Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel (4 page)

Eric let out a whoop, did a fist pump, Lexi, Austin and the others cheering, too.

Vic couldn’t help but laugh, exhilarated by the feel of the wind on her face, blood rushing through her veins, water spraying up behind her.

My God, she’d done it!

When was the last time she’d had so much fun?

* * *

V
ic looked
over the dinner menu, foot tapping to the band. It was almost nine o’clock in Illinois, and she was starving.

“Hey, Victoria. Welcome back to Scarlet.”

Vic looked up to see a server with long blond dreadlocks, a nose ring, and tattoos of roses, ivy, and skulls on her arms. “You’re Rain, right?”

“That’s right.” Rain smiled. “It’s good to see you again. What can I do you for?”

Vic was touched that Rain remembered her. She’d only been here for a few days. “I’ll try the personal deep-dish pizza. Give me the Jackpot, but hold the onions.”

“You got it. One Jackpot, no onions. What to drink?”

“Ooh. I’ll have one of your margaritas.” They were strong, but Vic felt like celebrating. She’d just learned how to wakeboard. “Ice, no salt.”

“How about you, Lexi?”

Vic looked around while the others placed their orders, taking in the scene that was Knockers. Jesse was over at the climbing wall, holding the rope for a friend. Men and women with pool cues in hand laughed and talked and drank beer. A man in a tank top noodle-danced his heart out in front of the stage, while a handful of couples bobbed and swayed together on the dance floor.

The first time Vic had been here, she had assumed that Knockers was nothing more than some local version of Hooters—skimpy tops, short shorts. She’d been wrong. The name referred to tommyknockers, mythical spirits that the town’s original inhabitants believed lived in the mines. Some locals still believed in tommyknockers, and Lexi was one of them. She was convinced that a tommyknocker had helped save her life last year when that bastard bank robber had almost gotten her killed.

Vic didn’t know what to think about that.

“So, city girl, now that you’ve learned how to wakeboard, are you going to try climbing?” Eric took Vic’s menu and handed it to Rain, who half-walked, half-danced away with their orders.

“No way! I’ve had enough adventure for one day.” Already, the muscles in her arms and shoulders were starting to feel sore.

“I thought you did a great job.” Lexi ran a hand through hair still damp from her shower, working the tangles with her fingers.

“You stuck it out,” Austin said. “Way to go.”

“I thought you learned fast.” Britta’s face was sunburned. “It took me six or seven tries to stay on my feet.”

Sasha gave her a high five. “You were a total badass today.”

“Thanks.” Vic was more than a little amazed with herself. In the span of an afternoon, she’d fallen in love with wakeboarding. “When I get back to Chicago, I’m going to buy a board and take some lessons.”

But who would go wakeboarding with her?

The question took her mood down a notch. None of her other friends enjoyed the sport. Her brother certainly wouldn’t be interested.

Austin grinned. “The next time she comes back, she’ll be doing tricks.”

Vic laughed at the very thought. “No Whirlygigs for me.”

Eric laughed. “That’s ‘Whirlybird.’”

“Don’t worry about getting the name right,” Austin said. “Hawke here won’t be doing any Whirlygigs anytime soon either.”

“Hey, I landed it, then caught an edge.”

Rain brought everyone’s drinks on a tray, ending that argument.

Vic had just taken a sip of her margarita when she heard a familiar voice quoting the Bible somewhere behind her.

“If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother, but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.”

She looked over her shoulder, saw the man everyone called Bear standing just inside the doorway, preaching with battered Bible in hand. He was big and shaggy like his namesake, with a long beard and buckskin jacket. He lived alone in a cabin west of town. No one knew where he’d come from, how old he was, or what had happened to make him the way he was. They simply did their best to watch out for him. Their kindness toward him had touched Vic deeply.

She motioned to Rain, who hurried over. “What can I get for you?”

Vic took a twenty-dollar bill out of her handbag and slipped it into Rain’s hand. When she spoke, it was for Rain’s ears alone. “For Bear.”

Rain smiled. “Lexi knows how to pick her friends.”

She walked back over to Bear, handed him a menu, and whispered something in his ear that had him looking straight at Vic. He walked over to the table.

Vic felt suddenly on the spot. She hadn’t bought him dinner because she wanted attention or even gratitude.

He stood beside her, towering over her in his buckskin jacket. “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger …” His voice trailed off. “You’re Lexi’s pretty friend.”

Vic swallowed, a lump in her throat. “It’s nice to see you again, Bear.”

Bear smiled and scratched his beard, ducking his head like a shy schoolboy. “God bless you, Victoria Woodley.”

Then he turned and walked away, following Rain like a puppy to a table.

Vic found Eric watching her, just the hint of a smile on his face, his blue eyes warm. “You know what, city girl? You’re alright.”

“
W
hat do
you mean the pizza wasn’t good?” Eric followed Victoria up the sidewalk, his laptop tucked under his arm. “First you make fun of our reservoir, and now you don’t like the pizza?”

Victoria swiped her key card, buzzing them in through the inn’s private guest entrance. “Have you ever had real Chicago deep-dish pizza?”

Of course, he hadn’t. “How could it be that much different from what Joe serves up? Put toppings on dough with sauce and cheese and bake it. That’s pizza.”

She smiled. “If you don’t know the difference, there’s no way I can explain it.”

They stepped into the elevator together.

He pushed the button for the third floor. “If Chicago-style pizza is so much better, why don’t you make some and prove it? Or don’t you cook?”

“Are you kidding? I love to cook.” Her chin came up—proof he’d set off her stubborn streak again. “Okay, you’re on—
if
I can find the ingredients somewhere.”

The elevator doors opened.

Victoria stepped out, walked to her door, opened it with another swipe of her card. “Do you think Lexi and Austin suspect anything?”

Eric followed her inside, locking the door behind them. “Nah. We’re good.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Eric had seen the pissed-off look on Taylor’s face when he had offered to drive Vic home. Taylor thought Eric was ignoring his warning and trying to get naked with her.

Would Eric like to have sex with Victoria? Hell, yes. But he wasn’t actively working to make it happen. He’d heard what Taylor had said. Besides, Victoria was Lexi’s best friend, and if he slept with her, it might blow up in his face. He wouldn’t risk his friendship with Lexi and Austin for anything.

Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true either. Eric wouldn’t initiate anything, but if Victoria started it, he would sure as hell finish it.

He stopped and looked around, dresses, tops, and pants lying haphazard on the sofa. “Did one of your suitcases explode?”

“Sorry about the mess. I couldn’t figure out what to wear.”

Eric couldn’t understand that problem. A clean shirt and a pair of jeans, and he was good to go. “You shouldn’t stress. You’d look great in anything.”

She grabbed the clothes and disappeared into the bedroom. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw me in sweats and a T-shirt on a Saturday morning.”

Oh, he most certainly would—though he wasn’t complaining about the wispy little spaghetti strap number she was wearing now. It had taken no small amount of willpower to keep his gaze on her face and away from the deep V neckline.

Her feet were bare when she stepped out of the bedroom, her toenails painted a sexy shade of red. “Where do you want to set up?”

“How about over there?” He pointed to the small dining table near the window.

“Perfect. Are you thirsty?”

“Water would be nice. You’d better be drinking lots of water, too, after spending all that time in the sun. You just got here from the flats.” He carried his new laptop over to the small table, plugged it into the nearest outlet, and then booted it up.

She walked over with two glasses of ice water. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

From nearby, her cell phone buzzed—again.

Her body stiffened, her head snapping around toward the sound.

“Your boss again?”

Victoria hurried toward her handbag, which sat on the coffee table, and pulled out the phone. “Yes. Another email. It’s midnight in Chicago.”

“It’s eleven on a Saturday night, and you’re on vacation. Ignore her.”

“I can’t.” She typed a quick response.

Eric shook his head. “You work too hard. You should throw your phone in a drawer and leave it there until it’s time to fly home.”

“That would get me fired.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He turned the computer so that she could see the screen, too. “So how should we do this?”

Still holding her phone, she crossed the room and sat in the seat next to his. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve done so far?”

And, God, he could smell her again.

He willed himself to focus on the job at hand, opening up the video-editing program and showing her the folder where he’d saved the imported footage. “I also imported a bunch of photos of Lexi and Austin as kids. I thought I could edit them in somehow.”

She rested her chin on her hand, her gaze on the screen. “That’s a fun idea.”

“I started going one by one through the interviews, trying to edit them down, but it’s taking forever.”

She nodded. “Video can be extremely time-consuming. Why don’t you show me how you were doing it, and I’ll see if I can teach you some shortcuts?”

Eric found the interview he’d done with his mom in the footage bin and opened it, his mother’s face appearing on the viewer. “I had Mom repeat a few answers because her neighbor was revving his car engine.”

“This is your mom?” Victoria looked over at him, seemed to study his face. “You have her eyes.”

“Lexi’s mom was her best friend. She took care of Lexi and Britta during the day until Bob married Kendra.”

“It’s so sad—Lexi and Britta losing their mother when they were so little.”

“What about your folks?”

“My dad lives in New York.”

Eric waited, and when she didn’t go on, he asked. “What about your mom?”

She shrugged. “Last I heard, she and her Italian boyfriend were lying on a beach in Greece. That was four or five years ago.”

Okay, so she wasn’t close to her family and didn’t want to talk about them.

She got down to work. “The faster way to edit clips is to select your in and out points for the clip and then drag the footage you want onto the timeline. See?”

She turned the laptop toward him. “You try.”

“Like this?” He’d just dragged another segment onto the timeline when his pager went off, one call-tone following the next—county sheriff, his fire station, the Team, Flatirons Emergency Response.

Something big had gone down.

“Shit.” He pulled the pager from his waistband, scrolled through the message.

He was on his feet, the video forgotten.

She stood, too, concern on her pretty face. “Is something wrong?”

He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “A car went off the highway and rolled into Scarlet Creek at mile marker thirty-one. The water’s still running pretty high with snowmelt. If the driver and passengers survived the crash, they’re going to drown if we don’t get them out quickly.”

“I thought you were on vacation.”

“I’m fire chief, and I’m with the Team. I’m pretty much always on call.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now who works too much?”

He shrugged. “When I lose sleep or free time because I’m out saving someone’s life, I feel pretty damn good about it. It’s a good use of a few hours, no?”

Then he remembered. “Can I leave the computer with you?”

“Sure.” She smiled sweetly. “I won’t even read your emails.”

He glared at her. “You’d better not.”

Victoria hurried to the door to see him out. “Good luck. Stay safe! I hope everyone’s okay.”

So did he. “See you tomorrow.”

This time, Eric took the stairs, leaping down two at a time.

* * *

B
y the time
Eric arrived on the scene, the eastbound lane was closed, and emergency response vehicles were parked along the shoulder—squad cars, his station’s rescue apparatus, and Rescue One, one of the Team’s two rescue vehicles.

He grabbed a yellow Team T-shirt out of his back seat and changed into it, then grabbed his headlamp out of his backpack, and climbed out of his truck.

Brandon Silver, his B-shift captain, hurried over to him, dressed in swift-water gear. “Sorry to bust up your evening, chief.”

Eric slipped the headlamp over his head, turned it on. “Find anyone?”

“Not yet.”

“Is Flatirons on the scene?”

“Downstream. They’ve been watching all the snags, bends, and bridges, but haven’t seen anyone yet.”

Eric climbed over the railing and started down the rocky slope toward the vehicle, which lay on its roof in Scarlet Creek, a handful of Team members searching the banks downstream, three others belaying three of his volunteer firefighters, who waded through thigh-deep whitewater looking for submerged bodies. “How’s the water, boys?”

A head turned.

Jenny Miller.

Oops.
Not a boy.

“It’s fucking cold, sir,” she shouted to him. “Care to join us?”

“Thanks. I’ll pass.” He walked over to the vehicle, looked inside.

The airbag had deployed, and the windshield was shattered. Water three feet high swirled through the vehicle, but there didn’t seem to be blood that he could see. He leaned down, tried to locate the ignition.

“No one’s home.” Megs came up behind him. “No keys, either.”

Maggie Hill, called Megs by her friends, was a legend in the climbing and rescue communities. One of the first women to break the gender barrier in rock climbing back in the late 1960s, she’d helped launch the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team after a friend of hers had frozen to death as the result of an accident. In her early sixties and still climbing, she now served as the Team’s director.

“Looks to me like the driver took off, unless the car fell from the heavens or jumped into the water all by itself.” Megs had her own unique sense of humor.

“Right.”

Still, they had no choice but to keep up the search. They couldn’t afford to make assumptions. For all they knew, there might have been multiple people in the vehicle, any one of whom could have washed away. Or perhaps the driver had self-rescued and then collapsed of injuries along the embankment somewhere.

“Let’s keep looking.”

* * *

S
omething buzzed
.

Vic’s eyes shot open, her heart giving a hard kick.

She reached for the phone.

Abigail
.

“For God’s sake.” It was just after seven.

What was so important that Abigail had to get in touch with her at seven in the morning on a Sunday while Vic was on vacation?

Grumpy from lack of sleep, her head aching, Vic read her boss’s email—more questions about the Merced campaign. She forwarded it to Jeff, who was supposed to be covering for her, then put the phone on Do Not Disturb and tossed it to the foot of the bed. She was going to have to find a way to put limits on her boss, or Abigail would be calling her in the middle of Lexi’s wedding.

She tried to drift off again, but her headache made sleep impossible, the throbbing ache like a migraine. That margarita must have packed more of a punch than she’d realized. What she needed was coffee.

She crawled out of bed and walked into the bathroom, flicking on the light and staring in dismay at her own reflection. “Great.”

She looked like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep—which was true. She’s stayed up far too late watching the interviews Eric had taped, a few of which had made her cry. She’d made a few obvious cuts, then organized all of the photographs into folders so they’d be easy to find.

She showered, dried her hair, and then put on her makeup. The pain in her skull was unrelenting, her muscles sore from yesterday. When she was satisfied that her appearance wouldn’t scare anyone, she followed the scent of fresh-backed croissants and coffee down a flight of stairs to the inn’s dining room, where a buffet breakfast was being set out for guests.

“Good morning.” Sandrine, the inn’s French pastry chef, greeted her with a basket of croissants, her accent charming. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.” Vic went straight for the coffee, leaving room in her cup for cream, which sat nearby in a little porcelain pitcher. “This smells delicious.”

She wasn’t truly hungry, but she ate anyway, the coffee helping to clear the fog from her head. If only it would chase away her headache…

By the time Lexi called an hour later, she was feeling a little better.

“Be sure to dress in layers. It’s cold up there.”

In June? Okay.

“See you in about fifteen minutes.”

Vic changed out of the skirt and blouse she’d been wearing into a pair of jeans, a tank top, a fleece jacket, warm socks, and hiking boots. She had just stepped out of the inn’s front door when Austin’s SUV drove into the parking lot, Eric’s truck behind him.