Brotherhood Protectors: Soldier's Heart Part 2 (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Ilsa J. Blick

  The snow had been disturbed, trodden upon. The edges were faint, blurred with fresh snowfall and wind. Most people might never have noticed.

  “You really do see that.” Jack’s tone was indecipherable, the studied neutral of a man—perhaps someone like Vance—debating if his favorite pet has truly mastered a new trick.

  “Yeah.” There were several cup-like depressions, a few half-moons, and several man-sized prints. Where he knelt. She looked from the concave depressions to a half-moon. Where he rested his weight on the toe of a boot. His prints were clear enough she could make out the waffle pattern on the soles.

  Gabriel had wanted to come in. He’d made it to the tent where he’d knelt and . . . listened? Thought about it? Something stopped him from waking her. What?

  “Who says you were asleep at the time?” Jack’s breath slanted on her neck. “Think back over the evening. Use your imagination.”

  “I’ve been talking to you.” Out loud, too. Jack was right; she was normally so disciplined about that. “And then we . . .” The words balled in her throat.

  “Made love.” Inching a finger to a breast, Jack gave her left nipple a tiny flick and then let out a small laugh as the sensitive flesh puckered. “I made you wet, and I made you come, and you wanted it, wanted me.”

  And Gabriel had heard them in their ecstasy. No, she amended, Gabriel had overheard a woman he didn’t know talking to herself and then . . . A hot flush of embarrassment fired her cheeks. Her eyes fell to the snow again. He knelt there and listened as I touched myself, as Jack touched me, as I had sex with a—

  At that moment, in a pause between one whip of wind and the next, she caught a new sound, distant enough that anyone else might have missed it if the wind had been wrong. But the wind was with her. Still, she doubted the sound was loud enough to wake any normal woman. Except she hadn’t been a normal woman for a while now, and she had heard this at least once already, because the old nightmare had come back.

  Riding the wind, there came a single, lonely pop.

  And then, five more.

  2

  The snow came in waves, riding the wind screaming over Chaney Peak in a long, high, ululation that rose and then died and then repeated, the notes rising and falling in a tidal ebb and blow. The sound reminded Sarah Grant of bobcats in the night. The first time a vet school professor played that clip, Sarah thought a woman was being knifed to death in a dark alley. Now, standing in the pitch black on the Chaney fire tower’s catwalk, she shivered, both at the sound and because she was freezing. Ice crystals, fine as sand, blasted the exposed skin around her eyes and cheeks and hissed over the glass of the tower’s lookout. Whenever the wind ebbed, the shriek dying as if the storm paused to suck in another breath, Sarah could hear her dogs going nuts in the lookout’s cabin seventy feet below.

  Turning aside now, she used a gloved hand to shield her face and peered down. The cabin was invisible. The only light came as a fitful pale blue-white glimmer from a solar-powered lantern she’d placed in a window to help guide them back. She imagined the dogs waiting, worried, tiny Daisy yapping encouragement as Soldier, her enormous black German shepherd, planted his paws on the sill and called for her to get her butt inside already.

  Sound advice.

  “Got to be at least seven shots.”

  She turned back, blinking against needles of snow sharp enough to prick tears. Digging her muffler out from her collar, she tugged wool over her chin and mouth up to her nose and let out a little sigh of relief at the feel of wool warmed by her body heat. Thrusting her hands under her armpits, she hugged herself against another blast of wind-driven snow, shivering as fine ice stabbed skin. She should’ve grabbed a balaclava. Five more minutes, and she was calling it quits. “But shooting at what, Hank?”

  “Beats me. Scare off an animal, maybe.” Hank Cooper was nearly invisible, more of a black presence to her right she felt more than saw. They had a flashlight, but they’d switched that off, the better for Hank to glass the mountains north of the fire tower. “There might be an animal out in this, a grizz roaming the higher elevations, looking for a good spot to den up.”

  “In the middle of a snowstorm? Any self-respecting grizz has more sense than to be out in this mess.”

  “Might be that someone decided to ride out the storm in a cave.”

  “And stumbled on a bear?” Possible, she supposed, though more likely for black bear, which preferred to den either in caves or the hollowed-out guts of a big tree or beneath windfalls. Grizzlies excavated under root balls of very large trees and on northern slopes that received the least sun because a nice, deep snowpack made for good insulation. Digging an emergency snow-shelter was, in fact, a skill animals—and most people who frequented the Montana backcountry or anyplace that saw a lot of snowfall—knew. “It’s the end of September, Hank. Bears don’t start denning up until mid-October. Besides, black bears stick to lower elevations. If those shots are coming from where we think, they’re too high, probably on a ridge somewhere north of us.”

  “Still a possibility, though.” A pause the wind filled with a whistle. “I thought I saw something, too. You know, in a lull? Could’ve sworn I spotted a fire.”

  “Come on.” Another gust of snow sandpapered her face, the flakes fine as glass, and she winced, blinking against the sting. Her eyelashes felt strange, too heavy, and when she tugged off a mitten with her teeth and swiped a hand over her eyes, tiny lumps of ice broke off into her palm. Eyeballs are gonna be ice cubes soon. They both needed to get indoors, thaw out, and warm up. Working her fingers back into her mittens hurt. In the short time the hand had been exposed, her middle finger had stiffened in the cold. It was always that way with middle fingers. They were the first to suffer frostbite, though she couldn’t remember where she’d read that. A detective novel, she thought. “Seriously? It’s too far. Your eyes are playing tricks, Hank.”

  “No, you only say that because you’re used to cities and all that light pollution.”

  This was true. She had a house down south in Kalispell, a pretty good-sized city in these parts that touted itself as the gateway to Glacier National Park, which lay thirty miles northeast. At night, Kalispell’s lights painted the sky with a faint silver glow. The previous August, when she’d wanted to see the annual Pleiades meteor shower, she’d driven a good forty minutes northwest to Tally Lake. She remembered lying on her back on a floating dock, no one around, and staring straight up into a moonless night sky choked with so many bright, hard stars, she had a tough time picking out constellations. The Milky Way was a thick, gauzy smear, and when the meteors came, they burned in fine, sparkling silver scintillas.

  “Maybe.” Glancing into the dark expanse beyond the tower, she thought about it then shook her head. “That would still have to be one hell of a fire for you to see from this far away, Hank. The trails in the Black Wolf are, what? Five miles away? Ten?”

  “Yes, and on a clear day, you can see into Canada. So, it’s possible.”

  “How about we call it highly unlikely? It’s night, Hank.”

  “So? Think about it a second, Sarah. Look, the Earth is round, right?”

  She executed an eye roll he couldn’t possibly see in the dark. “Duh. And?”

  “And the Earth is curved, last time I checked.”

  “So?” Annoyance nipped the back of her neck. A thin stream of snowmelt trickled down a temple, and she dashed it away. She wasn’t ten years old, for heaven’s sake. “So what?”

  “So that means the surface curves out of your direct line of sight at about a distance of about three miles.” He paused. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “The way you’re looking at me. I can’t see your face, but I can tell.”

  “Okay.” It was true, too; she had been giving him a look. “It’s just that I wondered how you happen to know something as arcane as that.”

  “It’s just something you learn as a cop, especially up here in the mountains wher
e you do a lot of search and rescue.”

  “Hunh.” She wondered if Josie, the woman helping her train Soldier for SAR, knew this and figured she probably did. “And this means . . . ?”

  “If you’re on flat ground and it’s totally dark, any light you see has got to be no more than three miles away. But we’re on top of a high peak in a fire tower. That means we can see light and detail a lot farther. That makes sense, right? It’s why people go up the Empire State or the World Trade Center. The higher you are, the more you compensate for the curve of the Earth. How many times have you stood up here and seen a car on the road into Lonesome?”

  “A couple times.” A lie. She often did this. The main road was eleven miles down and about four out. So . . . pretty far. Watching those distant, silent specks of light as they curved and threaded their way through the mountains was a little like playing the game of guessing the life stories of people you saw on a train or in an airport. Was the driver alone? Was the radio on? Was someone waiting up to welcome her back, or was she alone, with only dogs for company in the back, trying to outrun pain and the ghost of a dead lover?

  Stop. Her eyes pooled. Everything always came back to that. To Pete. Sometimes she wondered if her grief wasn’t also a sort of armor, a way of keeping everyone else at arm’s length. After three years, you’d think she’d have moved on already, picked up the broken, glassy bits of her life. Other people did. So, why hadn’t she? Because you enjoy cutting yourself every now and again, reminding yourself of the pain? Was that why she’d fought to convince the Army to let her have Soldier, Pete’s military working dog, as a daily reminder? Well, Soldier wasn’t going to be only her problem from here on out, was he? Hank had offered to take Soldier, give her a bit of a breather. But was that the right thing to do?

  Why are you second-guessing this? She should accept the help, not feel she had to deal with everything alone. Soldier was a burden, a big responsibility. He was a military working dog with PTSD, for God’s sake. He might never be a dog who could be anyone’s pet.

  Except Pete wanted me to do it. If Pete thought Hank should get Soldier, wouldn’t he have asked his brother? But Pete didn’t. What kind of person was she, jumping at the lifeline Hank offered and happy, even relieved at the offer? And what about the dog? Soldier was happy, wasn’t he? You’re a veterinarian, and you don’t know?

  “Okay.” She heard the pissiness leaking into her tone, decided suck on it, she didn’t care. “Yeah, fine, I can see cars. And?”

  “Why are you getting angry?”

  “I’m not angry,” she lied, swallowing past a sudden, salty lump. “I’m just waiting for the punchline. And? So?” Then she got it. “Okay, fine, you’re saying they put fire towers on mountains in the middle of nowhere to compensate for light pollution and the curvature of the Earth, right?” You watch. He’ll pull another stat out of his hat, the show-off. Then, she thought, What is wrong with you?

  “That’s right.” Hank’s tone was mild. “They say you can see a candle burning thirty miles away. So, it’s not out of the question for me to spot a campfire, even in a snowstorm.”

  “Except for one small problem.” She heard the hectoring, perverse little nyah-nyah-nyah. Did she want to start another fight? “It’s snowing, hard. You can’t start a fire in that, much less keep it going.”

  “You say that only because you’ve never learned how.”

  And, of course, you have. “So how do you do it?”

  “Well, the trick to building any fire, period, is to have a couple different ways to start it—matches, lighters, flint and steel—and a supply of decent tinder. You know, lint from your dryer, tinder cloth, tree shavings. Cotton balls gooped up with Vaseline work great.”

  “Which I suppose you always carry.”

  “Well, sure.” He might as well have said duh. “Of course. I always carry an emergency kit. The hardest part really isn’t getting a fire started but keeping it going, especially in bad weather. There are tricks.”

  All of which you know. Because she was sure he did. “Terrific. Remind me to pick you for my team if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse.”

  “Well, gee, I don’t know. You’d have to make it worth my while. What are you offering?”

  “Right now?” She snorted. “Nothing, except I’m freezing and all this speculation isn’t getting us anywhere. Besides, it’s not like you’re going back down the mountain tonight.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Oh, give me a break. Hank, it’s snowing. It’s night. Isn’t the first rule of rescue not to need it yourself?”

  “Thanks, I got that memo. I was only thinking that if I hustled, I could probably get below the tree line in a couple hours. The snow’s fast but not that thick, yet, and it’s not as if I don’t know the way.”

  “In daylight. Listen, in the past couple of months, I’ve been all over this mountain and those trails, and even I wouldn’t do something that dumb.” A bit of a lie. Less than eight hours ago, she’d been thinking of beating feet with the dogs and doing that in the dark if she had to.

  “Dumb? And here I thought you wanted me on your team for the zombie apocalypse. Look, all I was thinking is I’ve got a radio in my Bronco. I could call in what we know.”

  “Well, beyond the fact that a storm can change up in a nanosecond, what we know doesn’t amount to much. What are you going to say? Oh, gee, we heard gunshots and you maybe saw a campfire and so quick, go find whoever’s out there? You can’t even give a location, Hank. There’s no way anyone’s acting on this tonight, one way or the other.”

  She heard him sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I guess I just don’t like it. The gunshots, mainly. They’re weird.”

  “Let’s see how things are in the morning, okay? Right now, I could use some dry clothes and something hot to drink.” When he didn’t reply, she added, “And there’s still pie.”

  “Gee, Sarah, I don’t know.”

  “What’s to know? It’s pie.”

  “Yeah, but is it warm?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Warm.”

  “Warm,” she repeated. “You mean, the pie? Of course.” A little offended now. “I heated it up in the oven a touch and then put it on the table wrapped in a towel before I came out. For heaven’s sake, Hank, it’s pie.”

  “Well, in that case,” he said, “I guess if the zombies attack, we’re all set.”

  3

  Once they’d crept down the tower’s metal steps—a heart-stopping adventure, what with a layer of slick ice and snow grabbing at their boots—they bypassed the front door. There was a lean-to snugged to the left just off a back door that led to a small storage area off the cabin’s main room. Ducking past a heavy sheet of industrial-grade plastic covering the entrance to the lean-to, they stomped their boots to knock off snow and swept each other’s jackets clean.

  “Your cheeks are kind of white.” Panning a flashlight beam over her face, Hank touched a finger to her right cheek. “You feel that?”

  “Mostly.” Sort of. Hank’s finger felt distant and dull. Any longer up there, we’d be talking frostbite. “Your skin’s pretty pale, too.”

  “Feels like wood.” Hank worked his jaws. “We both need to get warm, that’s all. A hot bath should do it. You got that bucket on the stove?”

  “Always.” She’d refilled the big pot before heading for the tower. Opening the door, she pushed into the storage room. The room was dark and cold, though not freezing, and smelled of wood, dry dog food, chilled aluminum, and the faint aroma of peanut butter she used to bait snap traps for any mice that decided to drop by for a visit. “Watch the traps,” she warned, using her light as a pointer. Dropping onto a wooden crate, she placed her flashlight on another and then began tugging at her laces. “You were out longer, so you get in the water first. I’ll drag the tub into the bedroom.” Kicking off her boots, she wriggled her toes, wincing as the feeling started to come back in sharp darts that burned like acid, and then tottered to her feet. “You’ve
got a change of clothes, right?”

  “Well”—perched on another crate, Hank was focused on working his laces—“sort of.”

  She stopped at the door. “What does that mean?”

  “It means sort of.”

  “So, sort of yes, or sort of no?”

  Tugging off a boot, he peeled off a sock then reached down and massaged his feet. “I’ve got spare underwear and socks.”

  “Shut up.” Mr. I-Can-Make-A-Fire-In-A-Raging-Blizzard had packed in nothing more than socks and undies? “What happened to be prepared?”

  “I’m a deputy, not a Boy Scout.” In the faint light, a mottled-looking dark patch suddenly spilled up the back of his neck, and she could swear the tips of his ears were maroon. “It’s not as if I planned on becoming Frosty the Snowman’s stunt double,” he said, shucking out of his sheepskin coat. “Or getting showered with red wine.”

  Now, it was her turn to blush. In the bluish beam of her flashlight, the large splash had dried to dark purple as if she’d shot him through the heart instead of only sprayed him with red wine from a glass she’d chucked across the room. “I’m sorry about that, Hank.”

  “You already apologized. But I don’t suppose you’ve got a really large sweatshirt I could borrow? Even parked near the stove, my clothes will take some time to dry out.”

  Yeah, I’ve got something. Her heart kicked. “Sure, no problem.” She offered him a smile that was all lips, no teeth. “Come on in when you’re ready.”

  The cabin’s main room was warm, the air tinged with the slightly fruity aroma of booze, yeast, and the rounder scent of dog. “Hey, you guys,” she said as the dogs crowded up, Daisy squirting between Soldier’s legs to bounce around Sarah. “Good girl, that’s my girl.” She gave each dog a quick, perfunctory pat before angling past to her sparsely furnished bedroom.

  She paused a moment, considering, turning the whole thing over in her head. Behind, she heard Hank moving around in the main room and then he called, “You want me to grab the tub, bring it in?”