“Which means you’re here when someone needs you.”
He didn’t move. Finally, his mouth tightened. He looked at her, something soft in his eyes. “I like your hair long.”
Oh.
Then he rolled over, facing Sasha. “I’m a light sleeper,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Get some sleep, Jace—Jenny.” He closed his eyes.
She lay on her side, too, tracing the outline of his face under the brightness of the midnight sun, and let her heart break for all she’d cost him.
He’d given away too much of himself.
What was he thinking telling her the story of his parents? And then he added even more sap to the table with his pitiful sometimes I think I’ve never left the mountain. What was that about?
Orion just wanted to get up and take his sleeping bag outside, away from the sense that he’d sounded like a crybaby.
So what? His life had imploded.
At least he’d come home.
Other people had problems, too. “Every time I summit, my past falls away and I feel free.”
He didn’t know what she’d meant, but the fact was, he understood feeling imprisoned. By anger. By unanswered questions.
Someday I’m going to find answers.
He’d been driven by that dark, singular thought for a long, long time. The anger and frustration that brewed deep in his veins.
In order to live with it, he’d sealed it all off, retreated into the woods, and he’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping it all tucked away until Ham had to go and drag him out of the woods and onto the mountain.
A mountain that, indeed, he couldn’t seem to escape.
Orion stared at the tent walls rippling, listened to the wind moaning in his ears. Beside him, Sasha was breathing steadily. He rolled over and again found her pulse on her carotid artery.
Still steady, and she seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.
It might be fatigue, or it could be the beginnings of cerebral edema.
He needed dexamethasone. He hadn’t even thought about bringing it on his fourteener climb and had forgotten to shove some into his bag when he headed out for Denali.
Reacting, rather than thinking.
Kit probably had some, but he’d been so focused on getting to the top of the mountain . . .
That’s what happened when he led with his emotions. He forgot the essentials.
Forgot, even, to care about others.
“I had a nervous breakdown.”
Oh, Jacie.
No. Jenny.
He cast his gaze to her and watched her sleep in the dim glow of the sun. He guessed the hour to be past midnight, and the tent was starting to lighten. She still wore her wool cap, but her hair fell across her face.
“I like your hair long.”
He didn’t know why he’d said that, either. Maybe he was getting a little altitude sickness.
Sasha moaned, as if she might be waking. Maybe he should get up and fix her some more herbal tea. He reached for his overpants, his jacket, and a hat and left the women to sleep as he slipped out of the tent.
To his surprise, Ham sat in the early light, the stove going, the blue flames humming around a pot of melting snow. Perhaps Ham didn’t hear him, because his head was bowed.
Oh. Right. Praying.
He’d caught Ham more than once praying over the years. In Afghanistan, it gave him a sense of hope that maybe God might be looking out for them all.
Until he didn’t, of course.
But if Ham wanted to believe that God cared, well, maybe Orion shouldn’t let it irk him quite so much. His parents had believed, too, so maybe it would make his mother a little happy to think that he’d made a friend who prayed for him.
He let that thought sink in as he sat down next to Ham on a block of snow. Across the plateau of ice, the sun was coming alive, bathing Mount Huntington and the southern Alaskan Range in shades of gold and yellow. A harsh beauty.
Ham looked over at him. “Trying to figure out how to get everyone off the mountain?”
Oh sure, yes. Not at all about the woman in the tent, and what could have caused her to have a nervous breakdown.
Or how he’d turned into a weakling in front of her.
“Yep.”
“Any ideas?”
Orion opened the lid of the pot to check the snow. It had nearly melted, tiny bubbles forming around the edges. “I think Sasha is coming down with HACE.”
“There’s no way she’s going to make it down Karstens Ridge,” Ham said.
“She’ll barely be able to walk.”
“And Jake thinks Aria’s ankle is sprained pretty badly.”
“They need to stay,” Orion said. “And we need to get help. My guess is that we should be able to get radio reception from the top of Karstens Ridge.”
“Maybe.”
The lid began to rattle on the pot. Ham lifted the pot with his mittened hand and poured water into a thermos. “You need some tea?”
Orion pulled out a bag of peppermint tea from the food cache and dropped it into Sasha’s thermos. Ham poured the water in.
Orion let it steep as he stared out at the golden early morning.
“Did you ever hear about anything happening to Jacie after I left? A trauma of some sort?”
Ham shook his head. “We were all pretty consumed with getting Thorne and Royal back. Actually, I don’t even remember her being around. Why?”
It wasn’t his story to tell. “I have reason to think that something happened that felt too big for her to handle.”
Ham looked at him. “Really? She looks pretty put together to me. Even yesterday, fighting to save Aria’s life. She didn’t seem the kind to go down without a fight.”
He frowned. Nodded.
“But I suppose we all run up against a fight that takes us out.” Ham filled the pot with more snow, added some water, and put it on the flame to melt. He looked at Orion.
“Ambushes you,” Orion said.
“Which is where we step in, Ry. Rescue those who are in over their heads.”
Orion shook his head. “Still recruiting.”
“Until you say yes.”
He let himself smile. “Ham, you are a stubborn son of a gun.”
“I just know a good man when I see one, Orion. You nearly gave your life for those women today. If that axe had given way, you could have gone over with them. Brave.”
Orion’s smile fell. “Naw. Stupid. Impulsive.” Sort of like he’d been tonight with Jenny.
“Keen instincts.”
“Listen, Ham. I’m just trying to stay alive. Get down the mountain. If it will let me go.”
“‘The weapons to conquer the mountain exist inside you, inside your soul.’” Ham looked at him. “Walter Bonatti, solo climber of the Matterhorn.”
“I thought you only quoted the Bible.”
“Okay. ‘I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.’ Psalm 120:1.”
Crazy, but Ham’s words made him feel a little better. Orion wasn’t sure why.
Maybe they would get off this mountain.
“You know what your problem is, Ry?” The lid was starting to rattle on the pot.
“I can’t wait.”
“You’re mad because God didn’t answer your prayer back in the cave the way you wanted him to. You asked him to rescue us—but you meant without any wounds.”