LITMIR.BIZ

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he was a cop and spent his days wrestling with armed criminals who wouldn’t think twice about capping a cop. But the dangers of his job had taken a heavy toll on their marriage.

      After the shooting, Kelly had made it clear she could no longer take the pressures of being a cop’s wife. With a bullet lodged mere millimeters from his spinal cord, Buzz hadn’t been able to go back to active duty. The department had offered him a desk job, but the position held little appeal. Kelly had wanted him to take the corporate security job that had been offered to him by an established firm out of Denver. But the thought of sitting behind a desk all day, devising ways to keep employees from stealing pencils was about as exciting as his own funeral. When the team-leader position with Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue had become available, Buzz had jumped at the opportunity. That had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

      Buzz had never fully understood why she hadn’t been able to accept his need to be on the front line. He suspected her father had a lot to do with it. Buzz had never met Jack McKee, but the man was a legend. He’d been a smoke jumper back in the early 1980s. A breed of man who lived for the rush and the heady taste of danger that came with putting his life on the line. They’d called him Jumpin’ Jack Flash back then. He’d been the best of the best. Courageous. Daring. Kelly would have been about fifteen when he’d died. Buzz didn’t know the details, but he’d heard that McKee’s chopper went down on the front line of a forest fire. Her brother had been on board too. Both men had perished.

      Knowing what he did about her father and brother, Buzz figured Kelly deserved a man who didn’t like gambling with fate. The worry and sleepless nights had torn her apart during their marriage. When she’d asked for a divorce, he hadn’t contested it. He’d let her go, first, because he couldn’t stand to hurt her, second, simply because she’d wanted to go. She wanted him to change, but Buzz hadn’t been able to stop being who he was no matter how much he loved her.

      He’d moved on with his life, but there had been no other women. No woman would ever come close to touching him the way Kelly had. Buzz knew no other woman ever would.

      Even frightened and disheveled with a cut on her temple and pain in her heart, Kelly was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. That was a hell of a thing for him to be noticing at a time like this.

      No, it wasn’t a comforting thought at all to realize that the divorce hadn’t diminished his attraction to her. They might be compatible when it came to the bedroom, but all compatibility ended there. Sex was the only facet of their marriage that they’d agreed upon unequivocally. It hadn’t been enough.

      With a long night stretching out ahead of them, Buzz figured he would be wise to keep that in mind.

      Chapter 3

      “This way.”

      The sound of Kelly’s voice jerked him from his reverie. Buzz’s flashlight illuminated a fork in the trail. Kelly motioned left. “How far are we from where you fell?” he asked.

      “Maybe another quarter mile or so.”

      “This was a long hike for a young kid.”

      “He’s a bundle of energy, Buzz. I know him. I know his physical capabilities, and I know what he likes. He’s always been fascinated by the outdoors. Trails. Camping. Animal tracks. Even flowers. We were having so much fun, I just didn’t realize how….” Her voice trailed off.

      Buzz practically felt the rise of guilt. “I didn’t mean to imply that this is your fault, Kel.”

      “I know. I just…if I’d just used my head, none of this would have happened.”

      “You know what they say about hindsight being twenty-twenty.”

      She shot him a grateful look. “Yeah.”

      They walked in silence for a while, the only sound coming from their feet on the trail and heavy breathing. “Do you know the tread pattern on his sneakers?” Buzz asked.

      “The deputy said the tracks had been—”

      “You never know when you might get lucky.”

      She didn’t hesitate. “Small circles with an arrow pointing toward the toe.”

      “That ought to be easy enough to spot.”

      “I didn’t see any when I looked, but I was pretty frantic. I could have missed something.”

      Buzz tried to approach this mission with the same emotionless determination with which he approached other missions, but the cool objectivity he’d always been able to achieve eluded him. He couldn’t stop thinking that it was his son out there this time. A little boy who was too young to keep himself safe. A child who still carried his stuffed animal with him.

      “This is the place.”

      Buzz halted. Kelly stood a couple of feet away, her breath puffing out in a thin white cloud. The night had grown cool. A preschooler with nothing but a light jacket to keep him warm would be cold.

      Dropping his pack to the ground, Buzz dug the whistle out of his jeans pocket and blew into it twice in quick succession.

      “Eddie!” Kelly turned in a circle, looking out into the surrounding darkness. “Honey, it’s Mommy!”

      Putting the whistle back in his pocket, Buzz put his finger to his lips. “Quiet, Kel. The whistle carries farther than a voice. Let’s just listen a moment, and see if we get a response.”

      She nodded, then stood motionless and stared into the surrounding darkness. For a full two minutes, Buzz listened to the chirping of crickets, the call of an occasional night bird, the crack of a twig beneath the weight of a fat raccoon, the rustle of an owl’s wings as it swooped down to pluck an unsuspecting mouse from the grass.

      “Exactly where did you fall?” Buzz asked.

      “To your left. Eddie dropped Bunky Bear down the ravine. He’s had that bear since he was born, and he was upset.”

      “Don’t tell me you went after it.”

      “The bear fell only a few feet down.”

      Shining the light down the incline, Buzz frowned. It was steep and rugged, but not vertical. “You should have known better than to try something like that without a partner.”

      “I thought I could get to it, then get right back up. But I grabbed a branch. The branch broke….” She shrugged. “Well, there’s that hindsight thing again.”

      Buzz knew all too well about hindsight.

      “I’m going to go down there and have a look around,” he said.

      “Buzz, what did you just tell me?”

      “I’ve got an adult partner. You.”

      “I’m not EMT certified.”

      He shot her a small smile. “I’m not a rookie.”

      “No, you’re just foolhardy.”

      “Same goes, evidently.”

      She frowned at him. “I guess I had that coming.”

      “You did.” He handed her the spotlight. “Keep the light out of my eyes and on the ground below me so I can see, okay?”

      Nodding once, she accepted the spotlight. “Be careful.”

      The light flickered over her delicate features like firelight. Her gaze met his, and Buzz felt his heart give a weird little lurch.

      Kelly wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. Like the world was at his beck and call, and she was right at the center of that world. She was no longer the idealistic young woman who’d fallen crazy in love with him a lifetime ago. She wasn’t the same woman he’d married. Wasn’t even the same woman he’d divorced. The world had taught her a few things since then. Lessons Kelly wouldn’t ever forget. Lessons that had made her too smart

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