Chapter 29 Calder
Calder
Eden’s Children had chosen the drop site with precision—a nondescript clearing where the unpaved forest service road ended in a turnaround. Beyond, there was nothing but eight miles of arbor-laden wilderness between the road and the compound.
“You okay?” I turned as soon as I heard her stumble. I frowned when she sank all her weight on her right foot for a second.
While I was glad that Lara and Colby wore the same size shoe, my sister’s hiking boots had been broken in for her, not for Lara, so our eight-mile trek was bound to cause some discomfort.
“Yeah. Fine. Just caught my foot on a rock.” Fine had a very broad definition, given how she limped a little on her next step. It wasn’t serious, but it still could’ve merited a break, had she wanted one. But if there was one thing Lara Crane never seemed to give herself, it was a break.
Not in school. Not when it came to taking care of her mom. Not when it came to her work. And not now, when all she wanted was to save her sister.
“I’m good, Wild Man,” she insisted, worried I’d slowed my pace because of her.
I wanted to insist we stop for a minute, but I held back. If she needed to stop, I wanted her to trust me enough to tell me. I wanted her to let me in, and to do that, I couldn’t keep her at arm’s length.
For as long as I could remember, that was how I’d kept the people I loved safe.
By directing their safety from a distance, keeping them far enough away so I could never be distracted by my own feelings.
But with Lara, just the thought of keeping her away from me was more dangerous than any other distraction.
We walked another quarter mile, her slightly uneven pace haunting mine over the rugged terrain.
“How do you know which way to go?” It wasn’t quite a request for a break, but I’d take the opening.
Slowing next to the nearest towering pine, I made sure we stood shaded from the high afternoon sun as I pulled off my pack. Sixty pounds—no more, no less—and everything we’d need to survive out here for weeks, rather than a single night or two, as was my plan.
Nature didn’t care about plans and she didn’t care about your survival, so planning for the worst was always the best move.
I handed her the canteen of water and then reached for my phone.
There was no cell service out here, but that wasn’t what the phone was for.
I opened the screen to the advanced map app that showed watersheds, topographical and elevation data, and had cost a small fortune but was priceless in practice.
A shortcut, Cassius would say, knowing he’d taught us all to memorize that data when we had access to it before a hike and how to read the landscape when we didn’t.
“Here is the location of Eden’s Children.” I tilted my phone and pointed to the green pin that marked the coordinates I’d entered.
Having the location of the compound was only half the battle. Even with a pretty pin, it wasn’t like I could just ask for walking directions through the mountains.
“High elevation. Low elevation.” I indicated the different colors, yellow and green.
“The compound is positioned at the end of this valley between these two ridge systems.” The peaks of which were marked in yellow, the valley bordered by the low green lines.
“Given the terrain, there are three viable approach routes. The first is this.”
Tapping on another filter, a pale-blue haze descended on part of the map.
“This is the most obvious path from the drop point. It follows the watershed and given its relative flatness, probably the route they most commonly use, and therefore the riskiest for us to take.” I flipped off the watershed filter.
“The second route over the western ridge is the shortest, but not only would we be exposed and visible for miles, it would take us longer to reach the site because of the change in elevation.”
“So we’re going this way.” She reached in front of me, her hand laying gently over mine as she traced a line from our red dot, through the deepest part of the valley, and then up to the green mark.
“A maze of deadfall and boulder fields. Not easy hiking, but shielded by the forests on each ridge and a path they’d probably consider impassable.”
The forest was dense along the ridge, the trees a natural canopy that would shield us from observation and the sun. Hiking straight through the peak of the afternoon wasn’t ideal, making it one more factor I’d taken into consideration when planning our route.
“What’s that?” she asked when the red dot marking our location flashed purple.
“Satellite transmission. Never hike alone unless you absolutely have to.” Rule #2.
“Callum is tracking our progress. We’ll make camp here.
” I indicated a spot in the ridge almost directly below the location of the compound.
“And then I’ll turn on the satellite link and Callum will send over the drone images. ”
“And then we’ll hike to the cult?” She handed me back the water.
“One step at a time, Tomb Raider.” I brought the container to my mouth, the liquid almost hitting the wrong pipe when she swiped her tongue over her bottom lip, pulling it between her teeth with worry.
I didn’t take much time to think before I palmed her neck, pushed her chin up with my thumb, and covered her mouth with mine.
The kiss was to quell her worry. To crimp the fuse before it ignited agitation in her mind.
It wasn’t because I’d been starving for a taste of her from the moment I’d left her in my bed.
And it definitely wasn’t because her voicemail from the hospital had opened an unwelcome can of worms in my mind.
Her sister might have been here, but the rest of her life was in Phoenix. And now wasn’t the time to think about what that meant. So I kissed her like it could root her. Not to a place, but to me.
With a moan, Lara’s lips parted, our tongues instantly tangling.
My mind already had the topography of her mouth burned to memory.
The paths to stroke her pleasure higher and the places to make it simmer low.
There was one destination, but the paths to get there were as numerous as the time I wanted to take exploring them all.
I kissed her deeper. Harder. I lost myself for a moment in the ache I had for her before the caw of a hawk above reminded me where we were—what I was doing.
“Trust me,” I murmured over her lips, not as a command but a plea.
Trust me to find her. Trust me to take care of you.
“Okay.” Her eyes were still hooded, her head still angled for more, but if I gave it to her, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“We need to keep moving,” I said as I pulled my head up, my gaze roaming over her upturned face one more time before I stepped back and hefted my pack back onto my shoulders. “Ready?”
“Are you?” She countered with a husky voice.
For the wilderness? “Yeah.”
For her? Never.
For the successive three miles, we moved at a decent pace along the east ridge, using what shade we could. When the trees thinned into a scree field—the unstable, jagged rocks too treacherous and too exposed to cross—I led us down into the valley and along the stream.
About a mile along the bubbling water, a large Douglas fir had recently fallen across the stream, branches still protruding and sap still seeping from the destroyed bark.
“We’ll cross over the trunk but I need to remove some of the branches first,” I told her.
Sliding my pack from my back, I unzipped the top pocket, pulled out a protein bar, and handed it to her, along with the water bottle.
“Eat this and hydrate.” When her brows rose, I let my voice sink low. “What is my rule?”
At the reminder, she obeyed, her cheeks stained with a blush.
Sliding my CRKT knife from its sheath on the strap of my bag, I went to work cutting through the branches all the way to the other side. When I’d finished, I turned back to find Lara hoisting herself onto the tree with my sixty pounds of gear on her back.
Dammit. I didn’t even spare a second to curse out loud before jogging back across, making it to her just in time to catch her as she swayed.
“I didn’t realize that was so heavy.” She stared at me, wide-eyed with the realization I’d been hiking with it all this time.
“What are you doing?” I growled.
“I did what you said. I ate and drank, and then I saw you were done, so I thought I should come to you.”
I gritted my teeth and grunted, making a mental note to be more specific when I needed her to stay in one spot.
“I’ll take that.” Sinking my hand to her waist, I used the other to grab the top handle of my pack, taking the weight from her shoulders. “Follow me. You can hold on to the pack if you need for balance.”
Two minutes later, we were across the stream and on the western edge of the valley.
Two and a half relatively easy miles later, we hit the hardest part of our hike—twelve-hundred feet of elevation gain across a mile-long boulder field.
I mapped out the most stable path through the granite chaos and told Lara to follow my every step.
Once we’d cleared the boulder field, there was a small leveling of the terrain and an area shielded by a cluster of jack pines that provided both a windbreak and some canopy. An ideal campsite.
“Sit and finish the water.” I guided Lara toward a stray boulder underneath a tree.
“That was . . . intense,” Lara said after a beat, and I heard her cap the water bottle as I removed my shelter system from my pack. “How far is the compound from here?”
“Not far. About a ten-minute hike up the ridge.” I pointed in the direction. “The trees should give us enough cover down here.”
“Do you want help setting up the tent?”
“Not a tent.” I flapped open the ten-by-eight sheet of military-grade silnylon, the top printed with a muted camouflage pattern.
The material weighed less than a pound, yet had a hydrostatic head rating of 3,000mm—enough to handle anything short of a Wyoming deluge.
“Tents are visual targets, make noise in wind, and restrict peripheral awareness.”
“Oh” was all she replied, watching me unravel next the seventy-five-foot 550 paracord; stakes or poles left distinct marks in the soil and recognizable geometric patterns from a distance.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, approaching the tree she sat under to use as my first anchor.
“Exhausted, but fine.” She moved her feet out of the way when I got close and winced. “For the most part, fine. I think Colby’s shoes are breaking my feet in rather than the other way around.”
“I’ve got a first aid kit in my bag with some bandages and salve for blisters. Give me one sec,” I said and reached over her, tying the paracord around the trunk in a modified tension-less hitch—a knot that applied no direct pressure to the bark, leaving both no damage and no visible marks.
“My body isn’t used to mountains,” she offered as I pulled the first aid supplies from my pack, adding, when I handed them to her, “It’s not used to much of anything up here.”
Our eyes connected for a second before I turned away and secured the cover to two more trees around the clearing. But even that couldn’t keep the questions that gnawed at me at bay.
“When does the hospital want you to come back?” I asked gruffly, masking my agitation at the thought of her leaving by setting up the groundsheet with a layer of pine boughs; the recent storms had left more than enough already sacrificed on the ground.
“I don’t know.” I caught her heavy sigh.
“They said . . . Just because I was cleared of any wrongdoing doesn’t mean they want me back.
It’s all politics—perception. Because Ian’s father is a senator, it might be a bigger boon in the long run to let me go so there’s no bad blood between him and the organization. ”
“That’s bullshit,” I muttered. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to save him.”
“Is that Tyvek?”
I nodded, giving the sheet of house wrap a few good shakes until it laid flat over the pine boughs. “It’s virtually silent when weighted, breathable enough to prevent condensation, and reflective enough to preserve body heat.” A perfect base.
“Wow.”
“Survival is different than recreational camping. Especially in situations when you don’t necessarily want to be found.” Returning to my pack, I pulled out my sleeping pad, a specially treated closed-cell foam mat rolled into a ball roughly the size of a cantaloupe and laid it out.
“To be honest, the longer I sit with the possibility, the more I have to wonder if I even want to go back.”
“Because of what happened?” I probed gently, and when she didn’t answer, I added, “No one would blame you if you didn’t.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s .
. . everything else. Or the lack of it.” She swiped her tongue across her bottom lip, her downcast eyes lifting to mine.
“The longer I’m away, the harder it feels to explain even to myself why I stayed there.
I mean, I loved Sunrise. I love the people I work with, but that’s all I have there.
Work. And even when I had the opportunity to create more, I didn’t. ”
My throat went tight, crowded with all the things I wanted to say and all the reasons I shouldn’t. I wanted to be let into her life—I didn’t want to be responsible for changing the course of it.
“My mom was responsible for teaching us about gardening. About plants and herbs. What was safe to eat and what wasn’t.
How to grow year-round,” I said, pulling out my weapon and satellite phone from my pack and then moving in front of Lara.
“She always told us that what we watered would grow. Didn’t occur to me she wasn’t talking just about plants until I was having to explain it to Creighton and Colby. ”
Crouching, I gently lifted one foot and then the other, examining her handiwork on the bandages around her ankles and toes.
Like she wasn’t a doctor. I looked up and found her eyes and started to tip forward.
Maybe it was natural the way I wanted her in moments without reason.
Natural the way gravity doesn’t give you a choice before pulling you in.
“Calder . . .” She exhaled softly.
And then the sat phone vibrated.
Callum.