Indelible (5 page)

Other congratulations came from around the room. Within minutes the town would know. Someone had probably Tweeted already.

Groaning, he said, “Seriously, Piper. Can you pretend you haven’t a clue?”

“Of course I can.” She made a zipping noise. “But I’m so happy! You’re going to be a dad!”

Fleur reached a hand to his arm. “Congratulations.”

Did she imagine the tightness of his tendons? With his childhood, the thought of fatherhood might be troubling at the least. One didn’t suffer the former Chief Westfall and remain unscathed. Jonah thanked her—with more than a hint of trepidation.

Jonah held the door for Fleur’s exit. He’d only been half kidding about death for telling Tia’s best friend the news. They hadn’t really decided to make it public, and fiery at the best of times, Tia had become a volcano. Since she’d spent nine years damming up her tears, he shouldn’t be surprised they came out now that she felt vulnerable. Trouble was, crying made her furious.

The best defense he’d found was to grab on and hold her tight, as he had when the search last night left her exhausted and frustrated. She had found the elderly hikers when the original team got sidetracked by the mountain lion attack. Being tired afterward shouldn’t have been traumatic.

“You have a little bit going on inside,”
he’d said.

“It’s not like I’m hauling extra weight.”

“Yet.”
No points for that one. He’d said,
“Be patient. Give yourself a chance to acclimate. You’re going to do this as well as everything else you do.”

She had softened then, and he’d loved her gently and thoroughly, showing her she meant as much to him now as ever before. No small feat with their rocky history.

He smiled grimly at the luminous young blonde he considered the patron saint of his marriage. She’d curbed her crush when she realized he and Tia were locked in a death grip of regret and desire. Without Piper’s interference, Tia might still be the thorn in his side instead of his wife, or … both.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I won’t give you away.” She handed him an almond bear claw, his favorite since Sarge opened the place years ago.

He said, “One for Sarge too.”

“How’s he feeling?” Piper’s compassion for her crusty former boss and current benefactor came through.

Jonah shrugged. Though no relation, the old man lived with him now, almost incapacitated with arthritic scoliosis. “I need to check in on him before I go spend eternity in county court.”

“That’s why you look so nice.”

He looked down at the full uniform, in place of the jeans and uniform shirt or simply the bomber jacket with the department emblem he usually wore. He could do a suit for court, but might be taken for a lawyer. He said, “Thanks. And get Tia to spill before I blow it again.”

“You know I will.”

He went out with a heavier step. Saying it out loud made Tia’s pregnancy real. Policing Redford used to be a mellower job. The influx of rich residents brought different levels of crime. He’d testify on three separate cases this afternoon alone.

He pressed his remote and got into his Bronco. No point having a job you didn’t put everything into. How much of that would change when the baby came? He pressed the bullet scar in his side. Could he be effective with so much more to lose?

Dressed in loose-fitting cargo pants, a fitted navy T-shirt, and an unzipped Windbreaker, Natalie entered High Country Outfitters where Trevor stood like a Titan at the base of the climbing wall. His arms moved the rope through a clip on his belt in a hand-over-hand motion for the person near the ceiling. Maybe he’d get it out of his system right here.

“Now what?” The gangling adolescent shouted in a breaking falsetto.

Trevor said, “Lean into the rope and walk off the way I showed you.”

Natalie commiserated as the youth descended with less grace than haste. No disguising his apprehension.

“Sweet, huh?” Trevor untethered him.

“Yeah. Sweet.” The kid shoved his hands into his pockets and ambled off as Trevor hung the harness on the wall.

She said, “I’ll understand if you’re too busy.”

His smile spread. “Nice try.”

“Well”—she gripped the edge of her shirt—“I wasn’t sure …”

“You’re fine. We’ll get you some climbing shoes, though.” He moved into the gear area. “You’re a seven—”

“Eight.”

At five-eight, it took someone like Trevor to make her feel short. He had to be four or five inches over six feet with no surrender at all in the muscled shoulders she remembered forming in the clay. When he came back out with a shoe box, she said, “That’s seven and a half.”

“You want them tight.”

“I’m not big on curled toes.”

He extended the box. “Let’s try them.”

She sat on the bench and pulled the narrow square-toed shoes on.

“How’s that feel?” Trevor squatted down.

“Between stuffed and squashed.”

“Hurt?”

“Not exactly. But why can’t they fit?”

“Don’t want slipping inside the shoe.” He felt the toes. His long, square-nailed fingers gripped her feet as he felt the width and insteps. A raised, V-shaped scar cut across the first joint of his index finger. Another ran faintly up the side of his wrist where the bone made a white mound beneath his coppery skin—all of it now impressed on her mind.

“I think these are good.” Trevor’s voice brought her back.

“Okay,” she breathed. Three days ago they’d occupied this world without knowing the other existed. Now they’d been entwined by one event and its aftermath. It felt strange but … right.

Sara came in, blond hair in a tight ponytail, the baby wrapped against her in a sling. Her wide blue eyes had flecks of tan around the pupils, the lashes making starbursts all the way around. A sprinkle of freckles formed a faint raccoon mask.

Natalie looked down before more details got trapped, watching obliquely as Whit came up from behind, encircled mom and baby, and said, “Everyone ready?”

Trevor tapped her foot and rose. “Wear your boots and save the climbing soles for the stone.”

She switched footwear, wondering if he’d ever used a plural pronoun when he talked her into this. She hadn’t expected an audience, didn’t do great in crowds.

Whit called, “Ryan, you’ve got the store.”

The young man with greenish blond hair and gauged holes in his earlobes spread thumb and pinkie in a hang-loose gesture. In the front of Whit’s SUV, the men talked over the music. She and Sara sat on either side of the infant car seat that faced backward. Even though the image would be trapped, she couldn’t look away from Braden’s sleeping face. Could anything compare to that sweetness?

She said, “How old is he?”

“Two months. I can’t tell yet who he takes after.”

She could tell her that the infant’s bone structure mirrored his mother’s, but she would let that realization arrive on its own. She looked out the window. By sending her gaze long and wide, she managed to dissipate the trapped images of Sara and the baby and felt the strain in her temples ease.

“This is your first time climbing?”

Her gaze scanned the craggy peaks. “It never entered my mind before.”

“That’s Trevor.” Sara laughed. “The man casts a long shadow.”

Long indeed. Seeing him emerge from her hands in the clay had stripped away the surface where most relationships began. She was still raw from it.

The unfiltered sunlight felt sharp when Natalie climbed out. Just as she was thinking she should have used sunscreen, Sara produced it from the baby’s pack.

“Want some?”

“Thanks.” She lubed her cheeks and nose.

Trevor came around the SUV, full of energy. He rubbed his hands. “Ready?”

“I don’t know about ready, but I’m willing.”

While Whit and Sara extracted and repackaged Braden, Trevor grabbed the rolled-up pad from the back and led her to the rust and white rock protruding from the pale pink granite.

“As I said, no ropes for bouldering. You can chalk your hands, and your shoes have a hard rubber sole for traction. Beyond that, it’s just fitting yourself to the rock, finding holds, and working your way up.”

She eyed the boulder looming before her.

“This rock has multiple problems—routes—some fairly complex, others not so much. We sometimes restrict holds to make it harder.”

“Joy.”

His expression warmed. “First-timers can use anything.”

“Great.” She changed shoes and clipped on the chalk bag.

“Once you’re on the rock, you won’t see the surface as completely as now, so—”

She said, “I will.”

“I mean, the angles are such that what you saw from down here won’t be visible.”

“I know what you’re saying. But it will for me. I have the boulder memorized.”

He looked at her.

“Eidetic memory. I retain what I see.”

He squinted. “So, right now, looking at me, you have the layout of that boulder in your head.”

“The problem will be getting it out.”

“Everything you look at?”

“Long enough. Directly enough.” With enough trepidation.

“Huh.”

She used to try to hide it, but inevitably gave herself away, so her current policy was to get it out there and let things fall where they may.

He spread the mat at the base of the rock and said, “This is your crash pad. Softens the landing if you slip.”

“And you’ll direct my fall.”

“Right. This boulder has a pretty good slant so you won’t be negotiating any acute angles or overhangs.”

“Small mercies.”

He pulled a sideways grin. “Chalk your hands for grip.”

“Should we give her a demo route?” Whit said, eyeing the boulder.

“I know which way I’m going.” She clapped off the excess chalk.

Whit looked at her, then him.

Trevor tapped his temple. “She memorized the rock.”

Sara said, “You have photographic memory?”

“Sort of.”

Trevor patted the rock. “Which way you go is only half of it. The rest is listening to your body, feeling your limitations, your strengths.”

Right now her limitations felt insurmountable, but if she imagined the rock a mound of clay, her mind would direct her hands as though she were shaping it. She hoped.

“Let me show you a couple things.” He took her hand and put it against the rock, fitting her fingers into a diagonal crack. “This is a crimp, when only your fingertips fit. You can close it like this with your thumb over the index finger. That adds strength but puts more stress on your hand than an open crimp.”

He wore cologne not found at a drugstore counter, she guessed, and she made herself breathe normally.

He rotated her hand. “When you’re thumb down like this, it’s a left-hand Gaston.” He moved her right hand over, also thumb down over the same grip. “This is a right-hand side pull. If you get stuck and I can see one of these working for you, I’ll call it up.”

Grabbing a hold on the rock at about her waist level, he squatted down and demonstrated, “This move is a mantle. You pull first to propel yourself up, then push down as you pass it. If I say you can mantle that hold to your right, now you know what I mean.”

And that, of course, meant she could do it.

“If there’s no foothold, you can smear, which means pushing off with the ball of your foot on the face. At the crux of this rock, you might need to.”

“It’s a lot of terms.” She was not an auditory learner, and his proximity didn’t help.

“They’re labeled for instruction and grading.”

“I’m going to be graded?”

He laughed. “The problems are graded. You’re just learning to climb.”

Was she? Yesterday it had seemed like something else.

Whit clapped his hands together. “Let’s do it.”

She took hold of the rock and started her ascent, moving awkwardly, but she knew what was coming and stuck to the line she had planned. Between her arm and the rock, she saw Whit murmur, “Freaky.”

If this wasn’t so scary, maybe she’d fumble around, but she kept reaching and stepping where she knew she should. Sara bounced a waking Braden beside Trevor squinting up, ready to direct her fall if she broke loose.

A sudden, hot pain gripped her right hand.

“You okay?”