Chapter 23
GRANT
G rant’s heart thudded against his ribs with every step through the thick woods. The search party had formed rapidly. Alicia led them, her pace quick as she hurried toward the spot where they’d fallen.
She seemed agitated. The potential loss of her sister weighed heavily on her. He felt sorry for her. It weighed on him, too. With every step, he feared they’d soon spot two mangled bodies lying on the forest floor.
As he trudged through the dense forest, his thoughts circled back to Julia. Each step laden with guilt, and each call for her a reminder of their unresolved tensions. Had his actions led to this?
Could they possibly be alive? With every breath, he hoped so. But they would have not only fallen through the trees but then survived the microburst that had passed through the area.
He shuddered as images of Sierra and Julia riding that frightening experience out in the midst of these woods.
“Julia!” Alicia shouted, calling his attention forward. She broke into a run, and his heart stopped. Had she spotted them? He quickened his pace, arriving as Alicia bent to scoop something off the ground.
“That’s the harness she had on,” Luke confirmed.
“So, she made it to the ground.” Alicia spun in a circle, searching.
“And unhurt enough to move,” Ethan added.
“Unless the microburst tossed them.”
“Julia would have moved before that happened,” Luke said.
“Unless she couldn’t,” Alicia said as she stalked a few steps away. “Julia!”
“Spread out and look for them,” Ethan said. “They may have taken shelter from the storm nearby.”
“Ethan, they could be still moving on foot,” Charles answered him.
“Yeah, they could be, but this is the best place to start. If we don’t find them in the vicinity, we’ll expand the search radius.”
“Julia!” Alicia shouted. “Sierra!”
“Julia!” Luke called.
The others spread out, shouting each of their names. The dense canopy above muffled their shouts as if nature resisted their frantic search.
Grant’s stomach clenched as he stalked through the woods, calling to them. With every step, the threat of happening upon a hurt or worse Julia or Sierra marched through his mind, threatening to buckle his knees.
“Julia!”
“Sierra!”
Voices called all over the forest in search of the two lost women.
“Julia?” Alicia called. “If you can hear me, answer!”
Grant stopped, twisting to glance at his sister-in-law. The look on her face suggested she thought she’d heard something. “Julia!”
A grin spread on her face. “This way! I hear her.”
Grant’s heart skipped a beat, a mix of hope and dread filling him. She was alive. Was Sierra? Were they hurt?
He hurried toward them as Alicia stood at what appeared to be a rock wall. She peered through an opening in the boulders.
“Hold on–we have Tony here, and he’s way better at this than I am.”
Another man slid in front of the opening. Were they trapped inside?
“What’s happening?” he asked Ethan.
“They’re both inside. They’re both fine, more or less. She thinks Sierra may have sprained her wrist.”
He sucked in a breath as he let the words sink in. Were they correct? Were they both fine? “Can they get them out?”
He eyed the man as he spoke through the hole, then started to carefully shift some of the smaller rocks.
“Looks like it,” Ethan said with a clap on his shoulder and a smile.
The other officer waved his hands, seeming to motion for someone to come through. Grant held his breath as he waited. No one came. Were they not okay?
“Stick your arms through first, okay?” Tony said. “Then we’ll tug you forward.”
A minute later, hands thrust from the hole. A head poked through later. His features melted as tears filled his eyes. “Sierra!”
“Daddy!” Sierra shouted as they pulled her from the hole. She reached for him while they continued to free her.
He rushed forward, wrapping his arms around her.
As she fell free, her foot kicked a stone.
It set off a chain reaction. The ground rumbled and rocks shifted, causing dust to billow in the air.
When the dust settled, Grant's eyes widened in astonishment.
The hole in the rocks blocking the cave had vanished.
“Julia!” Alicia shouted.
She raced forward, clawing at the rocks. The officer who pulled Sierra free, Luke, and Ethan tugged her away.
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
“Ally,” Ethan said as he pulled her into an embrace.
“Daddy!” Sierra said as she clutched him tighter.
“It’s okay, baby. They can…they’ll…” But the truth was he had no idea if they could rescue her. His heart ached as he held his daughter but failed to retrieve his wife. She now was trapped inside the cave. Surely, they’d just have to move the stones. Why had they stopped Alicia?
“Get her out of there!” Alicia screamed.
“Ally, it’s not that simple,” the officer who’d retrieved Sierra said. “If we shift these rocks, we could cave the entire thing in. We don’t want to do that.”
“What about…blowing it?”
“Too risky. We don’t know how far back she can get, and plus, we could drop the entire rock face on top of her.”
“So…what? That’s it?” Alicia asked, panic filling her voice.
“We need to go back to the station. We need to regroup and look into some equipment. Rethink,” the man said.
“Rethink. Regroup.” Her features melted as her knees buckled. Ethan caught her, tugging her close.
Grant felt the same way she did. It ripped at his heart that they’d leave Julia here, trapped, alone.
Alicia’s shoulders shook with sobs as she twisted Ethan’s jacket into a knot in her white-knuckled fist. “No. I just got her back, Ethan. I just got her back.”
“We’re going to get her out. We just need to rethink, okay? We need to do this in a way that’s safe for Julia.”
“Daddy,” Sierra croaked. “Do something.”
“Uh,” he said, at a loss for words. Images of his own entrapment after the explosion floated through his mind. In those frightening moments, he’d thought he lost everything. And he hadn’t even been alone. Julia was on her own. “Is there anything I can do? Equipment, money, anything?”
“We just need to give this some thought,” the officer said.
Ethan tightened his grip on his wife as another sob escaped her. “You should get your daughter to the hospital and get her checked out. She’s had a really frightening experience.”
“No, I don’t want to leave Julia here!” Sierra cried.
“She’d want you to get checked. We can’t do anything here anyway.” Luke wrapped his arm around Alicia and tugged her closer to him. “Come on, Ally. We need to go make a plan.
“I’ll go with you,” Kyle said, before glancing at his father. “Unless you need me at the hospital?”
Grant shook his head, his features twisting as he considered leaving Julia behind. He wanted to be in three places at once. He wanted to stay here with Julia, even if she didn’t know. He wanted to be with her, but he also wanted to keep tabs on the rescue effort for her.
But his daughter needed him. For hours, he’d wondered if he’d ever see her again, and now he held her in his arms. He was incredibly lucky to have her back. She could have easily died falling over the edge of that cliff. Or during the subsequent, daring rescue by Julia.
“Daddy, no,” Sierra said as he guided her back toward the vehicles.
“Come on, they’re right. We need to get you checked out. Think about how much better it’ll be if we know you’re okay when we see Julia again, right? Then we can spend all our time with her.”
“Okay,” she said with a sniffle. “Because she doesn’t hate me.”
“What?” he asked as they walked back to the car.
“I thought…I thought she hated me. But she said she didn’t. She said she’d never hate me. She told me she’d always be there for me. So, she’d better be okay.”
It warmed his heart to hear the words from his daughter. He imagined the heartfelt conversation while they waited to be rescued. Julia had reassured Sierra that their relationship would remain intact.
It made his heart ache even more for the woman he left behind in a cave. She’d spend those harrowing hours awaiting rescue reassuring his daughter. And now she sat alone.
Every step away from her broke his heart, but he tried to remain strong for Sierra. He couldn’t let on how upset he was or else it would frighten her. “If she promised she’d always be there for you, she’ll be okay. She wouldn’t dare go back on a promise to you.”
He kept his arm tight around her as they approached the edge of the trees. “She’d better not. She promised. No matter how mean I was, she said I wasn’t anything like Mom.”
“Like your mother? Why would she tell you that?”
“Because I…that’s how I felt this morning.”
He tilted his head as he helped her into the car before he slid in next to her. “What do you mean, baby?”
Sierra’s features pinched. “Mom followed me after I left this morning…”
“I know that.”
“And she said…that I’m…”
“You’re what, Sierra?”
“Mean and horrible and unlovable.” Sierra’s glance fell into her lap. “And that I’m worse than her.”
Grant wrapped an arm around her as he pulled her closer, one hand curling into a fist as fury burned inside him at Lydia. “That’s not true, Sierra.”
“I know,” she said as she snuggled closer to him. “Julia said it’s not true. She said I’m not like Mom even though I was mean to her so many times. I’m not going to be mean to her anymore, Daddy.”
“Oh, baby,” he said, kissing the top of her head.
“I promise. No more threatening to sue her, no more calling her arm candy. I’m going to be so nice to Julia, she’s going to get sick of it.”
“Honey, if she can tolerate Kyle, I think she’ll be fine with you.”
A few moments later, they arrived at the hospital. Within a few minutes, they were whisked to a cubicle, and tests were ordered. He sat alone, his mind recalling details of the nightmarish day.
From finding Julia missing to the argument to Sierra’s rescue, every horrid moment floated through his mind.
His mind replayed the last words he’d harshly spoken to her.
The memory stung, mingling with the fear gripping his heart.
He wanted to go back into the woods and claw through the rocks to find her, to pull her out and make sure she was safe.
He wanted to tell her so many things, but he wondered if she’d want to hear them. Did it matter, though? The doubts cropped up once again in the quietness of the hospital room. She’d walked out on him. She’d told him they shouldn’t be married.
But she’d come back to him. The minute he needed her, she’d been here. No, his mind corrected, the minute Sierra needed her, she’d been there.
A nurse wheeled his daughter back into the room. He smiled at her as she shifted in the bed. “Everything go okay?”
“I think so. I don’t think my wrist is broken just like Julia said.”
After a short wait, they received a mostly clear report. She was dehydrated with a minor sprain. They’d keep her overnight for observation, but she’d likely be released the next day.
“Daddy, I’m okay, if you want to go check on what they’re doing to find Julia.”
“No, I’m not leaving you.”
“But I kind of want to know. Oh wait, my phone! I lost my phone.”
“The police have it, but it’s pretty banged up. I’ll get you a new one as soon as we’re home, okay? You’ve been wanting one of those new fancy gold ones, right?”
“Yes,” she said, her grin fading quickly. “But what I really want is to know if Julia’s okay.”
He pressed his lips together as he squeezed her hand. “I’ll call Kyle.”
He scrolled through his contacts when a pair of high heels pounded their way to the room. “Oh, no.”
“Sierra!” Lydia shouted, her voice shrill as she appeared at the door. “My God!”
Sierra offered her an unimpressed glance. “What are you doing here?”
“I came as soon as I heard you’d been found. Darling, what did that woman do to you to land you in the hospital?”
“Whoa!” Grant said as he rose, his fingers tightening into fists. “Julia saved your daughter’s life while you did nothing. She risked her life for Sierra.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. She’s so dramatic.”
“No, she isn’t, Lydia,” Sierra said. “I want you to leave.”
“Excuse me? Sierra, what did you just say?”
“You heard me. I want you to get out. I fell over a cliff and hung there for hours because I stormed off after you told me how awful I was. Well, I’m not awful. Julia rescued me because she loves me the way I am. But she wouldn’t be trapped in a cave right now if it hadn’t been for you!”
“Julia got herself trapped in a cave? She really is accident-prone.”
“She got herself trapped in a cave saving our daughter from falling from a cliff, and then from a microburst.”
“I don’t care what the reason is why Julia is there. I want you out of here.”
Lydia stamped a foot on the floor. “I cannot believe this! I cannot believe I’m being thrown out of my daughter’s hospital room over a woman who left you both behind for a delicious-looking sailor.”
“Julia was there when we needed her. The minute I called about Sierra, she was right there. Don’t you ever accuse her of leaving us behind. She loves Sierra more than you ever could.”
Lydia’s jaw unhinged before her posture stiffened, and she narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe you, Grant. I’d watch what you say. You have no idea my feelings about Sierra.”
“GET OUT!” Sierra screeched, poking a finger at the door.
“Fine,” Lydia said with a raise of her chin. “But you’ll both regret this.”
Grant’s eyes widened as she left the room. Was that a threat? He desperately wanted to talk to Julia, but she was gone. Not because she was angry with him, but because she was…trapped.
“I hate her so much,” Sierra said with a frown.
“Well, she’s gone now, baby. Try to rest.” He scrolled through his phone, searching for Kyle’s name.
The line trilled before Kyle’s voice answered. He prayed for good news after the fight with Lydia.
“Hey, Dad.” Kyle’s tired voice sounded dejected.
“Kyle, any word on Julia?”
His son sighed on the opposite end of the line. “It’s not…great.”
His heart skipped a beat. “What does that mean?”
“There’s…just nothing. Nothing they bring up will work. They just…keep hitting walls.”
The worry in Kyle’s voice made his stomach sink. What if there wasn’t an option to find his wife?