by J. S. Scott
It hadn’t been there when he left. Jason’s heart sank to his feet. The receipt was dated, proof that he’d purchased the rings before he’d left for Vegas. It had to have dropped out of his wallet, probably when he’d put his credit card away.
Hope had obviously found it.
“Shit!”
Running outside, Jason checked around the house. His fear overtook his brain. “Hope,” he hollered futilely. There was no sign of her.
She’s gone. She left. Dumb bastard. I should have told her.
Not stopping to think, he yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in Grady’s phone number.
“Have you heard from Hope?” Jason asked immediately, urgently, when Grady answered.
“No. Not for a while. Why?” Grady asked cautiously.
“We were together and she disappeared. I was hoping she’d call you,” Jason admitted. His mind raced frantically to try to figure out where she’d gone.
“You were together? Why?”
Jason took a deep breath and quickly explained what he’d done, and what had happened, not leaving out any of his own less-than-stellar actions. He didn’t tell Grady any of Hope’s secrets. Those were her secrets to keep…or not.
“You bastard,” Grady rasped. “You got my sister drunk in a strange town and forced her to marry you?”
Jason wasn’t even going to argue that Hope wasn’t forced. She was incapacitated, and he was a dick. “I love her, Grady. I didn’t want her to marry another man. Hope is my entire world now, my wife. I need to find her. Kill me later, but help me right now. Please.”
“She wouldn’t be missing if you hadn’t betrayed her,” Grady grumbled angrily. He was silent for a moment. “I’ll check with my brothers, but they’re going to want to castrate you, too.”
“Fine.” Jason didn’t care what anybody did to him as long as he could find Hope. “I’m going to search the trails. She didn’t have a car. She couldn’t have gone far.”
Jason’s heart sank as he saw the camera case next to the recliner. She must have been upset. Hope never left the house without her camera.
“You better find her, and you better be ready to grovel.”
Jason had never groveled before, but he was willing to do it now. “I’m ready. Call me and let me know what you find out from your brothers.” He disconnected his cell and jammed it back into the pocket of his jeans.
A plaintive animal cry came from the door, and Jason looked down to see Daisy twined around his ankles. He picked her up, but the feline still continued to mewl pitifully.
“You’re worried too, aren’t you?” he asked Daisy, trying to calm the cat by stroking her head, to no avail. “I know exactly how you feel, girl, and I’ll find her.”
With Daisy back on the floor, Jason tore through the door determinedly, not bothering to lock it behind him.
“Did you know?” Hope asked Tate, furious. She’d been flying high about she and Jason staying together one moment, and the next she’d been devastated. After she’d found the receipt on the bedroom floor for their rings, she was positive that Jason had come to Vegas intentionally to seek her out and marry her.
She’d hiked to Tate’s so-called cabin and confronted him; he’d said that he’d flown her and Jason back home. At the time, she’d thought nothing of it because it was perfectly reasonable that Tate had business there, too. Now, she had little doubt that Tate had been there only because Jason needed his help.
Tate frowned. “He didn’t tell you. I thought he came clean with everything.”
“Why don’t you tell me? Obviously Jason isn’t talking,” she snapped back at him as she seated herself in one of the chairs at Tate’s kitchen table.
As usual, Tate flipped his chair backwards and sat across from her. “What do you know?” He looked irritated but resigned.
“I thought he married me when he was drunk. I thought he was there on business and we met completely by accident. I found the receipt for the rings, and it was dated the day before he came to Vegas, and it was from a jewelry store here in Rocky Springs. Why?” She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“We planned everything here,” Tate admitted. “Jason was here for the charity ball, and he found out you were getting married. He was desperate to separate you from the guy you were marrying. We made a plan and executed it the next day.”
Hope gritted her teeth, hating the cold way Tate had of explaining what they’d done. “So you just didn’t fly us back? You were there at the wedding, weren’t you?” She was sure of it.
“I was one of the witnesses,” Tate replied flatly. “You would have found out eventually because I signed the certificate that went to the courthouse.”
Tears sprung into Hope’s eyes as she looked across the table at the man who had always been a hero to her. Not only had Jason betrayed her, but so had Tate. “So his plan was to get me married, screw up my engagement and then screw me out of his system.” She swiped a tear from her cheek angrily. “Why, Tate? Why would you do that when you knew he was just going to dump me later?”
“First of all, I didn’t know it was you until we met up for the wedding. Second, Sutherland had no plans of dumping you. The guy was sickeningly crazy about you, always has been. And you were crazy about him, too. Maybe you were drunk, but you weren’t unwilling. You looked…happy. I hadn’t quite worked out the fake fiancé thing yet, and I didn’t want you marrying somebody who would make you miserable either. You deserve to be happy.”
“You really thought I’d be happy in a wedding-by-mistake with a man who didn’t love me?” she asked him tearfully.
“Oh, he loves you. And you love him, too. Think, Hope. Maybe he’s afraid to tell you, but was everything that’s happened between you a deception? I don’t know Sutherland that well, but I know he spends a hell of a lot of time trying to manage funds for a very large, joint charity for abused women. He was here for a charity ball to help raise money for that organization, willing to make a fool of himself by being auctioned off and be the date of any female who had deep pockets. Maybe he has fucked up with you. But I’m pretty certain he would have told you everything. I think he was afraid of losing you.”
“He’s never told me he loves me,” Hope said forlornly. “He just said he wanted to stay together, make our marriage real.”
“Did you tell him?” Tate volleyed back at her. “Everything he’s done is because the poor guy was desperate. Do you really think he’d do what he did for any other reason? It’s not like he needs to get a woman drunk to have her. But he wanted you, and he wanted you to be his wife.”
Hope’s heart lifted for a moment, wondering whether what Tate said was true. But she had a hard time accepting that Jason hadn’t told her the truth. He’d cold-bloodedly forced her to do what he wanted. “I want to go home.” She was still pissed at Tate, but mostly she needed time to think about what had happened with Jason.
“Why? So you can keep running away?” Tate asked furiously.
“I’m not running—”
“Bullshit,” Tate said forcefully. “I get that you were looking for freedom and maybe an adrenaline rush when you first started in photography, that you wanted to make a name for yourself by chasing storms. I also understand why you wanted to go back to doing it so the bastard who kidnapped and assaulted you didn’t win. But I don’t think you’re happy doing that anymore. It’s your way of staying disconnected. I saw you taking those wildlife pictures, Hope. You were in your element. I have a hard time believing that storm chasing isn’t getting a little old, but that you don’t know how to do anything else to numb yourself but running around the world, chasing storms. You’ve disconnected yourself by lying to your brothers, so you can’t talk to them. And you’re going to run away from a guy who clearly loves you, even though he isn’t fucking perfect.”
“What makes you the relationship expert?” Hope asked defensively, but she started to think about her days here with Jason. Everything hadn’t been a lie: the gentleness
he showed her, his willingness to help her get over her fears, his comfort when she needed him, even the way he treated her darn cat. He’d lied, but so had she.
“I’m an expert because I’m just an observer. I can see exactly what’s going on. Maybe I’ve never felt that way about a woman, but I can clearly see how both of you feel. Hate me if you want to, Hope, but I thought I was helping you. I’m still trying to help, dammit,” he informed her heatedly, running a hand through his short hair in frustration.
“I don’t hate you,” Hope whispered huskily. “I can be upset with you, and I can be pissed, but I could never hate you. You saved my life.”
“That was my job. This is personal,” Tate said morosely.
Hope knew Tate was wrong. He’d taken his job very personally. They were one and the same. “I don’t hate you,” she repeated.
“Good. Because I’ve always kind of liked you,” Tate told her with a grin. “You have balls. Now use them and talk to Jason.” He hesitated a moment before he said evilly, “But make him grovel before you forgive him. He should have told you the truth by now. You’re married to him.”
“Tate?”
“Yeah?”
“You really are a jerk sometimes,” Hope told him, deadpan.
“Does that mean you haven’t forgiven me?” He flashed persuasive gray eyes at her and his dimple dented his cheek.
“I’ll think about it.” Hope stood and made her way to the door, knowing she’d already forgiven him. She had no doubt he was being a know-it-all, thinking he had the answers to all of her problems. And maybe he actually did. But she wasn’t telling him that. He had a fat enough head already.
Following behind her, Tate mentioned arrogantly, “No woman can stay mad at me. Not even my mother or my sister, Chloe. One minute Chloe’s pissed, and the next she’s hugging me until I can’t breathe.”
Hope could believe that. Tate Colter was a real charmer when he wanted to be. As she opened the front door, she turned back to him. “I’m not going to hug you,” she warned him.
“You will eventually,” Tate said with a shrug. “I’ll walk you back.”
“No. I’m good.” Hope really needed some time alone to get her thoughts together. If she was going to confront Jason, she needed time to think.
“You sure?” Tate asked dubiously.
“I know my way back, and I’m not exactly a stranger to a hike in the Colorado wilderness.” She rolled her eyes.
“You want to hug me,” Tate told her mischievously.
Narrowing her eyes at him, she shot back, “No, I really don’t.” Hope closed the door in his face with a small smile.
Tate Colter could charm any woman out of her panties—every woman except her. She was so on to him now. Still, he’d be a hard man to resist for any woman not already in love with another man.
Hope found the trail back to the guesthouse and followed it. Her mind wandered off to Jason, another man who was almost impossible to ignore.
A man I don’t want to ignore.
She was hurt, but maybe Tate was right about a few things. She really didn’t want to go back to chasing storms all the time anymore. She loved doing wildlife photos, and she was ready for another challenge. Years of watching the devastation those forces of nature brought to people’s lives had taken its toll on her. Burnout had hit her after a short time back in the field after her kidnapping, and she could have quit then. She’d proved that she could do it. But there had been really nothing and nobody else in her life, and she’d kept doing what she knew. Maybe she had been running away, disconnecting herself.
When she got about halfway home, she veered off on another trail, one she hadn’t taken before.
I’m not ready to face Jason yet.
The path was more challenging, the steep, rocky inclines making her pick her way carefully downward.
Lost in her own thoughts, she just kept moving on until the path wove her through some rock formations, and she ended up in a canyon, an area with no other way out.
Her eyes searched for another opening in the vertical rock faces as she walked around the large canyon, but she saw none. She was going to be forced to go back the way she had come in.
“Damn,” she whispered, angry with herself for letting her wayward thoughts distract her, make her walk off the beaten paths.
Heading back to the other side of the canyon after finding no escape, her foot slipped on a sloped rock incline, and she went down instantly with a cry of pain.
Sitting up, she stretched out the ankle she had turned going down, the pain almost unbearable. She scrambled to her feet, but she went down again, unable to bear any weight on her injured leg.
She’d left without a cell phone—not that she’d get any reception at the bottom of a canyon anyway. As she crawled to an area without the painful rocks underneath her, she bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain. Planting her ass on a grassy area, she panted and wondered what the hell she was going to do. She wasn’t that far from the guesthouse. She’d vaguely been paying attention to the direction she headed as her mind had wandered.
“It’s getting there that’s going to be the problem,” she mumbled to herself.
Trying to rise once more, she failed when she tried to walk, and she had to take off her hiking boot due to the swelling of her injured ankle.
As she saw the size of her ankle, she knew the injury wasn’t going to allow her to walk anytime soon. Her options limited, Hope decided she’d rest a few minutes and attempt to crawl back as close as she could to the main trail. She’d have more chance of being found.
Please care enough to be looking for me, Jason.
It could take Tate quite some time to realize she was missing—possibly days, or even a week—and by then, it could be too late.
She shook off her fear. Hope prepared herself for a very long, very painful attempt to save herself.
It was going to be getting dark soon, and Jason was panicked. Okay…maybe he’d gone past panic and right to desperation.
He’d hiked to Tate’s house, where he’d found out that Hope had been there and left.
Hope knows the whole story.
Colter had already informed him that he’d told Hope the truth because she’d already found the receipt for the rings, and had guessed most of the plot anyway. Tate had even chewed Jason’s ass for not telling her sooner, which he supposed he deserved, but not coming from Colter. He’d rather get raked over the coals by Hope. Honestly, he just wanted to see Hope, even if she did give him hell.
Grady had called to let Jason know none of his brothers had heard a word from Hope.
He’d left Colter’s place and sprinted back to the guesthouse, only to find it still empty. He’d called Tate, and they’d started a search party. There was really no possibility that Hope could be anywhere except out here in the wilderness. There wasn’t really another direct route back to the guesthouse from Colter’s place, so she must have veered off the main path.
Currently, the search party had been looking for her for hours, and nobody had seen any sign of her. Tate had taken to the air in his helicopter, but there were areas he couldn’t see from above, areas with thick woods that had to be searched on foot. All of Tate’s brothers and Chloe were looking, and Jason knew from the map he’d gotten from Tate that he must be near the end of his assigned area. Once he hit the edge of the canyon, he’d hike down to the one opening in the canyon and head back.
He bellowed Hope’s name as he swiped aside the tree branches. His heart stopped while he waited for an answer. All he’d heard so far was…silence.
Colter had sworn that Hope had seemed okay by the time she’d left his house, saying she needed a walk alone to think. Jason hoped that she wasn’t thinking about how she could get out of their marriage.
I’m sorry, baby. So sorry. Answer me.
His emotions swung from fear, to remorse, to annoyance that she’d left the main path and put herself in danger. Something was wrong; he could sense it. It was a
lmost as if his emotions were tied to Hope’s, and his gut told him she wasn’t just sitting somewhere, thinking about their relationship. She knew better than to be off the beaten path after dark. She hadn’t taken any equipment: no flashlight, not even her cell phone. He’d found it sitting on the kitchen cupboard, plugged in and charged.
Dammit!
Tate said she didn’t even have water, and it had been an unusually hot Colorado afternoon. He wiped the perspiration from his face with his already grubby t-shirt. If she was hurt or trapped somewhere, she probably couldn’t even get to a water source.
His voice was hoarse as he continued to call for her and watched the sun fade behind the mountains. Pushing through more branches, he finally came to a clearing, and he could see the other wall of the canyon across from him. Moving to the edge, he studied the almost vertical drop to the bottom. It was a long, wide canyon, and she couldn’t have gone any farther than here. There was only one entrance, so Tate had said his best route was to take the long hike down the incline, find the entrance and start back. The rest of the surrounding areas were an unlikely place for her to go as it was rough terrain.
“Shit!” he uttered fiercely, frustrated and desperate. He needed to find her.
“Hope!” he roared, tormented. His own voice echoed back at him from the opposite wall of the canyon, which was higher than the side he stood on.
“Here.” A weak response sounded from the bottom of the canyon, and he froze. His heart palpitated wildly as he saw Hope lying in the middle of the canyon, prostrate on her back.
“Fuck!” He yanked his phone from his pocket and quickly called Tate to let him know that Hope was in the canyon, obviously hurt, but he wasn’t sure how badly.
Had she fallen? That thought made Jason distraught, but he tried to calm himself down. A fall from the ledge would have killed her. With most of the floor of the canyon being rocky, she would have never survived if she had fallen.
“Hope. Hang on. I’m coming down.”
“I’m okay,” she called back, her voice weak. “It’s just my leg.”
