Denali Dreams (12 page)

He started for his truck—

A horn blared. Deafening. Terrifying. A blur of black whizzed past.

David shielded himself with his arm.

Thump!
Side-view mirror smacked his bicep. Pain reverberated through his arm. He jerked back, adrenaline spiking as the driver of the shiny Escalade tore off without so much as slowing to apologize.

“Slow down!” As he watched the vehicle barrel up Main, he took in the equipment plastered to the roof. Skis, packs, tents. Heading to the ranger station no doubt. He waited … watching as they banked left onto B Street. “Great. Rich kids,” he muttered. Going up into his mountain. Would they never learn?

No. They’d keep forking over dough—which helped Talkeetna, he had to admit—for their climbing registration. Though they’d often claim experience in climbing, David invariably had to dive in and save someone.

And if they’d just messed up his arm … He tugged the long sleeve of the thermal shirt up, grimacing at the throbbing pain emanating around his elbow.

“Hey, Grizzly. What’s eating your lunch today?”

David glanced up and found Deline on the top step of the café, smirking. “Not in the mood today.”

“Are you ever?”

He eyed the large red welt ballooning around his humerus. “Stupid … self-absorbed—”

“Really shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

He shot her a glare. “Not me—those stupid rich kids.” He jabbed a finger down the road. “That Escalade.”

“I saw.” Too much amusement lurked in her words.

Tugging his sleeve back down, David stepped aside as tourists poured in and out of Tsosie’s Café. “What d’you want? Speak your piece. I gotta get moving.”

Hands in her jeans pockets, Deline came down a step. “Your dad—”

“No.” David shook his head. “Don’t go there.”

Somber brown eyes held his. “He just wants you to come home, wants to see you happy. So do I.”

“Yeah, what do you know about happy, Deline? Have you told your pop you want to leave the café and fly full-time?”

Her eyes blazed. “I told you that in confidence,” she bit out through clenched teeth.

She’d been like a little sister to him since first grade. They’d dated in high school but their personalities slipped and collided like ice in glaciers. Resolved to be friends, they’d been close ever since.

“You don’t have to always be the hero.”

Drawing out his truck keys, he eyed Denali, the memories too fresh of carrying his sister’s body down the brutal landscape. He would never let himself forget. “Yes, I do.”

D
enali sacrificed her brother. Haunted by the thought, Jolie endured the two-hour orientation by the mountaineering ranger, complete with the dangers of climbing, things to watch for, things to avoid. Then more and more droning until the ranger with electric blue eyes came to the proper disposal of human excrement.

Resisting the groan climbing her throat, Jolie let her gaze travel the memorial plaques of rangers who’d died on the mountain. Of course Gael wasn’t up there—he wasn’t a ranger—but it still pricked at her that he was among those who’d lost their lives.

Depressed thinking about those who’d died, she pushed her gaze through the door, past the reception desk with its waist-high counter, to the door. Though from this angle, she couldn’t see the forbidding mountain, she felt its call. Having climbed it once before with Gael, and many other mountains beside, she had the experience and knowledge of the etiquette and safety measures the ranger spoke of. But what hung in the back of her mind was entering the landscape that had made a sacrifice of her brother.

Gael died doing what he loved, with the woman he loved. She missed him, missed his laugh, missed his big-brother advice, guidance, and proverbial kick in the backside when she wanted to give up or slack off.

“You’re a Decoteau—you can’t afford to slack because the world is watching, waiting for you to fail or screw up.”

And yet, she’d done both of those for many years. Until Gael was gone. Sobered by his death, she swung in the other direction to get her life back on track, to make him proud. Even though he could never again say that her halo was on crooked.

The old tease pried a smile from her lips.

“You’re watching him, too, huh?”

Jolie blinked and looked at her longtime friend Nikki deSanto. “What?”

A bubble of laughter erupted in the reception area and pulled Jolie’s attention in the very direction Nikki nodded. Leaning against a back wall in the open sitting area, a brawny guy stood talking with the laughing ranger station manager. She swatted at him, and he ducked his shoulder away, which turned him in Jolie’s direction.

Jolie’s breath backed into her throat as familiar dark, brooding eyes met hers. But what filled her with warmth was not his good looks or his powerful presence but the memory of his angry, hateful words the day of his sister’s funeral.

“You rich people think you can buy anything, including forgiveness. Forget it! My sister is gone because of your brother. He cost my family everything!”

How could he blame Gael for what happened? It was like David Whiteeagle didn’t realize her family had suffered in the tragedy, too. But his grief-borne anger hadn’t stopped the crush she’d had on him since she was fourteen. His native Athabascan heritage made girls like her swoon with his jet-black hair, high cheekbones, square jaw, and mysterious eyes. But then there were his ears she’d always thought too small. And his temper that was too big. Mercy, she would do anything to avoid being on the wrong side of his anger again.

A jab in her side jarred her out of her thoughts and into Nikki’s giggles. “He’s got it going on in all the right places, don’t you think?” She jabbed her again. “He’s staring at you.”

When the memories faded and the heat of embarrassment filled her once again from his contemptuous glare, Jolie returned her focus to the ranger giving the presentation. Was he glaring because he recognized her? She’d like to think she’d grown up a lot since their last encounter, enough that he
wouldn’t
recognize her. Funny how she’d been the life of many parties as a teen, flirting and freely dating, confident and carefree as the daughter of an oil tycoon. But David … he made her feel ashamed of that wealth and upbringing.

Jolie couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling back to him. Tension formed knots in her shoulders as he snatched a clipboard from the desk. The very clipboard she and the others had used to sign in. He muttered something then wagged the board at the manager, who yanked it from his hands.

“There are ranger Base Camps at various levels,” the ranger at the front of her group said. “On patrol during your climb will be myself and David Whiteeagle. That grizzly right there is David.” He pointed. “Trust me when I say don’t cross him. And the way you cross him is to go up on
his
mountain unprepared or without care.”

The others laughed as they considered David. Too much truth hung in Ranger Knox’s statement for Jolie to find any humor in it. Must be sad to be known as a grouch. And yet, she couldn’t stop staring.

“There will also be a doctor ranger and two others at Base Camp,” Ranger Knox continued. “Outside, we’ll do an equipment check. If you fail that, you don’t climb.” Groans bounced around the room, but he shrugged. “Sorry. We’d rather you be ticked and alive, than ill prepared and dead. Just remember, even though you paid good money to climb the High One, it’s not worth it if it’s your last.”

Like Gael. Had he known it’d be his last? He proposed to Mariah Whiteeagle at the peak. At least, she assumed it’d happened. Gael had told her the whole plan before the fateful trip. Jolie’s fingers dug beneath the collar of her turtleneck to find the necklace. She slipped her pointer finger through the gold ring dangling there. On their descent, neither made it back alive.

“He’s still staring,” Nikki said under her breath.

Jolie refused to look. Refused to give him another chance to hurt her. But in her periphery, she saw him pivot and stomp out of the building.
Keep walking, David. Nobody needs your attitude.
She’d come to Denali to make peace so she could move on after her father’s death.

“Okay, if you’ll head with me out front, we’ll do the equipment check,” Ranger Knox said as he tromped toward the entrance.

As they stepped into the heavily clouded morning, a commotion sprang up to their left. Heading down the steps, Jolie saw David arguing with an older man.

“I’m fine,” David with a snarl.

“If you don’t want me to bench you, let me examine it.”

David huffed, his jaw muscle popping under the tension. Finally, he yanked up his black thermal sleeve, up over the elbow, and tucked it above his bicep.

“With muscles like that, I think I might need his services,” Nikki said under her breath.

A large red spot around his elbow stilled her.

“Whoa,” Nikki said. “Looks like he got whacked.”

“Yeah, by a side-view mirror.”

Nikki gasped. “He’s the one Derrick hit coming up here.”

“He hit
me
,” Derrick said with a snicker as he and Aidan Sheppard bumped fists. “Not my fault he stepped into the road without looking.”

Compunction pulled Jolie toward David. If they’d hurt him …

She had tried to get Derrick to stop, but he’d argued they were already late and would lose their registration and right to climb. Then he went on about how the guy should’ve been paying attention. That David wasn’t laid out in the road gave Derrick’s conscience a carte blanche from guilt.

“How’d this happen again?”

“Big black Escalade.”

The man, apparently the ranger doctor, glanced toward Derrick’s vehicle. “You and rich people.”

David snorted and nodded, looking around. “Tell me about it.” His gaze rammed into hers.

Fire bolted through her stomach. At first she couldn’t move. Which was insane. She met with dignitaries, presidents, princes … But David Whiteeagle? Where was the barf bag? “Hey, um, I …” She pointed to his arm. “Derrick should’ve stopped. We tried to make him.”

David’s jaw muscle rippled again as his lips pulled taut.

“I’m sorry.” Her stomach squirmed under his narrowed gaze.

He jerked around with a hiss and yanked his arm free. “Hey!”

Touches of gray at the doc’s temples matched the snow-blotted front lawn. “The bone is bruised, but I don’t think it’s broken. You’d need an X-ray to be sure.”

“It’s not broken. I’m fine.” David yanked the sleeve down. “I have an equipment check to do.”

David brushed past the girl who wasn’t a girl anymore. He remembered the sixteen-year-old version, the petulant partier who’d ended up in the news more often than climbers summitted. Even then, drop-dead gorgeous. But now—she could wipe a guy’s good sense from his head.

That was, if she hadn’t been born a Decoteau. If she wasn’t the sister of the man who’d killed Mariah. No way would he give her an inch of anything.

“You haven’t changed much.”

Her words drew him up short. “Excuse me?”

Jaw jutted, she folded her arms over her raspberry-colored North Face jacket. “We apologized. But you held it over my dad like a boulder.” She stretched her arms out wide. “It was an accident, or don’t you know what that is?”

David’s pulse pounded. He stepped closer. “Accidents happen when people aren’t prepared.”

Her eyes enlivened. “And they happen when experienced climbers
are
prepared. It’s the whole point—nobody’s at fault.”

“All he had to do—”

“He did everything he could. It was an avalanche!” Her eyebrows winged up. “How can you blame that on my brother? What, did he have power over the wind and snow?”

“No, but if he was so experienced—”

“Don’t make accusations you can’t back up.”

“Oh, I’ll back them up all right.”

“Hey.
Hey!
” Ranger Logan Knox wedged in between them, palms on David’s chest as he gave his fellow ranger a nudge. “Dude, c’mon. Get a grip.”

Teeth grinding, David severed the emotional tie those caramel eyes held over him. He took a step back, and humiliation flooded in as he felt the shocked stares of those around him.

“What is with you, man?” Logan asked in a low tone, guiding him away.

“She’s a Decoteau.”

Logan hesitated and looked back, and that little hesitation gave David the affirmation he needed—someone to understand what riled him. Holding David’s arm—right at the tender bruise—Logan stopped. “Look, man. I get your anger, but you gotta wind down your temper.”

“Why do you think I’m heading to Base Camp?” David stretched his neck. “Days alone with nothing but wind, ice, and snow.”

“And a Base Camp manager, a ranger doctor, and another ranger.”

“Yeah, but there’s nearly forty miles of glacier to give me the space I need.”

Logan laughed. “Dude, I don’t know if
Denali
has enough space for you. Listen, seriously, man.” He sighed. “You need to get over this. It’s eating you up. Mariah wouldn’t—”

“Don’t.”

“I will because Mariah was your sister—she loved you. But as an experienced climber, she knew what—”

The
whoosh
of each heartbeat clogged David’s hearing. He swallowed in an attempt to clear it.