Reunion Pass: An Eternity Springs novel (29 page)

“Still, I hid and I watched. I’m good in the woods, but I’m still surprised they didn’t sense I was out there. I know that Bradley and David never mentioned a third man. They never gave me up. Otherwise, the bastards would have started looking for me. They’d have found my ass. I hadn’t tried to hide my trail because I figured someone on the side of the good guys would come looking for us. I have to live with that. I escaped and they were loyal to the end. And nobody came. I hoped. I prayed.” He paused a long moment, then in a tight, raspy voice repeated, “Nobody came.”

He rolled away from her, sat up, and grabbed his boxers from the floor where they’d fallen. Standing, he pulled on his shorts and padded barefoot across the room to the sink. He filled a glass with water, drained it, then repeated the action.

Lori sat up and kept the sheet clasped to her chest. She was trying to decide whether to speak or keep silent when he finally spoke again in flat, rapid words.

“They chained them to a post. They beat them. Every single day, they kicked them and clubbed them and beat them bloody. I watched. I couldn’t do a damned thing about it, but I stood witness for them. And … I took pictures. I wanted evidence to show when our rescuers arrived, and besides, it was second nature to me. Taking pictures is what I did. I kept clicking the shutter. Click. Click. Click. I hear it in my sleep now. It was a death knell.”

Lori covered her mouth with her hand. She sensed what was coming.

He stretched out his arms and gripped the counter, his muscles flexing with the force of the action. “The third day in camp, they unchained Bradley and David and stripped them naked. Gave them soap and a pail of water and told them to wash. I thought it was good news. I thought someone was coming for them. I thought maybe the good guys had pinpointed our location by satellite and worked out a deal and there would be a prisoner exchange or something. Those things happen, right?”

For the briefest of moments, he met her gaze. His mouth twisted bitterly. “In the movies, maybe. Not in real life.”

Oh, Chase.

“In real life I was trying to figure out a way to get rescued with them without putting my own ass in the wringer. But then the little son of a bitch from the first day set up a tripod and mounted a video camera on it. They tossed Bradley and David something orange. Jumpsuits. The moment I saw that they were jumpsuits, I knew. Bradley and David did, too.”

“Oh, dear God,” Lori murmured. Because it didn’t feel right to be naked now, she scooted out of bed and pulled on his T-shirt.

He turned around then, his tortured gaze seeking hers. “I don’t know why I didn’t set down my camera. I even changed the lens so I could get closer shots. I took the pictures, Lori. I did it instinctively. I took photos of the bastard as he pulled on a black face mask and spouted some long diatribe in a language I didn’t know.”

He closed his eyes. “I took photos from beginning to bloody end.”

Tears running down her face, Lori crossed the room to him. She wrapped her arms around him.

“So much blood,” he said, his voice cracking. He stood so stiff and still that he could have been another boulder on the mountain.

“I will never forget it. I will never forget them. They were brave, Lori. In the end, they were so brave. And I was such a damned coward, hiding in the rocks. Watching. Taking…”—his voice broke on a sob—“pictures.”

She murmured soothing sounds, stroked her hand across his back, patted him as she would a child.

For a long moment he stood, silent and shaking. When finally he cleared his throat and continued his horrifying tale, anger fired his words. “They burned the bodies. The little SOB kept the camera rolling for that, too. When it was … over. Finally, over … the leader had a long talk with the cameraman. Obviously giving him instructions. He packed the camera in a backpack and he and one other guy headed out of camp. I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t let them upload that video onto the Internet and use my friends for their ungodly cause. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Of course you couldn’t.”

He shook her off then and began pacing the room like a tiger. “I followed them. I stalked them. I figured I’d have to ambush them. I decided to wait until they were asleep and sneak into their camp and kill them. I had the knife I carry in my pack—the knife Trevor took—so I was going to slit their throats. Turn the tables on them. I imagined it. I pictured every move. I was cold-blooded and ready to kill.”

Lori’s heart ached for him. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“But … I couldn’t do it. I’m not an Army Ranger or a Navy SEAL. I’m a lousy river rat. When the time came, I was too much a coward to do it. A sorry, yellow-bellied coward.”

No, Chase. You’re not a cold-blooded killer.

“I still couldn’t let them get away with the video, though, so I went for the camera. Got sloppy about it and made noise and then the bigger guy was on me with his knife.”

Unconsciously, his hand lifted to the scar across his collarbone. “I got the knife away from him, and I was damned lucky that the little a-hole was slow to wake up because it allowed me to fight them one at a time. I couldn’t have taken two of them at once. I remember … I remember the little guy’s laughter. His partner was dead and we were rolling on the ground and I had sixty pounds on him at least. He laughed. Craziest sound I ever heard. I still hear it in my sleep. He laughed … until he stopped.”

Thank God.

“At that point, it all blurs for me. I went a little crazy, Lori. I threw their bodies off a cliff and I took a rock to the camera and smashed it to smithereens and threw it after the bodies. Then I did the same to my camera. It made me sick. I puked my guts out. It all made me sick. It still makes me sick. I don’t ever want to pick up a camera again.”

“Oh, Chase.” Lori went to him again and wrapped her arms around him. This time, he accepted her embrace and returned it, holding on to her hard. “That’s the most horrible, terrifying, devastating story I’ve ever heard. My heart breaks for your friends and I am so sorry this happened to you. But I am also overwhelmed by gratitude that you survived. That you triumphed.”

“My hands are bloody, Lori. I’m not proud of that part.”

“And I can’t feel bad for them. I am sorry you carry the weight of it, but you killed them in self-defense, Chase. And thank God you did. You absolutely had to go for the camera. You’re a photographer. You know better than most the power that images have, and I’m sure that’s why you realized how important it was to prevent those images from seeing the light of day. Those men were your colleagues. Bradley Austin was one of your best friends. You couldn’t allow their lives … their deaths … to be turned into propaganda. Of course you had to do everything possible to destroy those horrific images. I’m so glad you did and you need to be glad, too. Think about their friends and families and all the people who loved them. You saved them such heartache. Oh, my God, Chase. If I put myself in their place … it would have killed me. And your dad and mom … Ali seriously wouldn’t have survived it.”

Lori stepped back and lifted her hand to his cheek. She waited for his gaze to meet hers, and then she spoke with quiet intensity. “You saved their families, Michael Chase Timberlake. You did that for your friends. You were strong and brave and—”

“I wasn’t brave,” he interrupted. “I was scared shitless.”

“And you acted in spite of your fear. That is true courage, my love.”

His eyes grew watery. His jaw hardened as he clenched his teeth and swallowed hard. “It was the most awful thing.”

“I know, baby. I know. Here…” She took hold of his hand and pulled him back toward the bed. “Lie down with me again. Let me hold you. I need to hold you.”

And, she thought, he needed to be held.

For the longest time, that’s what they did. All they did. And in that silent embrace, they both sought and found comfort. Then, sensing that it was something his spirit needed, she told him of the love and support offered by the people of Eternity Springs to his family during the time that he was missing. She touched upon her own heartache and then described in detail the all-encompassing joy that filled the Timberlake home and soon the entire valley at the news that their prayers had been answered and Chase had been found. “You are loved by many, Chase.”

He rolled up on his elbow and studied her intently. “Does that include you, Glitterbug?”

She reached up and tenderly pushed a lock of dark hair away from his eyes. “I never stopped loving you. God help me, but I never could stop.”

“I know the feeling,” he said. “We were idiots to let it go so easy.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t do it again,” he vowed.

As he lowered his mouth to hers in a honeyed kiss, Lori’s hand stroked up and down his back.

Feeling for his wings.

Chapter Seventeen

Chase drifted gently toward wakefulness the following morning, well rested, sated, and warm. He opened his eyes, blinked twice, and smiled. Nothing like waking up with a naked woman snuggled against you.

He’d spilled his guts to her yesterday. Just opened his mouth and let the whole hideous story pour out. Saying the words had been hard and yet cathartic, and for the first time in longer than he could recall, he’d slept without being haunted by nightmares. She’d listened and she’d supported him. She hadn’t turned away from him when he’d admitted the ugly truth.

Then she’d spoken words that applied salve to the wounds on his soul.
You saved them such heartache.
And,
You absolutely had to go for the camera.
She’d understood and she hadn’t thought him a monster.

The burden he’d carried for months wasn’t quite as heavy today as it had been the day before.

He woke her by making sweet love to her, cooked her bacon and eggs for breakfast, then sent her off with a kiss to begin her day of vaccinating cats and doing blood tests on dogs. He told her he’d see her that evening on her front porch and asked her what she’d like him to cook for dinner.

Then he turned his attention to slaying his personal beast. It wasn’t easy. It took him a while to work up the nerve. But finally, surrounded by the peace and privacy of the yurt with memories of last night fresh in his mind, ignoring hands that shook and the cold sweat running down his spine, Chase used his phone to snap a photograph of Captain.

It was lousy, blurred, and beautiful to him.

By the time he went down to Eternity Springs to shop for supper and wait for his date on her porch swing, he had a couple shots of the dog worth framing. Later that night, he took a picture of a sleeping Lori, her hair a midnight waterfall across her pillow, her lips still moist and swollen from his kisses. He knew he’d treasure the photograph forever.

It set the tone for the following week. He’d retrieved the replacement camera Lana had given him from the closet where he’d stashed it out of sight, and when campers arrived for the second session of the Rocking L’s summer season, Chase met them at the entrance to snap shots of their smiles.

The children invited to the second, shorter camp session were all return campers, so they all knew how to swim. Chase didn’t have any Tadpoles to introduce to the water, but he did end up offering to teach a basics-of-photography class for the older kids. Upon hearing the news, Jack and Cat Davenport sent over age-appropriate cameras for every child in camp.

Chase was taking photos of kids and horses at the camp corral when he heard Celeste call his name. “Good morning, Celeste.”

“It is a glorious morning, isn’t it? I was wondering if you’d do me a favor in a bit.”

“Anything for you.”

“My nature walk begins soon. I’ve asked Lori to join us today to talk to the children about the wildlife we see. Would you tag along and record the moment in photographs?”

“I’d be happy to do that.”

Her blue eyes twinkled. “I thought you might. Meet us at the trailhead in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be there.”

Chase took a few last shots as the horseback riders set out on their morning ride, then he wandered toward the trailhead to wait for his woman.

His woman. That’s how he thought of her. He wasn’t quite as certain that she thought of herself that way or that she’d consider him to be her man—never mind that they slept together almost every night.

The woman was skittish. No surprise there. The Lori he’d always known and never stopped loving moved slowly and deliberately more often than not. She was still dipping her toes in the waters of their relationship. Chase believed that the best way to get wet was to dive right in.

So he was making plans to push her.

She arrived with Celeste wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a V-neck
FRESH BAKERY
T-shirt in a green that matched her eyes. She looked relaxed and lovely, and Chase had to restrain himself from kissing her hello. She wasn’t ready to go public with their relationship, she’d told him just last night.

He wondered just who she considered to be the public. From what he could tell, everyone in town already knew.

Chase’s mother had asked him if he wanted to bring Lori up for supper next Tuesday night. Her brother Devin had made a smart-ass remark about Chase’s jeep being parked in her driveway overnight.

Cam Murphy had given Chase the stink eye when he went into his sporting goods store to purchase a new fishing license that very morning. When Chase caught Cam gazing from the bows and arrows behind the counter to Chase’s chest and back to the bows and arrows, he quickly handed over his credit card. Cam rang up the sale, but when he handed back Chase’s credit card, he didn’t let go of it. “Got your act together?”

“Getting there.”

“Huh. Well, I’m keeping my eye on you.”

Chase slipped the card back into his wallet, grabbed his license, and hightailed it out of Refresh. And to think Lori regretted Cam’s having missed out on playing “Dad” during her high school years.

The campers arrived and they headed out on their walk. It proved to be a good wildlife day. They spotted deer, a pair of marmots, a pine marten, a weasel, and more squirrels, chipmunks, and birds than he could count. The prize of the day was an elk across the creek and some fifteen yards away.