FIC! Bad Luck, Bad Guys and High Mountain Rangers

[archet]

Title: Bad Luck, Bad Guys and High Mountain Rangers
Author: Archet
Fandom: High Mountain Rangers
Pairing: OMC Jody McKinnon/Matt Hawkes
Synopsis: Former Marine Jody McKinnon has a plan, lure the men who’ve threatened his family to the isolated cabin where he grew up, and deal with them on his own terms. Only Jody hadn’t counted on High Mountain Ranger Matt Hawkes’ involvement, or a sudden winter storm. Thrown together by sheer luck, Jody and Matt must work as a team to survive not only the men hunting them, but the mountain itself.
Disclaimer: I did not create the High Mountain Ranger character/s, only this fic and the Original Male Character, Jody McKinnon, and any other original characters in supporting roles. No copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: this fic is set in 1989, approximately one year after the events of the final episode of High Mountain Rangers. There will be no acknowledgement of the events of the spin-off show Jesse Hawkes. The events of that program do not exist here.
Warnings: brief sequences of - violence, threat of violence, sexual harassment, sexual intimidation, threat of sexual violence, minor character death.
Additional: this fic will depict same sex attraction and/or relationships. If this ain’t your thing, venture no further. This work is un-beta’ed, so all mistakes, goofs and screw-up’s are entirely mine own.
Crossposting: my DreamWidth journal and AO3 only.




~*~
Prologue

Nearing the end of a forty-eight hour shift High Mountain Ranger Matt Hawkes felt eager to call it a day, and head back to the warmth of the ranger station. Shivering despite the layers he wore underneath his insulated jacket, he carefully edged his way along the perimeter of the ski slope, pausing to catch his breath. Standing part way between the border of the forest, and an outcropping of snow-capped rock which marked the lower leg of the black diamond ski run, the most advanced run on the mountain, Matt slipped his goggles up to rest against his helmet. Peering across the slope, he had to brush windblown snowflakes from his eyelashes.

The morning weather report had called for heavy snow and high winds overnight, but the weather front had subverted expectations by streaming in much earlier than predicted. The frosty, moisture dense air held the promise of worse to come. In just the last hour the wind had changed direction, and was gradually strengthening, swirling the falling snow so that looking across the mountainside was like gazing through a shifting, gauzy curtain.

All day the skies had been blanketed by thick slabs of clouds which had steadily darkened in the afternoon hours, stacking up against the mountain peaks and shutting out the thin sunlight. The slopes glowed pale in the fading daylight as Matt scoured the area for wayward skiers. Most had already heeded the warnings, and headed home once the chair lifts had started shutting down.

Tucked inside his jacket, Matt’s radio crackled. Wedging his ski poles in the snow, he reluctantly unzipped his jacket and pulled the handheld unit out, keying its button.

“Flying Tiger here, say again.”

There came more crackling, but Matt could make out enough to discern it was Probationary Ranger Izzy Flowers calling from the station. “Are you reading this? ….anything….report?”

All trainees in the ranger service served a mandatory year of probationary work. ‘Probies’ handled everything from manning the short wave radio and fielding phone calls at the station’s front desk, to sweeping floors and making coffee. There were no exceptions. Matt had served his own agonizing year before entering his advanced field training, which lasted yet another year. It wasn’t until his third official term of service that he’d become a full fledged ranger qualified to operate in the field on his own. It was a process that required patience, and served to weed out any applicants who couldn’t handle the commitment ranger service demanded.

Izzy was following ranger protocol, running through his set of scheduled check-ins.

“Hey, Izz, I’m up on the black diamond,” Matt said. “Reception’s pretty bad. I sent a few kids down the mountain, about half an hour ago, haven’t seen anyone since. Lift six has already shut down. I’m going to take a last look around and then I am out of here, over.”

Matt waited for a reply, easing the radio away from his ear when another burst of static fizzed out of the tiny speaker. Reception was notoriously bad this high up on the mountain, especially on the north face where Matt was patrolling.

“….only getting every other word. Robin had a report of someone headed up past lift six…the breakaway ridgeline…you could take a look?”

Grimacing, Matt squinted up the slope. He estimated he was roughly forty yards from the ridgeline. Even staying on piste, the marked course laid out for skiers, Matt was on the more difficult section of the black diamond run, and with the worsening weather, it’d be a trial to head that way. But, with a report of someone having been sighted, he was obligated to check it out. It was ridiculously easy to get turned around in adverse conditions, even for experienced skiers.

“Copy that, Pocatello Kid,” Matt replied, using Izzy’s ranger call sign. “I’m on it. Flying Tiger out.”

There was another squawk from the radio that may have been an acknowledgement before Matt keyed it off, and shoved it back inside his jacket, yanking the zipper closed. Reaching up for his goggles, he settled them back on over his eyes. Grabbing his ski poles, Matt turned to regard the steep slope ahead.

The temperature was dropping as the sun fell, and if there was anyone up there Matt needed to find them, and get them down pronto. Pushing his way toward the ridge he leaned into the rising wind, keeping his eyes fixed on the points of reference he could still see. A sudden gust nearly sent him skidding back down the incline as Matt gritted his teeth, barely keeping his balance on weary legs.

Anyone willfully trekking up the mountain in this mess was either lost, or crazy.

“Lost, crazy, or both,” Matt grumbled to himself, and started to climb.


~*~
Chapter 1: Coming Home

Slogging his way up the steep mountainside, Jody McKinnon cursed the weather, the mountain and his father, but most of all he cursed his bad luck. The cabin his family owned wasn’t far from where he stood; a twenty minute hike on a good day, only this definitely wasn’t a good day to be on the mountain. The landmarks he remembered from his childhood were rapidly being obscured, and his legs were beginning to feel like jelly.

It’d been more than three years since he’d been on skis, and over fifteen since he’d stepped foot in the Sierra Nevada’s. It’d been a long fifteen years, but not so long that he’d forgotten how to navigate his way to the cabin. He’d lived on the mountain from the age of seven to seventeen before running off to join the Marines, and those ten years had solidified in him a love of this place, of snowy slopes and clear, hidden mountain lakes reflecting smooth blue skies.

On the mountain he’d discovered a willful wildness in himself that’d grown as he’d grown, and like a wild honeysuckle vine it’d stretched out in the sun, and proved hard to tame. This mountain-made will had sustained him through both good times and bad in his life, especially as a kid when his parents fought over money, and his dad’s inability to leave gambling and Las Vegas behind them. It’d gotten him into trouble as a teen as he’d run rampant on the mountain instead of staying home and watching his mom struggle to hold together a crumbling marriage. It’d buoyed him as a young man as he’d faced the reality that his father was a terribly flawed, often thoughtless man. It’d seen him through a difficult adjustment period after joining the Marines, had strengthened him as he’d learned to manage it, hone it until he’d become as sharp as a blade in his military career.

It had not endeared him to all of his commanding officers, because it meant he didn’t play games, and didn’t play favorites, but there were an insightful few that valued his abilities, and prized his input once he’d proved himself as lethal and as steady handed as he was forthright.

It was still with him, and Jody felt almost a homecoming of sorts on the biting wind, he tasted it in the snowflakes on his numbed lips. He felt different here than anywhere else, connected, somehow, to this place where he’d played and grown and run away from. He felt more himself, here, and under different circumstances he’d revel in the beauty and peril of the mountain as it welcomed him back. He’d traveled all around the world, but despite everything, this still felt like home.

Having made it to the breakaway ridge that marked the upper leg of the black diamond course, Jody knew he was close. Once past this spine of slope, it was a straight shot up to the cabin, only up, meant traversing some rugged terrain. He was well up the black diamond with its steep, twisting route that weaved in and around rocky outcroppings and tracks of thick forest. There were easier paths to the cabin, but Jody had chosen this particular one hoping there would be less people around.

He hadn’t counted on the brewing winter storm. It wasn’t as if he’d had time to make a detailed study of a weather report as he’d booked it out of Las Vegas. While the deteriorating weather had cleared the slopes of people, it was also making his ascent much more difficult. Just his typical mercurial luck at work.

“Fuck,” he huffed as icy wind whistled through the trees, swirling the fresh powder and blurring the view in every direction.

Breath puffing out frostily, Jody considered how much of a lead he had on the men tailing him, and guessed he’d managed to buy himself a couple hours, if that. He’d spent a tense day or so stringing his shadows along in Vegas, but at least he’d gotten away clean and had made it to Tahoe without incident. As long as the threat followed Jody, and stayed away from his sister and dad back in Las Vegas, it was all worth it.

Jody would never forget his sister’s frantic midnight phone call, and then rushing to the hospital to find her sitting, exhausted, outside the ICU, holding her two kids in her arms. The image of his proud, stubborn baby sister fumbling with the kids’ backpacks as she tried to conceal the trembling in her hands was stamped indelibly in his memory. Clenching his jaw, Jody held the image in his mind and powered his way up the steep grade, ignoring the bite of the whistling wind.

The Marines had trained Jody to manage his stress, retain his focus, and kill without mercy when required. He had every intention of doing everything he’d been trained to do before he left the mountain, if he left it. The only thing that threatened to shake him from his purpose had been the pleading in his little sister’s voice and in her haunted dark eyes. It’d been hell to leave her, and his dad, even. Though Jody hadn’t spoken to the man in three years, the asshole was still family.

With their father in a coma, it’d fallen to Emmy to fill Jody in on the whole, sorry debacle, starting with John McKinnon’s gambling debts, and ending with two thugs sauntering into the ICU waiting room and informing Emmy that what had happened to their father was just the beginning if his debt with them wasn’t settled. His little sister describing the bastards with their smarmy smiles as they’d read off Emmy’s home address, and the name of her kids’ school, had clinched it.

It’d been made quite clear that going to the cops wasn’t a viable option.

No, Jody would handle it. He’d eliminate the danger to his family by any means necessary. Emmy hadn’t liked the plan he’d come up with on the fly, but Jody knew he had to act. Nobody threatened his blood and got away with it. He’d reached out to a couple of his Marine buddies, and they’d been all for lending him a hand, but unfortunately the few he could trust on such a level that didn’t have young families were overseas on active duty. Besides, even if they could’ve somehow gotten approved for leave, there wasn’t time. The bastards that’d left his dad hovering near death in the hospital were moving in, expecting to get paid in a couple days….or else.

Jody had arranged for three plane tickets to Seattle for Emmy and the kids. His and Emmy’s mother lived there now. She’d remarried ten years prior; Jody had only met his stepdad, Carl Singer, a handful of times, but had always found him to be a solid guy. Carl worked security for a big law group, so he had resources enough to protect Emmy and the kids, hopefully. Emmy was supposed to call Carl after Jody left for Tahoe, to tell him what she knew.

Jody hoped Seattle would be far enough away from Las Vegas to keep Emmy and the kids safe if everything went to hell. By now, she should be there, if all had gone accordingly and she hadn’t ditched the plan to stay with their dad, which he half expected her to do. She’d probably send the kids on ahead, and stand watch over their father until she heard from Jody like the loyal, stubborn, brave little shit that she was.

Either way, there was no way for him to confirm one way or the other, now, schlepping his way up the snow covered mountain with only his will and determination to keep him company. Worry for his family was eating him from the inside out, but he locked that shit down like he’d been trained to, and kept moving forward.

Hoorah.

If the weather would just hold for another hour Jody was confident he’d make the cabin by nightfall, only, the fucking weather wasn’t holding; it was steadily getting worse. He’d come too far to turn back now, though, so he’d just have to muscle his way through this last leg of the climb. He’d been in worse situations. Maybe his luck would cooperate, and he’d make it without incident, but he wasn’t holding his breath.

“Hey!”

Jody jerked around to stare down the slope. Had the bastards caught up to him already? Either way, someone was out there with him. He kicked himself for getting lost in his thoughts, and assuming he was alone on the slope. Assumptions got people killed. He’d seen it happen often enough during his years in service. He’d chosen speed over vigilance, and as he knelt down and scanned the immediate area, he vowed to tighten his shit up. Emmy was counting on him.

Sliding his goggles down to hang around his neck, he popped open his jacket, putting a hand on the Beretta M9 sheathed snug inside its shoulder holster. He couldn’t see much in the wind driven snow, so when he finally spotted the skier it seemed as if they manifested straight out of the flurries, decked out all in white as they were, the only exceptions being their bright red ski boots and the matching chevron pattern emblazoned on their skis. The figure was tall, wide in the shoulders, and not carrying a weapon, at least that Jody could see.

Assessing the new arrival, Jody withdrew his hand from his jacket, reached up and adjusted the straps of the heavy pack he carried so that it sat more snugly on his shoulders. This didn’t read as an ambush, but anything was possible. Reaching down, he pretended to adjust a buckle on his boot but kept his jacket open, just in case.

“Hello!” he called down the slope, sitting low against the snow.

The skier battled up the last few feet to the top of the ridge, and glided to a stop a short distance away on its crest, leaning in on their poles. “Hey, there,” came the greeting a little breathlessly, and Jody dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“I’m Matt Hawkes with the High Mountain Rangers,” the man told him, standing up a little straighter as he got his wind back. “What are you doing up here? It’s not safe with this weather moving in.”

Jody bit the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing. He should have shucked off his pack and tossed it over the lip of the ridge when he had the chance. His pack, stuffed with a cache of weapons he’d been able to quickly lay hands on the way out of Vegas, felt like an elephant on his back.

Of course, it had to be a ranger of all fucking things. The shield-shaped patch stitched to the man’s jacket over his heart further confirmed it. The last thing Jody needed was more law enforcement on his ass.

“Yeah, look, about that,” Jody began, reaching for a plausible excuse. “I was just on my way up to my family’s cabin. My dad’s in the hospital, down in Las Vegas, and there’s some important papers having to do with his medical insurance that we need. Man, guess I just misjudged this weather.”

A successful lie always held a kernel of truth.

A couple seconds passed as Jody was silently regarded, and he strapped down the urge to immediately throw out more information to make his being out in the middle of a snowstorm appear reasonable. He doubted the ranger was in any way involved with the thugs that were after him, nor did he think their influence stretched this far, but he’d learned the hard way, corruption could be anywhere.

The ranger’s eyes and most of his face were hidden behind the smoked glass of the goggles he wore. Jody’s gaze flicked down to the man’s gloved hands, hyper alert to any movement, but they remained at rest, threaded through the loops of his ski poles.

“Right,” the ranger finally replied. “Where’s this cabin you’re headed to?”

“Just up the ridge there,” Jody said, and lifted a hand in the general direction of the cabin. “It’s the McKinnon place.”

The ranger nodded, whether in acknowledgment, or in recognition of the McKinnon name, Jody couldn’t guess, but his gut instinct told him his story wasn’t going over well. Supposing he was about three minutes from being arrested, Jody swallowed a laugh, because wouldn’t that be fucking perfect?

Jody remembered the rangers well, had even idolized them as a kid; everyone on or around the mountain had heard of the High Mountain Rangers. Actually, if his recollection was correct, it had been a Hawkes, Jesse Hawkes, that founded the law enforcement group specializing in high terrain search and rescue some years back.

Jesse Hawkes had been a veritable legend even back then.

Jody didn’t know what had become of the elder Hawkes, but perhaps he’d handed rangering down to his son. Interesting, but either way Jody had to figure a way out of thisHawkes’ attention. He couldn’t allow himself to be arrested, and he couldn’t afford to waste anymore time. He needed to get up the mountain, and get dug in before nightfall.

“Yeah, I mean, when I started out it wasn’t that bad,” Jody added. Maybe if he sounded clueless enough the ranger might give him a pass.

Hawkes tilted his head to one side, watching Jody for another moment. “All right,” he said, drawing his hands out of the loops of his ski poles. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.” He gestured back down the slope. “Please proceed down the run, I’ll be right behind.”

Jody tensed, and by all appearances the other man was simply waiting for Jody to comply with the order disguised as a polite request, but Jody was in no mood to turn his back on anyone, ranger or no.

Drawing himself up, Jody rose to stand at his full six feet, six inches. Clocking in at around two hundred and forty pounds, most of it muscle, he knew he presented an imposing figure, and he wasn’t above using it to his advantage if it got Hawkes off his back. A dick move, but so be it. It was either that or physically subdue the kid, and that thought left a decidedly sour taste in Jody’s mouth.

“Look, son, you seem like a nice kid and all, but I just need to get up to the cabin before dark, okay? So why don’t you just head on back in, yeah? I’ll go up, you’ll go down, and we’ll all get what we want.”

Jody still doubted it, but if Hawkes was somehow linked to the men that were after him, his response to Jody’s disobedience might show it. He waited for confirmation one way or the other, and seemingly got it when the ranger didn’t make any aggressive move, but just stared back, apparently not affected by Jody’s cockiness, which was mildly impressive in and of itself. Eventually, he reached up and removed his dark goggles, adjusting them to rest up against his snow dusted helmet.

Jody took in the young, good-looking face revealed, and stifled the urge to smile; this ranger was fucking fine, and what an random thing was this to be thinking in the midst of the shit show of a week he was having.

Matt Hawkes had an open, attractive face that wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of a magazine. Slap him in a pair of cutoffs, tuck a football under one arm and put a Coca-Cola in his hand and there’s the cover of Teen Beat right there. Pretty, almost, in the way some handsome men were in their youth, Jody pegged Hawkes’ age at around twenty-two.

A frown lay across the angular features, eyes narrowed at Jody under dark brows. After a further moment of assessment, Jody abruptly tacked on a couple years to his estimation of the ranger’s age. This kid had a certain edge to him that presented itself in his stance as he faced Jody. It was in the deceptively casual swing of his gaze, dropping down to study Jody’s open jacket, then tracking back up.

A hint of a tan lay underneath the faint marks left behind where Hawkes’ goggles had fitted snugly against his face. His full lips were reddened, chapped from the wind, and held in a flat line of displeasure, but it was his eyes that held Jody. Hawkes possessed striking, light colored eyes, blue or green; it was hard to tell which through the screen of swirling snow.

Of the two of them, Hawkes was the shorter, but not by much, maybe a couple inches. Even under the ski jacket he wore it was clear he was broad shouldered. It was safe to say, in another setting Matt Hawkes would’ve commanded Jody’s full attention for totally different reasons.

“Okay, sir. I’m going to ask you once more to move down the mountain for your own safety.”

So polite, Jody thought, and this time he did smile, not even fighting it. “Look, can’t you just write me a ticket or something, and let me be on my way?”

“Sir,” Hawkes said evenly. “It’s my responsibility to see you safely down the mountain. Now, if you won’t come with me voluntarily, I’ll have to take you into custody.”

Jody laughed shortly. His fucking luck. “You’re serious?”

Hawkes nodded. “Yes, sir. Now, what’s it gonna be? We’re losing the light and I’ve got things to do.”

The little shit.

Jody regarded Hawkes with not a small amount of respect for just his sheer nerve, but he’d wasted enough time. “Kid, you’re not taking me anywhere.”

Hawkes didn’t seem surprised. “Fine, then consider yourself under arrest. And stop calling me ‘kid’, it’s Matt, or Ranger Hawkes.”

“Nice to know,” Jody retorted, watching as Hawkes reached up and unzipped his jacket.

Jody didn’t know if it was standard procedure for a High Mountain Ranger to carry a weapon. He wondered if flagrantly disarming one would be classified as a felony. He was surprised, then, when Hawkes pulled out a radio from his jacket instead of a weapon or handcuffs.

Hawkes had just lifted the radio to speak when the unmistakable report of a gunshot split the air. The whine of a bullet zinged past them, plopping into the snow just feet to their left. Instinct taking over, Jody grabbed a handful of Hawkes’ jacket and hauled him over the crest of the ridge, flinging the man bodily to the snow. The ranger went sprawling, sliding down the backside of the ridge, grunting as his left ski snagged, twisting his leg at an awkward angle.

Jody launched himself after Hawkes as another shot rang out, the sharp crack echoing oddly on snow heavy air. Sliding several feet, Jody landed near where Hawkes lay bent over, gripping his left knee with gloved hands. Heart in his throat, Jody popped off his skis, yanked off his pack, and slithered over to the ranger; he’d never forgive himself if he’d gotten the kid shot.

“You hit?”

“My knee,” Hawkes rasped out, eyes screwed shut.

Not seeing any blood on Hawkes’ white snow pants, Jody yanked his Beretta free from its holster with one hand, and with the other grabbed Hawkes’ chin, giving the younger man a little shake.

“Are you hit?” Jody demanded.

Hawkes’ eyes snapped open. “No!” He jerked out of Jody’s grip, slewing to land on his back, blinking rapidly up at the dark gray sky. “Twisted my knee.”

Jody cast a furtive glance back up the ridge. He peered through the curtain of swirling snow, but there was little to see in the near white-out conditions. Turning back to Hawkes, he came to an abrupt halt, staring down the barrel of what appeared to Jody’s learned eye, a Glock19 9mm pistol. Hawkes had discarded one of his thick gloves and had the gun trained on Jody, finger on the trigger.

Guess that answered the question of whether or not rangers carried, Jody thought wryly.

“Easy, kid,” he said, lifting his hands, keeping his own gun where Hawkes could see it. “I’m not the enemy here.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Hawkes ground out, face pinched with pain and the strain of the awkward position he was in, half-lying in the snow. “Drop your weapon,” he ordered.

“Look, I’m down here with you, okay? I’m not the one doing the shooting,” Jody reasoned, keeping a low profile, kneeling in the freezing snow.

Hawkes kept his gun level. “No shit. But you know what’s going on, don’t you? Drop your weapon, now.”

Smart kid.

Swearing under his breath, Jody slowly, carefully laid the Beretta down by his side.
“Look, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know, after we get the fuck outta here and under cover. You good with that?”


Another shot rang out.

Jody flinched, ducking down a little to keep himself well out of the sightline, and below the lip of the ridge. It was wholly unnerving being shot at with his back turned, but with an edgy Hawkes aiming his pistol at Jody’s chest, it seemed prudent not to make any sudden moves.

“I’m telling you, I’m not going to hurt you,” Jody swore, holding Hawkes’ gaze.

Hawkes held steady, eyes narrowed to the point of squinting, and Jody felt the laser focus of the silent interrogation as almost a physical touch against his skin. The moment stretched out. His fingers itched to grab his weapon and he waited for Hawkes to decide whether or not to trust him, or get shot in the back.

Whatever Hawkes searched for in Jody’s eyes he seemed to find, or at least accept there were larger problems to deal with, as after a couple seconds, he slowly lowered his pistol. He rested back on his elbows with a grimace. Jody let out a slow, cautious breath, and telegraphing his intentions, reached out and retrieved his Beretta, carefully slipping it back into its holster inside his jacket.

“Do you see my radio?” Hawkes asked as if he hadn’t just had Jody level in his sights. “I lost it when you clotheslined me.” He looked pissed as he glanced around the churned up area where they’d landed. Already the evidence of their tumble was being obscured by the snowfall.

Jody frowned, and twisting around scanned the area but didn’t see any sign of a radio. He shook his head. “I don’t see it. And for the record, I didn’t clothesline you. I practically saved your life, kid.”

Hawkes snorted. “Sure, but my life didn’t need saving until I met you, so there’s that.”

“Jesus,” Jody huffed, almost grinning at the kid’s sass. He looked around once more for the radio but quickly gave up. “Can you ski?” They had to get moving. If Hawkes couldn’t manage to stay up on his skis things were about to get a lot more complicated.

Hawkes blew out a breath, nodding as he reached over and retrieved his glove, pulling it back on. “Yeah, I think so.”

Another gunshot hit the air, and Jody pushed Hawkes down, covering the younger man’s body with his own. Snow kicked up, again, several yards away to their left, upslope from where they lay tangled together.

“They’re not trying to hit us,” Jody realized, looking back at the ridgeline and gauging the locations of shots. “They’re trying to flush us out.” He turned back to Hawkes, belatedly grasping that he was still covering the man protectively, one arm slung across the ranger’s chest. This close, they were almost nose to nose, and looking into the startled eyes, Jody realized something else.

Matt Hawkes had a pair of the greenest eyes Jody had ever seen.

~*~
Chapter 2: Team Up

“You mind?” Matt wheezed. Lying on his back with McKinnon’s not insubstantial weight pressing against him, arm over his chest like an iron bar, Matt was having a hard time drawing breath.

“Shit! Sorry,” McKinnon blurted, shifting away, coming to rest in the snow on his side beside Matt.

Matt shook off the apology. He definitely appreciated the intention. McKinnon had reacted protectively, and while this wasn’t the mark of someone intending harm, the pain lancing up his leg from his knee, and the marketed inconvenience of being shot at had Matt’s patience wearing thin. Freezing snow had made its way under the collar of his jacket and was melting, soaking the neck of his shirt and pissing him off.

“You’re gonna explain this, McKinnon, but right now we gotta go. You see how this chute heads off piste?” Matt flicked the safety back on his pistol and tucked it inside his jacket. He gestured toward where the narrow trough they were resting in between ridgelines led off the marked ski course. Seen through the flurries, trees in the distance were indistinct, irregular dark shapes.

McKinnon nodded, following Matt’s line of sight. “Follow this chute straight out, then head toward the trees,” Matt said. “When you feel the grade going up, bear right. Haul ass, and don’t stop until you’re under cover.”

Frowning, McKinnon started shaking his head, and Matt knew the man had realized the obvious; that even with the snow raining down and twilight falling over the mountain, they’d be painfully exposed for a few minutes before reaching the shelter of the trees.

“We should head up to the cabin, it’s just over a klick away,” McKinnon said, words clipped with authority as if he was used to giving orders. “We can duck under the tree line; use it as cover all the way up.”

Matt exhaled sharply. “No, we need to-” Matt started, but Jody cut in brusquely. “Look, I can carry you up if it’s your knee you’re worried about.”

Matt stared at the guy, wondering if he was serious. McKinnon seemed to think hauling Matt’s hundred and eighty-five pounds over one shoulder, and making the ascent up the steep mountainside in new, deepening snow as just a minor inconvenience. He certainly looked capable of it, if the size of his biceps were anything to judge by, though there was something Matt was aware of that McKinnon didn’t seem to be.

“Sorry, but that cabin burned down a few days ago,” Matt said.

McKinnon drew back as if Matt had slapped him. “Burned down?”

“Look, it’s gone, so even if we made it up, it wouldn’t be any cover. Now, can we go?”

After a pause, McKinnon jerked a nod. “Shit. I didn’t know, obviously—never mind. Okay, I’ll follow your lead.”


Rolling over, McKinnon reached out and drew his skis and poles to him. Keeping as low as possible, he snapped his boots into place. Matt watched as he jabbed his poles into the fresh powder, and reaching down grabbed his pack by one strap and hauled it up out of the snow.

“Just leave it,” Matt huffed as he struggled into a sitting position. He still had his skis on, but it was going to be a bitch getting back on his feet. Pain flared, radiating out from his knee, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t torn anything, unlike the last time he’d blown it out. That had been considerably more painful and had taken surgery and weeks of physical therapy to mend. He looked up as McKinnon raised a brow at him as he shouldered the pack on.

“Kid, we’re gonna need everything in this pack, it goes with.”

Reaching down, McKinnon put his hands under Matt’s armpits and hauled him to his feet with an ease Matt wasn’t sure he was comfortable with. McKinnon held on as he wobbled, and Matt was too busy gritting his teeth against a pained groan to worry about whether or not his pride should be bruised. He rested in the steady grip for a second, breathing through the throbbing in his leg.

“There you go, you got it,” McKinnon said encouragingly.

For a bad moment Matt thought he might puke, and there came a flash of satisfaction at the thought of spewing his ham and cheese all over McKinnon’s broad chest, but the moment passed. Still, McKinnon had hold of him and Matt looked up to find the man’s piercing, dark brown eyes searching his face. The intensity in the probing gaze arrested Matt for a couple seconds before he managed, “I’m good, let’s go.”

McKinnon looked skeptical but released him anyway, and when Matt stood steady under his own power, he seemed satisfied to keep his hands to himself. Tilting his head toward the chute, Matt gestured for him to head out. Pivoting on his skis, McKinnon pushed off, and propelled himself across the snow, aiming down the shallow channel nestled between the ridges that led off trail.

Certain to keep at least a couple body lengths behind McKinnon, Matt followed, cursing under his breath each time he pushed off with his left leg. He was shaky, but once he got his body moving in a rhythm he kept up. He was straining his knee, but it wouldn’t do to lose sight of the other man in the heavy snowfall. They moved down the chute and out past the course markers, out onto the rolling, open plain.

The space between Matt’s shoulder blades tingled, and at any moment he expected to hear another rifle report. He was sure at this point it was a rifle, probably scope mounted. Every few moments McKinnon would glance over his shoulder, checking Matt’s progress. Matt kept pushing, and after a couple minutes with no more gunshots, he began to think maybe they’d caught a break.

Keeping his eyes trained on McKinnon’s wide back, he watched with approval as the man changed course, shifting a few degrees to the right when the terrain under their feet steepened. Up ahead the shadowy shapes of snow cloaked trees grew gradually more distinct. Another minute and they could lose themselves amongst the evergreens. Another thirty feet and he’d be there. Up ahead McKinnon paused, looking back as Matt struggled with the steepest section of the slope.

For the first time Matt speculated at McKinnon’s age. The man couldn’t be that much older than himself, despite the whole ‘kid’ thing. Under the black fleece beanie he wore, McKinnon’s wavy, dark brown hair hung to his shoulders, matching his brows and trimmed mustache and beard. The intensity he’d sensed earlier reminded Matt of men he knew; men who’d grown up on the mountain and rarely left it. Men like his dad. There was wildness inherent in them that came from their core, a place untamed by modern society and all its judgments and restrictions. Added to this his muscular build, and McKinnon radiated a hawkish, formidable presence.

Shaking his head at his inner musings, Matt waved McKinnon on, but the other man stubbornly stayed put, waiting halfway up the steepest part of the slope. As Matt drew near, McKinnon held out a hand, motioning him forward. Huffing in annoyance as he labored, Matt drew breath to order McKinnon up the way and into the trees but before he could utter a word his left knee folded, sending him sprawling.

Matt slid a few feet back down the slope, coming to a stop when he dug his poles into the icy powder. Pain stabbed through his leg. “Fuuuck,” he ground out, having a sinking feeling that he had some weeks of physical therapy in his future, considering he survived this current situation.

Matt had blown out his left knee just the year before, so he knew how bad it could get. Consumed in the moment he didn’t register that McKinnon had popped off his skis, and had headed down the hill toward him until a large, black gloved hand wrapped around his bicep. Matt started, jerking his gaze up to look into McKinnon’s grinning face.

“Come on, Hawkes, don’t dawdle.”

Matt rolled his eyes but didn’t argue as McKinnon reached down to disengage Matt’s skis. He slipped his poles off his wrists and gritted his teeth as McKinnon snaked an arm around his waist and hoisted him to his feet. As his leg straightened out Matt cursed, and McKinnon’s arm tightened sympathetically.

“Sorry, man,” McKinnon said.

Laboring for breath, Matt didn’t manage a reply, but allowed himself to be tugged up the slope. McKinnon kept his arm fixed around him until they crossed over into the shelter of the forest. It had grown darker as the day drew nearer to sunset, the sun itself a vague impression of brightness behind the thick clouds low in the snowy sky. Amongst the trees it was darker still. Making their way a few yards in, McKinnon finally stopped, and carefully withdrew.

Catching Matt’s eyes he said, “Be right back, going to grab our gear.”

Matt watched as McKinnon turned and waded back the way they’d come, the sizable pack he bore making him look like some sort of tall, buff humpback. Matt braced himself by putting one hand against the trunk of a big pine, and tried to catch his breath. He looked around, orienting himself as to where he was on the mountain.

Snow fell in curtains between the crowns of the evergreens, eddying between the stout trunks in ghostly swirls, stirred by the wind. At least within the forest they were afforded some minimal protection from the gusts, and Matt was thankful for small favors. The map in his mind’s eye put them a few miles from his dad’s cabin.

The cabin his dad and little brother lived in had a radio, though there was no guarantee it had reception any better than Matt’s lost handheld unit. It’d definitely offer shelter from the storm. They could comfortably ride out the night there, but Matt needed to contemplate all his options. Besides, he wasn’t crazy about the idea of leading this magnitude of trouble to his dad and brother’s doorstep.

He could send McKinnon on ahead, and stay behind as a diversion. He had his sidearm, a full clip and expansive knowledge of the mountain. He figured this had a good likelihood of success, provided McKinnon had a steady sense of direction. Matt still wasn’t wild about involving his dad and brother, as he had no doubt that once learning of his predicament, both would rush to stand at Matt’s side no matter what. He considered the idea.

Matt was still considering as McKinnon came striding back through the snow with their skis and poles tucked under one arm, seemingly undeterred by either the frigid wind or deepening drifts. He stopped by Matt’s side, and handed over a pair of poles, then dropped the skis at their feet. “You okay?” he asked.

Matt opened his mouth to reply but the words stalled out as his eyes locked with McKinnon’s. They both registered the noise at the same time, something new, something not attributed to either the whistling wind, or the rustling and groaning of snow laden tree limbs stirred by the wind gusts.

“Do you hear that?” McKinnon asked, but Matt waved him quiet.

The sound came again, a wavering, grinding growl.

Looking at McKinnon, Matt said tightly, “They have snowmobiles.”

~*~
Chapter 3: The Climb

“Shit,” Jody snapped. His day was just getting better and better. “You’re sure?” He turned to look out over the sloping plain they’d crossed, but didn’t see anything through the trees but veils of snow.

“I’m sure,” Hawkes replied. Leaning with one hand braced against a tree trunk, lips parted, his breath gusted out frozen before him.

Jody felt a stab of guilt. Hawkes was in obvious pain, and it was Jody’s doing. It was Jody’s fault this man’s life was in peril, and that was a hard pill to swallow. He resolved himself, then and there; Matt Hawkes was going to come out of this okay. Jody would see to it.

“All right, Hawkes. What’s the plan, where do we go from here?” Jody asked. He was fairly sure the ranger wouldn’t have sent them off without some notion of an escape or plan of some kind. Hawkes hadn’t shown an ounce of panic so far, and Jody recognized good training when he saw it. A cool head in the face of fire was worth more than ten screaming ‘fire’ at the top of their lungs. Jody suspected Matt Hawkes and his level head might be worth quite a lot.

“Matt,” was all Hawkes said with some exasperation. When Jody just stared at him blankly he repeated, “It’s Matt. No one calls me ‘Hawkes’ for fuck’s sake.”

Jody grinned. The kid had spunk. He stuck out his hand. “Jody McKinnon.”

They shared a quick, firm handshake, and when Matt let go Jody added, “Look, I’m sorry. It was never my intention to get anyone else mixed up in all this.”

Matt raised a brow. “Thanks, I guess, but you still owe me a detailed explanation as to what ‘all this’ is, but it’ll have to wait.”

“Agreed,” Jody said, watching Matt wince as he pulled his hand back from the tree, shifting his weight to lean in on his poles.

“Snowmobiles means greater mobility and speed, but with this covering our tracks,” Matt gestured to the steadily falling snow, “and the cover of darkness, we still have a slight advantage.”

Jody nodded in agreement, grimacing a little at the emphasis on ‘slight’.

“We could try sticking to the forest and head back down the mountain, but there’s no way we’d make it before dark and I have a feeling these assholes are staked out, just waiting for us to try and slip past them on the run, hoping the weather will cover us.”

“Yeah, and there’s no way of knowing how many are out there,” Jody added.

Matt seemed to be of the same mind. “Right. You know, if it was just me, on my own, I’d probably go for it. I’m pretty good on downhill, but in this weather and with this…” he trailed off, gesturing to his left leg.

Jody’s gaze dropped down to Matt’s red ski boots, noticing for the first time they were geared more toward speed than your typical, casual skier. So the kid was a racer. Jody filed that away, ignoring the fresh wave of guilt at getting Matt tangled up in his family’s chaos.

“Right, so what else you got?”

“We could make for my dad’s cabin, it’s three miles, or so, to the east. Only problem is, that’s rough country through there, and it’s almost dark, and,” he took a breath. “With my knee, well...”

Jody prompted, “Just spit it out.”

“I can tell you how to get there, send you on ahead-”

“Forget it.” Jody snapped.

“Look, it makes the most sense,” Matt countered, and his reasonable tone had Jody grinding his teeth.

“Forget it. I’m not leaving you behind. What’s your alternative?” Jody asked tightly.

Jody gave Matt a few points for not bothering to argue. “We head up,” Matt said.

“Up?” Jody asked with uncertainty. Up, seemed like exactly the wrong place to be going with the stormfront moving in.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I know a place. It’s actually pretty close. Sheltered, heat source, practically undetectable from anyone who doesn’t know to look for it, only it’ll be a bitch of a climb from here, skis will be pretty much useless.”

Jody absorbed the information, and then said, “Well, why didn’t you say so? Let’s go.” He moved to kneel down and gather up their skis, but was stopped as Matt grabbed a fistful of his jacket.

“You should still go ahead, try to make it to my dad’s cabin,” Matt said, gaze steady, looking every inch the reassuring mountain ranger.

Jody didn’t know which he wanted to do more, be impressed, or slap the kid.

“I don’t leave anyone behind, so drop it, Matt,” Jody said, unmoved.

Matt sighed, gloved fingers uncurling from the front of Jody’s jacket. “Fine. But remember you said that.”

A few minutes later, Jody remembered, and conceded that Matt may have had a point about splitting up, though even so; his choice would have remained the same. The lessened distance they had to travel was offset by a drastic steepening of the mountainside. Matt explained between breaths that on the north side of the mountain the approach to this particular little rabbit hole of his was more formidable than on any other. Of course, they had the bad luck to be on the north side of the mountain.

For the first few minutes Matt battled along on his own, using his poles to dig into the snow and haul himself up. They’d decided to ditch their skis, though Jody flat out refused to part with his pack. He took the lead, using his own poles to aid in the climb, attempting as much as possible to plow through the drifts and free the way for Matt. But, after a while, Matt’s knee just couldn’t withstand the pace. When he fell behind more than a couple strides, Jody dropped one of his poles, and waiting for Matt to draw even with him, wordlessly wrapped an arm around Matt’s waist, and they continued on together.

Battling up the slope, they froze upon spotting the bluish shimmer of what they could only assume was their assailants’ snowmobile headlights down below. Two bobbing lights stabbed at them between the frosted trees, a wavering gleam that scattered sparkles over the snow, startling amid the deepening darkness. Jody’s arm tightened around Matt instinctively as he propelled them onward with greater urgency, and eventually the lights turned away, abandoning the steepening grade before disappearing altogether.

“They’re crazy to be out here. Are they stupid, or just desperate?” Matt panted.

Jody snorted. “Both, I think.”

Matt only grunted in response, and after that there was no more talking, just climbing, half falling in the freezing, gusting wind. Jody had to trust that Matt knew where they were, and that they weren’t about to step blindly off a cliff, as he couldn’t see a damned thing as true darkness fell. His focus narrowed down to the climb, to his breath shuttling in, and out again, to the man held at his side, and the challenge of keeping their combined movements balanced.

If either of them slipped and fell there’d be no stopping their fall until they shattered bones, slamming into a random tree trunk, or landed back down where they’d started. After a while they figured out how to account for the slight difference in their heights, and were moving in concert. Jody had to admit, they fit together well as he became hyper aware of Matt’s weight against him, the way he moved, and the grunts of pain he let slip out when he couldn’t quite reign them in.

Kid was a trooper, Jody decided, and he experienced a fresh wash of anger at the men who’d made all of this happen, and at his dad, and at himself, for not figuring out a better way. He shook his head to clear it. He was tired, and his focus was slipping.

Matt must have noticed something amiss. He asked, “You okay?”

“Fine,” Jody replied, hesitated, and then told him, “just rethinking some key choices in my life.”

Matt laughed hoarsely. “Join the club.”

Matt couldn’t see it in the darkness, so Jody let a grin stretch across his face. His wind burned lips stung, but it was worth it. He curbed the urge to ask if they were almost to their destination. He wasn’t certain how Matt knew where they were, or how the ranger could accurately judge distance in the windswept, freezing blackout that had become the night. Jody had considerable combat and survival training in varied climates, and he could only formulate a rough estimate of their location, or how far they’d ascended.

Forcing their way through the icy boughs of trees barring their way, Jody’s boot hit something hard under the snow. He stumbled on numbed feet; nearly face planting against the mountainside. Beside him, Matt grunted, keeping his balance somehow, and for a moment it was Jody leaning on Matt for support.

Getting his equilibrium back, Jody quickly shifted his weight and apologized. “Sorry, tripped on something.”

“Thank fuck.” Matt said vehemently.

“Come again?” Jody asked, not sure he heard correctly over a rushing gust of wind.

“We’re here,” Matt practically shouted, and took a stumbling step forward.

“Just hold on a minute,” Jody snapped in annoyance, curling fingers into the back of Matt’s jacket to hold him still. “We’re where?”

“Come on, McKinnon,” Matt replied in a wheedling tone. “Don’t dawdle.”

Jody didn’t know whether to grin or punch the ranger, realizing that he seemed to be encountering this dilemma more and more often.

“Let’s move,” Matt said, impatient, and started forward.

Keeping his hand on Matt’s back so he wouldn’t lose him in the dark, Jody followed. After a few difficult steps he felt the steep angle of the mountain easing, and it took less effort to gain ground, though Jody abruptly stumbled again. It was the hard caps of rock, he realized, mostly buried under the snow that kept tripping him up.

“Where is here?” Jody asked again. He still couldn’t see a damned thing. Wearing the white ranger gear, Matt was within an arm’s length of him, and appeared as barely more than a vague impression in the darkness.

“How do you know where in the hell we are? It’s darker than the inside of a donkey’s asshole out here.”

Matt coughed, sounding strangled, and Jody jerked in alarm until he understood Matt was choking on a laugh. “I just know,” Matt said, as if that was enough explanation.

It wasn’t but Jody let it go.

“Hold out your arms before you give yourself a concussion,” Matt said, and Jody thought he heard a smile in his voice and wasn’t sure whether to be amused or insulted.

Not one to be told twice, Jody stretched out his arms and almost immediately felt his gloves scrape against rough, irregular rock. He came to a stop, feeling Matt do the same. “Now what?”

“Move along the wall,” Matt said, and when Jody moved to his right Matt ran his hand down Jody’s arm, grabbing his wrist. “Nooo, the other way,” he said, pushing Jody to the left.

Jody huffed. “You could’ve just said so.”

“I did!” Matt replied, and gave Jody another push. “I’m freezing my ass off, will you get a move on? I don’t have as much insulation as you.”

Fumbling his way alongside the rock face, Jody resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It didn’t have the same effect when the other person couldn’t see him being an ass. “What you tryin’ to say, Hawkes?”

“I’m saying you’re as big as an oak and twice as stubborn, now move,” Matt shot back.

“Jesus, hold on, I can’t see in the dark like you…so, a compliment then? That’s sweet,” Jody said, tone saccharine.

“Good Christ,” Matt moaned. “This conversation is ridiculous.”

Jody chuckled outright, reflecting that he didn’t feel quite as cold when he was needling the ranger. He was about to reply when his hand pushed forward into nothingness.

“Yo, wait a minute,” he said, coming to a stop, groping around the void before him. “There’s an opening.”

“That’s it! Follow it, go inside,” Matt said, practically leaning against Jody's side.

Reaching out Jody snagged Matt’s sleeve, pulling him alongside. If Matt had miscalculated and was about to send him plummeting off a rock face, they were both going over. They shuffled in, groping along the rock wall that dipped inward in some places, and protruded out in others. It veered to the left, and then curved back to the right. The floor under his feet was smooth, if uneven. It was a little disorienting, but as they traveled the sound of the wind outside became muted, and something marvelous happened…Jody felt warmth on his face.

~*~
Chapter 4: Warm Waters

As soon as Matt registered the warmth from the hot spring, he felt like crowing. He could point out a couple places on a map where hot springs like these could be found. Just the year before his dad revealed yet another one that Matt had not known about. There were a few of these hidden places in and around the Sierra Nevada mountain range, but this was the only one Matt had discovered personally.

Sidling around McKinnon, Matt stretched out his arms until he found the wall. He cautioned Jody, “Just stay where you are, and don’t move.”

Slipping his ski poles off his wrists, Matt dropped them well out of his path. After a moment, he heard a clatter as Jody dropped his one remaining pole on the hard floor.
Freed from the poles, Matt slowly limped forward.

“I found this place by sheer luck a couple months ago,” he said, guiding himself with one hand on the cave’s wall, glove rasping against the rock. “We were up on a search and rescue for a couple hikers. I happened to be standing at just the right spot. It was late in the day, and the sun hit the rock just so, that’s when I noticed the opening.”

Some distance behind him, Jody’s voice echoed through the chamber, “You gonna pull some sunshine outta your ass now? I’d really like to be able to see where the hell I am.”

Matt sighed. “Hold on, will ya? I’ve got a pack around here somewhere. Me and my caving buddy, Tim, were up a couple weeks ago, doing a walkthrough. It goes back a ways into the mountain, splits off into a couple different directions. We had to cut out early and we left some gear behind.”

Receiving only a grunt in reply, Matt grinned. McKinnon was turning surly. Something about that had Matt feeling warmly satisfied. Now if only the rest of him would warm up as quickly.

“I mean, why haul it back down the mountain only to turn around and hump it right back up? Anyway, we haven’t been able to get back up here since.”

Taking another step Matt grabbed for the wall as his boot skidded. His downhill ski boots weren’t the ideal gear to go cave exploring in, much less stomping around in the pitch black dark. His weight came down on his left leg, and his knee popped. He swore under his breath at the resulting throb, seeing stars in the darkness of the cave.

Jody called out, sounding closer than before. “Hey, you okay?”

Before he could answer, Matt drew in a deep breath, held it, and then let it go. He was trembling, though whether from the cold or the pain, he wasn’t actually sure. “I thought I told you to stay put,” he said, annoyance creeping into his voice. The last thing he needed was for Jody to injure himself. Matt was strong but he wasn’t nearly strong enough to haul a man of Jody’s stature off the mountain with a bum knee and evade their enemy all at the same time.

“Don’t always do what I’m told,” Jody drawled.

Matt could practically hear the smirk in the other man’s voice even if he couldn’t see it.
His laugh came out a little shakier than he intended as he took a careful step. It hurt, but his knee held, so he took another. “I never would’ve guessed that about you,” he said pointedly. “You’ll do what I tell you, or you’ll break your damned leg when you step in that crack that’s about half a foot to your left.”

After a pronounced silence, there came the slight scrape of a boot being dragged back and forth over the cavern floor. Finally, Jody said, “All right. How did you know it was half a foot?”

Matt shrugged, even though Jody couldn’t see it. “I just did,” he said offhandedly, trying to recall exactly where he’d left his pack stuffed with climbing gear. Somewhere just along the wall…he was pretty sure…

“So, what, you’re part bat?” Jody needled, but this time it sounded as if he was staying put.

“Maybe,” Matt allowed, not rising to the bait. His boot bumped against something pliable, and he paused. Pulling off his gloves, he flexed numbed fingers, and keeping one hand on the wall for balance, leaned over, keeping his left leg as straight as possible. His pack was exactly where he’d dropped it two weeks before, and it contained exactly what they needed.

Fingers moving over the nylon material, Matt found the metal zipper and tugged it open. Reaching inside he fished around until his hand closed over the hard plastic of a flashlight. He clicked the rubber button mounted in the side of the cylinder and white light blazed out.

“Yahtzee,” he said with a grin.

Brilliance spilled over the inside of the cave, sudden and startling, illuminating shapes of rock in stark white light, and casting deeper shadows against others outside its range. Matt swept the beam around the cavern, and then pivoted to shine it over where Jody waited a few feet away. Standing against the wall, thumbs hooked under the straps of his pack, Jody narrowed his eyes against the power of the beam. Matt quickly pointed the flashlight down to the floor instead.

“Sorry,” he offered quickly, then, “come on, it’s warmer over here by the stream. Man, I have got to sit down.”

Grabbing the pack, Matt limped to the irregular crack that spanned the cave’s floor, and looked down into the clear, gently running waters of the hot spring. The opening wasn’t large enough to wade into, measuring only about a foot at its widest, but it allowed generous amounts of warm steam to escape, making the cave a cozy, if moist, sanctuary from the storm outside. He pointed the light down into the stream and bright ripples reflected up and out, bouncing over the walls and roof of the cavern. The granite rock above them sparkled in places, an intermittent, miniature starry sky.

Dropping the pack, Matt cautiously bent and set the flashlight down, beam facing up. It hit the rock ceiling above and bounced back down against the water, making it glow, casting a net of illumination around them. Easing himself down to sit, biting his lip as his left knee protested, Matt got settled, and then let out a careful breath. So engrossed in the process, he hadn’t noticed Jody had moved to kneel beside him, dark eyes watchful, gleaming in the reflected light. For a guy his size, he certainly moved quietly.

“What do you think?” Matt asked, leaning back on his hands and stretching out his legs with grunt, ski boots scraping against rock.

Jody raised a brow as he slipped his own pack off his shoulders and set it aside. “About what?”

Matt nearly rolled his eyes at the deliberate obtuseness. He gestured to the stream and wondered if Jody took enjoyment in being contrary, or was just naturally predisposed to be that way. “Pretty cool, right?”

Studying the wafts of steam rising from the crystal waters of the spring, Jody shrugged, and moved to sit down by Matt’s side. He angled his back toward the stream, and faced the cave’s entrance. Matt noticed the defensive arrangement, but didn’t comment on it.

Reaching up, Matt unbuckled the strap under his chin, but before he could remove his helmet a lightning bolt of heat shot through his knee. Pressing his lips together, he exhaled air through his nose, closed his eyes, and rode it out. Putting one hand on his kneecap, he gripped it firmly through his snow pants as if that might somehow blunt the pain.

When he opened his eyes again, Jody was watching him, brow furrowed. “Maybe it’d help if you took those off,” Jody suggested, gesturing to Matt’s alpine ski boots. Made to keep a skier’s ankles rigid and at a particular angle, they could be fairly uncomfortable and unforgiving. Jody wore touring boots, and while you could ski in those, they were also much more comfortable for just walking around than Matt’s alpine setup.

Jerking a quick nod, Matt reached down to start working the bindings on the boots, but Jody waved him away. “I’ll get it,” he said as he pulled off his gloves and tossed them aside.

Jody started with Matt’s uninjured leg, making quick work of the buckles, pulling the boot off and placing it out of the way. With the left, Jody moved much more carefully. Running his hand up the underside of Matt’s calf, he supported Matt’s leg a couple inches off the ground as his free hand unsnapped the bindings on the remaining boot, finally easing it off. Having removed it, he carefully lowered Matt’s leg until his heel rested against the cavern floor.

“That good?” Jody asked, sliding his hand down to rest against the back of Matt’s ankle.

Matt could feel the warmth of Jody’s palm through his thick sock. He wiggled his toes experimentally, already finding a measure of relief at being freed from the hard casing of the boots.

“Yeah, thanks,” Matt said, wiggling his toes again, and with a half a grin ventured, “don’t suppose you do foot massages too?”

Jody tilted his head, seeming to consider the request, then giving Matt’s ankle a little squeeze, pulled his hand away. “Sorry, not until the third date, at least,” he deadpanned.


Matt huffed, laughing under his breath at the joke, surprised at the flippant response.

“Right, well, something to look forward to.”

Ignoring the considering glance Jody shot him, Matt reached up and finally removed his helmet, dropping it at his side. He gathered up his gloves and tucked them inside the shell of the helmet for safekeeping. Running fingers through his hair he scratched hard at his scalp, humming contentedly. Helmets always made his head itch. The ache in his knee had settled to a dull throb, and while Matt didn’t think it would stay that way now that he was warming up, at least getting his weight off would allow for some respite.

Reaching for his pack he rummaged around inside, and pulled out a water bottle. Shaking it found it empty. Glancing over, Matt found Jody watching him rather intently.

“What?” he asked, but Jody only shrugged.

“Nothing,” Jody said, and his eyes tracked up to Matt’s hair and then back down to his face. “Just thinking.”

“About anything important?” Matt asked, and reaching up ran a hand over his hair again, thinking it must be sticking up or doing something weird for Jody to be staring.

Another beat passed before Jody replied. “No.”

“Okay,” Matt said slowly, and when nothing more was forthcoming shrugged off the moment. “We need to hydrate. You mind taking this back to the entrance and filling it with snow?”

Jody shot a look at the spring, right beside them, and Matt explained, “We haven’t had a chance to test the water yet, I’d rather take my chances with fresh snow.”


Jody took a moment to consider this, then unfolded from his spot, taking the bottle from Matt wordlessly. Matt handed him the flashlight and watched as Jody stood and made his way back down the cavern, his tall form quickly becoming nothing more than a silhouette against the circle of illumination the flashlight cast ahead of him. After a moment he disappeared around the bend in the passage. Matt blinked in the darkness, listening to the near total quiet of the cave, breathed in its moist, earthy smell. He couldn’t even tell there was a storm outside from where he sat.

Jody was gone only a minute or two before he returned, and shifting the beam of the flashlight away from Matt’s face, he handed it back over along with the water bottle, now packed with snow.

“The entrance is almost half covered over,” Jody said.

Matt nodded, unconcerned. There was a second exit to the cave he was planning on taking anyway, once the storm passed and they figured out a plan, and he said as much to Jody, who absorbed this new information with a slight grunt.

A Chatty Cathy, Jody McKinnon was not, Matt mused.

Moving the flashlight aside, he leaned over and placed the water bottle on a small rock shelf, a few inches under the surface of the warm stream. He trailed his fingers through the spring fed waters. The temperature was warm, nearing hot, and felt incredible against his skin. He let out a long sigh, wishing he could just sink his entire body into the warm well of water.

Jody might as well have been carved from the rock around them, for all the noise he made. He’d retaken his spot a couple feet away, and gazed down into the stream, seemingly watching the small ripples Matt’s fingers made. The reflected brightness from the flashlight lay soft against his face, and Matt covertly studied the man, a dozen questions crowding his brain.

McKinnon seemed as self-contained as the mountain itself. Solidly, even impressively built, his physique spoke of a man that knew discipline, and wasn’t afraid of it. With his dark, hooded eyes, long hair and beard, he emitted a surety of self that could be intimidating. But there was more, too, something earthier underneath that stoicism, an intensity that Matt sensed in the same inexplicable way that he could sense a change in the weather on the mountain before it happened. Just a wavelength he was keyed into.

“It’s melted.”

Pulling his hand from the water, Matt felt a blush of heat rise over his face. He’d totally zoned out, thinking hazy thoughts about McKinnon’s mysteriousness. Christ. He must be tired.

Plucking the water bottle from the stream, he flipped open the spout, and lifting it to his lips took a long pull. The water tasted cool and clear and Matt had to stop himself from downing half the bottle. Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, he held it out to Jody.

“Sorry, only got the one, we’ll have to share,” he said.

For his part Jody only shrugged, seeming not to care one way or the other. Tipping his head back he lifted the bottle and took a healthy swig. Matt watched Jody’s throat work as he drank before turning away, wiping his wet fingers on his pants leg.

Snagging the strap on his pack Matt pulled it close and started rummaging through the multi-compartmentalized bag. He didn’t look up at Jody’s satisfied sigh after finishing his drink, but continued checking through the pack’s pockets, unzipping sections until he found what he was looking for.

Holding up several sticks of prepackaged beef jerky with a crooked grin, Matt said, “Dinner’s on me. I’m starving, you want some?”

His stomach chose that moment to growl, the sound loud in the stillness of the cave. Watching the corner of Jody’s mouth curl up, Matt noted, “Well, it’s been a long time since lunch.”

Jody watched Matt with a concentrated attention that seemed half amused, half speculative. Matt was beginning to think that was just how the man regarded people. His gaze flicked down to the jerky, then back to Matt’s face. He reached out and took a stick. Matt became abruptly aware of how big Jody’s hands were; big and square and capable looking. He’d already gotten a sense of how physically strong the other man was as he’d manhandled Matt up the mountain.

He wondered how Jody had come to be trekking through a snowstorm pursued by, presumably, at least a couple hit men, though Matt had a feeling that wasn’t an accurate representation of events. Hit men generally went after a target with the singular intent to kill…no, whoever had fired those shots had been trying to push them out into the open, wanted to capture their target, not immediately eliminate it. And that was a conversation they needed to have, and desperately soon, though he preferred Jody volunteer the information instead of Matt having to pull it out of him.

It definitely wouldn’t be the first time someone had come to his mountain running from trouble. People gravitated to the Sierra Nevada’s for all sorts of reasons. Just the last year alone the rangers had dealt with several scenarios which had nearly gotten him killed.

Others had been killed.

Matt frowned as he began peeling open the plastic packaging encasing the jerky. It wouldn’t do to start thinking of Merlin now, but it was impossible not to. His friend and mentor had been gunned down just ten months prior. Ambushed and murdered, and it’d happened not too far from where he and Jody sheltered now, and like today, it’d been a rifle shot from the trees. Only, on that day the sky had been a perfect blue bowl, and the sun had shone bright and clear.

Merlin had gone down, never knowing what hit him; dying instantly. Matt had been just feet away when it happened. He still had nightmares about it.

Realizing abruptly that he’d frozen, and was just holding the jerky pack and staring off into the middle distance, Matt shook his head to clear it. He was tired. He couldn’t accurately recall when he’d last slept. His knee ached like a bitch, and there was still the puzzle of McKinnon to figure, and a plan to formulate before morning.

Then, there was the worry for his team. He was well past his latest check-in, and by now Izzy would’ve sent the call out that Matt was overdue. No doubt they were considering their options on successfully mounting a search for him despite the worsening weather, that is, if they weren’t already involved in any other emergency calls, which was just as likely.

Matt prayed that they all stayed down the mountain. He doubted whoever had taken a shot at them would have any qualms about collateral damage. Matt didn’t doubt that they’d shoot any one of his rangers if they crossed paths and felt threatened.

Suddenly, the solid rock surrounding them seemed to bear down, adding the bulk of the mountain onto his already weary shoulders. Leading the rangers was something he’d dreamt of since he was a kid, but lately, especially this last year, the responsibility had him questioning his ability to manage it. He’d taken over the position after Merlin’s death. He’d already been the next in command, was the most qualified, and it was what he’d wanted, but not under those circumstances. Sometimes he wondered if he was really ready.

Already, the warmth of the hot spring had him unzipping his jacket. Looking up, Matt found Jody sitting quietly, munching on his piece of jerky. Surely he’d noticed Matt’s little space out, and maybe he could blame it on exhaustion if he had to, but if Jody wasn’t going to comment on it, neither was Matt.

~*~
Chapter 5: D.B. Cooper and Green Eyes

To Jody’s eye the luminous light reflecting off the spring’s crystalline waters seemed to sharpen certain aspects of Matt Hawkes’ appearance, and gentle others. His thick blonde hair gleamed softly, brighter on the top of his head where it was longer, fading to a darker shade where it was cut shorter around his ears and nape of his neck. The blonde suited him, Jody decided, the brightness a compliment to his green eyes.

The cut of his cheekbones were brought into sharper relief. He had ridiculously long eyelashes. A paper-thin, white line of a healed scar, less than a half inch long, stood out just above the right side of Matt’s upper lip, previously gone unnoticed by Jody.

Judging by Matt’s absent, zoned out expression, Jody would lay odds there were other scars present, only these were of the kind much harder to find, and to heal.

Jody recognized the moment for what it was, when a memory reached out from the past and took hold in the present, and he’d seen the same frozen expression often enough on his fellow soldiers’ faces over the years. He’d most certainly worn it on his own. He kept silent until the kid seemed to come back to himself. Matt blinked and drew in a sudden breath, and Jody dropped his gaze, pretending to be absorbed in his jerky.

“You got any siblings?” Matt asked, as if the conversation had never abated.

It seemed like such a random thing to wonder about that Jody found himself looking up and answering without really thinking about it. “Yeah, a little sister…she’s not a little, not anymore, but you know what I mean.”

Matt snorted. “Don’t I know it. My kid brother is sixteen going on thirty-five.”

Jody watched the left side of Matt’s mouth curl up into a slight half-smile. In the rippled light it made him appear a little more like the ‘kid’ Jody referred to him as. Jody pretended not to be more than a little charmed.

“He a handful?” Jody asked, thinking of Emmy and her inherent hard headedness.

Matt laughed shortly. “You don’t know the half of it.” He gestured around the roof of the cavern curving above them, at the glitter and gleam of light dancing against the quartz and feldspar embedded in the granite. “He’s gonna love this place though, but it’s gonna drive him crazy that I found it before he could.”

Jody found himself nodding, smiling a little as well. “My little sis is the same way. Stubborn, competitive as hell, and just as smart. She’s got kids of her own now, but she’ll always be my kid sister.”

“Man, Cody thinks he knows everything about the mountain, and you know what? He probably does know more than me,” Matt said, the affection plain in his voice.

An easy silence fell between them, then, so it was a few seconds before Jody realized he’d just been carefully maneuvered as Matt asked evenly, “Is your sister the reason you’re in this mess?”

Goddamned little shit.

Jody had allowed himself to be led by the nose right into that one. Releasing a slow breath, he saw no reason to lie. “Mostly, yeah.”

Despite Matt’s expectant gaze, he didn’t elaborate. Sighing, Matt leaned back against his pack and folded his arms over his chest. “Look, you’re gonna have to clue me in on what’s going on. You did promise, by the way.”

Jody pinned him with a flat stare that, over the years, had cowed even the biggest, baddest drill sergeants. Matt, however, just gazed back placidly. With nothing forthcoming, Matt leaned forward, unfolding his arms and spreading them wide. “I’ve got all night.”

“Fuck you,” Jody gusted out in frustration, looking upwards at the glittering cave’s roof for some measure of tolerance.

“Nah, not until at least the third date,” Matt shot back as he settled back down to wait Jody out.

So smoothly delivered, the shot hit, and Jody’s eyes widened as his gaze snapped back to Matt who sat watching him with that little half-smile back on his lips and one brow raised. Experiencing a hazy moment of wonderment, Jody considered the reaction he’d elicit if he suddenly reached out, grabbed Matt by his ranger jacket and pulled him into a kiss to see exactly what that damnably attractive, crooked smile tasted like.

It was just a tease, though, and not an invitation, so he blamed the hot spring for the pervasive tingle of heat across his skin.

Jody found his voice after a second or two ticked by. “I’ll note that down for later,” he said lightly, enjoying a moment of satisfaction as Matt’s smile faltered and twin spots of color rose across his cheekbones. The kid blushed prettily under his tan, and Jody savored it, completely free of guilt. He left Matt squirming for a beat more before turning serious.

“Look, Matt, all kidding aside, anything I tell you is only going to pull you deeper into this mess. I’ve caused you enough grief as it is.”

“Well,” Matt said, frowning as he repositioned his left leg where it was stretched out over the unforgiving rock floor. “You have a point.”

Jody shot him a wry look but Matt was undeterred. “I appreciate the thought, I do, but I can’t help you if you’re not willing to give me something to work with. And in case you’ve forgotten, I am a duly sworn officer of the law. I’m pretty much as involved as you can get. I can help you, both you and your sister, if you’ll let me.”

Jody looked Matt over. Injured knee, mostly likely in a fair amount of pain, life threatened, with no way to call for help, with no way to know if Jody was truly the injured party or a straight up criminal except his say so, and still, Matt was offering his help. The kid was unbelievable. And he was good. Every word sounded completely sincere, possibly was completely sincere, he made Jody want to spill his guts.

Silently cursing his shit luck, and his apparent sudden weakness for blondes, or maybe just a certain green-eyed blonde, Jody ran a hand over his face. The beginning of a headache was forming behind his eyes. Everything about this sucked ass.

“These people that are after me, they seem to think I have a, uh, let’s just say a rather large amount of money,” he said carefully.

Across from him, Matt waited patiently, and Jody exhaled. “They’re also under the impression that they have a particular right to this money.”

“And do they?” Matt asked quietly.

Jody frowned. “Yes, and no, and this is where it gets complicated.”

“Oh,” Matt said. “I’m pretty sure it got complicated way before now, but please go on.”

Jody struggled not to roll his eyes. “You’re real cute, you know that?”

Grinning, Matt nodded. “I get that a lot. Hey, you didn’t pull, like, a D.B. Cooper thing did you? Is that pack of yours stuffed with hundred dollar bills?”

Jody scoffed. “Of course not. And everybody knows there’s no way Cooper survived that jump.”

“Of course he did,” Matt insisted. “He had it all planned perfectly, jezz, it’s obvious. Wait--was it insider trading? Did you make off with a few mill from the stock exchange or something?” Matt asked.

Cocking an eyebrow at the rather creative leaps of logic, Jody replied incredulously. “Anyone with common sense knows, there’s no way Cooper made that jump and lived. And generally hit men don’t come after you for insider trading, that’s the SEC and the DOJ, and even they don’t take potshots at you with a rifle, last I heard. And do I look like the Wall Street type?”

Matt gave him a slow once over before shrugging. “I could see you in a suit, sure.”

The warmth revisited him, and Jody ignored it, asking pointedly, “Are all rangers this annoying, or is it just you?”

Matt seemed to need a moment to consider the matter. “I’m maybe the least annoying of my team, I think, though my brother Cody would argue that.” After a pause, he amended, “You know on second thought, I’m way more annoying than Avila or Robin, so I’m probably the third least annoying ranger on the mountain--fourth, tops.”

“You’re certifiable,” Jody shot back.

The crooked smile reappeared as Matt assured him, “No more than you, hiking up into the throat of a storm with hit men on your ass.”

Jody scowled. He was avoiding the issue at hand, and Matt knew it, but the less the ranger knew about it all the better. He frowned as Matt tried soothing him. “Hey, I’m just trying to get you to loosen up a little. Seemed like you were about to sprain something there for a second.”

Jody nearly let a laugh slip loose despite his annoyance. “Kid, if you’re the third, maybe fourth, most annoying ranger up here, remind me to never meet the rest of your squad.”

Matt’s smile flattened out at the ‘kid’, but he didn’t offer any more jabs. Instead he made a show of rearranging his pack behind him and getting himself resettled. His jacket gaped open and between its edges Jody saw the base layers Matt wore, a black, high necked fleece shirt with a zipper that ran half way down his chest. Reaching up, Matt unzipped the shirt, and underneath he wore a white cotton t-shirt.

Jody followed suit, unzipping his own jacket, and then shrugged it off his shoulders. Folding it in half, he propped it against his pack and moved around until he could rest his back against the bundle. He hadn’t dressed quite as well as Matt, and wore only a plain, faded green, long sleeved t-shirt with USMC emblazoned across the front.

Matt groaned, and Jody looked up to find the ranger staring at his chest.

“Are you kidding me? Oh, man, that explains so, so much.”

Frowning, Jody glanced down at the USMC logo. The shirt was old, one size too small and too tight across the chest, but he didn’t think that warranted such a reaction from the ranger.

“You got something against the corps?”

Matt snorted. “Nah. My dad’s a Marine, retired. Let’s just say, I know the type.”

Curious, Jody asked, “And you didn’t want to keep up the tradition?”

Matt shook his head as he shifted, seemingly searching for a more comfortable position to rest his leg. “I only ever wanted to be a ranger…well, either that or a downhill alpine skier, but rangering won out in the end.”

Jody absorbed this, gaze lingering on Matt’s discarded ski boots. “How good are you? At downhill, I mean.”

Matt tilted his head, considering his answer. “Pretty good, I guess. Won a few competitions, but when it came down to it, I wanted more than a bunch of trophies, or records. As great as all that was, I wanted to help people, and being a ranger lets me do that.”

The honesty in Matt’s answer had Jody looking away briefly. This was a good man. Jody owed him the truth.

“This all started because of my dad,” he said quietly, raising his eyes to meet Matt’s. He waited a beat, giving Matt a moment to interject, and when he remained silent Jody went on.

“You see, my dad has been chasing the ‘next big thing’ all his life. If it wasn’t some stupid get rich quick scheme, it was the racetrack, or the casino. The only thing he ever got right was getting my mom to fall for him, and he couldn’t hold on to even that.”

Taking a breath, Jody plowed on, leaving out most of the finer details for a condensed version of how he came to be embroiled in his dad’s predicament. “He got in deep with a casino. Deeper than usual. He ended up borrowing money to square himself, only, the people he got the loan from weren’t exactly JP Morgan, you understand?”

Matt nodded, but otherwise kept quiet.

“I don’t know if he realized who he was dealing with from the beginning, or if he was conned into it. Hell, maybe he was conning them, but either way, there was no way in heaven or hell he could pay off that debt. I’m not clear on what all went down, I just know that a few days ago he called my sister, Emmy, saying he was going to leave town. Emmy’s the one that pieced most of this together. She’s the one that’s stayed in touch with him all these years, lends him money, makes sure he has a place to stay when he can’t make the rent. Anyway, she said he was really cagey about why he needed to take off, wouldn’t tell her what was going on, just that he’d be in touch once he got settled.”

Taking a breath, Jody pulled off his beanie. Tossing it aside he raked a hand through his hair, breathing through his frustration. “Emmy knew something was off, that this was more serious than his usual bullshit. She tried to get in touch with me but she didn’t know where I was, exactly. I’d been partying pretty hard out in San Francisco and hadn’t given her the name of the hotel where I was staying.”

Jody left it unspoken that he’d been busy fucking his way through half of San Fran. After years keeping his sexuality a tightly guarded secret, he’d finally had the time and opportunity to be open, to peruse and fuck whomever he wanted without fear of a dishonorable discharge. It’d frankly been a revelation to wake up between the smooth, cool sheets of his hotel room with a man next to him, and not experience a moment of panic as to who might have seen them enter the hotel together.

“After fifteen years in the corp, I’d just signed my discharge papers. I was tearing it up pretty good, and I hadn’t bothered to check in and give her a phone number where she could reach me.”

Jody didn’t try to hide the bitterness in his tone as he added, “I was planning on visiting her, actually had the damned plane ticket in my duffel. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so frantic if I had taken ten fucking minutes to give her a call.”

To his credit Matt remained silent, letting Jody work through the moment. “Anyway, a few days pass and Emmy doesn’t hear from dad again, except, the other morning she turns on the TV and his dumb ass is all over the morning news. They’re saying a man playing slots at the airport won the jackpot. Can you fucking believe that? On the way outta town he can’t resist, stops off at a slot machine and goddamn if he doesn't win.”

Matt smiled incredulously. “That’s wild. How much of a jackpot was it?”

“One hundred, fifty thousand, and some change.”

Giving a low whistle, Matt shook his head. “And it was all over the news.”

“Exactly,” Jody said. “Of course as soon as the goons he was in with found that out, I’m sure they were after his ass, wanting to get paid.”

Jody ran fingers through his hair, raking it back from his face, resisting the urge to pull some out in sheer frustration. “Everything afterwards is just an educated guess. Emmy tried to find dad, but had nothing to go on other than he’d won the jackpot at the airport. At the same time she’s still trying to track me down, leaving a bunch of messages at different hotels. A couple days pass where I can only assume dad spends dodging these assholes, but…”

Matt finished the thought. “But they caught up to him.”

Jody nodded. “Yep. Beat him nearly to death.”

Silence fell between them as Jody flashed on Emmy, waiting for him in the ICU waiting room. Fury buzzed his veins, and he reached for his training to manage himself. Finally, Matt’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “And then?” he prompted gently.

“And then? The motherfuckers show up at the hospital, tell Emmy that she’s in for the same treatment if we don’t pony up the cash, and they mean all the cash, not just what they’re owed. They want the jackpot on top of what dad borrowed. They have her home address, and the name of the kids’ school.”

“Goddamn,” Matt hissed, looking nearly as pissed as Jody felt.

“Emmy finally hits the right hotel. She gets hold of me, nearly out of her mind, tells me what’s happened and what she’s been able to put together.”

“Christ, that’s rough,” Matt said.

“Yeah. Well, I finally got my ass in gear and got on the first plane out.”

Matt pinned Jody with an assessing look. “And then what? You decide to lure these guys up a mountain, in the middle of a storm to take them all out, single-handedly?”


Giving a shrug, Jody said, “Mainly, except I didn’t count on the storm pushing in so soon…or you.”

“And the cash?” Matt asked. “Where did your dad stash it?”

“That’s the thing,” Jody explained. “Nobody fucking knows where he went those couple days from the time he won the jackpot and got hold of the money, to the time these thugs caught up to him. I’ve made out like I have it, so they’d follow me up here and get away from my family. They nearly killed my dad because, I’m assuming, he wouldn’t tell them where it is. I believe that’s the only reason he’s still alive, if you can call being in a medically induced coma ‘alive’.”

Over the last couple minutes Matt had straightened, leaning forward as he listened intently. Now, he sat back and gestured at Jody. “And that’s it?”

Jody nodded. “That’s it.”

Matt’s eyes narrowed, and Jody should’ve known he couldn’t leave that one, final detail out, that Matt would work it out one way or later, but letting Matt in on this last component could change things, and Jody didn’t know what it would mean for either of them.

“And you never, oh, I don’t know, thought to call the cops?” Matt asked evenly.

Jody held Matt’s gaze. “You really don’t need to know, Matt. Just leave it alone.”

To his surprise, Matt didn’t argue, just tilted his head, eyes sharpening as he got his thoughts in order. “Leave it alone, why, exactly?” he asked.

“Listen, you don’t understand,” Jody tried again, but Matt cut him off.

“Except, I think I do,” Matt said flatly, and under the evenness of his tone there was something close to anger. “You know, I can see why you wouldn’t want to call the cops.”

Jody just looked at him, offering nothing

Brows lowered, green eyes flint-hard, Matt said, “I wouldn’t want to call them either, if they’d just beat my father nearly to death and threatened to do the same to my little sister.”

~*~
Chapter 6: Ranger-boy

Jody’s silence and the hard line of his jaw confirmed Matt’s guess. He sat back, digesting all that he’d learned. The thought of police officers perpetuating such a crime turned his stomach, but he’d been around long enough to know things like that, and worse, went on.

“They have a pretty tight setup, I bet,” Matt said slowly, picking it apart and working it out, and he could see it. He could see how, with access to people’s records and information, with the ability to make evidence appear, or disappear, you could take advantage of vulnerable people like Jody’s dad.

“Your dad have a rap sheet? An arrest record?” Matt asked, already knowing the answer before Jody nodded.

“Fairly minor stuff, but yeah, over the years, being who he is and the stuff he’s been into. He served a few months several years ago for destruction of property for getting into a bar fight that caused a fire that almost burned down the Blue Iguana.”

Matt stared. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope,” Jody replied succinctly.

The Blue Iguana was one of the most notorious stripper bars in Las Vegas. In his teen years Matt had gone there on a dare. It’d been a memorable experience. The Blue Iguana featured both female and male strippers. The fire had been a big topic of conversation. Even back when Matt had been there, there had still been a good deal of the bar still cordoned off due to the fire.

“So,” Matt said, getting back on track. “Somehow, however he fell in with them, your dad has occasion to take out a loan with these guys. He must’ve known he wouldn’t be able to pay them back, right? If he’d racked up such a loss he had to cover at the casino?”

Jody shook his head. “I don’t pretend to understand how my dad thinks. I stopped trying a long time ago. Logic just doesn’t jive with his brain. I doubt he thought much beyond his next drink and next card game, and when he got in so far, it was too late.”

“How does he usually get out of the trouble he gets into? You talk like it’s a common enough occurrence,” Matt pointed out.

Jody laughed shortly, a hollow, unhappy sound. “You’d just have to know dad. He’s charming, and for all that he’s made fucking up his life’s work, he’s smart at things like numbers, and knowing how to read people.”

“Really?” Matt said.

“Really. He isn’t…” and Jody trailed off, furrow appearing between his brows as he struggled to make sense of a years long story of disappointment. “He isn’t a bad guy, he just can’t cope with his problems for any length of time. And like I said, he’s smart. Usually he’s smart enough to know not to go to guys like these when he’s in the hole. Usually he figures out a way, a scam, a lie, something…just this time, well, I guess he just had bad luck.”

“He didn’t come to you or your sister?” Matt asked.

Jody shook his head. “He has done, in the past. But I put a stop to that. Emmy and I, we tried to help him for a long time. But, there’s just no helping someone who doesn’t want it, you know?”

Studying Jody’s drawn face, his dark eyes seemed fathomless in the stillness of the cave, and Matt couldn’t say anything for a long moment. He sensed a wealth of emotion behind Jody’s strapped down, troubled gaze, and he felt he had no right to prod any further if it wasn’t constructive to their situation.

“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying, feeling the words inadequate, but moved to express them anyway.

Jody offered him a tight smile. “Thanks,” he said, falling silent.

“Okay,” Matt said, taking a cleansing breath and releasing it. “So your dad ran up some serious debt that came due with the casino, somehow hooked up with these guys, borrowed the money to pay the casino off, then got in even deeper trouble.”

Across from him, Jody nodded, following along, or either just humoring him. Either way, Matt plowed on. “And when he, maybe, figured out he couldn’t get out of the situation, he decided to skip town. Went to the airport, won the jackpot, got his hands on the money and disappeared for a couple days. When he surfaces, I’m guessing, he’d hidden the money someplace, which makes me think he knew he couldn’t just run, at that point, right? Maybe he’d figured out they were cops, maybe some other reason, but whichever, he didn’t feel like he could run.”

Jody said, “Personally, I think they threatened Emmy.”

Matt froze, staring at Jody who spoke with a locked down, strangely blank tone. “That’s one line he’d never cross. He’d never willingly skip out and bring harm like that down on Emmy.”

“So,” Matt followed along, “they found his daughter. Easy to do when you have access, right? Maybe find you, too, only you’re not as easy to get to, not local like she is, not as vulnerable. And who would you go to, if you were your dad? Who do you report this to?”

Jody’s eyes were hooded, and Matt felt the prickle of a new awareness. It felt like the warning drop in the barometer before a storm, like the goose bumps that sometimes rose over his skin when he was out in the field and just knew something wasn’t right. It was fairly exhilarating, in a way, like when he was flying downhill at eighty-five miles per hour, one misstep from disaster. But Matt knew with a sudden certainty, he’d never want to be on the bad end of Jody McKinnon’s quiet anger.

“You pay, or you get disappeared, or some sort of ‘evidence’ appears and you get thrown in jail,” Jody said evenly, as steady and resolute as the granite around them, but underpinning that was something else…an electric sense of deep feeling that Matt sensed like static electricity buzzing in the air.

Matt shook his head, frowning at his wandering thoughts, because there was something there, in what Jody had said, a thread of something he needed to pull on. It was the words, the way Jody said them, that triggered something in Matt, but it took him a couple seconds to key into the memory. It was something Sheriff Mike McBride had told him, about a month prior.

“Wait a minute,” he said, focusing inward, reaching back for the conversation he’d had with McBride, feeling himself picking up the trail, tracking it back to its origin.

“What?” Jody asked.

Matt didn’t answer, but mumbled to himself as the memory clicked in place. “I’ll be damned.”

“Hey!” A hand lightly swatted the top of his right foot. “Ranger-boy, make sense.”

Matt frowned, pulling himself back to the present. “Ranger-boy?”

“What are you mumbling about?” Jody asked, ignoring Matt’s censure.

Shooting Jody an irritated look, Matt explained. “Sheriff McBride came by the station, about a month ago. Wanted to talk to me, and only me. Said that he’d had a colleague, didn’t say who, come to him from local law enforcement, claiming that they’d come across the appearance of impropriety.”

“Appearance of impropriety?” Jody echoed.

Matt nodded. “That’s just their way of saying something squirrely was going on, only they couldn’t prove it yet. Anyway, this colleague, whoever it was, had reason to believe that one or more persons in their department was manufacturing evidence on certain cases. The suspicion was that it was an elaborate shake down of some kind.”

“Sure,” Jody said bitterly. “You get someone in a hole, trump up some ‘evidence’ and threaten them with jail, or worse, who are they gonna go to?”

Feeling sick to his stomach, Matt exhaled. “Yeah, and if you don’t cooperate, you go away, one way or another.”

Eyes black with fury, Jody asked, “And why haven’t these people been stopped? Why hasn’t someone done something?”

Matt shook his head. “Look, I don’t know. That’s all Mike had, at the time. Just said he wanted to let me know in case I noticed anything out of the ordinary since we can get an interesting cross section of people up here sometimes. I haven’t spoken to him about it since.”

Jaw tense, Jody speculated. “And you think these could be the same assholes?”

Matt shrugged. “Who knows? But it seems like hell of a coincidence.”

“So, what now? What do we do about it?” Jody asked.

Leaning back against his pack, Matt said, “First we get down the mountain without getting killed.” Looking Jody in the eye, he said, “Then, we put protection on your sister and your dad, figure out what’s going on, and we take these fucking guys down.”

Jody’s answering smile was sharp, untamed, all the things that Matt had sensed in him made visible, suddenly, in the small gesture. A shiver ran up Matt’s spine even as he smiled grimly back. And there in the darkness of the cave he felt a connection take hold, a sameness of purpose bridging Jody and himself, forged in the night by the light reflecting off the crystalline waters that sprang from the mountain’s very heart.

~*~
Chapter 7: Hawkes are People Too


Jody accepted Matt at his word, and if he was foolish for doing so, fuck it. The ranger had an edge that Jody kept catching glimpses of that called to Jody’s own nature. It invited him to operate alongside Matt on the same frequency. Matt didn’t need to have served in the Marines to possess that edge, it’d been honed in him in other ways Jody wasn’t privy to, but it was there all the same, and Jody trusted the familiarity of it.

Underneath that attractive face and affable, if sometimes irritating, demeanor there lived a steely backbone in Matt Hawkes, and Jody was compelled to know what else might be hidden there, just behind the ranger’s infectious half-smiles and easy confidence.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Jody said, breathing freer than he had since the whole fiasco had begun.

Matt tilted his head. “Well, it’s the start of a plan.”

“Right,” Jody said. “So you got some sort of ranger escape route outta this thing?” He asked, gesturing around at the cavern.

Matt raised a brow. “I do, actually. This cave runs back a ways into the mountain and then it splits. One way leads out to another exit that will put us out onto the eastern face.”


“And the other way?” Jody wanted to know.

Matt shrugged. “Down. Way down, nobody knows how far. We didn’t explore too much that way, but I suspect the source of this spring is down there somewhere.”

“Hmm,” Jody said, imagining flooded caves and waterfalls careening off into the deep dark.

Something must’ve shown in his expression as Matt assured him, “But we won’t be going that way.”

“Good to know.” Jody replied evenly.

“Nah,” Matt said. “We’ll be going up. Like I said, up and then, out. It’s really not far at all, we just need to squeeze through a few restrictions, climb for about a quarter mile, then we’ll pop out on the eastern face where it’s a much, much easier descent down the mountain. Hopefully, we can evade our friends out there; get down to the ranger station.”

“Wait a second, squeeze through what?” Jody asked, eyeing Matt with suspicion. He didn’t like the idea of having to squeeze through anything.

Settling back down, Matt laced his long fingers together over his belly and pulled a face. “It’s nothing, just a couple, well, I wouldn’t say tight places really--it’s just a little close. I’m mean, for me it’ll be a little close, for you…” he trailed off, a frown forming across his features.

“For me, what?” Jody prodded.

“I just mean, you’re pretty big, and it’ll be a little tight for you, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about,” Matt said reassuringly.

Back to wondering if he should slap the kid, or be impressed, Jody allowed a smile. “So, I’m bigger than you?”

Exhaling, Matt rubbed a hand over his face. “Look. I just meant you are-I mean, physically, you’re a pretty big guy and, so naturally, it’ll be a little tougher for you to pass through a couple spots.”

“Oh, naturally.”

“Right,” Matt replied, as if stating the obvious.

“So I’m naturally bigger than you?” Jody needled, unable to keep the grin out of his voice.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Matt snapped. “What are you? Twelve? Just, go to sleep. We need to get some rest.”

Unable to argue with that, Jody waved for Matt to calm down, but couldn’t resist adding, “Hey, I’m just trying to loosen you up a little.”

Echoing Matt’s own teasing words earned Jody a narrow-eyed, sour look. Stretching out, seeking a comfortable position against his folded jacket, he smirked. The cavern floor was hard, but warm, and he’d spent the night in much worse places.

Jody wasn’t sure he’d actually get any sleep, the worry for his sister and father was a constant, unbearable pressure in his mind. A thousand scenarios had played out in his imagination, all ending with his family suffering. Doubt plagued him, and he wondered if he’d made the right decision, coming out here. The people he was dealing with were capable of God knows what, and he’d left Emmy and the kids alone…what if?

Jody shut that line of thought down. He couldn’t allow himself to fall apart, and he knew, if he had it all to do over again, he’d make the exact same decisions, with the possible exception of allowing Matt Hawkes’ involvement, not that he’d had much of a say in that. Jody had meant it when he’d said he didn’t want anyone else mixed up in this mess, though, Jody had to admit, having the ranger around to needle somehow made the strain he was under a little more tolerable.

“When are you going to tell me what you’ve got in that pack, anyway?” Matt asked, pulling Jody from his thoughts.

Matt was watching him, not sleeping, and Jody sighed, figuring it didn’t matter now if he admitted to having a stash of weapons on his person, considering what he’d already admitted to.

“Couple Glocks, couple SIG Sauers, clips for each. Couple knives.” After a moment he added, “Flare gun.”

“Flare gun?” Matt asked, perplexed.

Shrugging, Jody leaned his head back and gazed up at the shimmering rock overhead. “Look, I hit a couple pawn shops on the way out of Vegas. I had my personal sidearm, my Beretta, but I figured I was going to need more firepower than that to deal with these guys. That’s all I could quickly lay hands on. The flare gun was just something the pawn shop threw in.”


A long beat of silence passed, then finally Matt said, “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear any of that.”

Jody smiled up at the mountain. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t say any of that.”

The sigh from his left was long and protracted, and slanting a look Jody watched as Matt turned on his side to face him, frowning as he jostled his knee. “In all seriousness, though, when we get out of this and talk to Sheriff McBride, it’d be best if you left out the part about deliberately luring people out here to kill them.”

Jody raised an eyebrow at Matt’s counsel. Maybe the ranger wasn’t as straight-laced as he looked. Maybe Matt understood that, when it came to family, you did what you had to do, and damn the consequences. “These aren’t ‘people’. They’re scum.”

“Look, I hear you,” Matt allowed. “But in a court of law that won’t matter.”

Jody scoffed. “A court of ‘law’? What law, Matt? Whose law? Seems to me it’s the fucking criminals running the show. You know, I didn’t serve my country for fifteen fucking years to come home to have my family threatened and attacked.”

“I know,” Matt said quietly once Jody subsided a bit. “Lawyers, the courts, it’s all a mess, I hear you. My dad feels the same way. It’s why he quit the rangers, because of how the courts handled one of his cases, but it's the best game in town.”

Shaking his head, Jody didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Every minute he spent not knowing what was happening with Emmy and his dad was a torment, and he didn’t want to hear about how he should abide by the law when those sworn to uphold it had not only failed him, but betrayed and victimized his family.

“Your dad, you said? Would he be Jesse Hawkes?”

Matt nodded his head as he reached down to rub his knee. “The one and only.”

“You know, when I was a kid, people talked about him like he could pretty much walk on water,” Jody said.

Matt regarded Jody with a wry smile. “Yeah.”

Sensing a thread of tension in his tone, Jody guessed, “But not you?”

Cutting him a look, Matt hesitated, but he seemed to understand Jody needed a change in topic. When he did finally reply, he just sounded tired. “I did too, sure. But, eventually, I found out that Jesse Hawkes is just as human as everybody else.”

They shared a long look, and when Jody opened his mouth say…something, he wasn’t sure what, Matt interrupted him. “Let’s just get some sleep, okay? I’m beat.”

Matt sounded older than a man of his age should, and Jody got it. He watched as Matt folded back his jacket sleeve, revealing a black G-Shock digital watch. “I’m going to set an alarm for a few hours from now,” he said as he pressed at the tiny buttons on the watch until it beeped. “Try and get as much sleep as you can.”

Jody nodded, watching light and shadows slide across Matt’s face as he settled down next to the spring, shifting around for a moment before resting his head against his backpack and closing his eyes. Jody stared at his profile for a long moment, wanting to offer something more to thank this man for believing him, for being willing to help.

“Thank you,” he finally said into the quiet space between them. Matt was already asleep, chest rising and falling in a gentle, regular rhythm.

Jody studied him, the fall of blonde hair over his forehead, the absurdly long eyelashes curling against his cheek. He looked too young to be heading up a group like the rangers, to be the bearer of so much responsibility. Jody could easily envision him as one of the local mountain kids, living for the ski season, spending carefree days on the slopes, maybe working his way through college by picking up a seasonal job at one of the many resorts.

Shaking his head at his desultory imaginings, Jody drew in a deep breath and exhaled it. He was exhausted, but also felt strangely, cautiously optimistic. He had an ally, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d just needed someone to talk things out with until now. It’d taken some of the burden off his shoulders, and he needed every advantage he could get.

Matt Hawkes. And how random was their meeting? How unlikely? He didn’t know if Matt’s plan would lead them to safety, or headlong into more trouble, but Jody wanted to trust him. Jody had never trusted quickly, or easily, but there was a steadiness and competence to Matt that invited it.

Maybe Matt would actually be able to help. Or, maybe the kid was just an excellent con man, humoring Jody until he could get him down the mountain and arrest him. Either could be true, but as his body relaxed in the warmth provided by the spring, sheltered by the indomitable mountain, Jody wanted to believe. Maybe, he needed to believe.

Worry for his family besieged him, and if he was making a mistake trusting Matt, they’d pay the price for his misjudgment. Letting his mind drift, he thought of Matt’s teasing, crooked smile. Jody knew it was far too soon for absolutes, but he’d made the decision to take Matt at his word, and somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.

~*~
Chapter 8: Under the Mountain

The shots rang out, over and over, and that was all wrong. In reality, Matt knew there’d only ever been just the one shot. It’d taken only one to murder Merlin. Still, Matt could hear them, crack-crack-cracking through the clear, clean air, reverberating off the rock face of the mountain looming over them. Blood sprayed out over Merlin’s white jacket, soaking his ranger patch, making a bloody emblem of it, and that wasn’t right either. Merlin had been hit in the back, shot right off his snowmobile; his blood had spilled out beneath him, had spread out over the pristine snow.

Yet, the result of the dream, even with all its errors, was the same as his reality. Matt hadn’t stopped it from happening, hadn't managed to get Merlin to listen to his warnings. Matt hadn’t been able to stop the spread of blood over the snow, or the injustice of it all.

Crack-CRACK-CRACK.

“Matt.”

On the day, Merlin had never spoken, had never had a chance to say anything, and certainly had never called out to Matt, but he answered anyway, hoping.

“Come on, Merl. Stay with me.”

“Matt!”

Matt jerked awake, throwing up his arms up against the dark figure looming over him.

“Whoa! It’s just me,” McKinnon said, one of his big hands splayed over Matt’s heaving chest, keeping him pinned down against his pack.

Matt froze, unsure of where he was for an instant before the previous day’s events came filtering back through the haze of the nightmare. He stared into McKinnon’s-into Jody’s-eyes. Those piercing, dark eyes that were seeing more than Matt wanted him to, just then.

“I’m okay,” he blurted, disliking the unsteadiness of his voice.

Slowly withdrawing his hand, Jody eased away. “Your alarm is going off.”

Belatedly, Matt registered the annoying beep-beep-beep of his watch. He nodded, and reaching over, shut it off.

“I’m okay,” he repeated, absently rubbing a hand over the place Jody had touched him. His heart was pounding, and somehow it helped having an anchoring weight there.

Jody waited another beat, never breaking eye contact but moved back to sit by the spring. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Matt said, lifting his hand to rub it over his face and rake fingers through his hair.

“Nightmare, huh?” Jody asked, tilting his head and observing Matt with that same focused, intent way of his.

Grunting as he sat up Matt said, “Yeah,” and left it at that. His back hurt, his knee hurt, his ass was numb but worst of all was the visual of Merlin laid out in the snow, superimposed over the shadows of the cave, a clinging afterimage.

Raising a brow, Jody remained silent. He must’ve been up for some time. The water bottle was full again, sitting at Matt’s side along with a couple beef jerky sticks. Matt stared at them, uncomprehending, for a full ten seconds before realizing Jody had placed them there for Matt’s benefit.

He hated the nightmare, but even worse was the interval afterwards, after he’d woken up and realized it was all a dream, and yet his brain still wouldn’t make the connection that Merlin had died ten months ago. That it was all over. Matt had gone to Merlin’s funeral, had emptied out his locker at the station, had filed all the fucking paperwork in triplicate because, God forbid, the paperwork not be neat and tidy.

The nightmare always felt so fucking real, and he hated it, how it made him feel and all the shit it stirred up.

“Want to talk about it?”

Startled out of his thoughts Matt shook his head. “Nope.”

Jody sighed without comment, and stretching out his long legs, leaned back on his hands by the spring. The USMC logo drew tight over his chest, the outline of his pectorals clearly defined under the faded and cracked gold lettering. The green cotton of the tee stretched taut over his muscular biceps and fitted like a second skin around him where his torso tapered down to a trim waist. His pants fitted equally well around strong thighs, the black material snug all the way down his long legs.

Matt took a moment to admit to himself that Jody McKinnon was a damned good looking man, and then resolutely pushed that admission to the back of his mind.

Jody still had his boots on, whether he’d slept in them all night or had just donned them again this morning Matt could only guess, then wondered why it mattered. Picking up a stick of jerky, he gestured with it at Jody. “Thanks.”

Jody dipped his head in acknowledgment.

Matt sat up straighter, fiddled with the jerky a second before finally giving up and setting it aside. “Sorry, it’s just some memories coming back on me.”

Jody shrugged like it was no big deal. “No problem, man. If anyone gets it, I do.”

Matt felt compelled to explain. He didn’t want Jody thinking that he didn’t have his shit together. The man had enough on his mind as it was. “A friend of mine was shot, killed in the line of duty, not far from here, about a year ago.” Trailing off, his gaze dropped away from Jody to the shadows just behind his shoulder.

It’d been sunny, a beautiful day on the mountain…Jody’s quiet voice drew him out of the memory. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

Matt looked up. “Thanks. Last year was--was a real bitch, you know?” He tried on a smile, felt it stick for only a moment before he gave it up.

“Sounds like it,” Jody told him, holding his gaze.

For a few seconds they studied one another. Matt figured that Jody did, indeed, know. In a strange way, he felt as connected to McKinnon in that moment as he was to the mountain surrounding them.

Finally looking away, Matt retrieved his jerky, got it open and before biting off a piece, asked, “Any chance I could get that foot massage now?”

A smile pulled at Jody’s lips. “You don’t listen, Hawkes. Do High Mountain Rangers not know how to count? Not until the third date, this is only the second.”

Brows rising, Matt looked at him questioningly. Jody explained, “This is day two, so, second date.” Jody waved his hand between them as if the conclusion was obvious.

Flashing a grin, Matt grabbed the water bottle, tipped it Jody’s way. “Well, good things come to those who wait, I guess,” he said, and took a long swig.

The quiet reply came as Matt was finishing his drink, so initially he wasn’t sure of Jody’s reply, but what he thought he heard was, “I certainly hope so.”

Swallowing, Matt didn’t know if Jody meant the foot rub, or something else altogether, and he deemed it best not to tease the man any further as Jody had a habit of teasing him back, but he didn’t stop the smile curving his lips.

A few minutes passed as Matt finished his meager breakfast. He watched as Jody unfolded his jacket and slipped it back on but didn’t zip it up. He retrieved his pack and spent a minute poking through it. Matt got his own gear in order, stashing his trash, checking through the climbing ropes and carabiner clips that he and Tim didn’t manage to use last time they explored the cave. He and Jody wouldn’t need them today, either, but Matt decided to take it all with him anyway.

Matt decided not to don his ski boots and instead stuffed them in his bag. He’d rather make the trip out in socked feet than try and negotiate the cavern in the cumbersome boots. He knew the route they were taking was dry, so other than his feet getting a little cold, he should be fine. However fast the boots made him on the slopes, they’d be pretty uncomfortable walking through the cave. Jody raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t comment.

Discreetly excusing himself, Matt shook out his legs, limped down the cavern a ways, and ducking behind an outcropping of rock relieved himself. Making his way back to the spring he found Jody had already refilled the water bottle with snow and had his pack settled on his back. Matt got his on as well, pulling his gloves on along with his helmet. Fastening the strap under his chin, he pivoted around, looking to see if there was anything they were forgetting.

Grabbing the flashlight and the water bottle, he decided to leave their ski poles where they lay, back at the cave’s entrance. They’d be more in the way, than of any real use as they climbed their way out. Looking over at Jody, he asked, “Ready?”

Jody nodded. “Following you, boss.”

Matt pulled a face at him, then turned and pointed the light out in front of them. He wished he had his head lamp but it was stowed with the rest of his climbing gear in the equipment room back at the ranger station. They started off, Matt limping along, one hand on the cave wall, the other holding the flashlight out to illuminate the ground ahead.

For a time it was easy going, nothing more demanding than following a fairly smooth, though winding, path through the mountain. From time to time the walls curved inward, necessitating each man to turn sideways and shuffle along for a few feet, but nothing too serious. Matt recalled his first trip through and kept up a running commentary to Jody about what he and Tim had noted back then, the different types of rock, the different formations and how many thousands of years it’d taken to form them.

Jody replied with the odd comment or question, and time wheeled by as the ground beneath their feet gradually rose. At one point the mountain above their heads seemed to crack open, revealing a soaring cathedral ceiling filigreed with stalactites. Pausing to give his knee a rest, Matt pointed them out to Jody who peered upwards, his mouth falling open slightly at the dizzying vaulted space above. The beam of the flashlight barely reached over the long distance to illuminate the hundreds of formations, hanging down like ice sickles frozen in time.

After about thirty minutes they reached the first restriction. After the general ease of the route so far, Matt knew things were about to get a little more interesting. He’d been a tad generous when he’d mentioned this part previously, and he hoped Jody wouldn’t hold it against him.

Matt turned around. “Okay, you’re going to have to take that off.” He gestured to the pack on Jody’s back.

Jody slipped the backpack off without comment, eyeing the narrow passage past Matt’s shoulder. Where previously the cavern had opened up above them to reveal soaring heights, here it tapered down in the extreme. The path they followed disappeared underneath a boulder the size of a Volkswagen, and the only way forward was a small opening at its very bottom shaped vaguely like a keyhole. The rock hung over the opening, wedged against the walls of the narrowed passageway.

“What the fuck, Hawkes?”

Biting his lip against the ache in his knee, Matt knelt at the opening, shining the light through it to confirm that the way ahead was clear and had not been obstructed by a rock fall since the last time Matt had passed through.


“It looks worse than it is,” he said, trying to keep his tone upbeat as he eyed the opening and thought of Jody’s wide, muscular chest.

“You’re nuts.”

Sitting back, Matt pushed his helmet back a little and looked up. “Look, if you go into this convinced you won’t make it you’ll find all kinds of ways to get hung up. Just relax, let yourself ease into the space, and don’t tense up.”

Standing over him, Jody looked about ten feet tall, but Matt knew he was right. Jody would fit, but if the man panicked then he’d make himself not fit. It was just a matter of mindset, and staying calm.

“I think your spatial awareness needs work, kid.”

Grabbing hold of the rock wall, Matt pulled himself up to stand by Jody’s side, barely avoiding rolling his eyes. He was twenty-four years old, for fuck’s sake, and he guessed Jody couldn’t be more than ten years his senior. The whole ‘kid’ thing was getting old.

“You’ll do fine.”

Jody looked skeptical at best, but he knelt down all the same. Standing at his shoulder, Matt angled the flashlight beam into the keyhole. “You’ll want to lie down, extend your arms and reach through,” he said. Jody looked up at him, brown eyes almost black in the low light. Matt felt their interrogating intensity, a warm press against his awareness.

“Once you’ve got your arms through, reach up and feel the rock on the other side. You’ll know exactly what I mean. Just grab hold and pull yourself the rest of the way through.”

Normally, Matt would direct Jody to go through on his belly, but the way the floor canted up at this particular spot, it was easier to slide through on one’s back.

“Wait a minute,” Jody said. “Why am I going first? You’re the caveman.”

Matt bit his lip to keep from laughing. “It’s better that you go, then me.”

“Why is that?” Jody asked, furrow appearing between his brows.

“Well, technically, I need to stay on this side so if, on the very unlikely event you get stuck I can pull you back out.”

“Stuck,” Jody echoed, eyes narrowing.

“But you won’t,” Matt hurried to say. “It’s just procedure,” he reasoned, figuring Jody would respond to that, being ex-military, and besides, it was true.

“You owe me a beer for this,” Jody said firmly as he knelt down.

Nodding, Matt said, “No problem, our third date is on me.”

Tilting his face up, Jody smiled, and it was such a change from his glower from a moment before that Matt automatically smiled back. “I’m looking forward to it,” was all he said.

Matt blinked, experiencing a moment of warm uncertainty as Jody’s gaze held for a couple more seconds, and then he realized he was being teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Marine. Fire in the hole, and all that.”

Breaking the connection, Jody snorted in amusement. “If only you knew,” he said, turning back to the task at hand.

Expelling a breath, Jody turned and lay down on his back. Lifting his arms he extended them through the hole and moved his shoulders, inching his way through the opening. He’d left his jacket unzipped, and his green t-shirt rode up, exposing a couple inches of pale skin above the waistband of his pants. Matt glimpsed the strip of flat stomach dusted with dark hair and turned away to slip off his pack.

Setting the flashlight down, Matt readied himself for his turn as Jody worked his way through. After a moment, though, Jody was still wedged in the hole. Glancing down, Matt saw he had passed through up to his waist, but wasn’t going any further. His legs were moving, boots scraping against the rock.

Retrieving the flashlight Matt pointed the beam at Jody. Realizing that no forward progress was being made, he carefully knelt down at Jody’s feet, looking to see what the problem was.

“I’m fucking stuck.” Before Matt could respond, Jody added, “I’m going to kill you.”

Shaking his head, Matt was careful to keep the grin out of his voice. “You’re not stuck, and you’re not going to kill me.”

“I can't move, Matt,” Jody insisted, his words slightly muffled by the rock between them. To his credit, he wasn’t struggling or panicking, but Matt detected a definite tightness in his voice.

Moving closer, Matt slipped off his gloves, nudged his way between Jody’s legs, and laid a hand on Jody’s thigh. “Stay still. Let me see what you’re hung on, okay? You are not stuck, just, temporarily impeded.”

“Not a fucking lot of difference for my perspective.”

Giving the firm muscle beneath his hand a reassuring squeeze, Matt said, “You’re fine, I promise.” He leaned in, peering at the rock flush against Jody’s belly. “Ah,” he said. “I see the problem. The waistband of your pants is hung on a little rock spur.”

“You owe me dinner, a movie, and a beer, and not the cheap stuff, either,” Jody complained.

“I’m freeing you know,” Matt told him as he reached out, then paused. “Uh, I’m going to have to reach in there-“

Jody cut him off. “Just fucking do it. I don’t really think this is some elaborate plan to feel me up, though I’d have to say it’d be an original approach.”

Smiling as he slid his hand up Jody’s thigh and slipped his fingers under the waistband of Jody’s pants, Matt said, “Okay, just making sure we’re all on the same page.”

Feeling warm skin against the backs of his fingers, Matt gave a firm tug and the material slipped off the spur.

“There, try now,” he said, quickly pulling back. Slipping his gloves back on, he watched with approval as Jody shimmed the rest of the way through, disappearing through the restriction. Grabbing the flashlight Matt rolled it through as well.

There was a moment of darkness as Jody got himself settled on the other side, then repositioned the light so that it flowed back through the hole for Matt’s benefit. Grabbing Jody’s backpack, Matt grunted as his knee protested at being bent as he leaned forward and shoved the pack halfway through. Quickly enough it was pulled the rest of the way by Jody, and reaching back Matt grabbed his own pack and pushed it through as well.

Crouching on the unforgiving rock for a couple minutes had his knee aching, and by the time Matt lay on his back, wiggled into the hole and reached up and pulled himself through, the ache ratcheted up to a full fledged throb. Pushing himself up to sit on the other side, he reached out and rubbed at the bunched muscle just above his kneecap, biting his lip. Standing was gonna hurt, once he worked up the nerve to do it.

Jezz, what a way to uphold your image in front of the Marine.

Sensing his predicament, Jody stepped around him. “Need a hand?”

Matt wanted to say no, but admitted, “Yeah, actually. Thanks.”

Reaching down, Jody slipped his hands underneath Matt’s arms. “On three, okay?”

Matt nodded, and Jody counted down, “One, two, three,” and with a grunt lifted Matt to his feet in one, smooth haul.

“Fuck, you’re strong,” Matt blurted as he reached out and got a grip on the rock behind him. He suppressed the instinct to reach out and grab Jody, who stood right in front of him and presented a multitude of tempting handholds. Hopping on his right foot, Matt kept his left held up off the ground, not quite ready to fully extend his leg.

Christ, he must think I’m a total idiot.

Normally, Matt had a firm hold on his thoughts, and didn’t go around blabbing every scrap of idea in his mind, but the admission had just slipped out. Jody’s lips quirked into a closed mouth smile, and Matt spent a second wishing the cave’s floor would just swallow him whole. He prayed the blush heating his cheeks would go unnoticed, but figured his luck wasn’t that good.

Jody dropped his big hands down to bracket Matt’s waist, holding him steady as Matt gingerly lowered his left foot to the chilly rock floor. Extending his leg hurt, but it wasn’t unmanageable, thank God. The surety of Jody’s hands on him had Matt wanting to lean into that hold. It was pure instinct. At the realization of what he was about to do, he swiftly pulled back, pressing his back against the rough rock instead.

With the mountain behind him, and Jody’s solid wall of a chest practically brushing against his, Matt felt uniquely steadied, wholly protected. He tried to remember when was the last time he’d had a man’s hands on him that felt protective, that felt supporting, without wanting something in return. He couldn’t.

Fuck, but it felt good. But, you don’t lean on the people you are rescuing, not that Matt was convinced that was what he was doing for Jody. What he was doing, however, was getting way the hell off task. Focusing on the throb in his knee, the numbing chill against the bottoms of his feet, he centered himself.

Most important of all, he kept his stupid mouth shut against anymore observations as to the freakish physical strength Jody McKinnon seemed to possess. Jody must have read the passing conflict on his face as he dipped his head, catching Matt’s eyes. “You good, baby?”

Almost groaning, Matt covered it by patting Jody’s forearm. “I’m good. Thanks for the assist.” He felt awkward and a little lost, like the time his first real crush, Jake Finnely, had kissed him behind the football stadium and called him ‘pretty’.

“Anytime,” Jody replied, his full bottom lip curving as he smiled down at Matt.

“Um,” Matt managed, and Jody abruptly removed his hands, stepping back.

Both men busied themselves by getting their packs resettled on their backs. Silently Jody handed over the flashlight and stepped aside. Matt had to turn sideways in order to move up the passage, and he passed so close he could feel Jody’s breath warm on his cheek. Jody’s hand rose up, a brief, careful touch against Matt’s side as he shuffled-limped by.

Matt started forward, washing the passage ahead with the beam of the flashlight. He felt, more than heard, Jody pause behind him, allowing Matt to advance ahead a pace or two. A little of the blush still stinging his cheeks, Matt opened his mouth, hesitated, then thought fuck it, and tossed over his shoulder, “You a steak guy? Because I know a place. Perfect third date stuff.”

~*~
Chapter 9: Irritating Rangers

“Steak? You just name the time and place, my friend,” Jody replied, keeping it light.

For his part Matt just cocked an eyebrow at him, turned away and started back up the passage.

The endearment had just come out, as natural as breathing. “Baby”. Just a throwaway flirt, nothing they both hadn’t been doing already, alluding to dates and foot rubs and the like. There’d been an undertone of mutual attraction running between them for a minute now, and Jody hadn’t missed the lean in Matt started to act on, but didn’t follow through with.

It was not a big deal. It happens sometimes, between people in stressful situations, for a myriad of reasons. It happened often, he guessed.

Jody exhaled.

That blush though…that blush, and that almost shy dip of Matt’s head as Jody had held him, had Jody’s mind tracking along lines of a different sort. He wondered if that little glimpse of nerves was just an illusion, or if Matt still held within himself a brushstroke of sweetness that life hadn’t yet beat out of him, the way life tended to do. Jody wondered what it would take to find out, and then shut down that line of thought.

He was exaggerating, he decided, seeing things that weren’t really there. It was St. Elmo’s fire, a phantom heat, a brush of electricity snapping between them. That’s what Jody told himself as he followed Matt through halls of rock that shrank and widened and shrank again around them.

God, he really was losing it, comparing Matt Hawkes to a flashing fire in the darkness, showing Jody all his colors, bit by bit. He barely knew the kid…man. Barely knew what he, himself, was doing, letting all this nonsense distract him…only, he didn’t feel distracted…it didn’t feel like nonsense.

That was the problem, he realized. His attraction to Matt felt like instinct, like muscle memory, as easy and natural as breathing, and Jody as a rule, always listened to his instincts.

Minutes slipped by, and he fell back into the dark thoughts threading through his mind rooted in doubt, and uncertainty. He’d give five years off his life just to know what was going on with his sister and father, just then. A dozen horrific scenarios flashed through his mind before he rubbed a hand over his face in frustration.

Letting his imagination run wild did no one any good. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, he quickly realized the air here felt fresher. He said as much to Matt.

Matt didn’t pause in his climb, but he did throw Jody a glance over his shoulder. “Good catch. Means we’re getting close to the end of the line.”

Jody smiled a little at the praise, and turned his thoughts to the trial ahead, shoving his fears and half-formed hopes about flickering flames behind a door in his mind, he slammed it shut and locked it. Once they got going down the mountain, he’d have to keep a tight grip on his focus. Spiraling into worry about Emmy, or lingering over some burgeoning attraction to Matt Hawkes were both distractions he couldn’t afford.

“What do you think the storm’s doing now?” he wondered, knowing the weather would be a major element they’d have to deal with, but mostly just wanting to keep his brain occupied. He did not relish the idea of having to travel through white-out conditions, especially since the whereabouts of their ‘friends’ were unknown.

“It’s blown itself out, by now,” Matt said with the same surety one might say the sky was blue, or water was wet. Jody watched as Matt slithered through another restriction, having to turn his body at an angle and side-step his way through. Once on the other side, he paused, illuminating the path for Jody.

Jody studied the narrow gap, then eyed Matt with a frown. “How do you know that?” he asked.

Matt shrugged. “I just know.”

Exhaling an annoyed breath, Jody popped open the snaps on his jacket and stripped it off. This looked to be another tight fit to his eye, and damned if he was going to be ‘temporarily impeded’ again. Stepping into the gap, he found he could just slot his body into the space without getting stuck…barely. He grumbled, “That’s so vague and irritating, you realize.”

Matt didn’t reply until Jody was through the gap. His gaze dropped down to rest against Jody’s chest. Dust had smeared over the USMC logo where the cotton was stretched tightest, from where Jody’s chest had scrubbed against the rock. “What?” he asked, furrow appearing between his brows before pulling his eyes back up to meet Jody’s.

Noting Matt’s gaze, Jody looked down at his chest, and brushed absently at the dust on his t-shirt. He decided he’d leave his jacket off until they reached the exit. Looking up, he watched as Matt turned away, waving Jody onward with the flashlight.

“What’s irritating?” Matt asked, picking up the conversation again.

Watching Matt limp along, Jody told him, “You. Youare irritating.”

The light swung back his way, pooling at his feet as Matt had the good manners not to shine it directly in Jody’s face. “I really don’t—oh,” he said, making the connection.

Jody snorted, earning a scowl from the ranger. He shouldn't have been nearly as entertained as he felt. He watched as Matt’s scowl evened out, expression turning thoughtful. “It’s just…a feeling.” Matt gestured around them at the mountain. “The air pressure, the air itself, how it feels, how it smells, even. Just…how it moves, how the storm felt as we moved through it. It rolled in much earlier than predicted, I’m guessing it rolled out just as fast.”

Jody peered at Matt through the glowing beam of the flashlight, bouncing off the rock around them as Matt held it canted between them. His white ranger uniform stood out against the shadows, and as Jody looked, everything about Matt Hawkes seemed to stand out remarkably; the width of his shoulders, the slimness of his waist, the intelligence in his green eyes. And then there was that tilted smile of his that appeared with regularity, the one that gave Jody an odd feeling of satisfaction whenever he saw it.

“I see what you’re saying, I guess,” Jody said, hesitating to say more, uncertain how to explain what he was after, but still wanting it.

Matt seemed to clue in to the thread of his intent, that Jody meant that there was more to it than weather predictions because he said, “I’ve lived here all my life. My dad taught me a lot, how to listen to the mountain. How to read its signs.” He lifted one shoulder, as if that was the best he could do to explain, but Jody nodded, feeling a filament of understating begin to take hold.

“Kinda like, when you’re part of a unit for a long time, one that really gels, and you just, tap into one another, almost finish one another’s sentences,” Jody said.

Matt tilted his head, and reached up to push his helmet back a little, eyes holding Jody’s gaze. “Yeah, maybe. Something like that.”

They regarded one another. There, in the depths of Matt’s mountain, of Jody’s former home, he thought maybe he was tapping into something. It was an elusive feeling, like remembering the echo of a song he’d once known, but couldn’t quite recall the melody of. He felt as if something was reaching out, seeking to connect with him. Whatever it was, he wanted to know it, understand it, but before he could get a handle on his thoughts Matt said, “Hey, do you hear that?”

Jody cocked his head, listening, and there, hovering just below his awareness if he hadn’t been actively searching for it, was a soft rushing sound. “Yeah,” he said slowly, watching as Matt pivoted and moved forward with new vigor.

“Come on, that means we’re almost out.”

Experiencing his own surge of energy, Jody followed, noting that the ground beneath his feet angled up at a greater degree. Ahead of him, Matt reached a turn in the passage and waited until Jody took the two strides needed to draw even by his side. There, tucked into the side of the mountain was a crack about as tall as Matt and twice as wide. He pointed the flashlight beam into the void and Jody peered in. The beam washed over a jumble of rocks just inside the threshold, but beyond that, the floor seemed to drop down into nothingness. Down there, at some unknown depth, was the source of the rushing sound.

“What’s down there?” Jody asked, turning away from the darkness and studying Matt’s profile.

Matt leaned on the jagged edge of the crack, squinting, as if he could see the bottom of the cavern if he strained hard enough. “That’s the spring. There’s a waterfall down there, that’s what you’re hearing.”

Jody pulled his gaze away from Matt and swung back to face the blackness past the reach of the flashlight beam. He had a sudden wish to see them, the falls, see what an underground waterfall looked like. There’d been no sign of their hot spring since leaving the cavern where they spent the night. But obviously it had to come from someplace, have a source somewhere. Jody peered around at the rock walls, angled about them, and wondered if he chose just the right spot to tunnel into, if the spring would come gushing out. It felt a little magical, this hidden world under the mountain. Any other time he’d be thoroughly enjoying himself, despite his complaints at every restriction that required him to shimmy, wiggle or flat out crawl his way through.

Pushing away, Matt tipped his head back to the pathway they’d been following all morning. “Come on, it’s not far now.” But as he stepped back, his gaze slid again to the crack in the wall. “One day I’ll come back and see what’s down there, but not today.”

Shaking off his fanciful thoughts, Jody pulled his jacket back on and rolled his shoulders. “Good luck with that. I’d like to see the falls, but I don’t know, this type of squeezing into tiny places ain’t made for guys like me.”

There was a second or two of silence.

“Aw, don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it, babe,” Matt quipped, his smile aimed point blank at Jody.

Looking up from buttoning his jacket, Jody met that crooked smile head on. He blinked, reached for a witty reply, something snarky that would bat Matt’s quip right back, and add a point to Jody’s side of the scoreboard. Fingers still grasping the seams of his jacket, Jody had nothing. Matt generously waited a beat, his smile straightening out, melding in something rueful before swinging around and pointing the flashlight up the passage. With a last glance over his shoulder, he started off, leaving Jody to either follow, or be left standing in the dark listening to hidden waterfalls.

~*~
Chapter 10: Stress Flirting and Grenades

Matt imagined he could feel the weight of Jody’s gaze on him as they ascended, but as they neared the exit, his thoughts turned to his team. He was worried for them, and for what events might have transpired during the stormy night. Not only were there armed men roaming the mountain, the storm itself posed a significant danger to anyone having to venture out into it, regardless whether or not they had trained for such conditions.

God, let them all be okay…you fucking owe me one, remember?

The specter of Merlin hovering fresh in his mind, Matt knew it’d crush him if he lost another friend that way. It didn’t matter that they all knew the risks when they signed up. It didn’t matter that shit happened and people got hurt, sometimes for no good reason. It didn’t matter that, sometimes, there were no answers to impossible questions.

Rounding the last bend in the passage, Matt stopped, and pointed up the way. Hovering at his shoulder, Jody saw what Matt saw, an irregular shaped slice of clear winter sky. It glowed above them like a shard of stained glass, a sunny sapphire. They’d made it. The few remaining feet to the opening necessitated climbing over a tumble of loose rock that rolled and shifted under their weight. Jody worked at Matt’s side, hand wrapping around Matt’s bicep, keeping him on an even keel as he struggled with his bum knee as they scrambled their way up.

Drawing even with the opening, Matt shut off the flashlight, blinking against the sunshine flooding the egress. After their time in the deeply shadowed cave with only the flashlight beam as a guide, it was dazzling. His prediction proved correct; the storm had blown itself out overnight, leaving behind a sky scrubbed clean, a high bowl of immaculate blue with not a cloud in sight. At his side Jody drew in deep draughts of fresh air, his wide chest straining the cotton of his t-shirt as he breathed in, and out again.

“Let me guess, you just ‘knew’,” Jody said, indicating the clear plain of sky with a wry look. Matt shrugged, pressing his lips together to keep from grinning, and chose not to comment. Jody rolled his eyes, and Matt pretended not to notice.

They rested for a few moments, surveying the outer world and savoring the clean, icy air. Sharing a look, Matt nodded and Jody took the lead. He peered out, and seeing no sign of movement, wiggled his way into the daylight. Disturbed by his passage, snow tipped back into the cave, Matt averted his face but not before getting an eyeful of Jody’s ass outlined in his black pants as he crawled out. After a few seconds Jody’s gloved hand extended down, fingers splayed. Matt reached up and grabbed on, wrapping his fingers around Jody’s wrist and grunting as Jody’s strong fingers clamped around him, and he was hauled up the last couple feet.

Jody held on until Matt had his balance on the outside, only letting him go when Matt nodded, saying, “Thanks, I’m good.” The imprint of Jody’s strong grip lingered, a warm wrap around his bare wrist. Holding up a hand against the glare of the sun on virgin snow, Matt blinked rapidly several times. Pushing to his knees he shrugged out of his pack, unzipped it, and pulled out his dark tinted goggles. He spent a couple seconds getting rid of his helmet, stuffing it back into his pack and rubbing a gloved hand over his scalp vigorously before slipping the goggles on. Sighing as the glare radiating off the sparkling slope lessened considerably, he looked over to find Jody donning a pair of aviator sunglasses, pulled from the depths of his jacket.

Matt knew for a fact Jody had a pair of ski goggles someplace. Of course, the aviators looked way cooler. His gaze tripped over Jody’s profile, framed against the smooth sky, and stuck. The scruff of his beard outlined the sharp line of his jaw. Dark slashing brows were drawn together and he surveyed the mountainside falling away below them. With the curve of his bottom lip and the ridge of his nose limned in sunlight, his dark hair falling around his face, Jody seemed to belong there, up on the wild shoulder of the mountain.

Matt flashed on an image of Jody in uniform, of mottled, sand colored fatigues stretched tight over broad shoulders, a rifle in his hands as he hung off the side of a black helicopter with the sunlight sliding over him. Shaking his head, Matt pushed the sun-edged imaginings from his mind.

Man, I gotta get laid.

Sunlight glinted against the gold tone frame of Jody’s shades as he turned his head, canvassing the area, and Matt pulled his gaze away. Digging in his pack he drew out his ski boots, mumbling irritability as the bindings caught on the pack’s zipper. Yanking it free, he shuffled around, sitting down in the snow and stuffing his feet in the boots, quickly snapping the bindings closed.

His knee ached and Matt pressed his lips together, praying that the joint held until they could get down to safety. Slapping Jody on the shoulder, Matt motioned for him to follow. He moved up the rock wall with Jody in tow, retreating underneath a great spur of granite that jutted out from the mountain face, a hooked nose of free hanging rock. Crouching beneath its shadow, Matt sketched out their general location, and the way down.

“We’re on the eastern side now. See how this saddle falls away into that copse of Sugar Pines?”

Jody’s eyes followed the invisible line Matt drew with his hand across the whited out landscape. In the distance the thicket of tall, thick trunked pines towered over the landscape, mantled as the rest of the world was, in white. “We’ll head down that way, cut through that copse. There’s a ridge down there, a little ways in. You can’t see it from here, but we can follow along its spine, right down to the main ski slope.”

“Okay,” Jody said agreeably. “How far is the slope from here?”

Matt drew in a breath, considering. “About a mile. It’d be quicker to cut across the ridge, head down in a straight line, but we’d have to have backcountry skis for that…or just, skis period.” He hitched one shoulder up. “Keeping atop the ridge will be quicker with us on foot. The snow won’t be as deep there.”

Jody nodded as Matt added, “If we get separated—

“We won’t,” Jody cut in firmly.

Matt sighed. “But if we do, just stick to the ridge. It’ll take you right down. There’s probably course workers out already, surveying the slope. Get hold of the first one you see and tell them to call the rangers in, and Sheriff McBride, they usually carry radios on them.”

Jody dipped his head in acknowledgement, but Matt could tell it was a placating gesture. He shook his head at the other man. “Don’t be stubborn. Listen to what I’m saying. If something happens, you get your ass down the mountain, you understand? That’s an order.”

Mouth pressed into a flat line, Jody turned away. Matt had the intense urge to grab the man by the front of his jacket and shake him. “Do you understand?” he repeated firmly.

Swinging around Jody slipped a finger under the nose piece of his sunglasses, nudging the shades down so Matt could see his narrowed eyes. They bored into Matt’s with a singular intensity. “I hear you,” Jody growled.

“You hear me, but do you understand me?” Matt wanted to know, not cowed by the growl or the look of almost fury in Jody’s brown eyes.

After a brief stare off, Jody pushed his glasses back up, turned away without replying, and started out across the snow. Matt spent a second or two attempting to shake the feeling he’d just been branded by the force of the other man’s dark gaze before he hoisted his pack on, and stepped out into the sunlight as well. He followed the furrow Jody made through the new powder, swiveling his head side to side alert to any signs of movement as they made their way across the open saddleback toward the trees.

In the sparkling early morning silence they moved quietly, only the puffs of their labored breathing moving in and out of their bodies with exertion and the crunch of their boots cutting through the snow the only sounds. About halfway across the saddle, Matt paused to rest his knee, resting his hands on his hips. He turned to look back the way they’d come, eyes traveling up the shoulder of the mountain, past the rock shelf where they’d emerged from the cave and upwards still, to where the high peak, coated in frost, glimmered.

“Damn.”

Ahead of him, Jody stopped, whipping around at the sound of Matt’s voice. “What is it?” He tracked the tilt of Matt’s head to the hooked nose of rock by their cave, and then up at the cliffs.

“That’s…not good, right?” Jody whispered.

Up above, smooth and pristine like a thick slab of cloud bank riding a cold front, lay tons of new snow. It’d accumulated during the long night, stacking up on the rock shelf, and then back piling up against the side of the cliff face which soared hundreds of feet, stretching toward the summit. Overhead, the peak itself stood sentinel, a spike of iced pearl, a white beacon in a faultless sky.

“Matt?” Jody hissed.

“We’re okay,” Matt said, his gaze lingering on the snowpack, assessing what he saw even as he registered the concern in Jody’s voice. For now hung unsaid between them. Matt had expected they’d be in an avalanche zone, but he hadn’t known it’d be quite this serious. He waved Jody forward. “Just keep moving.” Jody’s face looked pinched and Matt paused, a smile just beginning to curl up at the corner of his mouth. “Why are you whispering?”

Jody’s brows drew together as he stared, first up at the mountain, and then at Matt’s lopsided smile. “You know that’s a myth, right?” Matt asked, lips twitching. “Speaking loudly won’t actually trigger an avalanche.”

Matt couldn’t be sure with Jody’s eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, but he suspected the look he was getting could’ve melted the snowpack. Matt bit his lip to keep from laughing outright, but it was a near thing. “Look, ninety percent of avalanches are caused by people, people going up on the slab where they shouldn’t be and triggering a slide.”

“What about the other ten percent?” Jody asked pointedly, no longer whispering.

Matt pursed his lips, glancing back at the stacked snow. He sobered. “It’s wind-loaded. And that’s heavy, rapid accumulation on a pretty steep grade…and I see a few cracks in the slab.”

“You saying after all this we’re about to be buried under tons of fucking snow?”

“Look,” Matt began, keeping his tone even and calm. “It might come down. The signs are there for a slide, but it may not happen.”

Jody scowled. “But what do you think?”

Matt hesitated, he knew exactly what he’d say to soothe a panicking patient. Only Jody was neither of those. Jody was…focused, intent, capable…and a heap other things Matt couldn’t think about right then.

“I think we need to get the hell out of here.” There. Straight up truth given, with no tactics to soften it.

Jody groaned. “Aw, man, my fucking luck sucks ass.”

Matt raised a hand, clamping down on a bark of laughter. “Look, there’s nothing we can do about it but be gone when it comes down, if it comes down. Either way, as long as nobody goes up there and triggers it, nothing short of you lobbing a grenade up there is going to kick it off if it doesn’t happen on its own.”

Jody tilted his head, regarding Matt for another moment before turning back around and restarting his descent. “Good to know,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Matt didn’t like that look at all. He called after Jody. “Wait, wait, wait. Christ, you don’t actually have a grenade, do you?” It occurred to Matt suddenly, he’d never seen inside Jody’s pack, but had just taken Jody’s word as to its contents.

In response Jody lifted a gloved hand, dismissing Matt’s concerns, and kept moving.

Matt limped after him. “You don’t….do you?”


~*~
Chapter 11: Freefall

Grin stretching wide, Jody made a little wager with himself as to how long it’d take before Matt ceased asking about grenades, and other assorted ordinance. Jody figured about the time it took to reach the copse of pines might do it, but considering the ranger’s worried tone, maybe not. He could hear the kid behind him, bullying through the track Jody forged. That knee of his couldn’t be enjoying the strain of slogging through the deep powder, even with Jody plowing a row, but he hadn’t complained about it.

Trooper, Jody thought not for the first time, and he found a heavy layer of respect fusing to the irritation that Matt Hawkes tended to inspire in him. That reoccurring, crooked smile of Matt’s had set his teeth on edge…and it’d sent a curl of warmth unfurling in his belly. Jody didn’t want to examine that feeling too closely. He didn’t dare. There was too much depending on his keeping his head clear…both of them.

Together they made good time across the saddle, moving in companionable silence, Matt trailing a couple yards behind him. So far, Jody hadn’t detected another living creature sharing the snow blanketed mountainside with them, save for a lone eagle soaring high overhead. Jody watched the great bird’s white head swivel back and forth as it scanned the area for prey, and finding nothing of interest, pin wheeled away with a few flaps of its wide wings.

By the time Jody drew even with the stand of towering Sugar Pines Matt had pointed out, the ranger had fallen back another few yards. Jody stood just outside the shade of the massive trees, standing in the open sun and lifting his face, soaking up its warmth as he waited for his ranger-boy to catch up. He felt a little easier now that they’d put some distance between themselves and the rock shelf supporting its thick layer of snowpack.

Matt may have teased him before, but Jody had read real tension in the ranger’s face as he’d urged Jody onward. Jody turned from the sun to eye the snowpack warily. Matt had said he saw cracks in the snow, but all Jody saw was an endless mantel of white.

Jody watched as Matt drew even with him, allowing himself a moment to appreciate the sun bright against Matt’s mussed, blonde hair. Matt opened his mouth to say something, something no doubt encouraging and somehow simultaneously annoying, when a noise rolled down the slope like a thunderclap.

WHOOMP!

Jody whipped around, eyes darting up the mountain. “Fuck!”

“Shit!” Matt snapped at the same time, and surging forward, grabbed Jody by the jacket sleeve. He got up in Jody’s face barking, “The slab is coming down! Once you’re in it, grab a tree if you can. Get off the slab if you can, but if you can't, SWIM! Stay on top of it. Move, move, MOVE!”

Jody’s Marine trained lizard brain responded to the command in Matt’s voice at once. He’d taken three long strides before he realized what he was doing. Jerking around, he stomped back to Matt’s side and looped an arm around the ranger’s waist. “Come on, ranger-boy,” he gritted out.

“You asshole!” Matt snapped. “Don’t wait for me. One of us has to make it out, think of your sister!”

Jody could’ve slapped the kid, only he was right, if they both perished then there’d be no one left to alert Matt’s rangers, or Sheriff McBride, that Jody’s family needed protecting. His sister and dad would be left defenseless, painfully vulnerable. Jody clenched his jaw. His hold on Matt tightened. They’d make it together, or not at all.

A mounting, rumbling hiss filled his ears. Jody wanted to turn, look back, but Matt snapped at him to keep moving. They plunged through the deep snow, legs pumping, forcing their way forward. The rumble grew louder, and a surge of icy air flowed over them. Jody curled his fingers into Matt’s jacket and gritted his teeth.

“Remember, don’t stop moving!” Matt shouted just as the wall of snow hit, tumbling them off their feet.

The world was consumed in a white, frothing roar. Matt disappeared, torn away. Jody opened his mouth to call out to him, and got a mouthful of snow instead. Spasming, he spit it out, hacking, gasping for a gulp of air only to have another mouthful of snow shoved forcibly in again. Moving his arms, he tried following Matt’s instructions, spitting out snow and kicking his legs as the slab racing down the slope tumbled him over and over like a pair of shoes in a dryer. The snow continued to invade him, filling his mouth, eyes and ears.

Jody moved his body, constantly fighting for breath between gags as the flow sought to pack his throat with ice. Snow shot beneath his collar, skittered up his pants legs. Then without warning, where there’d been only white, there was blue. His head popped up, free from the slide and he sucked in a lungful of air. Huge chunks of snow rode the flow around him, and he feared getting smashed by the great lumps of ice, but he forced himself to keep moving. Something dark rushed up at him and he reached out, blindly grabbing.

It was a tree. He’d had the dumb luck of sailing through its outer branches instead of being pulverized against its thick trunk. Heart pounding, Jody latched on. He felt the pine’s needles slide through his fingers, and then the rough scrape of bark. His gloves were gone, ripped away. Jody wrapped his hand around the limb and pulled himself up, hand over hand. He managed to rise just above the racing, white horror of the avalanche, but it pulled at him, pummeling him from hip to toe, seeking to strip him from his anchor, its rumble drowning out the world.

The limb jerked, and he slid back. The tree was fucking breaking—no, not the tree, but the bough he was clinging to. It was giving way, splintering off from the trunk as he dangled off its end like a fishing lure at the end of a line. Something glanced off his hip, a block of ice or a rock, he didn’t know, but it was something dense and heavy and pain cracked along his ribs. His pack was gone, stripped away leaving his back exposed to whatever debris the avalanche had gathered up on its plunging tumble down the mountainside.

Jody held on, thinking of Matt out there, of him being flung down the slope like a rag doll or becoming irrecoverably buried, and a wave of white hot rage flooded him, a flash fire of frustration and he ground his face against his arm, bit the fabric of his jacket sleeve to keep the snow out, and screamed.

The world was a roiling, white chaos and Jody only a scrap of flotsam upon it, and then not even that as the dark, rough mass of a splintered log crashed toward him. Jody tightened his grip on his tenuous perch as the log hit, rolled over him and continued its descent. He thought of Matt, and of his sister, but not even that could stop the black tide that swept over him.

Everything went dark, and finally, blessedly quiet.

~*~
Chapter 12: The Bad Guys

Matt ached. His left knee felt like it’d been hit with a sledgehammer. It lay folded underneath him at a sharp angle. From that epicenter of pain, the rest of his body slowly reported in by degrees as his mind floated, dazed and confused. Had he been on downhill? Had he wiped out? It felt a lot like that, like he’d pin wheeled out of control, and now lay twisted and throbbing in the aftermath. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d spectacularly crashed out on a downhill run.

But I don’t race anymore, right?

The first thing Matt tried moving was his fingers. He flexed, curling the digits into his palm and then stretching them back out again. All ten seemed to be accounted for, and functional, though numbed in the cold air. He wiggled his toes in his boots, and a wave of relief spread over him when they too, seemed to be accounted for and in working order. So, no spine problems, then, and finally he pried opened his eyes. Overhead the dome of the sky hung, smooth and clear as ever.

Matt blinked against the bright sunshine, and it took him a good ten seconds to realize why the sky looked strange. He was no longer viewing it through the dark tint of his ski goggles. Fumbling, he reached up to touch his face, and made other discoveries. His gloves were gone, and so was his helmet. This confused him further, because if he’d wiped out badly enough to lose his gear, he shouldn’t even be able to move about like he was.

Matt frowned up at the azure sky. He needed to move, straighten out his leg. Taking a deep breath he rolled over to his side and unfolded, groaning as both pain, as well as the relief of straightening the extreme bend of his leg, washed through him. He lay panting against hard packed snow.

“Hey, your pretty boy is coming around.”

Pretty boy?

Fingers curled under Matt’s chin. Startled by the touch, he flinched away as an unfamiliar face swam into focus before him. “Hey!” The fingers on his face tightened, shook him hard, as if aggressively jolting the concussed around ever ended well. He was hit with a wave of familiarity, the echo of a commanding voice asking, demanding….are you hit? But when Matt tried to place the voice, the world tilted nauseatingly.

He batted the hand away, hissing at the rough handling.

Laughter rang out from somewhere behind him. “Feisty. I like that.”

“Jesus, don’t you ever think of anything else?”

“Sure I do. Lots and lots of money.”

Laughter then, a kind of hiccupping giggle that set Matt’s teeth on edge.

Levering himself up into a sitting position, Matt screwed his eyes shut, and slowly breathed in and out through his nose until he was reasonably sure he could look out at the dazzling snowscape without puking.

Jody.

The name arrowed across his dazed acuity, and it all came to him in a flash flood of images and sounds; the mad dash up the mountain, the cave, Jody’s hand on him, the avalanche.

The fucking avalanche.

Jody!

Matt’s eyes flew open. Jody was nowhere to be seen. In his place were two men Matt didn’t recognize. One hovered before him, crouching in the snow, a thin-faced youth surely younger than Matt’s own twenty-four years. He had a head full of curly auburn hair, and peered at Matt with blue eyes brimming with open curiosity. He wore jeans, and a thick, black jean jacket that hung open, revealing a navy blue t-shirt stamped with LVMPD over the emblem of a shield, and a pair of high-top Reebok sneakers. The butt of a revolver peaked out from the front waistband of his jeans.

For fuck’s sake.

That this was a damned ineffectual, inappropriate apparel to wear up the mountain, was Matt’s initial thought, and then his mind clicked over…LVMPD…Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Matt went hot and cold all at once. Anger buzzed through him drowning out the body aches, stamping out the last of his addled confusion. His fingers curled into fists as he got his breathing under control. Matt looked again at the two men, his disgust a palpable thing.

The young man before him reared back, hand reflexively going to the butt of his revolver, perceptive enough to at least sense the change in Matt going from disoriented confusion, to focused dislike. He shuffled back a foot or so, putting a healthy distance between himself and Matt’s green-eyed glare. The boy’s partner came to stand at his back, loosely holding his own revolver down at his side. They both stared, one with sudden wariness, the other with a calculated appraisal in his eyes over an unkind smile.

These were the assholes that had threatened Jody’s family, had shot at him and Jody the day before, and pursued them through the storm. Were these two cops? Matt doubted the kid was. He looked too young, too baby-faced, all gangly limbs, but the older one, yeah, definitely.

The man seemed content to hang back. Matt could tell by the slight lines around his eyes that he had several years on the kid. Possessing a stocky build, upturned nose, close-set blue eyes and squared off jaw, he reminded Matt of a bulldog…all pugnacious confidence and attitude. Again, red hair, though his was lighter in hue and longer than the kid’s. He had it pulled back into a stubby ponytail at the base of his skull. His chin was darkened by two day old stubble. He’d thrown on a bulky, nondescript, dark blue jacket over a light gray blazer. Underneath all this he sported an aqua blue shirt. Ripped jeans and black boots completed the look.

A pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses was tucked into the round neck of the man’s collarless shirt. Matt snorted. Clearly, someone had been watching too much Miami Vice.

How these assholes had ever made it this far up the mountain alive was a legitimate miracle. But despite their obvious lack of mountaineering experience, there was shrewdness in both their gazes as they watched Matt that served as a warning, he should not underestimate the pair.

As if to prove his point, Ray-Ban stepped forward, having caught Matt’s amused snort.

“Wondering where your boyfriend is?” The false concern in the man’s voice set Matt’s teeth on edge. Matt was frantic to know Jody’s location and condition, but didn’t dare let on in front of these two.

“Who?” he replied blankly. He cast his eyes down, noticing for the first time that his jacket was unzipped. He was careful to keep his hands lax at his side. If he could reach his pistol, he might have a chance, but even as the possibility occurred to him, he could tell the familiar weight of the weapon was missing from his side.

“Looking for this?” Ray-Ban asked sweetly, holding out Matt’s Glock 19 casually, one finger hooked under the trigger guard. His lips twitched in amusement as Matt stared back stonily. Seeing he wasn’t going to get a reaction, he reached around, tucking the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back.

“Why don’t we drop the act, yeah?” His voice was all honeyed tones. “Tell us where the money is, and we’ll let you go. We’ll even let your boyfriend go, despite all the fucking trouble he’s caused.”

“Who?” Matt repeated, brows raised, face wiped clean of expression, but it was clear Ray-Ban wasn’t buying it.

“Don’t be stupid, kid,” Ray-Ban sighed, dropping the bright promises of a moment before. “Why you gotta make this hard on yourself? Trust me, you could do a lot worse than dealing with me.”

Matt sighed, tipped his head back, eyes narrowing in annoyance. “Not a kid, asshole, and I don’t know where any money is.”

Ray-Ban’s lip curled in derision. “All right, you little bastard. If that’s the way you want it. Doesn’t matter to me.” He moved to closer, coming to stand over Matt, head tilted to one side as he gazed down. Reaching out, he threaded rough fingers through Matt’s hair. The assessing expression in his blue eyes altered, went unfocused, glazing over.

“Remember. I tried to make it easy on you. I would’ve been a lot nicer to you than Vince will be.”

Matt’s skin crawled. “Fuck you,” he spat.

Ray-Ban’s eyes cleared, and he grinned even wider, a slow stretch of his lips as he wound fingers tighter into Matt’s blonde strands. “Oh, honey, you got that backwards.”

Matt set his jaw and refused to look away.

“Jimmy, what are you gonna do to’em?”

The kid’s voice rode the tension in the air, and in it there lay a certain enthused interest that turned Matt’s stomach. Before he got an answer though, a staticy crackle cut across the air. Jimmy blinked, sighed, appearing almost disappointed as he pulled his hand out of Matt’s hair. “Give me the radio, Joey.”

Joey produced a handheld radio from the pocket of his jacket, and handed it over. Jimmy walked a few feet away, holding the radio up as a garbled voice sounded from the tiny speaker. In reply Jimmy mumbled something, then turned back.

Jimmy tossed the radio to the kid, and jerked his chin at Matt. “Get’em up. We’re taking him to Vince.”

Face falling with disappointment, Joey nonetheless nodded and popped up from the snow, as obedient as a puppet on a string. Moving to Matt’s side, he balked briefly at Matt’s cold look, but Jimmy’s impatient sigh broke him out of his hesitance and he stooped, reaching down to wind a long arm around Matt’s back to help lever Matt to his feet.

Once upright, Matt bit back a curse at the familiar throb in his knee that amplified as his leg took his weight. He wobbled a moment, and had barely gained his balance before Joey abruptly pulled away with a startled gasp. Matt looked at him askance, and wondered if the kid was on something.

“Oh, shit!”

“What?” Jimmy hissed, fuming. His plans for Matt had been usurped, and he had no patience for the kid.

“Look. Look at that,” Joey hissed, staring at Matt’s chest, or more precisely, at his battered jacket.

Shoving the kid roughly out of his way, Jimmy stomped forward, squinting as he peered between Joey and Matt. “What the fuck are you spazing out over?”

“This,” Joey snapped, and reaching out flipped the High Mountain Ranger patch over on the front of Matt’s jacket. Somewhere in his wild, plunging trip on the slab, the patch had torn half off, and had folded over, obscuring the ranger shield.

Jimmy stared, first at the patch, then at Matt. He stepped back, brows lowering. “This…this complicates things,” he mumbled.

“Now what? Doesn't that mean he’s a cop too?” Joey asked, panic edging his words.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jimmy snapped. “We need to get him to Vince. We need to get him together with the other one, so let’s get moving.”

The other one.

Jody.

Matt’s eyes widened, and before he could conceal his reaction, Jimmy caught it. He gave Matt a funny little smile. “Get over there and help him, we gotta book it,” he told Joey.

Reluctantly, Joey moved close by Matt’s side, rewound an arm around Matt’s back. Swallowing his aversion, Matt leaned in on the kid a little harder than he needed. If these two were under the impression he was a bit more banged up than he actually was, all the better for him.

With an undecipherable, long look at Matt, Jimmy turned, and trudged off across the rumpled slope. Matt limped along with Joey’s assistance, having to force away the urge to punch the kid and leg it toward the nearby tree line as best he could. But no, before he made any kind of move, he had to find Jody.

He glared at Jimmy’s retreating back.

Just get me back to Jody, you bastard.


~*~
Chapter 13: Family Togetherness

It was the bumping, continuous motion that brought Jody around, some indeterminable length of time after blacking out. The rolling, stomach churning movement prodded him to crack open his eyes to begin to understand the world again. He was being dragged.

Someone, and from the sounds of it, with quite a bit of effort, was towing him bodily across the uneven snow by the neck of his jacket. His legs bumped along, loose and boneless over the disheveled plain of ice. His first coherent thought was that Matt had pulled a St. Bernard routine, and had dug him out of the body of the avalanche and was pulling him to safety. He remembered the pine, of holding on until it cracked. He remembered the log, careening down. He craned his neck, blinking feverishly to clear his vision, hoping to see a green-eyed ranger looking down at him with a lopsided smile.

He didn’t.

The man dragging him stopped abruptly upon seeing Jody awake, and released him with a gusting sigh. “Thank Christ, this bastard’s heavy as hell.”

Jody grunted as he dropped against the snow like a lead brick. If felt like falling on concrete, the snow having set up now that it was still, a dense, packed mass. He blinked up at the man, at the stranger, but Jody’s instinct told him this was one of the shitbags he’d come to the mountain to deal with.

This was one of the unimaginable bastards that’d dared threaten his family.

Rolling over with a groan, Jody forced himself to his knees. His head pounded. Freezing fingers of melting snow ran down his back under his shirt. His jacket was open down the front, torn in places. His gloveless hands were scraped and raw. There was no sign of his backpack.

Devastatingly, there was no sign of Matt. He looked up to see another shitbag staring down at him with cold purpose, and felt his focus realigning. Things didn’t look good, and were about to get worse, but in his experience, two on one odds weren’t bad.

The tall man approaching him was rail thin, and wearing a white hooded snowsuit. His straight, dark hair was pulled back into a tie at the base of his neck. He had pale skin and eyes to match his hair, flat black, no hint of warmth in their depths. He reminded Jody of a scarecrow, all empty eyes and lanky limbs. He carried a scope mounted rifle cradled in the crook of his right arm with the ease most people would carry a loaf of bread. In his left hand was held Jody’s own Beretta M9.

Fuck.

“Been looking for you, McKinnon,” a voice snarled, somewhere to his right.

Reluctant to take his eyes off the Scarecrow, Jody turned his head slightly toward the voice. It belonged to the one that had dragged him. The guy stared at Jody with open hostility. He wore jeans, brown hiking boots and a dark blue nylon jacket. He carried a pistol in his right hand with the air of someone who knew how to use it properly. His close cropped red hair stood out vividly in the morning sun, a cap of thinning copper. Square jawed, his blue eyes blazed with malice as he stalked over the snow, coming to stand over Jody.

“Where is my fucking money!” The redhead drew back his gun hand to strike Jody across his face but aborted the move when the Scarecrow spoke up.

“Whose money, Marv?”

‘Marv’ growled, gestured angrily and stomped away a few steps, seething. “Our money,” he spat, and with that brief exchange Jody instantly knew who was in charge.

“He’s the reason Jasc and Hallsey are dead!” Marv bellowed, glaring at Jody.

Scarecrow’s lips twitched. “Jasc and Hallsey are dead because they were idiots, and couldn’t follow directions.”

“Oh, fuck you, Vince. They were family!” Marv snarled, but snapped his mouth shut when Scarecrow, Vince, subtly shifted his weight. The barrel of the rifle he carried swung around to point Marv’s way.

Taking a breath, Vince inclined his head, gaze fastened on the redheaded Marv. “I told those two not to go fucking off across the mountain last night, didn’t I?”

The question hung in the cold, still air. Jody could practically hear Marv’s teeth grinding together. A vein throbbed at his temple.

“Didn’t I?” Vince repeated.

“Yeah,” Marv ground out.

“And what happened when they didn’t listen?”

“They got turned around in the dark. They both froze to death,” Marv said, and though his tone had slightly subdued, his eyes swung back to Jody with malevolent intent.

Vince snorted, including Jody in the conversation with a wry look. “Like I said, idiots.”

Marv abruptly turned away. He stalked off a few steps, boots crunching against the snow. He wore a leather hip holster, and he jammed his pistol into it before digging into his jeans’ pockets. Pulling out a silver lighter and a pack of Lucky Strikes, he jabbed one cigarette between his downturned lips, cupped his hand around the end and flicked the lighter.

Vince watched him until he’d lit the cylinder, and had pocketed the pack and the lighter again. “Are you done with your little shit fit?”

“They were my cousins, Vince,” Marv gritted out, blowing out a stream of smoke.

“Well, they ain’t no more,” Vince drawled.

Marv’s blue eyes should’ve leveled Vince where he stood for all the vitriol they contained, but Vince seemed blissfully unaffected. “I guess not,” Marv forced out, taking a long pull on the cigarette, and then exhaled again, smoke wreathing his head.

“I’m done with all of this bullshit. When are we going to get this over with? We been chasing this big fucker for days. It’s time to get paid.”

Vince smirked. “It’s over when it’s over. If you and your bunch of Keystone Cops had listened to me from the beginning, like you were supposed to, none of this would be necessary.”

Displaying a moment of sharpened perception, Marv wisely chose to remain silent. Having nothing more forthcoming from the abrasive redhead, Vince turned back to Jody. He waved Jody up. “Come on, up.”

Suppressing a growl, Jody gathered himself and stood. There was a sense of fleeting satisfaction when Marv took a step back once he’d straightened to his full height. He fixed both men with a focused glare.

“We both know what this is about, McKinnon.”

Jody ignored the statement, asking, “Where’s Matt?”

Vince raised a brow. “Is that the guy you were out on the slope with last night?” His words were spoken precisely, lacking any identifying accent.

Jody wasn’t going to ask again.

Vince finally shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? We came up here tracking you. If you got him into this, what happens to him is own you.” Vince took a slow turn, looking out across the swath of jumbled up snow the avalanche had deposited, then faced Jody again. “He’s probably buried somewhere, under all this.”

The words hit, stabbing Jody with their truthfulness. “He’s not a part of this. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Vince chuckled. “I’d say.”

Jody took a step, but Vince brought the rifle up, pointing it at Jody’s chest. “Take a breath, big guy. We got business.”

“Show me Matt, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Something close to surprise passed over Vince’s features, though his eyes remained unaffected. Nothing seemed to alter the flat, dead calm of his black eyes. “As easy as that?”

Jody nodded once.

“All right,” Vince said. He extended an arm out across the slope. “Where’s the last place you remember seeing him?”

Jody’s fingers curled into fists as Vince chuckled. “You see, we were down the slope a little ways, had finally found those two idiots, Hallsey and Jasc, when we heard all the commotion. Next thing I know, a giant wall of fucking snow is flying down at us. We were lucky we had snowmobiles, or we’d have been caught in it with you. And when everything settled, there you were, laid out on top of the snow like a big welcome mat. So, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t fucking know where your boy, Matt, is at the moment.”

A few feet away Marv started pacing, puffing on a new cigarette. After every few steps he shot Jody a withering look. Jody stared back in kind. He struggled to lock it down, but panic was beginning to claw its way up his throat. If Matt was buried, trapped under the snow, then minutes mattered…seconds mattered.

“He helped you, didn’t he?” Vince asked, collecting Jody’s attention.

When Jody didn’t immediately answer, Vince smiled, a vague curl of his lips. “He got you under cover, somehow, last night, didn’t he? I thought I had a good bead on you two, but I lost visual for a second and you both just disappeared.”

Again, Jody remained mute, and Vince just shook his head ruefully. “You owe him, don’t you?”

Jody looked into the emotionless, black eyes. “It’s not something a dirty cop would understand,” he bit out.

Vince studied him. “Oh, I’m not a dirty cop, McKinnon. I’m the one who cleans up the messes they make.”

Jody felt a cold smile form on his lips to rival Vince’s. “You’re just a well paid piece of shit.” The bit about being well paid was a guess, but knew he had the shit part down cold.

Vince smiled again, an empty-eyed expression that sent a chill up Jody’s back.

“You know, I like you, McKinnon,” Vince admitted. “A man like you could make a lot of money in my line of work. Don’t suppose you’d be interested?”

Jody let his disgust show on his face. “No thanks.”

Vince shrugged. “Ah, well, we all have our roles to play…too bad.”

Jody looked away, searching the slope, looking for something, any kind of sign of Matt. He was considering making a grab for Vince’s rifle when, to his intense surprise, Matt himself limped out from the shadowed edge of the tree line.

Jody’s breath gusted out as relief stuttered through him. Vince turned sharply, and following Jody’s gaze spotted the trio of men emerging into the sunlight on the far side of the swath cut by the avalanche. Vince smirked as he turned on Jody.

“Well, would you look at that? It’s your lucky day, McKinnon.”

Jody didn’t acknowledge Vince, but kept his eyes glued to Matt where he stumbled over the snow, aided by some young punk Jody didn’t recognize. Behind them trailed another man, short, redheaded, and even from a distance, Jody didn’t like how the guy’s attention seemed constantly drawn back to Matt as they walked.

It took some time for the group to traverse the jumbled plain. About halfway across the swath the stocky redhead called the group to a halt. Stooping, he seemed to scratch around in the snow a moment before extricating a dark, lumpy object. Jody looked on with a sinking feeling, recognizing his black backpack. The pack was unzipped and examined. A brief conversation ensued between the man and the kid while Matt stood, head down, waiting. Finally, the redhead slung the pack over his shoulder, and the three started off again.

By the time the party drew within a few yards, Marv was polishing off his third cigarette. He flicked the butt away and moved to flank Vince. “What’s that Jimmy’s got?”

Vince replied to Marv, but was watching Jody over his shoulder. “Looks like a backpack.”

“Who’s that with them?” Marv asked.

This time Vince turned and looked at Jody full on, a curl to his mouth that might have passed for a polite smile in an alternate universe. “I’m guessing that’s McKinnon’s boy, Matt.”

“Jimmy’s gonna be a problem,” Marv mumbled, kicking at a clump of ice at his feet.

Vince shrugged. “Jimmy’s temper and taste for blondes isn’t my problem.”

Jody felt a cold, dark wave roll through the pit of his stomach. Getting a grip on the anger strumming in his veins, he denied Vince the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, he took the opportunity to assess his situation tactically.

Matt was mobile, sure, but he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere fast, not with that injured knee. Jody doubted Matt still had his pistol on him, judging by his unzipped jacket and the fact that the two dirt bags accompanying him didn’t have multiple bullet holes in them. Jody’s Berretta, and now the rest of his weaponry, was in the hands of the enemy, so no joy there unless he could somehow manage another way to arm himself.

Not a lot to work with, but the sight of Matt, alive and whole, filled him with a new determination.

Tearing his focus away from his ranger, Jody studied the men around him. Vince was a stone cold killer. Jody had dealt with his kind before. It didn’t matter whether cop, soldier or criminal, that flat, disconnected look was telling. With men like that, it was as if all bright and good things had been scooped out of them, leaving only the void, empty and lightless. When the time came, Jody knew the only way to stop Vince would be with lethal force.

The others, with the possible exception of the tow headed kid, had to be the dirty cops that had turned Jody’s world upside down. He only had Emmy’s description of the two men who’d come to the hospital and threatened her, and seen through the lens of her fear and shock, she’d barely been able to recall much in the way of identifying features when Jody questioned her. Today was the first time he would stand face to face with his opponents. Prior to that, he couldn’t have pointed them out in a line up if his life depended on it.

In Las Vegas, he’d known they were near by the vehicles with dark tinted windows that tailed him constantly as he’d moved around the city, attempting to put together some sort of plan. Once he’d decided on a course of action, he’d taken to carrying a large duffel everywhere he went. He’d stashed a few hundred dollars in the duffel and had been obvious about withdrawing bills from the bag as he’d darted around, gathering supplies, and mainly just drawing attention to himself.

Seeing them now, Jody committed each face to memory. He could allow that each man was probably quite dangerous back on their home turf, armed and shielded by the police badges they wore. They certainly posed a clear and present danger, but here, here on his and Matt’s mountain, they were out of their element, and that was an advantage Jody could work with.

All that red hair…there’s no way these assholes aren’t all related, maybe brothers as well as cousins.

Jody considered it, and found it made a certain sense. Looking the men over critically, Jody imagined running a ring like theirs came with an immense amount of risk. They’d want to keep their circle tight, keep their extracurricular activities in the ‘family’, perhaps figuratively as well as literally.

The only peg that didn’t fit was Vince. Vince was a professional. Maybe he’d been hired by Marv and the others, or maybe he was part of their operation. If he was, there may be much bigger players behind the scenes beyond a family of cops that had turned to the dark side.

~*~
Chapter 14: Creeps and Reunions

Matt felt the vise that had clamped around his heart loosen a little upon spotting a familiar, very tall, dark-haired figure standing out on the frozen, broken slab of the avalanche.

Thank Christ.

Matt attempted to assess Jody’s condition without being obvious about it. Aside from being held captive, the Marine seemed to be well, as far as Matt could discern from a distance. At his side Joey sped up the pace, no doubt eager to be rid of his role as a human crutch. Matt leaned more of his weight against the kid’s wiry frame out of pure spite.

Matt considered making a grab for Joey’s gun; it was still tucked in the waistband of the kid’s pants. It seemed like something an obvious amateur like Joey would do, emulating a move he’d probably seen on TV because he thought it looked cool, not once realizing that carrying the weapon in such an unguarded, blatant way, Matt could easily take it from him. Matt hoped he shot his dick off.

In the end, he decided not to go for it. Jimmy would probably put a bullet in his back before he could get a shot off, and he was reluctant to kick anything off without first getting a closer look at Jody.

Behind them Jimmy grumbled. “Move your asses. Hurry up.”

Matt rolled his eyes. Jimmy was a creep, and most likely much worse, but eloquent he was not.

At last making it across the slab Joey stumbled to a halt. Withdrawing from Matt’s side, he made a show of straightening his jacket as he walked away, one hand going to rest on the butt of his gun. It was such a stupid pose that Matt snorted to himself. Jimmy filled in the space Joey left, stepping close, near enough that Matt could feel the sullen tension radiating off the man. Ignoring the asshole, Matt locked eyes with Jody. He shrugged.

Opps. Didn’t mean to get caught. Glad you’re not dead.

Jody’s lips twitched. He scanned Matt head to toe, but gave no other sign of recognition.

“What? No words of reunion?” asked an amused voice. Its owner, a tall, reedy looking man standing just behind Jody’s shoulder stepped out, coming to stand between them. Matt eyed the rifle the man held. He flashed back to the day before, to the shots from the trees. His eyes narrowed as the man smirked.

“Vince. We may have a problem.”

Vince turned at the sound of his name. It was Jimmy, tapping the barrel of his revolver against his thigh. He tossed the backpack he’d brought from off the slab at Vince’s feet. The unzipped pack gaped open to reveal the cache of weapons inside.

“Interesting, but how is this a problem?” Vince asked, not bothering to kneel down to inspect the find, but instead nudged the pack with the toe of his boot. It flopped to one side, and a bright orange flare gun tumbled out, already loaded with a shell.

Matt’s brows rose. Jody and his stupid flare gun. So he really did have one after all.

“Looks like Marines really do come prepared,” Vince was saying. The words were directed at Jody, but the man’s black eyes were fixed on Matt.

Warning bells sounded off in Matt’s head.

“McKinnon here was awfully concerned about you.” Vince dipped his head slightly in Matt’s direction. It was meant as a deferential gesture, but Matt was reminded strongly of a rattlesnake, all coiled intent and venom. He didn’t reply, or so much as glance in Jody’s direction.

“Vince.” Jimmy took a step that brought him in even closer to Matt’s side, clearly agitated. “This guy is a High Mountain Ranger.”

Vince stared back steadily, unblinking. Matt wondered if the man had some kind of medical condition, or if he practiced the look just to unnerve people. Either way, it was weird.

“He’s basically a cop,” Jimmy said, obviously looking for some kind of reaction from Vince, but getting none. “They’re pretty goddamned well known up here.” Grabbing Matt’s arms he frog-marched him forward. Reaching around Matt’s chest, he yanked at the ranger patch, ripping the emblem free. He held it out to Vince, who studied the scrap, but made no move to reach out and take it.

Vince’s dulled eyes slid up to meet Matt’s. “Wrong place, wrong time, Ranger Matt.”

Finding the veiled threat more than a little predictable, Matt smirked back at the man.

“Same shit, different day,” he deadpanned.

Vince huffed a laugh. He turned to look at Jody. “I see why you like him.”

Matt stiffened. Stone-faced, Jody stared Vince down. Matt tried to catch Jody’s eye, but the Marine had all his attention centered on Vince, who stood before him, rifle cradled in a deceptively relaxed stance. The two seemed locked in some sort of unspoken conversation Matt wasn’t privy to, the tension between them palpable.

“Can we get on with this? I’m freezing my ass off, and I got shit to do.”

Vince sighed as Marv whined. “The soul of brevity is our Marv. But he’s not wrong.” He pinned Matt with his black eyes. “I don’t suppose you can tell me?”

Matt frowned. In his periphery he felt more than saw Jody monitoring their exchange.

“I’m disappointed, Ranger Matt. Keep up with the rest of the class, you look like a bright kid.

Matt stared back, blank faced.

“The money, the money, the fucking money.” Vince snapped his fingers in front of Matt’s face in time with each ‘money’. “Tell me where it is, and you and McKinnon are free to go.”

Understanding exactly, Matt nodded, looking Vince in his lifeless eyes. The smirk that rose over his face was probably taking things too far, but Matt let it rise. “I have no fucking clue.”

“Oh fuck just, let me beat it out of him,” Marv exploded, surging forward, and practically slid to a halt as Vince held out a warning hand.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Vince said. His flat gaze shifted to Matt, and then past him, to Jimmy, standing sentinel at his back. “Jimmy, why don’t you put your hands on Ranger Matt, just to make sure he doesn’t run away.”

Despite himself, Matt flinched as a hand gripped his shoulder, Jimmy’s fingers digging in. The stocky redhead practically melded his body to Matt’s back. The hard barrel of the revolver he carried dug into Matt’s ribs.

There was a moment of movement, and Matt realized Jimmy had to lean up on tiptoes to get close to his ear. In a low whisper he rasped, “Do you think your man over there would like to watch me fuck you? He get off on shit like that?”

Revulsion making his skin crawl, Matt forced himself to stay still. Jimmy pressed the gun in viciously against his side in warning. Matt stared down at the snow, sparkling in the sunlight. He shuddered at the sensation of Jimmy’s hot breath on his neck.

There was a commotion, and Matt knew Jody had moved, or had made to move, but he couldn’t look at the man, not right then. Instead, Matt turned his head, meeting and holding Jimmy’s blue eyes that were alight with arrogance and the power he thought he wielded. Matt forced his mouth into a mockery of a smile.

“Please. Little bitch like you? Probably can’t even get it up.”

Matt knew the moment he opened his mouth, he’d pushed too far…and just exactly far enough. Shoving away, Jimmy rounded on him, arm raised. The force of the backhand snapped Matt’s head to the side so hard his neck cracked, sending him stumbling sideways on his shaky knee. Pain rocketed through his lips and jaw, and he let the fall happen, folding to his knees. Landing on the hardened snow sent a shock through both knees and up his spine.

Mouth stinging, blood copper bright on his tongue, Matt shook his head against the buzzing in his ears. Jimmy stood looking down at him, chest heaving, nostrils flaring, teeth bared. The man looked one word away from murdering Matt with his bare hands. Taking his time, Matt spit a mouthful of blood on the snow, and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

“So sad, some guys just can’t perform,” he said looking up at the man with a smirk.

Jimmy’s face twisted into something terrible, a black fury filling his eyes, so it was understandable that he didn’t notice Matt’s hand sliding down past his knee, fingers curling under the hem of his pants leg, tugging it up.

~*~
Chapter 15: Smoke Signals

Vince’s rifle barrel in his face stopped Jody from advancing more than a step, but only barely. Rage singing in his veins, demanding an answer for the trespasses committed. Jody trembled with the effort not to strike out. He’d been trained for combat, and he called upon that training now, willing the fury scorching his insides to funnel down into the cold, hard place where he needed it to be. His breathing evened out, his mind clearing from the red haze that’d passed over him at the sight of Jimmy laying hands on Matt.

Vince kept his rifle steady, trained on Jody, his attention split between keeping the Marine corralled and the drama unfolding a few feet away. Over Vince’s shoulder Jody watched as Matt stared down at the snow at his feet, lips pressed together in a flat line, face pinched as Jimmy whispered into his ear, was all over him.

Jody swiveled his gaze away and fixed it on Vince.

“I’m gonna kill you today.”

Something flickered in Vince’s expression, disturbing for the first time the pooled, unchanging coldness in his eyes, a ripple of recognition at seeing some of his own darkness reflected back at him.

Across from them on the clear crisp air, Jody heard Matt’s laughing taunt as he made a mockery of Jimmy and who the fuck knew what depraved threats that had been spewed into his ear.

God, this kid has balls.

Jody waited, even as Jimmy’s arm swung round, even as he heard the hit land and saw Matt’s head snap over. He waited, the seconds ticking by as instinct thrashed within him, demanding retribution, demanding a reckoning, and it was by sheer will alone that he kept his place and waited. He waited, trusting in his ranger, trusting that this wasn’t just some futile last act of bravado on Matt’s part.

Vince lifted the rifle a fraction, eyes narrowing, his animal instinct catching the scent of warning in the air. Jody smiled as Matt’s laughter rang out, as the kid fearlessly taunted Jimmy again, and he shifted his stance subtly, looking over to meet Matt’s green-eyed gaze head on.

And Jody just knew, it was time.

Jody saw the move before anyone else because he was waiting for it. He saw the quicksilver flash of sunlight off steel the instant Matt withdrew the blade from its hidden sheath strapped to his leg. A flash of hot, vicious pride coursed through him. Matt wasn’t going down without a fight, and Jody was going to be right there with him.

Vince realized the danger a split second too late. The blade flew, arrowed straight from Matt’s deft hand out across the snow and sank into Vince’s back, just to the left of his spine. Black eyes blew wide, a flare of genuine expression. Fumbling behind him, Vince struggled to reach the blade, an involuntary reflex, impossible to deny. The rifle dipped, Jody moved.

Grabbing the rifle barrel with one hand Jody turned it aside, and with the other he drove the heel of his hand into the bridge of Vince’s nose, right between the startled eyes. There was an audible crunch as bones caved in. Vince dropped, body thudding against the ice.

Six feet away, Jimmy gaped, uncomprehending. He’d been so far into his rage he hadn’t seen Matt’s knife fly, but clearly saw Vince, prone on the snow, an unmoving sprawl at Jody’s feet. Jody flipped the rifle around, planted his feet and raised the weapon at the same time as Jimmy raised his revolver. Twin shots rang out, a double echo cracking out over the clear morning air.

Matt had to scramble out of the way as Jimmy took one stumbling step forward, and collapsed next to Jody’s forgotten backpack, a stripe of blood slicking down his nose from the hole in his forehead.

Pivoting, Jody tracked the next threat, sliding the bolt back on the rifle, ejecting the empty shell casing and locking in a fresh bullet. He raised the weapon to his shoulder, closed one eye and peered into the sighting scope. His target was running away, but not for long.

Marv had taken off full tilt across the slope as soon as Vince hit the snow. He held his revolver out behind him, and aiming blindly, fired off a succession of rounds that zinged out across the slope. Several kicked up the ice at Matt’s feet, sending him rolling away and cursing.

Jody took a breath, released it, and fired. Thirty feet away Marv slewed to a stop, revolver spinning away as he screamed, plastering both hands over the wound in this thigh. He fell to the snow on his back, withering against the churned up ice as blood welled up between his fingers.

Jody swung around, rifle at the ready. The only target left was the skinny kid. Jody didn’t know his name. He stood off to Matt’s left, staring at Jimmy’s body that lay face down in the snow. His shaking fingers plucked at the blue LVMPD t-shirt he wore as he repeated Jimmy’s name, over and over.

“Drop your weapon!” Jody bellowed, and the kid jumped, eyes wild. He reached a shaking hard toward the gun.

“Easy kid,” Jody warned. “You don’t have to die today.”

Joey pulled the gun from his pants and tossed it away, and Jody lowered his rifle. Matt scrambled over and grabbed the weapon. Flicking open the chamber he dumped the bullets on the snow and sat back with a long exhale.

Jody’s eyes tracked the area, searching for any lingering threat, and seeing none, snapped back to Matt. His ranger was whole, kneeling in the snow with one hand rubbing absently at his left knee. He was watching the kid across from him mentally breaking apart with something close to pity. As Jody strode across the few feet that separated them, Matt turned, and watched him come. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder by its strap, Jody was by Matt’s side in seconds. He knelt, laying a hand on Matt’s leg, just above his bum knee.

“You good, baby?” Jody asked, somehow suddenly fearing he’d missed something, some wound or injury. His eyes lingered on the split lip, red and bruised where Matt had been struck, then tracked back up to the green eyes.

The corner of Matt’s abused mouth turned up in a half smile as he leaned back on his hands. “I’m good,” was all he said, but his eyes were warm on Jody’s as they both rested in ice and sunshine.

“You-you killed Jimmy!”

Jody grimaced. “That kid’s coming unglued.” He spared a wary look over at the young man that now shuffled a slow circle in the snow.

“Joey’s his name,” Matt said wearily. “And yeah, he is coming unglued…but I bet he’ll sing like a bird, don’t you?”

Jody slipped the rifle off his shoulder and laid it over his knee and watched as Joey collapsed down to the snow, head held in his hands. Jody thought he may be crying.

“And how do you know he’ll sing like a bird?” he asked, returning his gaze to Matt.

“I just do,” Matt said, smiling, then wincing as it pulled at his split lip.

Jody zeroed in on the discomfort. Lifting his hand he curled his fingers under Matt’s chin, brushing the pad of his thumb over the swelling bottom lip. “This gonna be okay?” he asked softly.

Matt stilled under his touch, and Jody felt the soft rush of Matt’s breath feather warmly over his thumb.

“Yeah,” Matt said softly, sitting very still in Jody’s grasp.

Jody let his thumb brush again against Matt’s mouth before letting his hand fall, the backs of his fingers trailing down the front of Matt’s battered jacket, over the place where the ranger patch had been. His hand landed against Matt’s hip and Jody let it rest there.

“So, what now?” he asked.

Tipping his head back, Matt closed his eyes, letting out a long, careful breath. Jody took in the line of his throat, the fall of his blonde hair, the curl of those long lashes against this cheek. Matt was quiet for a moment like that, just resting in the sun, safely resting under Jody’s hand and watchful gaze as the adrenaline drained away.

“We get outta here, that’s what’s now,” he said simply, opening his eyes.

“And how do you figure we do that, Ranger Hawkes?” Jody asked, brow lifting.

“Like this,” Matt said, and reaching out snagged the flare gun that lay just beside Jody’s pack.

Lifting the vividly orange, snubbed nosed gun straight up at the sky, Matt pulled the trigger. They both flinched as it popped off, launching its shell high above their heads where it exploded into a sizzling flare that fizzed ruby red as its strontium nitrate activated, started burning. It hung aloft momentarily on the cold, gentle breeze, then floated slowly back down to earth, a bright ember trailing a thick, twisting tendril of red smoke.

Matt lowered his arm, and tossed the gun aside.

“Why did you--” Jody started, but Matt stalled his words with a shake of his head.

“Just listen,” Matt told him.

Jody paused, unsure, but narrowed his eyes and listened, his hand still warm against Matt’s hip, and in the far distance he heard it…dut…dut…dut…chopper rotors slapping the air.

Jody huffed a laugh. “Your team?”

Matt smiled. “Yep.”

Jody thought of his sister, his father, and all that was to come. His hand squeezed Matt’s hip. “Still a lot to do.”

Matt’s hand covered his. “We’ll protect them.”

Jody savored the warmth of Matt’s skin against his, and he wanted to remember this, keep it with him. “We will.”

A flash of sunlight bouncing off the acrylic windshield of the chopper drew their eyes, and they watched as the craft abandoned its original course, swinging their way in a graceful arc.

Their smoke signal had been spotted.

Jody rested in the snow, one hand on Matt, the other on the rifle, and hoped.

~*~
Epilogue

Once the chopper touched down Jody took his hand off Matt and moved away to give him some space. A trio of white clad rangers exited the helicopter and bounded to Matt’s side. They encircled Matt, checked him over, and then turned to the task at hand.

Jody watched as the leader of the High Mountain Ranger stepped into his role.

Matt’s team was good. Jody knew the hallmarks and recognized them in the efficient way they moved, working in tandem, communicating with a kind of second hand Jody used to have within his own unit. Tarps were placed over the dead, the wounded tended, Joey assessed and contained and a thermal blanket dropped over Jody’s shoulders and a water bottle pressed into his hands, all in the space of a few minutes.

Matt had a blanket too, though he stood some distance away, getting the status from each of his team as they handled their assigned tasks and reported back to him.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

Jody turned toward the voice. It was the medic, a tall blonde with arctic blue eyes. Her long hair was pulled back smartly into a barrette, and her medical kit was slung over one shoulder. Her sharp assessing gaze watched Jody steadily.

“I’m good, thanks,” he replied.

He wasn’t really, but she accepted his reply, and with a gentle squeeze to his elbow, moved off.

Another chopper was inbound. Jody had spotted it moments ago and watched as it made its approach. It circled overhead, sunlight splashing off the windshield as it pivoted and carefully descended, stirring up snow and causing the tarps over the deceased to flap under their anchors. Douglas County Sheriff was emblazoned on the side of the craft, gold lettering on a green background.

Almost as soon as the skids touched down, a broad shouldered man with salt and pepper hair and wearing a gray and brown sheriff’s uniform exited. Stooping low under the chopper’s spinning rotors, he headed straight to Matt. They stood side by side for a minute, heads together, before Matt turned and waved Jody over.

Fortifying himself with a deep breath, Jody went. Matt had already given him some advice as to how to navigate some of this part, the law enforcement part, and he’d vouched personally for McBride. It didn’t make it any easier for Jody, knowing this stranger was in control of his family’s safety, or possibly Jody’s own freedom if it was decided that charges needed to be brought against him. The killings were justified, and Matt’s word would go a long way to support his side of the story, but men were dead, and that had to be answered for.

Matt caught his eyes and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Jody, this is Sheriff McBride.”

McBride offered Jody a curt nod. “Matt’s filled me in on the basics. I want to prepare you, there’s going to be a lengthy investigation, but our priority at this moment is to ensure you, and your family are kept safe. Members of my own department are en route as we speak to provide security for your sister and father. We’re working on making other arrangements for them both, and yourself, in Douglas County, but it’s a little tricky with your father’s medical needs.”

Jody wasn’t sure what strings McBride had pulled, or was bypassing altogether, seeing as Douglas County was not jurisdiction for Las Vegas, but he didn’t argue.

Jody’s heart skipped. “My dad, he’s still…” Jody trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

“He’s improved,” McBride said into the gap. “He’s still in the ICU, but they’ve upgraded his condition to stable.”

“And Emmy?”

“She’s fine. I spoke with her personally before heading up here. She’s pretty pissed at you, though. She’s at the hospital now, the kids are with their grandmother.”

Jody closed his eyes, relief flooding him, and it was just as he’d thought, the little shit had stuck like glue to their father’s side and hadn’t gone to Seattle. A touch to his arm brought his attention back around and he opened his eyes and looked into Matt’s smiling face.

“I can’t thank you enough,” he got out, before his throat closed up.

Matt shook his head. “Just part of the job,” he said, and winked.

Blonde hair wiping in the air stirred by the chopper’s spinning blades, eyes, so very green, Jody didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more finely made than Matt Hawkes in the high mountain sunlight.

“Jody, we have to get going,” McBride said. He dipped his head at Matt. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Matt nodded as McBride headed back to the chopper, and they were alone.

“Is this goodbye?” Jody asked reluctantly. There was little he wanted less, but he was a realist.

Matt looked down, tousled hair falling across his brow. “Do you need it to be?” he asked.

“Baby,” Jody found himself saying, and it was too much, and too presumptuous, using that term this close to the real world, but he didn’t take it back. “Look at me.”

Matt lifted his eyes, and the hesitancy in his gaze was so out of place, it pained Jody to think he may have put it there.

“I want that third date,” Jody said, voice roughened with the honesty in it. “I want it, once all this is over, if you find you’re still interested and I’m not in jail.”

Jody wanted to reach out, wind his fingers into the darker hair at the nape of Matt’s neck and pull him close. He couldn’t do that, not in front of McBride and Matt’s team, so he brushed the backs of his fingers down Matt’s chest, following the zipper of his jacket. It felt wrong, somehow, not to touch him in some way.

“I’ll be interested, and you won’t be in jail,” Matt said, gaze steady and so sure. A crooked grin pulled up one corner of his mouth. “You know where to find me.”

“That I do.” Jody wanted to say more, but it wasn’t the time, or the place.

Matt took a step back, and then another, while holding Jody’s gaze. “You gotta get going. Watch your back. Mike will keep me updated.”


“You stay safe, Ranger Hawkes, and get that knee seen about,” Jody called after him.

Matt grinned, sketched a two fingered salute, and limped away to join his team.

Shrugging the blanket off his shoulders, Jody folded it over his arm, turned and headed to the waiting chopper. Climbing in, he set the blanket aside, buckled his safety belt and slipped on the headset that was handed to him. McBride’s voice crackled in, letting him know they’d be heading directly to the hospital in Vegas.

The chopper vibrated as the engine spooled up. Jody looked out the window as they rose, lifting up past the crowns of swaying Sugar Pines. Shaken free by the rotor wash, snow lifted from their boughs, misting the air. His gaze fixed on a blonde head down on the wild mountainside. Jody held to that bright point of reference until the chopper pivoted, and pointing her nose down, slid into the clear sky.

Watching his mountain fall away below him, Jody rested his temple against the window and thought that, maybe, just maybe, his luck was finally changing for the better.

THE END