“Let’s not forget the music.” The band was playing a new song, although he couldn’t place it.
“Love me some Tim McGraw.”
He didn’t know if she might be telling the truth, but just in case—“Wanna dance?”
He knew it was bold—he didn’t even know her. But he lived by the motto of Live now, or you might miss it, so he gave her his best Jake Silver smile and held out his hand.
She took it. “Why not?”
She fit so easily, so smoothly into his arms, sliding into his embrace like she knew him, and they fell into step as if they’d been dancing together all his life.
It sort of rocked him back and he tripped. Which caused her to step on his foot.
She laughed. “Should I lead?”
“I got this,” he said, not sure why she rattled him. He knew how to dance. Had learned from his cousins down in Nashville.
Apparently, women liked to dance.
And he liked the women in his life to be happy—all five of his sisters, his mother, and even his sweet grandma Lou. So, yeah, he’d learned to dance.
He dipped her at the end of the song, and she hung onto his neck as he brought her back up.
“You’re a charmer, aren’t you, Cowboy?” she said, letting him go. Her brown hair had fallen out of her bun, and he resisted the urge to tuck it back behind her ear as the music changed. “What’s your name?”
“Jake. Silver. You?”
“Aria Sinclair.”
The music slowed, and he raised an eyebrow, held out his hands.
She grinned. “I see you like to live dangerously, huh, Cowboy Jake?”
He wanted to frown at that, but in truth, yes, maybe he did.
Unfortunately, because of it, people around him tended to get hurt, caught in the line of fire, or lost.
Which was why he kept things short term, without commitment. Fun.
And this was fun.
They fell into the slower song, something easier to talk through.
We said goodbye on a night like this
Stars shining down, I was waitin’ for a kiss
“Are you climbing Denali also?” she asked.
“Nope. Mount Huntington. It’s only a twelver, but highly technical, so my boss thinks it would be good practice.”
“For what?”
“He runs a private search-and-rescue group—mostly international, but we do all sorts of things, so he wants us to be prepared.” He leaned closer to her. “Actually, we’re on a recruiting trip. He’s trying to talk one of his old military buddies into joining us.”
“Military, huh? Did you serve?”
And this was where it got tricky. Because although he wanted to pull out his SEAL creds, invariably it was followed by questions. Half answers. Or, if he got truthful, probably the night would end right here, right now.
He liked her enough to want another dance, so, “Yeah, I was in the Navy. Got out a year ago and started working for Ham.”
Her eyebrow raised then. “Ham? You don’t mean Hamilton Jones, do you?” She glanced over his shoulder. “Wow, that’s a small world.”
He frowned.
“We train at GoSports fitness. I think he owns it, right? I wondered why he looked so familiar—I’ve seen his picture. He did an ad during last year’s Super Bowl with Adam Thielen, a wide receiver with the Vikings.”
Huh. Yes, small world. “Yeah. They’re good friends. I’m a GoSports coach. Mostly swimming, scuba diving, and parasailing.”
“Are you from Minnesota?”
He nodded. “You?”
“Minnesota Viking, to the core.”
He had a mental picture of her wearing purple, shouting “skol!”
“What do you do now?”
“I’m a doctor. So is Jenny, although she has a doctorate in psychology. Sasha is our resident entrepreneur. Runs an essential oils and soap company. Her husband, Lucas, works with me.”
“So what brought you to the mountain?”
He twirled her out, the chorus thrumming inside him.
Turn around, listen to your heart
I need you so much, don’t tear me apart
Even if I knew you’d be the one that got away
I’d still go back and get you.
She came back into his arms. The sun was behind him, shining in her eyes, and touched her face with a tan. “You know—work hard, play hard, right? Jenny and I climb a mountain every year just because we can. It makes us feel alive.” Then she grinned at him.
And in that moment, he felt alive, something stirring inside him, loosening.
Alive.
He’d sort of forgotten what that felt like.
Unfortunately, that was when she glanced past him and frowned. “Uh-oh.”
He followed her look and spied Orion standing at a table, dressing down a group of climbers. The music drowned out his words, so Jake didn’t catch it, but it clearly had Aria’s blonde friend upset. She wore an expression Jake might call horror.
Maybe Orion was spinning one of his catastrophic tales of demise on the mountain. He did that—told stories of his father’s career as a park ranger on the mountain. Apparently Orion had worked as a mountain rescue volunteer for a couple years before he joined the Air Force.
Maybe Orion read the woman, because he walked over to her and said something as the song ended.
“I’d better go find out what’s going on,” Aria said.
Then she looked up at him, smiled, and left her memory lodged in his heart because she gave him a peck on the cheek. “Try to stay alive, Jake Silver.”
“Try to stay alive.”
The words thrummed inside him like a heartbeat as he kicked his crampon into the mountain. The snow was wind-bitten, a crust layering the top, and he broke through, using his ice axe to grip with one hand, the fixed rope sliding through the other.
Orion had nearly reached the top of the eight-hundred-foot Headwall and was waiting for them before they continued up the ridge. The ridge with snow casting off the top, causing a near whiteout. The ridge that dropped a thousand feet on either side.
Below him, Ham was nearly a polar bear with the snow caking his face guard, hat, and hood. Jake searched for a foothold in the snow—but the wind had erased Orion’s steps.
He kicked in another step, aware of his breathing. And the slightest hint of nausea. He needed food.
Sleep.
Heat.
And most of all, maybe just enough crazy luck to not get blown off the mountain.
Stay alive, Jake Silver.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY HAD TO GET DOWN the mountain.
Today.
While the sun shone, the wind died, and most importantly . . . before Sasha got any worse.
“C’mon, Sasha. Time to get up,” Jenny said. “We need to get your boots on.”
Sasha leaned up in her sleeping bag, grimacing as Aria worked her foot into her boot. After eight more hours in the tent, the storm had finally cleared enough to leave blue skies, a slight wisping of snow, and the reality that no one was coming for them.
Or, if they were, they’d have to rescue them from lower heights. No chopper was going to be able to pluck them off the mountain at nineteen thousand.
More critical, they had to get Sasha down to lower elevation to slow down her advance toward pulmonary edema. Already she was coughing hard, her bones were aching, and she was unable to keep food down. Jenny feared waiting any longer for help would bring them to a point of no return.