Chapter 21
GRANT
G rant’s heart pounded as his wife dangled from the rope over the cliff’s edge. She’d managed to grab his daughter before the tree she clung to plummeted to the tree-covered ground below.
The subsequent crash of the fir into the other trees reminded him of how precarious the situation with Sierra remained.
Luke’s warning–before Julia had gone over the edge–continued to ring in his mind. I wouldn’t let my wife go over that cliff.
But he had, and his heart was aching with guilt over it. He’d wanted Sierra back, and he’d risked Julia’s life for it. No wonder she’d left him. He was selfish. Everyone was right about him. He used anyone he could to solve his problems, no matter what it could cost them.
Still, the scene below tugged at his heart as Julia held his daughter, reassuring her even as she dangled precariously.
They suddenly dropped a few feet before they jerked to a stop. His heart dropped right along with them.
“Oh, no,” Luke murmured next to him.
“What?”
“That anchor’s not going to hold them.” He raised his voice before he called to Julia. “Julia, this isn’t going to hold. You’ve got to get back up here.”
Julia lifted her eyes to them, something clouding them. “We’re not going to make it up there. The rocks are way too slick for me to move that fast.”
His heart dropped at the words. What was going to happen?
”Julia–“ Luke said.
“Luke, there’s no way,” she answered before she and Sierra fell a little further.
Sierra and Julia exchanged a few words, but he couldn’t understand what Julia was saying to her.
Luke didn’t like it, though. “Julia, you can’t.”
“There’s no way. We’re never going to make it back up there before this thing lets loose.” Her voice sounded frightened but firm.
“You’ve got to try. We can pull you,” Luke said.
The rain pounded harder around them as Julia shook her head. “That’s not going to work and you know it.”
His mind stretched to understand the conversation they were having. What was she saying? Where was she going to go if she wasn’t climbing up?
“Wh-what’s she saying?” Grant asked, the fear raw in his voice.
“Julia…” Luke tilted his head in warning. “Please.”
“It’s a quick drop or a fall, Luke. You know where we are. You can find us.”
“No,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“So is waiting. Every second counts now.”
Whatever she was saying, it didn’t sound good. She looked scared. And the sob that emerged from Luke next to him made his stomach turn over. “What does she mean? What’s happening?”
She fixed her eyes on his. “We’re going to be okay, Grant. Go with Luke. Sierra, I need you to hang on tight.”
Fear drove his heart to feel like it was going to explode out of his chest, his features pinching. What was she warning him of? “What?”
She fixed her eyes on them. “I’m going to open the lever. I’ll see you on the flip side.”
Lever? What was she saying?
He started to ask when her hand hovered over the device she’d used to stop herself from sliding down the rope. A second later, she flipped something.
His stomach clenched as she dropped away from his sight, plummeting toward the trees far below them.
“Julia!” he screamed after her, reaching a hand toward her in a desperate attempt to reach her.
Helplessness roiled through him as Julia and Sierra fell further and further from them.
Luke tugged him back before shoving his head down. “Get down.”
He didn’t understand what the man was doing until he spotted the pike he’d driven into the ground earlier slicing through the air and plunging down toward the ground below. He couldn’t find words as the pressure let off his neck.
He trembled all over as he continued to stare downward.
His knees felt weak, and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to anchor himself to anything as the cold rain splashed on his face.
Julia and Sierra had disappeared from sight along with the rope that had held them.
They were…gone. He’d lost them both in seconds.
Next to him, Luke rose to his feet, zipping his backpack and flinging it onto his back. “Come on. We need to move.”
Grant still couldn’t vocalize as he remained in shock. How was Luke moving this easily after witnessing that? After watching Sierra and Julia fall to their…his mind couldn’t finish the statement.
“Grant, let’s go.”
“What? We can’t…they…fell…”
“Yes, and now we need to go find them.”
He offered the man an incredulous glance. Why was he so interested in finding their mangled bodies? Was it wild animals or something else that made this urgent? “How can you…be this calm?”
Luke’s brow furrowed as Grant rose. “We have to find them.”
“We just…watched them fall to their deaths.”
Luke pressed his lips together as he shook his head. “No. Julia hit that tree line before the anchor went. They may be hurt, but they’re alive.”
His forehead creased as he tried to make sense of the words. Alive? They were alive?
“They’re alive, Grant. Julia made a smart decision, and she didn’t hesitate. They didn’t fall. She put them into the fastest descent I’ve ever seen, but it was still controlled. By the time the pike went, the trees were breaking their fall. Now, let’s go.”
He let the words sink in as his heart lifted with hope. “They’re…alive?” His voice cracked, betraying his wavering emotion.
“Yes. And while Julia’s smart and very capable of keeping both herself and your daughter alive, I’d prefer to find her before either of them endures any more trauma.”
Grant bobbed his head up and down as the rain continued to pour, harder now than before. As he followed behind Luke, he searched his memory for the clues Luke had used to assess the situation.
“So…” he said as he tried to piece it all together. “She…”
“Julia knew they’d never make it back up before that anchor went. She let the brake go and dropped. If she hadn’t done that when she did, the anchor would have let go and they would have been in a free fall to the ground.”
Grant trudged along behind the man, realizing his wife had just made the scariest decision he could imagine to save his daughter’s life.
A mix of admiration and dread filled him.
He realized, with a pang of guilt, how much he’d taken her bravery for granted.
Her courage to save Sierra forced him to confront the depth of her love for his family, at least for his daughter.
“How did she know…”
“Julia’s an experienced climber. She’s also very smart.” Luke shifted his eyes toward Grant as they continued through the woods. “You’ve been married to her for over a year and never realized she was smart? Is she really that much of a prop?”
“No, I just…I had no idea she was…Yes, I know she’s smart. If she wasn’t, I’d probably have been convicted of murder a year ago.”
Luke furrowed his brow as he shot Grant a confused glance.
“Don’t ask. But if it hadn’t been for Julia, I’d be cooling my heels in a jail cell.”
“She is an amazing woman,” Luke said, focusing on the path ahead of them. “You’re lucky she married you.”
“I know,” Grant murmured as they veered into territory he didn’t remember. “Are we going…somewhere else?”
“Back to my car. We need to let everyone know that the search has changed.”
Grant continued along the trail, following the man who’d until now been his enemy for Julia’s hand. He wondered which of them would win as a Land Rover came into sight, parked on the edge of a one-lane road. Did they all have such utilitarian vehicles?
Luke reached it and tugged open the door, reaching inside for a CB radio. “Ally? You read me?”
A static-filled response came back. “Luke? Yeah, what’s up?”
“We found the girl. But we’ve got a new situation. We need to regroup at the station.”
“How bad?”
“Better than it could have been,” he said before he tossed the radio back onto his dash. He twisted to face Grant when his eyes went wide. “Get under the truck.”
“What?” Grant asked.
Luke grabbed him and tugged him down. “Under the truck.”
“Are you serious?” Grant tried to figure out if this was some kind of joke they played on outsiders.
“Yes,” Luke said as he shimmied under the Land Rover. “Now get under here before Julia blames me for your death.”
“Death?” Grant said as he pressed against the wet ground and slid underneath the car. Grime covered the cheek he pressed into the gravel.
The storm intensified around them, the wind howling like a wild beast as rain fell in relentless sheets. Flashes of lightning illuminated the landscape around them as thunder boomed.
For a second, the precipitation seemed to let up, and the wind quieted. Why had Luke insisted they crawl under here when the storm was letting up?
The elements answered his question a second later. Rain fell again, hitting the pavement so hard that it splashed into the air. The wind ramped up, sounding like a freight train barreling past them. He resisted the urge to clamp his hands over his ears as the noise screamed past them.
It died after a few moments, only a distant rumbling of thunder echoing after it.
Luke grabbed the edge of the vehicle and slid out from under it. “Okay, I think we’re clear.”
Grant shimmied out from under the car and climbed to his feet, brushing dirt and gravel from his face and clothes. “What was that?”
“Sounded like a microburst.”
“A what?” Grant asked as Luke climbed into the car.
He followed, pulling on his seat belt as his eyes fell onto a picture of Luke and Julia pinned to the visor. The sight of his wife made his heart ache again.
“Microburst. Like a tornado, only no funnel cloud.” Luke fired the engine and sent the car careening down the road.
His stomach turned over as he thought of Sierra and Julia, lying hurt after the fall, and surviving that.
Within a few minutes, the town surrounded them. Luke slid into a space at the police station, and they left the car behind, hurrying through the slowing rain into the station.
A soaked Alicia tugged her raincoat off, giving them a double-take as they walked in. Kyle followed behind her, looking unhappy at how wet he was despite the raincoat.
“What are you doing here? Where is Julia?”
Luke held up a hand. “Ally…”
“Where is my sister? Why is he with you?” Alicia shifted angry eyes to Grant. “Did you leave her somewhere?”
Kyle offered him a similar expression as he searched his face.
“We found Sierra. She was stuck on the north face. Julia rappelled down for her.”
“Yeah, okay? So…what? You took them to the hospital? What?”
Luke shook his head.
“Luke, what?” Alicia said, her panic growing. “Tell me…tell me this isn’t a recovery now.”
Recovery? Body recovery, he wondered.
“The anchor wasn’t going to hold,” Luke said. “She made the best choice she could.”
“Whoa, what does that mean?” Kyle asked, panic lacing his voice.
“Which was?” Alicia’s voice turned shrill as her hands curled into fists.
“She let the brake off. She hit the trees before the pike went, giving them an excellent chance of surviving that fall.”
“You-You’re telling me…” Alicia pulled her chin back to her chest, her eyes wide. “You’re telling me my sister fell off the north face? How far up was she?”
“Couple hundred feet,” Luke said, setting his hands on his hips.
Alicia slapped a hand against her forehead as she paced, a groan escaping her. “What the hell did you let her do that for, Luke?”
“She was the best one to go over. The anchor wouldn’t hold my weight with Sierra. Julia insisted.”
Alicia smacked his chest with both hands, knocking him back a step. “You should have stopped her.”
“Ally, if I had gone, we would have fallen for sure.”
“So, you let Julia fall instead?” her voice came out as a shrill squeak.
“If they fell a couple hundred feet…” Kyle said, his eyes wide.
Luke shook his head. “She didn’t fall. She descended. Far too fast, yes, but if she hadn’t, they’d be dead.”
“You’d better hope she isn’t.” Alicia wagged a finger at him as Ethan and his father strode back in.
“Got your message, what’s up? Where’s Julia?”
“She fell off the north face with the girl,” Alicia said. “So, we’ve got to regroup for a ground search.”
Ethan’s eyes went wide. “She fell?”
“It was a less-than-controlled descent,” Luke answered. “They should be okay, but they may be hurt. She hit the tree line at a fast clip.”
“Then we need to get out there. The storm’s letting up but that burst that just went through could have done some damage. We gotta find them as soon as possible,” Ethan said. “Every second counts.”
Alicia, her hands still shaking, nodded. “The aftermath of the storm could complicate our search, but they could be injured, disoriented, or worse. I want everyone out there searching.”
Grant’s chest tightened as a mix of hope and dread coursed through him. “I’ll come with you.”
Alicia shot him a stone-faced glance before she flicked her gaze to Ethan, reaching for his hand. He grabbed hers and slid an arm around her shoulder. “We’ll find her, Ally.”
Kyle stepped closer to Grant. “Tell me this isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
Grant clenched his jaw as the image of Julia and Sierra falling away from him tumbled through his mind. He raised his eyes to Kyle’s pinched features. “It was a pretty far fall, and the anchor broke before they made it.”
The expression on Kyle’s face told him everything he needed to know about how bad their injuries could be. It renewed the tension in him as they headed back out into the drizzle, now searching for their potentially hurt family. “Dad, they could be…”
“I know,” Grant answered. “We have to find them. Julia…took way too big of a risk.” He needed to step up and find them both. He needed to bring her back.
He slid into the car with Kyle and Alicia, not allowing her to stop him. He had to prove to himself, and to Julia, that he could be worthy of their relationship and the courage she had shown for him. He’d find her. He had to.