Chapter 11 – LISA
LISA
Beau is gone before I've worked out what’s changed.
One moment he's beside me at the cabin door, but the next, he's taken off at a sprint, plunging through the undergrowth. I scramble after him, calling his name, but he doesn't slow down or look back.
"Beau, wait!"
He’s going to fall and break his neck running through the forest so fast without anything to light his way.
The rain has started in earnest now, fat cold drops working their way through the canopy and down the back of my collar. My headlamp bounces wildly as I run, and the beam catches nothing but his back, already too far ahead, branches whipping back into place behind him.
He's locked onto something, and without understanding what’s happening, the only thing I can do is try to keep him in sight.
It’s two hundred yards, maybe more, before he stops.
I crest a small rise, lungs burning, and find him dropped to one knee beside the remains of what looks like an old tool shed. Half-collapsed, the roof sags into the back wall, and the front door is long gone, now covered with a tangle of brambles.
He turns his head as I catch up, and his face has changed. The hard, focused expression from earlier replaced by something fierce and tender.
"Ivy," he whispers, leaning down toward the gap. "Ivy, your Mum and Dad sent me out here to help look for you. They're really worried."
A sniffle comes from deep inside that cracks my heart wide open. It’s her. She’s really in there.
Sitting back on his haunches, he extends his hand toward the gap she must have crawled through. "It's a bit cold out here, isn't it? And you must be hungry. What do you say I bring you to them, and you can go home?"
Sliding down the bank, trying not to make too much noise, I crouch beside him and shine my headlamp toward the entrance, not directly into the dark interior so I don’t blind her with the harsh light, but at least enough to see by.
Curled up in the far corner, wedged between the collapsed wall and an old timber beam, is the little girl. She's filthy and shivering. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, and her eyes are wide, terrified with the sudden appearance of two complete strangers.
"Hey." Beau's voice drops, low and impossibly gentle. "You're okay. We've got you."
But she doesn't move, frozen by either fear, the cold, or both. He reaches in oh so carefully, mindful of the unstable structure, and her eyes dart to mine. When I give her a small smile and a nod, she leans toward him, giving him permission to help her.
Carefully, he lifts her out, cradling the scared child to his chest like she’s his own. "Let's get you out of here, eh?"
With a desperate sound, she latches onto him immediately, her tiny arms locking around his neck, face burying into his shoulder as she cries big, wet sobs of relief.
"You're safe now," he whispers as one massive hand covers her entire back while he holds her steady against his chest, rubbing slow circles through her filthy clothes before wrapping the small blanket that I hand him from my pack around her shoulders. "I won’t let you go."
Stepping away, blinking hard to fight back tears, my voice cracks as I radio in our coordinates to Taylor.
"We’ve got her. Send paramedics to the east ridge, about half a mile past the old hunting trail. She's cold and probably dehydrated, but she otherwise seems unhurt."
The response is immediate, voices overlapping on the channel, and I can hear cheering in the background as the news ripples through the search teams. I fight back my own sob as I imagine her frightened parents getting the good news.
We start the walk back toward the trailhead together, Ivy’s tiny body gradually relaxing against Beau’s, soaking up his warmth, as the shivering subsides.
I walk beside them, close enough to monitor her, and the silence between Beau and me is different now.
There's no tension, just quiet relief that we got a miraculous happy ending and the soft sound of him murmuring reassurances to the child every time she sniffs.
"How did you know?" I ask eventually, keeping my voice low so I don't disturb her. "When you took off like that?"
He doesn't answer for a few steps, and when he does, he keeps his eyes forward. "Lennox land isn’t far from here. I know these woods."
“A real mountain man,” I say, and he nods. Except we both know he lied. He didn’t know that the shed was there, or the cabin.
I bite my lip. Now isn't the time for questions, even my addled, sleep-deprived brain knows that.
"Thank you for coming. For finding her."
He wasn’t even asked. Just showed up to help, to do the right thing.
Beau regards me, and I feel it again, that pull, a yearning deep in my core, this strange gravity that exists between us.
Mountain men, my granny used to say, real Mountain men like the bloodline we come from, move through the world differently. I used to roll my eyes at her stories about the Black River forests, the magic there, tales about the families who still possess it, but now, I'm not so certain.
Seeing what he just did was humbling, that's for sure, and I know the Lennox's have been in Black River so long that they're practically part of the local folklore.
"Thanks for staying out here with me. Even if it was a bad idea," he grumbles.
Instead of getting defensive this time, I smile and ignore the rebuke, knowing he doesn’t really mean it. "You're welcome."
Ivy has fallen asleep against his chest now, one small fist curled into the collar of his shirt, and he adjusts his hold on her without breaking stride, cradling her head against his shoulder so it doesn't bounce as he walks.
This is how he'll be with his own children. Strong but gentle, and fiercely protective. Going to the ends of the earth to keep them safe.
The thought arrives uninvited and settles low in my belly, then that yearning inside me goes from a gentle pull to an irresistible tug on both my heart and my ovaries. There's something unfairly sexy about a handsome man who's good with kids. It's every thirty-year-old woman's kryptonite.
And you ruined it, my brain unhelpfully reminds me. Suddenly, the need to tell him how wrong I was about him rises inside me, so strong, I have to get it out.
"Beau…" But I never get to finish that thought as we emerge from the treeline and joyful chaos greets us.
Paramedics rush forward, rangers shouting instructions about clearing vehicles from the exit so they can get the ambulance in, and somewhere behind the wall of emergency vehicles, volunteers clap and whoop.
A paramedic meets us at the edge of the clearing. Beau murmurs to Ivy as he transfers her, slow and easy, with one big hand staying at her back until she's settled on the stretcher. She whimpers but lets him go, eyes tracking him as the medic wraps her in a foil blanket and begins the assessment.
Her parents arrive seconds later, and the mother's grateful cries when she sees her daughter sitting up, alive and blinking at the lights, is the most beautiful and devastating sound I've ever heard. She runs to the stretcher and gathers Ivy up, her whole body shaking as she curls around her.
The father grabs Beau's hand with both of his and holds on, unable to speak, tears streaming into his beard, before finally throwing his arms around him in a bear hug.
Beau lets the dad hold onto him for as long as he needs before the man gives him an emotional nod and turns back to wrap his family up in a tight embrace.
Drifting away quietly, I watch from a few metres back, arms folded, throat tight. Then, with a nod and a small wave to Ivy before he leaves, Beau is walking toward me with two paper cups in one hand and a foil-wrapped sandwich in the other.
"From the volunteer table," he says, holding them out. "When did you eat last?"
I take the tea. My fingers are so cold, I can barely feel the cup, and the heat seeping through the paper makes my eyes prick.
"I had a protein bar."
"That's what I thought. Probably hours ago." He pushes the sandwich at me. "Eat."
It's nothing fancy, just ham and cheese, the bread already going stale at the edges, but I take a bite because he's watching me. And then another bite because I'm starving, and by the third, I'm trying not to shove the entire thing into my mouth in one go.
Beau comes to stand beside me, leaning back against my hood, and we watch, exhausted, as the medics rig a heat blanket, while Ivy, filthy but alive, reaches for her mum with a watery smile.
Something in me cracks.
Before I think about it, I'm reaching for Beau's hand. I squeeze it hard, once, and when he turns to look at me in surprise, eyebrows lifting, I throw my arms around his neck.
He goes still for a half-second. Then his free arm comes up around my back, and when he pulls me into him properly, I let myself rest my forehead against his collar, breathing in his comforting scent for as long as I can get away with.
"You did good," I say into his shirt, now wet with tears.
"We,” he corrects, but I shake my head. He found her. We both know that.
I hold on a moment longer, then I make myself step back before it gets weird. Feeling his eyes on my face, it might be too late for that.
"Where's your truck?" I ask, fumbling in my jacket for my keys so I don't have to look directly at him.
He pauses, shifts his weight from foot to foot, and crosses his arms over his broad chest while he considers me. "End of the logging road, six miles north."
So tired I can barely stand, I don’t ask him how he’s trekked six miles on foot through the woods as I gesture to my car. "If you want a lift, get in. I'll drop you now."
He hesitates but then he gives me a short nod and walks around to the passenger side. Opening the driver’s door, I remove my holster and the radio, drop them into the console, then slide behind the steering wheel.
Beau folds himself into my car, knees almost to the dashboard, and pulls the door shut.
The interior light winks off, and we're left in the dim glow from the dashboard.
I twist the key in the ignition and pull out onto the dark road, trying to ignore my hammering heart and how just being in his presence has every cell in my body lighting up.
As I pull out of the packed car park, the headlights cut a tunnel through the forest with heavy rain now coming down in sheets.
The volume is low on Sheridan’s radio, the chatter just background noise, but it’s the only sound breaking the weighted silence between us. Until now.
"Sheridan, you there? Pick up."
A pause. Then another voice. "Probably already tucked up in bed. Lucky bastard."
“He won’t be happy when he finds out she found her. No medal for him after leaving early.” A laugh from somewhere else. "Speak of the she-devil. Wonder where Harris is right now."
Beside me, Beau tenses, his eyes sliding to mine, but I ignore him, praying he can’t see the flush creeping up my neck as we’re forced to listen to them continue mocking me.
"Where do you think? She sure as hell wasn’t going to hang around and socialise with us. Probably getting the staff to draw her a bath in the left wing." Another laugh.
My stomach drops.
I reach for the volume knob, but Beau's hand gets there first, blocking my access. He pulls the radio into his lap before setting his hand gently over mine and easing it back to the steering wheel.
“They’re idiots. It’s just harmless teasing,” I say, trying to make light of my embarrassment. “Just turn it off.”
He ignores me, jaw clenched, but his hand moves to my thigh, just above my knee, heavy and grounding, as the chatter continues.
"Did you see her and Lennox at the trailhead, though? Cosy as anything." A scoff. “Definitely wouldn’t have thought he was her type. Not posh enough.”
I wish the ground would open up and swallow me. Now they’re speaking badly of Beau, although I can hardly comment.
I pretty much told him the same thing.
"Yeah, I saw. Hugging like a fucking Hallmark movie." A pause. “You think he’s really banging her?”
Fuck me. I groan out loud. Pretending their conversation isn’t happening is no longer an option.
"Would you blame me? I'd get cosy with her myself, money or no money.” Then in a slightly more serious tone, like they’re genuinely concerned about me.
“But with that kind of money? She wants to be careful.
If a Lennox gets his hands on her, he'll have her cleaned out before she knows what hit her. "
I turn my face slightly towards my window, away from him, shoulders going stiff. “I’m sorry, Beau. They really are assholes.”
He growls, and I blink hard. I can’t blame him for being angry. My eyes are stinging, and my throat is closing, but I will not, I will not cry in front of him.
“I couldn’t give a shit what they say about me.” Beau's hand tightens on my thigh, just barely, his voice husky and dangerously quiet when he speaks again. “But not you. They won’t speak like that about you ever again.”