Smoky Mountain Sweethearts
“She hasn’t been herself lately.” Janet’s voice was tight and Sam knew she was trying to explain something to him without saying it. “I...I don’t know, Sam.”
On his way up the trail, he’d run through all the scenarios, but there weren’t many that fit. She was too weak to make it back down.
Or she’d gone up with no plans of following the trail back down at all.
Suicide wasn’t something any reserve ranger wanted to encounter, but they’d all experienced the fear last year when a kid, a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore, had driven all the way from his home in Samson City to jump from an overlook along the Hickory Branch motor trail. His attempt had failed, but Sam could still remember the faces of the guys who’d brought him up.
Nobody would be the same after that.
Finding Avery fighting to get back down was such a relief he’d had a hard time getting words strung together.
She tripped and would have fallen again, but Sam caught her arm in time to ease her to the ground. “Rest. We’re close now.”
“How can you tell?” she asked as she brushed her hands over her cheeks. He couldn’t tell if she was crying, but now she had dark mud smudges on both cheeks. He reached into his pack and pulled out wipes.
“Years of experience on this trail,” Sam explained as he wiped the dirt away and tapped the canteen still hanging from her shoulder. “Drink.”
Her beleaguered sigh was enough like the old Avery that it was easy to laugh. “When I have to stop to use the nearest ladies’ room, it will be all your fault.”
“I’ll take the blame.” Sam took the canteen when she thrust it back at him.
“This was not how this day was supposed to go,” she said quietly.
“No?” He knew she was tired. Her words were slurring, and every time she shifted, a faint frown flitted across her face.
“No. I was going to go up confused and come back down enlightened.” She rested her head on her folded arms. “And you were nowhere in the picture.”
“Enlightened about what?” Sam asked as he reached under her to scoop her off the ground. As expected, she squawked and tried to struggle out of his arms. At seventeen, she’d been strong enough to set him down hard on the ground. Picking her up now was like collecting a fallen branch, lightweight and brittle enough to break. As thin as Avery was, she still knew where to hit. One smack on the arm made him snap, “Settle down or I’ll drop you.”
“On my head?” she asked. In the dim light, he could see her lips twitching. He’d threatened that a thousand different times when they were kids.
“If I think it will help, yes.” Sam grunted as she sighed heavily and dropped her head on his shoulder. “Ten minutes. You only have to suffer through this for ten minutes.”
He thought she was resolved to stew in silence. She’d taught him a good lesson about women at an early age. When they got quiet, it was time to worry.
“Thank you for coming for me.” She said it so quietly he had to dip his head to get the end of the sentence. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me anymore.”
“Nothing conditioning won’t solve, AA.” Sam squeezed her tight and made it up over the last hard climb. “That’s all.”
This time, her sniff had to be tears.
“Aim the flashlight down, farther out.” Sam had so many questions, but the ground team was waiting, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for all the answers.
“AA. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.” She sniffed again. “Probably because I haven’t seen you in a long time. I can’t believe I missed it.”
He could see the lights of the rescue vehicles as he rounded the last curve in the path. “When we get to the bottom, I’ll hand you off to the medic. She’s going to recommend you go to the hospital for a checkup.”
Her immediate gasp made him add, “But I’ll call my mother. She can bring Janet up to get you. That’s what you’d prefer, right?” He almost offered to drive her home, but the report wouldn’t write itself.
Besides, he needed time to reconcile himself to the fact that Avery Abernathy had come back, but she was so different from the girl he remembered, she might as well be gone.
She used to be fire; this woman was fog or mist, something too delicate to last for long.
“Yes. Thank you.” She squeezed his shoulders and added, “Always the hero.”
When the medic met him at the edge of the trail, Sam handed her over and waved his cell. “A hero? You said it. I’m going to hold that over your head, AA.”
Her smile was shaky but she gave it her best shot. Here in the lights, it was easier to see how thin she was and the dark circles of fatigue on her face. Whatever she’d been through, she was lucky to have come out on the other side.
He wouldn’t sleep tonight because he’d be filling in those blanks in his mind.
“And happy birthday.” Her mouth dropped open in shock. He’d surprised himself. Remembering that today was her birthday suggested she was more on his mind than even he knew.
As he turned his back on the group and called his mother, Sam stared up at the pieces of night sky he could make out through the trees. Whatever he’d expected this shift to hold, carrying Avery Abernathy in his arms had never figured into his plans.
CHAPTER FOUR
IF SHE’D KNOWN how much trouble searching for this particular epiphany would cause, Avery would have stayed in her room and taken a nap.
But naps had gotten her nowhere.
Telling her story to the law-enforcement ranger staring down at her was also getting her nowhere.
“Honestly, Officer Hendrix,” Avery said as she exhaled loudly, “I’m not sure what part of ‘I waited too late to start my descent and got caught in the dark’ is so difficult to understand.” As Sam tipped his head to the side, Avery realized her tone might not have been as conciliatory as it should have been. “Sir.”
“Actually, it’s ‘Ranger,’ although I am a law-enforcement officer here at the reserve.” He rested one hand on the gun holstered on his belt. “Your story matches Sam’s, so I’ll take you at your word.”
Before she could argue that taking her at her word had nothing to do with anything Sam might have to say, Sam waved his cell. “They’re already on the way. No one answers, so Mom’s—”
The loud rattle of a large Cadillac cut him off as Sam and all the other reserve staff on hand turned to watch a yellow Cadillac lurch to a stop in the parking lot.
“Yeah, I figured it wouldn’t be too long.” Sam sighed and offered his hand to Avery. “If you’ve got everything you need in the incident report, I’ll help Avery to the car.”
Avery waved off his help. “I can walk. It’s an easy walk. Even I can manage that.”
Sam nodded as if he’d expected her to say exactly that.
Ranger Hendrix raised both eyebrows. “I hope you’ll come back and take the climb when you’re...better.” He tapped his pen against his notebook. “Climb like this, it’s good for mental health.”
She wanted to demand to know what the pause was about, but she wasn’t going to do it here with this crowd watching her.
Eleanor Rivera, the medic who’d checked her blood pressure and temperature, said, “I still think an ER visit might be a good plan.” She pointed down at the rip in Avery’s jeans. “You did take a fall up there.”
Rolling her eyes would get her nowhere, so Avery gritted her teeth and muttered, “I have had worse scrapes in my own front yard.”
“She has.” Sam raised his hand as if he’d testify. “Uglier bruises, too.” Then he shrugged. “Doesn’t mean having a doctor examine you would be a waste. You aren’t as young as you used to be.”
For a split second, Avery had to replay his words in her head. “As young as I used to be?”
“It’s her birthday,” Sam said as he turned in a slow circle to address the crew assembled there. “It wouldn’t be polite to tell you how many candles AA has on her birthday cake, but...”
The return of the Sam Blackburn who’d used the same tactic to force her to take dares she knew better than to attempt helped Avery settle in.
“And if I ever hear you insinuate another woman is old,” his mother said from behind his shoulder, “I will give you the birthday spankings I still owe you, young man.”
Regina Blackburn had the kind of good looks that made her ageless. She could still be watching their race to the top of the old oak next door as she stood there with both hands propped on her hips. “I’d force him to apologize, but...”
“We’d both know he wouldn’t mean it.” Avery finished the phrase Regina had said often enough when they were kids that it brought on another flash of homesickness.
“I suspect he was trying to infuse steel in her backbone,” Avery’s mother said as she tightened the belt on her robe. “Dragging an older woman out into the night because you needed a walk in the woods, Avery Anne Abernathy? I do not know what’s gotten into you.”
Sam’s mother tried to calm Janet Abernathy with an arm around her shoulders, but Avery’s mother brushed it off. “And poor Regina here, she insisted on driving because I was too upset.” The shrill last word echoed in the small parking lot.
It was funny to watch the search-and-rescue crew take a unanimous step back. Annoyed mothers brought out the same response the world over.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sam said as he wrapped a hand around Avery’s elbow. “She’s not going to the hospital.”
“You going to take these ladies back down the mountain?” Hendrix asked in his official lawman’s voice. “Because we are dangerously close to closing time. I’ll complete the incident report and leave it in the commander’s office for your review.” He tipped his head to Avery, who stood next to her mother. “I hope we’ll have a chance to meet each other at a more social spot.” When he smiled, his whole face lit up. Dour, official Officer Hendrix made her want to stutter and promise to never speed or jaywalk again, in a national park or anywhere. Smiling Officer Hendrix sent a small flutter of the old familiar feeling through Avery, the one that said a man found her attractive and in a totally nice way. It had been so long since it happened, she wasn’t sure what to do with the flutter, but if Officer Hendrix had given her a business card with his phone number, she would have taken it gladly and held on to it until she made up her mind.
“Thanks, Hendrix,” Sam said as he put his hands on Avery’s shoulders and turned her toward the cars. “I’ll make sure they get home.” His mother jingled his keys and Sam nodded.
When Avery’s mother realized she’d raced to the rescue in a house robe and bunny slippers, she was going to be even angrier.
Avery turned at Sam’s urging but looked over her shoulder at Ranger Hendrix. He was helping to pack up the gear the medic had scattered on the tailgate of one of the service trucks. It was hard to imagine what dinner with such a strong, healthy guy might be like. It had been years since she’d tried to carry on a conversation anywhere other than seated next to a hospital bed.
“Half a second ago he was ready to toss you into the reserve’s jail for wasting resources,” Sam muttered as he urged her toward the car, his arm wrapped securely around her hips. “Now’s not the time for making heart eyes anyway.”
“Reserve jail. Is that a real thing?” Avery tried to put on the brakes, pushing hard against his urging with her feet, but he was too strong. Gentle, but insistent and strong. “And heart eyes. What does that even mean?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. The emoji.” He fluttered his eyelashes in a ridiculous way. “Flirty, love, heart eyes.” He reached around her to open the door to his mother’s car so that Avery could slide easily into the back seat. Avery studied Regina Blackburn’s oblivious face and then her mother’s interested expression. Neither was good at pretending they weren’t watching this conversation with way too much investment.
“Flirty love eyes,” Avery said slowly. “I don’t remember how to do that, Sam. Come on. He’s a nice guy doing his best to encourage me to return to the trail.”
The muscle in Sam’s jaw twitched but he straightened his shoulders. “Sure. Nice guy. His wife left town with another guy. That’s the kind of nice he is.”
“Samuel Blackburn, you don’t blame the man for his wife’s terrible decisions,” Regina said with a scandalized yank of her cardigan. “You know better than that.”
Sam bit his lip. “Right. I’m saying he still has a wife.”
“You were warning me away from a guy, doing a service as...what? An old friend? Nemesis? Frenemy? What were we?” Avery slid deeper into the soft leather seat and sighed with relief as her tired muscles melted into puddles. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t need a man and I certainly don’t need a bossy one, Sam.”
“Unless you’re stuck on the side of a mountain?” Sam asked slowly.
Good point. Not that she’d let him know that. “I would have gotten myself down. If you’ll remember, I was always able to rescue myself. No need for the knight to come racing in.” Avery ignored the sore ache of her knee, determined to make sure that Sam Blackburn, his mother and hers listened. If she’d gone up searching for a revelation, it had taken getting stranded to understand it. “I’ve been through harder things, Sam. Tonight all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can do that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Duh. AA, nobody doubts that.” He shut the door firmly and walked off, both hands braced on his hips. From this vantage point, it was nearly impossible to miss that Sam Blackburn had grown into the kind of man that drew women like bees to the sweetest flower. He was tall, with broad shoulders. Here in the light, she could see the sprinkling of gray at his temples, the only sign that he’d celebrated birthdays of his own. Handsome and strong, the qualities every woman stranded on the side of a mountain hoped for in her rescuer. It was too bad his personality was stuck in high school.
His tough talk had been all that had kept her from falling apart more than once that evening. He goaded her into saying and doing things she wasn’t sure she could.
By acting like a jerk.
There were times when they were kids that he was no longer acting, but tonight, it was impossible to ignore the fact that he’d given her enough indignation to power through.
Neither Regina nor her mother said anything as they pulled away from the trailhead parking lot and out onto the dark two-lane road headed back to town.
And the silence was starting to get to her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t start down sooner,” Avery mumbled. When she was younger, hitting her mother with the apology before she could dig deep into her aggravation had been a good strategy. That, coupled with Janet’s worry over Avery’s health, might be enough to postpone the lecture until morning. “I could have driven your car home, Mama.”
The tense silence that followed her statement was enough to convince Avery that nothing was going to postpone the lecture boiling inside her tiny mother.
“We will talk about this when we get home, Avery,” her mother said succinctly. She didn’t turn around in the seat, but Regina glanced back in the rearview mirror, confirming for Avery that her mother was in a high state of mad at that point. Only good manners and being in the presence of company were saving her from a thorough speaking-to.
Resigned to accepting her fate, Avery rested her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. They were close to the rolling hills of Sweetwater when Regina said softly, “You know, Sam’s single.”
Avery slowly opened her eyes in time to watch her mother thump her head against the headrest.
“I’m saying, if he’d find a nice girl here in town, the need to run off to bigger and better fires might disappear.” Regina waved her hand. “In smoke.”
“Good one, Ms. B. Smoke. Because he’s a firefighter.” Avery covered her wide yawn with one hand. “What I don’t get is how that fits into this conversation.”
“I think he was jealous.” Regina turned down the narrow street that led to their houses. “Of poor Brett Hendrix, who is a good man. He’s got kids and that woman did run off and leave him with zero help.” She tsked as she shook her head. “He needs a good woman.”
“But not me.” Avery slowly opened the car door after Regina put the car in Park in her driveway. “Good to know.”
“I’m saying,” Regina said as she shut her own door, “that if Sam is warning you away, maybe he’s got some interest.”
Avery skidded to a stop and braced her hand against the low fence that marked the boundary between the two lots. “In me. Interest in me.”
Regina shrugged.
“They nearly put each other in the hospital at least three separate times, Reggie,” her mother said drily. “I’m not sure we want to put them back together, especially in close quarters.”
The rest of their conversation was lost as Avery forced one foot in front of the other, climbing the porch steps carefully to keep as much weight off her aching knee as possible.
She’d better find a painkiller before she passed out for the night because it would be hard to sleep. The front doorknob turned easily. Avery refused to consider how often her mother left the doors unlocked.
Avery stared up at the flight of stairs that would lead to both the bathroom, home of all medicines in her mother’s house, and her comfy bed. The overwhelming fatigue convinced her to make a quick stop in the living room. She’d eased down and smacked a pillow into the proper shape when her mother stepped inside.
Knowing her efforts were doomed, Avery nevertheless attempted a diversion. “You don’t care if I sleep on the couch tonight, do you, Mama? My knee’s making its opinion of the stairs clear.” She made sure to wince theatrically when her mother paused in the doorway, her hands braced on her hips, terry robe gaping over a hot-pink sweatshirt. “If you’re wearing sweats, what’s with the robe?” Normally, the woman who wouldn’t step foot outside the front door without lipstick would not be caught outside her home in anything less than easy Saturday chic.
“Sleep on the couch. That’s fine.” Her mother closed her eyes and Avery waited until the tense silence became too much to bear.
“And what is with Regina? There’s no way Sam is interested in me.” Avery shoved another pillow under her knee and stretched out on the cushions. “He’s the one who dared me into swimming across Otter Lake in November.” It wasn’t impossible. She’d proved that. But it wasn’t smart. A quick trip to the emergency room for a light touch of hypothermia was a significant reminder. “He’d be more likely to plot my downfall.”
Her mother nodded once and then she held up a hand. “Avery, you need to get something straight.”
The emotion shaking her mother’s voice snapped Avery to attention. If she’d been trying to avoid an angry lecture by playing ignorant, the game had changed. Her mother wasn’t playing any games.
“What is it, Mama?” Avery asked, her choked voice betraying the nerves that had rattled to life with her mother’s grim expression.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming home.” Her mother’s voice broke and she had gripped both arms tightly, fingernails digging into the terry cloth.
Confused, Avery eased up. “Tonight? Of course I was.” Where else would she go? She’d been driving her mother’s car.
Which was still parked at the trailhead.
“Tonight. From Chicago. Ever.” Her mother took a step forward. “I’ve been worried sick about you, and all I get are nothing updates.”
“But I’m here now. I’ll get better.” Avery shook her head. “I’ll do better. You can see me doing whatever it is you’ve been dying to know but have missed out on.” Lately, that meant catching up on a lot of sleep. What were they talking about?
“Avery,” her mother said as she stepped up next to the couch, “do you want to get better? You don’t go out, you don’t eat, you haven’t talked to your old friends or... All you do is sleep. Do you want to get better?” She eased down on the cushion next to Avery’s ripped jeans. “Honestly.”
“Of course,” Avery said without hesitation. What was the other choice?
Her mother nodded. “It’s that...” She unwound one arm and pinched her nose, the old trick they both used to dry up tears. “I was afraid you meant to...stop. To stop everything there in your favorite place in the world. To give up.”
Avery could not figure out what they were talking about. “How would I have gotten home? You mean, sit there and...” Avery studied her mother’s grim face and the tears that were making a lie of the old trick. “...die?” Nausea rolled through Avery.
“I tried to prepare Sam for the fact that might be the plan.” Her mother wrapped her hands in her robe. “They handle things they shouldn’t have to.”
Avery straightened with a snap. “You told Sam you were afraid I was going to...” Avery paused to try one more time to figure out any legitimate reason this conversation would be going the way it was. “You told him I was going to kill myself at the Falls?” The hard burst of pain behind her collarbone shocked a gasp out of Avery. She’d been through enough pain that it was easy to live with now. She’d become a master at the slow grind of devastating grief, but this sharp jab of disappointment or embarrassment or shame or some confused combination of all three made it hard to breathe.
Aware of the ragged gasps coming from her mouth, Avery covered her lips with one hand and wiped away a tear with the other. “What?”
“I never would have believed it possible, but I was afraid I was about to lose you.”
Her mom wilted in front of her.
“Growing up, you and Sam both, I worried you might kill yourselves in some kind of stunt, trying to outdo each other racing up the mountain or even climbing that oak tree.” Her mother sighed. “And that would have been terrible, but losing you because you couldn’t go on living... I’m not sure how I’d survive.”
Since her mother had always had enough energy and firm enough opinions to fill two petite women, Avery understood immediately how afraid she’d been. She would feel the same way if she found out her mother had lost as much weight as she had.
Add to that the inability to fill her days with anything other than sleeping or staring out the window, and Avery would have checked her mother in somewhere, worried to death about the changes to her personality.
“Why didn’t you talk to me, Mama?” Avery asked.
“What would you have said? You were always doing fine. I was silly to worry so much. I needed to find something else to do with my time.” Her mother stood to pace. “And some of that’s even true, but now, tonight, you and I are about to make a change. You cain’t go on like this, Avery Anne.” The pleading in her mother’s eyes didn’t quite match her firm tone, but Avery could tell this was important. She couldn’t brush it off.
“Fine. We’ll make a change.” Avery ran a hand through her messy hair. “I went up that mountain hoping to find some direction, the answer to your favorite question. I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I hoped for some revelation. Instead, I got a rescue.”
Her mother snorted. “Think answers land with lightning bolts, do you? What did you figure out?”
“When I was seventeen, I won a race to the top of the falls.” Avery ran a hand through her curls. “I cheated. I had to cheat to beat Sam by that point. He had a foot in height and I don’t know how much in muscle on me, so I tricked him into heading back to the parking area for something and I started climbing. When he made it to the top, I was stretched out on the flat rock there, grinning like a mule with a mouth full of briars.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “I don’t doubt it. You have always loved to win.”
“That’s what Sam said.” Avery laughed. “As if he’s ever been any better.” She eased back against the pillows. “We argued over the ‘rules’ of the race. Since we neither one of us ever worried much about losing, they were hazy as usual, and I wiggled my way out of every one of his objections.” Her smile faded. “He told me then a shark like me ought to make a killing as a lawyer.”