15 Summers Later

Chapter 10

Our journey takes an unexpected turn as we reach the edge of a fast-flowing river. The water roars with a deafening intensity, a turbulent barrier standing between us and freedom. With no other choice, we wade into the icy stream, the current pulling at our legs like invisible hands trying to drag us under. The frigid water numbs our limbs, but we press on, the urgency of our escape drowning out the discomfort.

—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks

Madi fumed beside him for the entire drive back to her house on the old Pruitt farm.

“How nervy,” she finally burst out as he approached the farmhouse. “The man drags you out on a Saturday to v-vaccinate his lambs at the last minute because he forgot to schedule an appointment. And then he actually threatens to take his business elsewhere over something completely out of your c-control. Now do you see how that st-stupid b-book is ruining everything?”

“He has every right to take his business elsewhere. That’s his choice. I don’t have the monopoly on veterinary medicine in the area. There are several other excellent vets within a sixty-mile radius.”

“None of them are as good as you,” she said with a loyalty that touched him. “Can’t he see that you’re a completely innocent victim in this whole thing? Your family had absolutely nothing to do with the Ghost L-Lake C-Coalition, but you all paid a terrible price because of them. B-because of us.”

Her words tangled more than usual, a certain sign of how upset she was. He glanced across the cab of his truck briefly before returning his gaze to the road. That quick look was enough to show him she was almost vibrating with anger.

“Not because of you,” he corrected. “You and Ava were the most innocent victims.”

“Innocent victims who...who dragged you and your family into a nightmare you had nothing to do with. Your father is d-dead because of us. Sierra and your niece and nephew never had the chance to meet their...g-grandfather.”

Her voice hitched on that last word, and Luke felt the familiar ache of sorrow, missing his father keenly. He pulled the truck to the side of the road into a clearing overlooking the vast peaks of the Sawtooths.

A mountain bluebird flitted through the red twig dogwoods along the creek and he could see a couple of magpies watching them warily.

“You can’t think you’re to blame for what happened to my dad.”

Had she truly held this inside her all these years, blaming herself for the choices of others?

“Can’t I?” she looked out the window at the still-snowcapped mountains, green and rugged and beautiful.

“You shouldn’t. You were an innocent child. You could not have known what would happen.”

“We never should have approached your camp,” she said. Her words flowed more fluently, which told him she had thought this many times. “We had spent days avoiding people after our escape, trying to work our own way out of the mountains without being seen, without being scented by the dogs. We had stayed away from the few people we caught glimpses of from a distance. That was partly because we did not know who to trust, but also because we did not want to drag anyone else into the situation. But I was starving and sick and Ava...Ava knew I wouldn’t have lasted much longer. I wish to God we had stuck to our original plan and skirted around your camp on our way down the mountain to our grandmother’s house here in Emerald Creek. We had no idea they were so close b-behind us.”

What he remembered most about that day was the argument he and his father had been having. Luke had been nineteen, home for the summer after his first year of college.

He had announced only the week before that he didn’t want to return to school. A friend of his had taken a job on a fishing trawler in Alaska and wanted Luke to come join him.

The money was amazing. He could work a few seasons and save up enough to finish school without having to take out student loans.

What he hadn’t told his father was his own self-doubt, the anxiety that he wasn’t cut out for even undergrad work, forget about the rigorous requirements to earn a doctor of veterinary medicine. Luke had feared he was a failure who could never measure up to the amazing Dr. Dan Gentry, so what was the point in trying?

They had agreed to a cease-fire so they could both enjoy a long-planned fishing trip to their favorite lake deep in the Sawtooth wilderness.

This had been an annual tradition for them, when his father would close the practice for a few days and take him, Nicole and Owen on the seven-mile hike into the backcountry to Three Peaks Lake, which teemed with native trout and Arctic grayling. They would camp beside the lake and fish and eat and talk and fish some more.

It was a tradition they loved and looked forward to all year.

The first night had been good, with everyone getting along. But the second afternoon, angry words had seethed between him and his father, until Owen had stalked off to the lake to fish on his own and Nicki had retreated into her tent with a book.

He and his father were sitting in angry silence when two sunburned, bedraggled girls wearing ripped, filthy, old-style prairie dresses had burst into their camp.

He could remember it like it had happened that morning. The girls were half-starved, covered in insect bites, Ava sobbing as she begged for their help.

The two girls had poured out an unbelievable story of imprisonment, beatings, abuse.

He and his father had easily set aside their argument, both of them aghast at what they were hearing. Dan Gentry had a satellite phone that he always carried with him into the backcountry. He quickly called for help, and Luke could remember how his father had tried to explain what was happening to a confused dispatcher. His father had finally snapped out that they had found two kidnapped girls and needed an immediate rescue.

Luke had provided their GPS location and they had been pulling down their provisions from the bear-safe food bags hung in the trees when they first heard the dogs and the shouting of men on the hunt.

He pushed the memory away now. He had enough nightmares about what came next. He didn’t need to focus on it.

“You and Ava could not have known what would happen,” he said now to Madi.

“We should have,” she argued. “We had been running for our own lives for d-days. We had traveled through miles of wilderness to try to get them off our trail. Up and down mountains, crossing rivers again and again, knowing they couldn’t be far behind us. That they would never stop until they found us. We knew what they would do to us and anybody who helped us. We should never have stopped at your camp.”

He took her hand, the one that curled slightly and could never straighten completely because of all that had happened to her. His heart broke a little as it trembled in his.

“Madi. Stop. My dad would not have done a single thing differently. You have to know that. He never would have turned his back on the two of you, even if he had known that it would ultimately cost him his life.”

That was yet another way Luke could never measure up to his father, yet he had spent every day since then trying his best. He failed most of the time, but that would only spur him to try harder the next day.

“I wish none of it had ever happened,” she mumbled, her mouth twisted.

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” He hated that she had paid such a bitter price, and would for the rest of her life.

She sniffled but didn’t cry. She was tough, even in this. Still, he handed her a tissue from the box he kept in the door of his pickup. She wiped at her nose. He studied her, fierce and brave and lovely, and couldn’t help himself. He pulled her across the bench seat and into a hug.

She sagged into him, resting her cheek against his chest. They sat in silence for a long time, both of them lost in the past. This wasn’t the first time he had held her in an embrace. They were friends, almost like family, and she was always generous with her hugs.

They had danced the night before, and he had been caught by the softness of her skin and the strawberries-and-cream smell of her shampoo, wondering why he had never noticed how perfectly she fit against him before.

Something felt...different between them. A deeper connection tugging them together.

He wanted to kiss her.

The desire blossomed in his chest like her grandmother’s big, lush peonies. He wanted to lower his mouth to hers and taste her.

He couldn’t do that. Madi was like a sister to him. She had been since she and Ava had burst into their lives. He had no business thinking of her in any other way.

His father would have been furious with him.

A decent man would never even consider taking advantage of a vulnerable woman.

Dan had drilled that advice into his and Owen’s heads from the time they were old enough to start thinking about the opposite sex.

He tamped down on his desire and lowered his arms, easing back into his own seat.

“You okay now?”

She gave him a wary look, much like those lambs did when he came at them with the needle. “I... Yes. I think so.”

Had she felt that heat shiver to life between them, as if something long-buried had begun to awaken?

She shifted her gaze out the windows, toward the wild, jagged mountains.

“I’ve kept you much longer than I intended. You told me you had a big to-do list.”

“I do. Yes.”

“Any concerns with any of your residents?” he asked. “How’s the kitten? Do you need me to check her?”

She didn’t answer him immediately, as if her mind had been elsewhere and it was taking her time to catch up.

“She’s probably fine. I think everyone else is okay for now.”

“You know I’m available for you whenever you need me, right?”

She gave her half smile. “I know. Thank you. I never could have made it this far with the sanctuary if not for your help.”

“I’m happy it’s working out.” He paused. “I’ll see you tomorrow at dinner, right?”

She made a face. “I still haven’t decided if I’ll be there or not.”

“You have to go. I need you to help me cheer up Sierra. She’s going to be moping around like a...”

“Like a girl who’s just lost her best friend?”

“Yes. Exactly like that.” He smiled. “Surely you wouldn’t abandon her in her hour of need. Plus we’re celebrating her birthday. You can’t miss that.”

She sighed. “I don’t want to talk to Ava.”

“You know how hectic things can be at my mom’s Sunday dinners. A few dozen people, filling up the whole house and the yard. If you don’t want to speak with someone, it’s easy enough to avoid them.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see.”

He decided to stick his neck out even further.

“You should think about making your peace with Ava. She’s your only sister.”

“Sure. I’ll think about it. As soon as people stop throwing that stupid book in my face, bringing it up again and again.”

“You’re going to be waiting a long time, I’m afraid. I suspect Ghost Lake will only gain more traction as time goes on. Your story is one that resonates with people on many levels.”

“Why?” she burst out. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Who even cares about something that happened fifteen years ago? It barely even made the papers when it happened.”

“Because it’s a story of survival and courage. We need those kinds of stories as much now as ever.”

“We didn’t do anything that remarkable,” she muttered.

“You were two young girls who endured months of imprisonment at the hands of a violent group of adults who were heavily armed, then somehow found the courage to escape from them. You went on the run into the wilderness with nothing but your own grit. You survived days on your own, living on berries and roots and tree bark and drinking from mountain streams. Then, in that final confrontation, when you were seconds from being rescued by authorities, you were shot in the head.”

That was another memory that lived on in his nightmares.

“Yet somehow you survived, again by that sheer force of indomitable will, and have rebuilt your life. People need stories like that.”

“Fine. They can get them somewhere else. I never wanted to be the center of attention. I prefer to focus on the animals who need homes, not on something that happened fifteen years ago.”

With that, she opened the door and climbed out. “I need to go.”

“Okay,” he said, sensing she had talked about this all she wanted to. “What about tomorrow?”

She sighed. “Now who is the relentless one? Maybe. If I go, it will be for Sierra’s sake. Not to make up with Ava.”

He watched her move toward the small farmhouse, which needed paint. The animals come first, Madi had said when he suggested she spend some of their recent, generous gift to spruce up the house.

She walked up the steps, her gait slightly uneven from the brace she wore on her left leg, and waved at him when she opened the door.

He knew Madi worried everyone looked at her with pity, that they only saw her weaknesses.

He wanted her to see herself as he did. As the rest of the world was beginning to, thanks to Ava’s book—as a remarkable woman, an example of strength and courage and grace.