautifully to his touch. Griff would, when hanging with the guys, occasionally make a joke about it being simpler and more responsive than a woman. He’d never say that on the job, though. His very female chief petty officer would rightly kick his ass for a sexist crack like that.

  Ensign Schafer cleared his throat before trying again. He’d been on the team for only a few weeks. This was his first attempt at copiloting a real rescue. The kid’s Adam’s apple always bobbed a good three or four times before words ever made it out of his mouth. Griff had to restrain himself from sneaking up behind Schafer and scaring him, just to see if it was possible for him to talk without the warm-up routine. “Command is tracking the weather and our current position, sir. They say we should stop for the night. Pick up again at first light.”

  Griff squinted against the smears of rain across the windshield. Hurricane season wouldn’t officially start for two months. Not that this was a hurricane, but the fierce April squall gave him a feeling they’d be in for a hell of a ride in the next few months. So far he�
��d tried going above the storm and around it. All that was left was going back down straight through it. His crew was buckled up tight. It’d be hairy for a few minutes, but ultimately safe enough. They’d all be safer than the people they were out here looking for, at any rate.

  “Go in now so we can hit the racks?” No. No way. The Coast Guard wasn’t an eight-to-five job. Or even a dawn-to-dusk deal. You strapped in and saved lives whenever they needed to be saved. Period. “You want to get all cozy and warm and catch some zzz’s while three people get batted around in the Atlantic like a cat toy by those waves?”

  “No, sir!” barked the new recruit manning the comm. Griff bit back a wince. It took some people a few trips before they remembered just how precise the microphones were inside their helmets. Hope the ensign was more subtle when manning the controls. Griff hadn’t let him copilot yet. This storm was not for a rookie to tangle with, no matter how many hours he’d already logged in the air.

  From the back, his more seasoned—and opinionated—aviation survival technician, Howell, put in his two cents. “It sounds shitty when you put it like that, but, yeah. Those are our orders.”

  “Orders? Or just a recommendation?” The line between the two was both whisper thin and miles wide. Griff could work around, even ignore, just a recommendation. And had. Repeatedly.

  Another cleared throat through the comm. “Pretty sure they’re calling it common sense right now, sir.”

  Huh. Guess Schafer had found his spine after all. Sucky timing for that to happen. Griff would just have to direct that newfound bravery in a more appropriate direction. “My common sense tells me that a sailboat with a broken mast and no power won’t last the night. And my instruments tell me we’re almost out of the rain. That means all that’s left ahead is fog. I can fly through a fog bank with my eyes closed,” he joked.