Indelible (3 page)

Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed
Alone th’ antagonist of Heaven, nor less
Than Hell’s dread Emperor, with pomp supreme,
And god-like imitated state.

C
hild snatched from lion’s jaws. Two-year-old spared in deadly attack. Rescuer Trevor MacDaniel, champion of innocents, protector of life. Cameras rolling, flashes flashing, earnest newscasters recounted the tale. “On this mountain, a miracle. What could have been a tragedy became a triumph through the courage of this man who challenged a mountain lion to save a toddler attacked while hiking with his father, center-fielder …”

He consumed the story in drunken drafts. Eyes swimming, he gazed upon the noble face, the commanding figure on the TV screen. In that chest beat valiance. In those hands lay salvation. His heart made a slow drum in his ears. A spark ignited, purpose quickening.

Years he’d waited. He spread his own marred hands, instruments of instruction, of destruction. With slow deliberation, he closed them into fists. What use was darkness if not to try the light?

Two

N
atalie draped a damp sheet over the statue and washed her hands. Daylight bathed the studio. Bringing her arms together, she stretched her back, fatigue finding every muscle with pinching fingers. She stepped outside, squinting in sunshine so bright and clear it mocked her fear and anxiety. She checked her phone. No missed calls.

Metallic doors closed to her left. Turning toward the van several yards away, she felt a shock run through her.

The man behind the vehicle said, “Are you okay?”

“Sorry. I was just.” She swallowed hard. “That was my nephew. The little boy you saved.”

He cocked his head. “Really? How’s he doing?”

“I’m waiting to hear. But he’s alive. Thanks to you.” She crossed the distance. “Everything was so crazy and awful out there. I didn’t even get your name.”

“Trevor MacDaniel. My partner’s Paul Whitman.” He nodded toward the store.

There’d been another man, but she hadn’t even seen him. “You’re the outfitters?”

“That’s right.”

Her business neighbors were the angels on the mountain. A shiver went up her back. “I’m Natalie Reeve.” She crisscrossed her arms, collaring her neck with her hands. “I wish there was some way. Can I make you something?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Um …”

“That sounded weird. What I meant was, I’m an artist—a sculptor. When I’ve unpacked, come take a look. If you like my work, I’ll do a special order. My thank-you.”

“Oh. Look, uh … Natalie. Search and rescue is a service.”

“You saved my nephew’s life. I want to give something back.” Anything to ease the burden.

“Well, the sheriff’s department welcomes donations.”

“I can’t do anything in cash right now, but I could donate a sculpture.” She didn’t look into his face, but felt his scrutiny.

Hands on his hips, he said, “I’m taking a crew kayaking. We’ll be on the water until three or so, assuming it’s as swift as I hope from the rain. I’ll have to stow equipment, but I can stop by after that.”

“Perfect.” She clasped her hands. “Thanks.”

She watched him walk away. Trevor MacDaniel. Paul Whitman. She called Aaron’s cell phone, praying Paige wouldn’t answer. When no one picked up, she left both men’s names on the message so her brother would know who saved Cody.

Trevor was every inch the avenger-protector she had fashioned out of clay from the image in her mind. If he saw it, he’d be stunned by the accuracy, but she didn’t show anyone those sculptures. She knew better.

Trevor found Whit wielding a box cutter by a shelf near the front of the store. Flakes of cardboard and packing foam littered the floor, and cardboard dust scented the air. “Just met the sculptor next door.”

Whit cocked a glance over his shoulder as he pulled aside the box flaps. “Yeah?”

“It was her nephew yesterday.”

“No kidding.” Whit settled on his haunches.

“I think I saw her in the parking lot when Jaz was hassling me, maybe on the trail—that part’s a blur. But at the trailhead she looked lost.”

“Shaken up, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.” But the woman had stumbled as though dazed. “She wants to thank us with art.”

“How does that work?”

“I suggested a donation to the sheriff’s department. I guess they can auction it or something.”

“That’s good.” Whit reached in for the shipping ticket and checked it against the dehydrated food pouches in the box. “What’s she like?”

“Hmm?”

“The sculptor.”

“Oh,” he said. “Grateful.”

“Yeah, you covered that.”

He frowned. “She’s kind of … evasive.”

“Shy?”

“Maybe.” But that didn’t feel right. “Anyway, I see the first of today’s crew arriving.” He watched a Jeep pull in, carrying a top-of-the-line kayak. These were die-hard sportsmen—correct that. The kayaker climbing out of the Jeep wore chin-length graying blond hair. He smiled, recognizing her. Die-hard, still fit.

Whit bobbed his chin. “Give ’em a good ride.”

“You know it.”

Natalie pressed her hands to her lower back. Sleep would have to wait, because the delivery truck would be arriving any moment. They’d compressed the time line to fit Aaron’s scant availability, and she couldn’t change it now.

After taking the tool chest from the back of her car, she went into the studio that occupied the riverside half of the building. Two-story windows revealed the breathtaking vista behind the gallery, dark pines framing a craggy rock face with spring water streaking and sparkling down.

She might have more foot traffic in Redford’s Old Town or near the golf, ski, and gift shops at the Kicking Horse resort center. But she couldn’t find better inspiration than what she saw outside these windows. And what she saw, or didn’t, meant more than people knew.

The truck arrived, and the professional delivery men Aaron had hired unloaded and assembled her kiln. They positioned the platforms where she instructed and handled the larger sculptures—impressionistic clay and glass renderings of nature. Even she didn’t know how the finished work would come out of the giant kiln with the glass melting into the glazed or sometimes unglazed clay, with the contrast of rough and smooth, of hues melding.

She ran her hand over a china blue and turquoise mountainscape with green bottle glass melted into the slopes. Her pieces had been accepted by
a co-op in Santa Fe and a gallery in San Francisco. One had been shown in Manhattan and created a buzz. She had not lightly offered a gift to Trevor MacDaniel. But what he’d done for Cody was priceless.

Aaron had tried out there on the mountain, but she’d been worthless. She closed her eyes, then, at the sound of the door, blinked back the welling tears. In the light shafting through the windows, Trevor filled her doorway. Hints of copper tinged the brown hair that curled around his ears and neck, glinting on his suntanned arms. His image seared into her visual field, functioning like a blind spot when she looked away.

She stepped around the mountain sculpture. “You’re here.”

He said, “Too soon?”

“No, please. Look.” In the edges of her vision, she watched him move through the gallery.

“I have to tell you, I didn’t expect anything like this. I thought you meant a souvenir.”

“That wouldn’t be much of a donation.”

He studied the fall of glistening glass flowing from an S-shaped cluster of boulders, then looked around. “Nothing’s priced.”

“Not yet.”

“I won’t know the value.”

She said, “Whatever you choose, it won’t equal my nephew’s life.”

He stopped at an elongated wolf forming the tunneled base of a cobalt and violet glass-coated mountain. “Does it have to be a special order?”

She had planned on opening with her current inventory, but told him no. He could take whatever he wanted.

Circling the piece, he bumped the shop sign waiting to be hung over the door. He steadied it and asked, “What
does
nature wait for?”

“The revealing of the sons of God. The touch of the Creator and care of its stewards.”

“Aha.” He nodded. “What would the ticket on the wolf be?”

“Eighteen hundred.” In the New York gallery, it would get twice that.

“Then that’s the donation I’ll make.”

“You’ll make?”

“I want it.”

She frowned. “Then you’re paying for what you did. I meant—”

“I know. But everyone wins this way. The department gets reimbursed, you’ve expressed your gratitude, and I get the wolf.”

He didn’t want anything for what he’d done on the mountain. “I could sell it and earmark the profit for search and rescue.”

“Then I wouldn’t get my part.”

Glancing into his eyes, she saw beneath the charismatic veneer to the tight control of something deeper, and that image joined the first, like looking twice at the sun and carrying the dots burned into the retinas. “Let me get a crate.”

Together, they loaded the wolf mountain into his hybrid SUV. As he positioned it, she watched the water flowing behind their lots, dissipating the trapped glimpses of him. Kayaking that creek would not be a restful glide. It frothed up where boulders protruded. Trevor’s tour had probably started higher up, where the water was white—and fast enough to suit him.

What other kind of man could have saved Cody?

Digging into her pocket for her ringing phone, she turned away from the vehicle. “Aaron?”

All day with no response to her calls had her half crazy.

Not Aaron, but her high-strung, angry sister-in-law. “You need to stop calling. We have enough to deal with.” Her voice broke.

“What’s wrong, Paige? Is it Cody?”

“They’re taking off his arm—that’s what.”

“But I thought—”

“The surgery failed.”

A sharp wind off the mountain chilled the back of her neck, but a deeper chill spread inside her. She’d been so sure.

“Just leave us alone. Aaron has nothing to say to you.”

Her phone dangled from limp fingers as that statement sank in.

“Natalie?”

She couldn’t turn, couldn’t move. Cody was losing his arm. And Paige would keep her away.

“Hey.” Cody’s angel spoke.

“They can’t save his arm.”

“Oh …” His body slackened. “It looked bad, but I thought there was a chance.”

In the shock of almost losing Cody, she’d been grateful for his life alone. Even now, she knew it a miracle that he’d been saved, but that didn’t stop this hurt. Little Cody with only one arm. Paige and Aaron blaming her. Without thinking, she looked into Trevor’s face. Eyes that had stared down a mountain lion now held a raw empathy. She looked away.

“You going to see him?”

“They don’t want me there.”

“Why not?”

She swallowed the lump filling her throat. “It’s my fault.”

“That’s crazy. It was an animal attack.”

“Aaron was using his injury leave to help me move in. Now his season, his future could be in jeopardy. And his son … ”

“You want to go somewhere and regroup?”

Another gust of wind scudded ash-colored clouds across the sky. Her mind felt just as cloudy, a storm of tears held back by throbbing pressure.

“Come on.” Trevor opened the passenger door and she climbed in.