Chapter Thirteen
Dylan eased onto the sofa with care. Babying his back had become the norm, but he was damn annoyed that he’d taken that fall. If his riding skills were that rusty, then he wouldn’t get far this season in the Pbr.
He eyed Shaw. The man paced up and down the short hallway, speaking on the phone. From what he discerned from the snippets of the one-sided conversation, Shaw was getting an offer from the college where he was interested in coaching.
Dylan already admired the hell out of the guy, and did more so now. He was pushing toward his goal, his dream. Dylan had to wonder if he’d ever had that same kind of drive.
His whole life, he just floated along, doing what he was good at. He wasn’t as invested in winning championships as Shaw was in the game of hockey.
A thumping noise came from the bedroom. Then another.
He threw a look at Shaw’s back—he was still deep in conversation.
Pushing off the couch, Dylan headed to the bedroom to check on Sloane. He knocked softly. When she didn’t answer, he pushed open the door.
Shock tore through him. She had her suitcase on the bed and was hurling clothes into it.
She didn’t bother looking up from her task of tossing garments into the suitcase.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
His stomach bottomed out. Pain blazed through his chest, and his throat squeezed shut. “Why?” he grated.
“It’s time.”
“Is Marigold okay?” His sharp tone and question made her jerk her gaze to his.
Her lips were white with tension. “She’s fine. It’s just time I go home and be a mother to her.”
With a violent move, she zipped the suitcase and hefted it to the floor. At that moment, the crunch of tires outside the bungalow threw him for an even bigger loop.
Sloane gripped the handle of her luggage, tossed her other bag over her shoulder and took off past him toward the door.
He threw out an arm, stopping her.
When her gaze met his, the depths shifted with what he could only see as pain.
“Sloane. Don’t do this,” he roughed out. “Whatever happened, let’s talk it through.”
Shaw’s deep voice projected from the hallway. “I look forward to working with them next Monday. I’m sure I have some new things to teach them.”
She winced. Creases of pain extended in twin lines between her brows. She dodged Dylan and took off for the door. Before he could gather his wits and think of a way to stop her from walking away forever, she rushed on.
“What the—” Shaw broke off.
Dylan ran after her with Shaw right behind. “Sloane, stop! Wait!”
She tossed a glance over her shoulder. “There’s no point, Dylan. You’ve been great, but it’s time for me to go. I wish you the very best.” She whipped open the front door.
He reached it at the same time but couldn’t stop her before she took off running toward the waiting car, struggling with her heavy suitcase.
“Sloane, what the hell is going on?” Shaw nudged by Dylan and leaped into her path.
Without even a glance for him, she jumped into the car. The Boot Knocker who’d driven it over here for her was walking away at a brisk clip, knowing better than to get into the middle of the situation.
Dylan and Shaw would both be called into the office. When a client left on bad terms, the Boot Knockers were scrutinized to see where they went wrong. Their contracts stated that they could even be put on probation, though Dylan had never witnessed it himself.
“Sloane!” Shaw wedged his body in the door, blocking her from slamming it.
“I can’t do this again, Shaw.” Dylan couldn’t see her face, but whatever Shaw saw in her expression had him stumbling back a step.
She slammed the door and gunned it away from the bungalow, leaving them gaping after her.
“Oh god.” Dylan grabbed his head, as if holding it would stop the pain flooding through his entire being.
“Fuck!” Shaw bent forward, both hands on his knees, broken.
Dylan could hardly breathe. She was gone.
And she took his heart with her.
She held it in her hands—didn’t even know it. He’d been such an idiot. He should have confessed his feelings to her, even if he could barely make sense of them.
“I should have said something—anything—to make her stay.”
Shaw issued a long groan like an animal in extreme pain. “I don’t understand what happened.”
He dropped his hands to stare at his fellow Boot Knocker. “Are you fucking kidding me? You were pacing right outside the bathroom door. She must have heard you talking about the coaching job!”
Shaw pushed off his knees but remained bent forward as though her leaving had driven a spike through his chest too. “She was in the shower! She couldn’t have heard me through a door with the shower running!”
“Well, what else could it be? She said she can’t do this again, Shaw. Did you think you could just hide such a thing from her? Or that she’d take it like a champ, even after what happened last time?”
“This isn’t all on me, man. You could have stopped her too!”
He opened his mouth with a hot retaliation on his tongue. Then horror struck him.
“Dammit! She doesn’t even know where she’s going. You know how the GPS works around here. Most of the time, there’s not even service. She’s about to get lost in the Alaskan wilderness.”
* * * * *
Sloane made a mental note to tell her agent that she had a new skill to offer the movie industry. Besides her buttocks booking her gigs, she now had the ability to drive in high-speed getaways.
With all the action movie franchises being filmed these days, the possibilities were endless. Who knew she was so damn good at stomping on the gas and just driving with no direction in mind at all?
The thick pine trees towered on each side of the winding road leading through the mountains. As she climbed higher, fog closed in, which might be a good thing in helping her ignore the dangerous drops off the side of the road.
She had to find a spot to pull off and check her GPS. During the drive, she tried to get a bead on a route that would take her to the closest airport. Alaska was huge—there had to be some airlineto fly her to the lower forty-eight.
Heart thumping, she searched the road ahead for a place to stop and look, but the thick fog closed in around the vehicle like a vise.
Or a set of arms. Big, buff athlete arms.
Okay, she was losing her mind. The adrenaline that brought her this far fizzled out, leaving her slumping behind the wheel. She gripped it in determination.
Dammit, she had grown a whole human being inside her. She carried the ten-pound-three-ounce child for nine months with little emotional support, only to do all the heavy lifting in caring for an infant.
She could find her way down a damn mountain.
When a small area on the side of the road loomed into sight, she hit the brakes and eased off the pavement. After putting the car in park, she tapped at her GPS app to find a map. Great—the blank screen wasn’t boding well as far as directions went.
“Damn!” She would just backtrack. Though…she remembered taking a couple turns on the way up the mountain. Now she couldn’t recall which way she’d even turned.
She was going to become one of those news headlines, wasn’t she? She’d get out of the car and wander on foot for miles until a bear ate her. Years from now, her body would be found by some hunter on the mountain, and in the meantime, Marigold would grow up without a mother.
Ugh. That was not happening. She was strong and resourceful.
She could just try Shaw’s number. If it was the same one, she still had it memorized.
And say what?
Adios! Thanks for eating my pussy.
Threesomes rock!
I came for a good time, not a long time.
A soft squeak of despair escaped her. As if she wasn’t in enough torment just by leaving the ranch, now she had this to deal with.
She decided to call 911. When the line didn’t connect, she realized she wasn’t going to get help. She prided herself on having a tough skin, but a tear dribbled down her cheek, followed by another.
Wrapping her arms around the wheel, she dropped her forehead against it.
Why did she ever come here? What began as a fun new adventure had gone up in a blaze. She couldn’t believe she was going to die in the wilderness after less than a week of mind-blowing sex.
Sniffing loudly, she lifted her head from the steering wheel—and let out a scream.
A thick black wall hit the side of the car and shoved it.
Another shriek blasted from her lungs as the vehicle lurched farther toward the side of the road. Clutching the wheel, she shoved the gearshift into drive and stomped on the gas, but the tires spun in what she now realized was thick black mud.
Loud crashes deafened her. One of the massive pines slammed into the road in front of her, followed by a second one that she could barely make out through the fog.
She was caught in a mudslide on a deserted road.
The back end of the car whipped to the side.
Then she felt the whole thing sliding down…down…down.
* * * * *
“We have to find her. Fuck! This fog is going to get her turned around in the middle of nowhere.” Shaw clamped his fingers on the wheel until his knuckles screamed. Still, he refused to loosen his grip.
“She’s smart. If she can’t see or is lost, she’ll stop.” Dylan serving as the voice of reason only pissed Shaw off more.
“You don’t know Sloane. She has trouble driving in heavy traffic!”
“Try to calm down, man. I know you’re worried—I am too.” Dylan’s fist was clenched on his knee, the knuckles white.
So he wasn’t as calm as he projected. Maybe that was the bull rider in him talking. Or the man who avoided his own feelings and wants like a mountaineer dodged a grizzly attack.
“Of all times to take off, it had to be when the fog rolls in. You know what weather conditions like this do even to locals, Dylan.” He stared unblinking at the road. The center line wasn’t visible. All he could do was go by what he could see of the side of the road to navigate the switchback curves.
“The GPS might not have even taken her this direction,” Shaw muttered, a curse not far from his lips.
“There are several ways she could go. We have to stay positive.”
He jerked his stare from the road to Dylan. “Is that what you do when you’re on a bull? Stay positive that it won’t break all your ribs this round?”
Dylan cocked a brow at him. “Yeah, I do. I hold on to anything I know to get me through the moment.”
“And when you realized you were in love with her—what got you through that?”
Dylan’s chest deflated, and he lifted his fist off his knee, bringing it to his firm lips. For a moment, he didn’t respond. “I do love her. I’m not sure how I fell so hard in only a few days.”
“I do. It happened to me too. First time I set eyes on her, I knew. I’m such an idiot for ever walking away. If I find her, I plan on making it up to her for the rest of my days.”
“When,”Dylan bit off. “When we find her.”
The lump in his throat was so jagged that it almost sliced his windpipe when he swallowed. He drove on. Each mile felt like a hundred. The fog never let up. In fact, it only got thicker the higher they climbed.
“She can’t have gotten this far. We’ve been driving for almost an hour!” He balled his fist and slammed it into the dashboard with enough force that the lights on the clock blinked out.
Hard fingers bit into his thigh. “We’ll find her. I want her back too, Shaw. We’re not giving up.”
Shaw spread his fingers, stretching his abused knuckles. Then he gently laid his hand over Dylan’s where it still rested on his leg. The act of touching a man in such an intimate and tender way felt natural.
At last.
Now to find Sloane and make her theirs.
“We should call her mom,” he choked out.
Dylan flipped his hand over and clenched Shaw’s, hard. “No. Don’t worry her. We’re going to find Sloane.”
“Call the ranch and get the guys on the roads too. The more eyes, the better.”
Dylan reached for his phone. Shaw moved his hand to grasp the wheel again. All of his focus tunneled into staying on the road. But his mind wasn’t in his body—it was on Sloane.
When he was on the ice, she always threw out positive energy to him. He had no idea if that mumbo-jumbo worked, but if it did, now would be the time.
Dylan ended the call and dropped the phone to his lap. “They’re heading out to look now.”
Out of the dense fog loomed a black object in the middle of the road. Shaw’s heart lurched with excitement that it could be a car.
“Shit! It’s one of the big branches off a tree.” Dylan was already reaching for the door handle. “Stop and I’ll move it.”
Shaw did, and Dylan jumped out. In the beams of the headlights, he watched his lover grab the branch and toss it to the side of the road. Then he climbed back in.
As soon as they began rolling forward again, another set of headlights coming the other direction made him brake again. He didn’t make out the park ranger logo on the door until the truck was directly beside him.
The ranger rolled down his window, and Shaw did too.
“It’s best to turn around and go back down the mountain. Fog’s worse up there.” He twitched his head toward the road he’d just traveled. The ranger leveled him in a stare. “There was a mudslide. The road up ahead is destroyed.”
“Can’t. I’m looking for a woman. She might have come this way.”
The man gave him a sharp look. “You don’t know for certain?”
“No. But she was trying to leave the area, probably to get to one of the bigger airports.”
The ranger narrowed his eyes. “Damn. If that’s the case, she could be on this road. And that means we need search and rescue.”