Men of courage

by Lori Foster

  At any other time Haley would have been disgusted by his appearance. He was hardly flushed from the climb, much less scratched up and bloody. But there was a part of her that was too glad to see him, too glad to have someone—anyone else—by her side when she made… whatever discoveries were to be made down the road at her house.

  The other part of her tensed up, preparing for the lecture she was sure to get and the argument that would follow. Because she hadn’t come this far to turn back now. Braced for a fight, she turned to face him squarely, then stepped back as he came right up to her, surprising her by invading her personal space. All of it.

  He stopped a mere breath away. She opened her mouth to explain in no uncertain terms that she was not leaving, even if he tried to bodily carry her off the mountain, which considering the look in his eye and his close proximity, seemed to be his intent. But he dashed her arguments before she’d even made them, and he didn’t even have to say anything.

  He lifted a hand, a hand she was pleased to see was at least a bit scuffed and dirty, and pulled a piece of pine bow from the wild tangle her hair had become. His own expression looked so fierce, so unlike the happy-go-lucky Brett she knew. “I would have helped you.”

  Not “You shouldn’t have come up here on your own, you stupid idiot.” Not “What kind of crazy stunt do you think you’re pulling? You could have gotten yourself killed.” Both of which she rightly deserved. Just chiding her for leaving him behind. And, despite the ferocity of his gaze, he also wore an unmistakable look of understanding. Which shamed her more than any yelling match would have.

  “I’m sorry. That I worried you,” she clarified. “I had to find him.”

  Brett let his hand fall away and nodded. “I understand, but—”

  “Right now I’m not all that worried about something happening to me. Everything I have is up the road in that house. And I’m not talking about my furniture, or even my livelihood.”

  “I know. But you have to think beyond yourself, your personal safety. With choppers flying overhead, they were going to see you crashing through the trees. Did you stop to think what they’d do? Did you think they wouldn’t send a rescue team up here after you when they realized what you’d done?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself again. “I—I—no, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.” She hung her head. “I wasn’t thinking at all. I’m really sorry.” This time she was completely sincere. She looked back up at him, deserved the quiet censure now in his gaze. “I didn’t mean to put anyone else in danger.”

  “I know we haven’t seen each other in a long time, that we don’t really know each other anymore… But I would have helped you, found a way up here, found your dog. You promised to wait.”

  Now, completely unreasonably, she felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “No, I didn’t promise. You merely commanded me to stay. Like I was one of your rescue dogs.”

  She thought she saw him fight the same battle. “At least Recon would have had the good sense to obey me,” he said grudgingly.

  Her urge to smile faded, as did his. Finally she nodded. “You’re right. I should have waited. But when I heard someone mention one house was down up here, I—” She shrugged.

  “Okay, okay. No point in rehashing this to death. What’s done is done.”

  He placed his hand on her shoulder, let it slide down her arm to cup her elbow. The Gannons had always been a touchy-feely bunch, overly familiar with other people, never thinking that they might resent such a personal intrusion. Surely Brett didn’t realize how startling it was to her to be touched, even casually. It was as natural to him as breathing. At any other time, she’d have carefully stepped away, easing from that kind of familiarity, the kind that could become addictive to a person not reared with the same easygoing sensibilities. The kind of person who’d place too much stake on such things, then end up sorely disappointed when they didn’t mean as much to the giver as they did to the receiver. Any other time she’d have stepped back, preserved that space she’d so carefully erected around herself these past two years.

  But she didn’t. His touch was calming, steadying, and she was too shaken up to find the strength to turn away from that. She told herself at least she understood her reasons for needing it, taking it, indulging herself in her time of shock and fear. Surely she could handle this much without risking anything. Because just as surely he was only offering her solace in his capacity of a rescuer.

  Except, as her walls were so shaky, her confidence eroding, she had to admit that his touch sparked all sorts of things inside her that had nothing to do with being rescued. Things that made her aware of him, not as a rescuer or the not-so-little brother of an old flame. She shivered. Only this time it wasn’t in shock, which was what made her pull away. Danger, danger, Haley Brubaker, she thought silently. And it’s not the earthquake that’s the threat.

  “I’m not going back. I’ve come too far,” she said, knowing she sounded stiff and unnatural, but then dealing with her sudden physical reaction to him was one shock too many for her system to bear. She supposed this is why people did things well out of character during times of deep stress. She’d heard about those primal urges that take over when people think they are in mortal danger. She shivered again, then shook her head. As if that would clear the sudden images crowding her brain. Images of Brett taking her in those strong arms of his, soothing away all her fears, making her forget her terror and fear of the unknown by drowning her in a sensual tidal pool of—

  “I’ve got to find Digger,” she stated flatly, pushing—no, shoving—those thoughts, those highly inappropriate, obviously shock-induced thoughts, firmly from her mind.

  He took her arm as she spun away from him. “Whoa, whoa.”

  She merely stared down at his hand on her, working furiously to think of Digger. Only of Digger. He was paramount in her mind. A mind she was surely losing because she couldn’t stop looking at that wide span of hand, those long, lean fingers, so easily gripping her, holding her in place. Maybe that’s it, she thought somewhat wildly. I need someone with big, strong hands to hold me in place. Otherwise I’m going to shatter into a million pieces. She found her gaze drifting up to his, and she hated herself for the helpless look she knew damn well filled her eyes.

  But there was no pity to be found in his. No censure, either. “I’m here now, Haley. And I’m trained for this. We’ll go find Digger. Recon and me.” His grip tightened. “Not you.”

  She began to shake again, and tears threatened, which made no sense. He was going to help her. He was going to get Digger. “I can’t—won’t— sit here and wait,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’ve come this far, I—”

  And then she was in his arms, tight up against that glorious, secure expanse of chest, and she couldn’t help it, she reveled in it. Even for just a moment, just long enough to get her bearings, to find her strength, her control. Digger needed her and she’d be damned if she’d let him down when she’d come this far, gotten this close. “I can’t let him down,” she whispered.

  Brett tipped her chin up, looked down into her eyes. And grinned. It was a shocking, blinding thing, seemingly so out of place amid all the terror and destruction. And yet it was the perfect thing, the perfect gift. The shining beacon of confidence she needed to latch her own shaky foundation to.

  “Then let’s go get him,” Brett said. And with her hand tucked firmly in his, they turned to face what lay ahead.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It had been eight years and he was a long way from that gangly sixteen-year-old who’d fantasized about having the right to touch Haley Brubaker. But as he held her hand while they made their way along the side of the road, well away from the edge of the snaking split that ran down the center of it, to the second house on the road, he realized he was still the same dumb goober.

  Her house was likely halfway to the ocean, her four-legged companion possibly lost forever… and here he was, thinking about how touching her felt even better than he’
d imagined.

  They rounded the bend in the road and she halted with a gasp. “Oh, no. Oh, my God.”

  “Yours?” Brett felt his heart turn to lead. All that remained of the house that had once stood on the lot to their right were foundation shards and half a deck that was no longer attached to anything. It bobbed drunkenly, barely supported by the one piling left standing.

  Haley shook her head. With her hand covering her mouth, she stumbled forward, as if she was going to go and look down the side of the mountain. “Oh, my God.”

  Brett pulled her back. “Don’t. You don’t know how stable the ground is.” He didn’t want to explain about the other dangers, such as aftershocks. She was operating on a thin enough wire as it was, whether she realized it or not. “No cars,” he noted with relief. “Do they work outside the home?”

  She nodded. “The Smithing house was fine, and they’re just right down the road.”

  “Don’t try to make sense out of it, Haley. Tornados, hurricanes, floods, there is no rhyme or reason to any of the devastation they cause.”

  Then she spun around to face him, clutched at his forearms, her eyes bright with hope. “One house down,” she said. “They said one house down! Which means—” She broke free and took off running before Brett could do anything to stop her.

  He sent Recon off with her and followed at a run. “Stop, Haley,” he called, knowing it would do little good at this point. “Watch where you’re stepping. The ground is unstable.”

  She was already off the road, cutting through the shrubs and trees to the house he saw beyond. It was up on a sort of promontory. No trees around beyond it, as if the earth simply fell away. It was nothing less than a miracle that the house was still there. But he was trained to know just how deceiving looks could be in a situation such as this.

  “No!” he shouted, hitting his stride at a dead run, whacking limbs out of his way as he came into the clearing. Recon was right on her heels as she cut the last corner and raced up her drive. His legs were easily half again as long as hers and yet some sort of super, adrenaline-powered rush kept her just out of his reach. “Haley, stop!” he commanded, his heart pounding more in fear than from exertion. “You could send the whole thing down! Stop!”

  She literally skidded to a stop not ten feet from the double doors of her detached garage, stood like a frozen statue as she pulled herself together and studied the ground around her, then the building in front of her, obviously looking for signs of structural damage.

  “You can’t always see it,” he said, coming to a stop beside her. “This thing barely clings to the side of this huge pile of rock we’re on as it is. It had to be shaken pretty good when the quake hit. Just because it looks okay, because that other house looked okay, doesn’t mean—”

  “Digger is in there.”

  “I know.” He signaled Recon to his side. “This time you have to promise me,” he said, taking her chin in his hand. “We’ll go get him.”

  To her credit, she nodded without argument.

  “But what if—” she began.

  “We’re trained for this.” He tugged his pack off his back and zipped it open, pulling out a long tool that looked like a cross between a claw and some sort of tire iron.

  “It’s a Halligan tool,” he explained, noting her expression.

  Her mouth dropped open as she spied the gear strapped and pocketed throughout the pack’s lining. “You ran up the side of a mountain with all that stuff?” She looked at him. “And you hardly broke a sweat.”

  He grinned and gave her a little salute with his Halligan. “Like I said, I’m trained for this. It’s just nice to know that all that hard work pays off when duty calls.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would,” she said faintly, then looked again at his pack. “I guess you are trained for this.”

  “I’m not a sixteen-year-old goober, drooling, pestering his big brother’s girlfriend anymore, Haley.”

  “I— I can see that.”

  And for a split second, he could have sworn there was a snick of sexual awareness arcing between them. Which was ludicrous given the situation. He was aware, but then he always had been. Time didn’t change everything, apparently. His grin firmed, but didn’t fade. “What kind of dog is Digger?”

  “Jack Russell terrier.”

  “Crated?”

  She nodded. “While I’m gone. Otherwise he gets into everything. Pauline had him at her place. She has outdoor runs and—” She broke off, as if realizing she was babbling. “The crate is in the kitchen. It’s straight through the living room and runs the length of the back of the house. His crate is to the left, near the slidingglass door to the deck. So he can see the birds and squirrels.” Her voice caught on that last part and she covered her mouth again.

  He rubbed her shoulder with his free hand. “I’ll get him, Haley, okay? You’re doing fine. But I need you to stay here. The house doesn’t need any more weight in it than necessary. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, all big brown eyes and wavering lips. He never remembered her as being particularly helpless. Quite the opposite, in fact. He didn’t think that was teenage hero worship, either. Digger meant a great deal to her. Recon pressed her nose against his hand and Brett understood exactly how Haley felt. “Okay. Good. Stay right here. Right. Here.”

  She nodded. “Just make sure he’s okay. And—and be careful. I couldn’t bear it if I caused—”

  “This is what I do.” Recon was all but vibrating at his side. “What we do.”

  Haley looked down at his dog. “He looks… excited.”

  Brett had the feeling she was going to say, “Happy.” Which Recon was. She didn’t understand the stakes. Search and Rescue dogs were trained to think of their jobs as one big game. An overdeveloped desire to play, hunt, seek and find were precisely the traits handlers used to select the right puppy for training. It had taken Brett almost fifteen months to find the right dog. And he’d ended up finding her at the local humane shelter, of all places. He’d known almost instantly she was the one. Recon loved the game, and she was very, very good at playing it. “She is excited. She lives for this.”

  “She? With a name like that?”

  “Trust me, she earned it. Now listen, we might take a while. It doesn’t mean anything bad has happened, just that we need to move carefully. Don’t panic. And don’t follow.” He waited for her nod, then moved up the drive and picked his way onto the narrow front porch. The only way to the back door was across the deck. Which hung out over a very steep, very rocky incline that tumbled down to the road below. He’d rather go through the house.

  He glanced back at Haley, who was still riveted to the exact same spot, fingers twisting together as she watched him. “Does he have any toys close to the front door? A leash?” he called.

  “His leash and collar are on a small table, right inside to the left.”

  Brett nodded. It would give him a scent to put Recon on, if they needed to go that far. It was quite possible that tables, chairs, shelves, had all come crashing down. He’d seen too many people reenter houses after disaster struck, houses that looked perfectly fine on the outside, only to stumble back out in total shock at the devastation inside. Digger might be trapped in his crate, or could have escaped it altogether and still be trapped. Very carefully he went to pry open the door.

  Haley called out to him. “Key! Under the clay squirrel. Right by the front step in the garden. I’m sorry, I forgot. I—I left everything in the rental car and didn’t have time to get it when I—”

  “Decided to hitch a ride,” Brett finished, flashing her a grin. “No problem.” He calmly retrieved the key. Steadiness was key, patience even more so, in this kind of job. Most SAR teams were made up of one very laid-back human and one very excitable canine partner. His team was no exception.

  He eased the door open. The less vibration or pressure he had to put on any part of the house, the better. It could be just as rock solid as ever, but there was no point in taking unnecessa
ry risks. He was glad to see the door swung freely on its hinges. Nothing warped. Digger wasn’t sitting there waiting for them, which wasn’t a bad sign, but he heard no barking or other signs that the dog was aware of intruders. Not a terrier’s nature, as far as he knew.

  He signaled out to Haley with a wave. “We’ll be out shortly.” The “Do not follow us” part was clearly understood.

  She nodded.

  He looped the leash over the Halligan, lifting it from where it sat on the table by the door, which still stood upright. But one look at the room beyond told him that was about all that had remained intact. His heart tightened for Haley’s sake.

  He dipped the leash down to Recon, who immediately went to work. “Find,” he commanded. Of course, Digger’s scent was all over the place, but Recon was trained to air scent and immediately tracked to the kitchen, where the strongest scent emanated from. She picked her way through the clutter and mess with nimble-footed grace. The floor creaked as Brett took a step after her, and he signaled her to stop. He tested the floor in several areas, applying pressure with the tool, then motioning her to continue as he followed at a slower, more careful pace. He continuously checked the walls for cracks, the floor for any unseen gaps. Recon and he trained routinely on huge piles of rubble set up just for that purpose, and, more recently, had experienced the real thing. It had been a bitch of a few months and both were unfortunately well used to moving over shifting mounds of debris.

  But this time it was different. Not because it was any more or less dangerous, but because the shifting mounds of debris belonged to the woman standing out in her own driveway, heart in hand as she waited for him to emerge with the only thing she cared about. It made him wonder why. Not that people didn’t form tight bonds with their pets. He understood that better than most. But she’d said he was the only thing she had in the world. He guessed she still wasn’t close with her family.

  Which made him wonder what had brought her back to the west coast, how long she’d been here. To think they both lived in the Bay Area and it had taken a disaster to reunite them. “Just my luck,” Brett mumbled. His normal work schedule with the San Mateo Fire Department was demanding enough. His SAR work had only increased that demand. He and Recon had worked hard toward becoming one of the elite specialty SAR teams, certified by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They’d achieved that goal in the early spring. And had spent the summer proving their worth. He hadn’t regretted his decision for a second.