Chapter 43
Forty-Three
One Month Later
His horse, the stubborn-but-loyal stocky bay mare, Daisy, needed exercise. And Ryder needed to feel like himself again. So here he was, reins in hand, riding the trail with Holt beside him, both mounted and making the slow climb toward the overlook known as Widow’s View.
Holt’s gelding, Flint, kept pace with Daisy as they crested the hill.
The two horses stood side by side, breath rising in the chill air, ears flicking in the cold wind.
Ryder never got enough of this spot—the sweeping valley below, especially when it was bathed in late-afternoon gold.
The crisp breeze tugged at the last stubborn leaves still clinging to branches, freeing some to spin across the path.
The jagged teeth of the Cascades cast long shadows across Mercy Ridge, the town Ryder’s great-grandfather had founded generations ago.
After everything that had happened, Ryder felt the hush that settled over the land as if Blackspire Mountain had exhaled.
Or maybe that hush, that quiet, was finally settling in Ryder’s soul, and something had been set right.
“Thanks for what you did, Holt.”
“You know I have your back, no matter what. Conflict of interest doesn’t even begin to cover it. But I dug into classified information, took point anyway, and now you get the benefit of the inside scoop.” Holt grinned.
“You could have tanked your career.”
“Better my career than lose my brother. But let’s just say the higher-ups were glad to have Malcolm in custody instead of him getting his hands on a bioweapon.” Holt rested his forearms on the saddle horn and squinted into the setting sun. “How’s Dean doing?”
“He’s working for Good Adventures again.
” Ryder was relieved the investigators had cleared him—Maddox had leveraged Dean’s family, and he’d cooperated with everything once he was safe.
The guy was a top-notch wilderness survivalist, and his skills had been put to the test when he’d been stabbed and left for dead inside that antique plane, facing off with an avalanche.
Ryder adjusted his grip on the reins, the wind tugging at his collar.
“I keep going over it,” he said finally.
“We thought Dean was gone. No pulse. And with everything coming down around us, the looming avalanche . . .” But Dean’s pulse had slowed just enough, they’d somehow missed it.
Still, Ryder wasn’t sure any of them—Sarah, Ryder, or Dean—would have survived if they’d carried Dean’s dead weight with them.
They couldn’t have fled the avalanche, no doubt there.
Holt gave a slow nod. “You did what you had to do.”
“Still.” Ryder’s jaw tightened. “We missed it. Left him bleeding in a wrecked plane, in freezing temperatures. He should’ve died.”
“But he didn’t.” Holt looked at him.
Ryder didn’t answer right away. He was still trying to grab onto the fact that, for once, a mistake hadn’t cost a man his life. That maybe, just this once, the mountain had given something back.
Cocooned in the shell of that plane once again battered by Mother Nature, Dean had gained consciousness, found a survival kit, and patched himself up, then set off a beacon while he holed up and kept warm.
Before he’d been stabbed, Dean had urged them to go, urged Ryder to save Sarah.
He’d given the ultimate sacrifice—or so Ryder had thought.
Ryder was grateful the man had survived.
He hadn’t heard if there had been any other survivors.
“Are you okay with him working at Adventures?” Holt asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ryder adjusted the reins, the leather creaking softly, the familiar sound and smells grounding him to this place, and maybe to himself. “I don’t blame him for Dad’s death.”
“What about yourself?”
“I’m good. I’m okay. I let it go. I don’t blame myself for his death anymore.” Because Dad wouldn’t want him to hang on to that burden, blaming himself for all the possible ways he failed to save his father. And maybe Sarah had something to do with that—maybe she had saved Ryder from himself.
“And Harlan?” Ryder asked Holt.
“He never meant any of this. Thought he was helping for the right reasons. The cause justified the means. He thought he was assisting with an official government operation. He won’t be charged.”
“I still can’t believe that even Harlan knew about all of this, but our own grandfather never told us,” Ryder said. “I still have to wonder if Dad knew.”
“We’ll never know.” Holt grunted and shook his head. “I doubt he told Mom. He would have wanted to protect her.”
And now Mom still didn’t know anything other than Ryder wasn’t allowed to tell her what this had really been about.
He, Sarah, and Holt, along with anyone else with the knowledge, had been required to sign nondisclosure agreements.
He suspected that Sarah, like Ryder, had bristled at being gagged when the point of their mission had been to get justice for her brother.
Maybe they’d achieved that since his murderers were now in custody.
But he wanted the truth to come out to the world at large.
“And what about Viv? Did you get a chance to look into her?” he asked.
“The sheriff notified me of her death right before I went up the mountain. I suspect she was connected since she was the one person I told, and then Sarah showed up. Not only that, but I told Viv, and then Sarah’s brother was murdered a week later. ”
“I’m not going to lie, given the connections we now know, I suspect your telling Viv what you found could have been the catalyst to escalate things,” Holt said. “She received a deposit every month. Routed through a front account tied to the Department of Energy.”
Ryder frowned. “The DOE? Why would they care about a forgotten wreck?”
“Because it wasn’t just wreckage. And Viv wasn’t just a librarian.
She was placed here. Official title was something like civilian archival liaison.
Unofficially? She was tasked with keeping this town quiet.
When the rumors started floating around about Nazi gold—decades ago—they put Viv in place to monitor things and inform someone if evidence showed up.
And she reported to Maddox. She was silenced before she could report to anyone else. ”
So much pain and death over a decades-old wrecked plane.
“Will you take Harlan back if he wants that?”
“We’ll see.” Ryder didn’t know just yet.
“There’s something else that’s bothering me,” Holt said.
Ryder’s insides tensed. He didn’t want to hear bad news after what he’d just been through. “What is it now?”
“You.” Holt turned toward him, brow furrowed. “I don’t like the idea of you getting tangled up with someone who used to work for the CIA.”
“You’re not supposed to know that.”
“Kind of hard for that not to come out given the players,” Holt said. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to talk about it.”
“So, what don’t you like about it?”
“You know the kind of danger that can follow someone like her.”
Seriously? Ryder’s lips tugged into a faint smile. “Yeah. I do.” And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Sarah had reignited something inside of him—he wanted to live, not simply to exist.
“All I can say, bro, is get used to the idea.” All Ryder could do was hope something more permanent would happen between him and Sarah, and right now they were taking things slowly. Treading lightly.
The sound of hooves drew his attention around. Sarah approached, riding Glitchy, Mom’s old mare. Her posture relaxed, thick brown strands falling over her shoulders, and her expression was peaceful—she looked like she was one of them now and belonged here.
Sarah gave Holt a small wave.
He tipped his hat. “I’ll leave you two to it.”
“Oh, don’t leave on my account,” Sarah said, then smiled at Ryder. “Your mom told me where to find you.”
Ryder liked that she’d been tracking him down.
“I’m good.” Holt nudged his horse down the slope until his silhouette was finally swallowed by the thick evergreens.
Sarah guided Glitchy up beside Daisy. Her brown eyes looked tired. Though shadowed with exhaustion and dark memories of recent days, her gaze still had a light to it—one he hadn’t seen when he’d first met her.
“Hey.” Her smile was easy.
“Hey.” Back atcha. Warmth curled around him. This was good. Right.
They sat for a moment in silence, looking out over the valley, the hush between them easy as breathing.
Still, he knew she had questions. After all, he’d ridden out alone with Holt, who’d been deep in cleaning up the mess on the mountain. Ryder wasn’t surprised when she shifted in the saddle.
“So, what’s happened to the plane and the vials? Did he tell you anything?”
Officially, they’d been told nothing except to keep their mouths shut.
Ryder rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw.
“The specialized SAR unit got Dean out of an extremely unstable situation, but their work triggered a landslide. Remember the wreck balanced on a precarious ledge—cemented in with ice and snow, but the avalanche loosened everything just enough. When the SAR team got Dean out, the ledge gave way.”
“So it’s buried again?”
“Yeah. Deep. Maybe for good this time.” The mountain held tightly to its secret.
“And the vials?”
“They’re gone and . . . destroyed—on record, at least, for the very few who even know.”
“Officially? What about unofficially?”
“For now, it’s too dangerous to retrieve.”
“And maybe that’s for the best,” she said. “Except, secrets don’t stay buried forever.”
She was thinking what he was thinking.
History repeated itself. If the truth didn’t fully come out, then at some point, this same scenario could happen—someone else would go looking again.
They sat in silence, taking in the views. The sun would be setting, and they’d need to head back soon, but while it lasted, he enjoyed this moment with Sarah Ellison, former CIA officer.
“Why do they call it Mercy Ridge?” she asked.
“You didn’t read that in your research?” He sent her a teasing smile as he stroked Daisy’s mane.
“I might have skimmed over that part, looking for more information about you. If it was in the files, I don’t remember.”
“Long time ago,” he said, “before the town, it was just a camp filled with miners, trappers, tough men facing tougher winters. People died up here. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about that kind of brutal life.
Pioneering in the mountains. But there was a woman, nobody remembers her name, who stayed behind when everyone else left.
She nursed the sick, buried the dead, comforted the dying.
They called her the Angel of Mercy. When she was gone, they named the ridge after her. ”
Ryder turned to look at Sarah, and their eyes met. “It’s always been a place of survival . . . of second chances.” Survival, true. Second chances, he wasn’t so sure, but he wanted one.
To his surprise, Sarah reached across and brushed her fingers over his, then grabbed his hand. “What about first chances?”
And that was all the invitation he needed.
He dismounted, circled around, and reached up to help Sarah down, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her like she’d kissed him up on the mountain that day.
Not soft or tentative, like what they’d shared over the last month, but this kiss was a stake in the ground.
And he deepened his kiss, staking that claim, as the sun slipped behind the peaks, and maybe if he’d been looking, he could have seen the ridge awash in gold and shadows.
This place had been forged by storms and silence, shaped by loss and survival. But hope lingered here. Ryder smiled. And now, maybe, so did a promising future with this former spy.