“I should have kissed Jacie.”
Ham raised an eyebrow.
“I know we haven’t been hanging out long, but there’s something about her. And she sort of looked at me like she wanted me to kiss her, but . . . aw, I’m just feeling the morphine.”
Except, he could almost feel her lips against his, whisper soft. Could nearly taste her smile.
He very well might be in love with her.
He’d never been the kind of guy to crack open his heart and let a woman in. Sometimes he felt a little like the mountain his father loved. Cold, foreboding. Not easily conquered.
That thought caught him up now, as he trudged through the snow. Maybe he was tired of being alone on his mountain.
“Ry!”
He slowed, turned, not realizing he’d been walking so fast. Ham was behind him, his arms out. Stop. Jenny turned, too, shading her eyes.
“Stay there!”
Orion surveyed their position as Ham caught up to him. He hadn’t realized they’d breached the Great Icefall, he’d been so consumed in his thoughts, but yes, it was probably a good thing to stop. Below him lay a minefield of glacial traps, crevasses, depressions, and seracs.
Ambushes.
But as long as they were careful . . .
He waited as Ham and Jenny caught up to him. Jenny leaned over, breathing hard.
“’Sup, man?” Orion asked.
Ham pulled down his face mask. “I was looking at the glacier, and it feels like maybe we need to move to the right as we go down this icefall. There’s a linearity through the snow fifty feet down—see the depression?”
Ham pointed to a well that ran a hundred yards, maybe more, horizontally through the field. “I think there’s a giant crack there.”
“Could be the remains of the bergschrund that broke free years ago.”
“We could travel in an echelon—in a V formation,” Jenny said.
“But if one of us falls, there’s only the other one to catch him. Or her,” Orion said. “Better to stay in a line, perpendicular to the crevasse. We’ll find a place to cross over it.”
He ran his gaze over her kit, just to make sure she was secured. But she’d been a pro on Karstens Ridge, working with them as if she knew exactly what she was doing.
Of course she did. Just because they’d had an accident didn’t mean she needed his help the rest of the way down the mountain.
Except, he wanted to help her.
That thought drew in his breath.
What was it about Jenny Calhoun that made him want to step into her life? And invite her back into his?
Hadn’t he learned his lesson?
“I can lead for a while,” Ham said.
Orion considered him. Glanced at Jenny.
Well, this way, if Jenny fell, he could be in a better position to self-arrest. “Maybe we should put on our crampons.”
Ham nodded and they switched out their footwear. Then, he traded places with Ham.
The key to glacier travel wasn’t just the probing and picking routes, but keeping the line taut enough to not let too much slack create a force that would knock you over in a fall. But not tight enough that you might end up face-first down a mountain.
Jenny followed Ham.
He followed Jenny.
She muscled along without complaint, keeping pace. He liked a person who looked at challenges without flinching.
Challenges like him.
“It’s not the morphine. You’ve had your eye on her since we showed up here. And since you met her, you seem less knotted up inside. What is it about this girl?”
Ham, again, bothering him out of his pain in the cave. Thorne and Royal had taken defensive positions at the front of the cave. The other SEAL, North Gunderson, had gone to scout an escape route.
Which left Ham to figure out what to do next.
Apparently, it was to badger Orion about his love life. Or maybe he was trying to keep him alive. Whatever.
“I don’t know. There’s something honest about her. Brave, maybe.”
“There’s brave, and there’s crazy. Embedded in a war zone?” Ham shook his head.
“Crazy like you and me?” Orion said as he heard shouts.
“Crazy because she’s risking her life for a story.”
A couple shots popped off. Ham stood up. Royal, calling back.
More shots.
“Get down!” Ham said.
A crack, and Orion came back to himself, to the mountain and the fact that Ham was waving his arms—danger.
“Icefall!” Ham shouted. He backed up, rerouted, and disappeared behind a tall serac.
Another crack. This time a cornice gave way under the sun and crashed down the glacier to the left. Orion stiffened, but the avalanche careened down the mountain some quarter mile away.
Okay, so he was jumpy.
He came around the ice chunk that had hidden Ham and spotted his friend on the other side of a two-foot-wide gap. He had moved forward and was taking an anchoring position—laying on his ice axe, his feet dug in.
Orion’s heart lodged into his throat when he spotted Jenny’s intentions. “Wait!”
Jenny turned. “It’s only two feet!”
Her voice filled his head. “Sometimes I think I’m just . . . I’m doomed.”
Not today. “Let me anchor you in.”
He too knelt and anchored himself in, leaving enough slack for her to jump. “Okay, clear.”
He hunkered down, bracing himself for a fall, but none came and in a moment he looked up.
She was on the other side of the crevasse, her axe in the air. “Clear.”
See, keeping terrible things from happening was all about planning ahead. Anticipating trouble. He couldn’t stop every random event from taking him out, but . . .
So maybe it wasn’t about stopping the random events; maybe it was about learning to live with them when life was snatched out of your control.
He leaped over the crevasse, his heart pounding. Held his axe up.
Ham waved. “Let’s take a break while I try the radio!”
Jenny unhooked her pack and dropped it to the ground, and pulled off her climbing gear from around her shoulder. Ahead of them, Ham unroped and walked toward a dome of snow, probably to get higher reception.
Orion shrugged off his pack, letting the weight fall into the soft snow with a crunch. Pulled out his water bottle and took a sip of tea.
See, they weren’t doomed.
And maybe it was time to stop letting the past grind through him. Let go of the anger, the frustration, the lack of closure holding him hostage.
Maybe he should just . . . come down from the mountain.
Grab on to this random second chance with Jenny.
It wasn’t like God would show up and give him any answers about the past anyway.
Another crack split the air behind him, but he didn’t turn, the sound echoing in the distance.
Until—
“Orion, look out!” Jenny looked past him.
Her voice froze in time. Then she picked up her ice axe and fled horizontally across the ice field.
He turned. His breath caught.
The giant serac behind him thundered down in a great torrent of white.
Avalanche.
“We’re going to die up here.”
Aria was sitting up on her sleeping bag, a slight sweat beaded across the brow of her wool cap, her body trembling with a bone-deep shiver.