“You’re not alone now, either,” a voice said. She jumped in sudden fear and looked up to see Connie and Beau standing on the trail not too far away. She grabbed her chest, tried to slow her lurching heart. “What’s up, Sierra?”
She sat on a rock and lifted her foot toward him. “I fell. I messed up my ankle, I guess. I tried walking on it and I can, but... I looked around for a strong stick or branch I could use like a cane, but no luck.”
Connie came forward and shed his backpack, rope and extra harness. He knelt in front of her and lifted her foot, pulling down the sock to look at her ankle. He gently turned it back and forth and she winced. “Crap,” he said. “What an ugly mess.”
He dug around in his backpack and brought out an Ace bandage.
“Were you going climbing?” she asked, noting the ropes and harness.
“Nope, I was coming after you.”
“What’s the rope and everything for?”
He met her eyes and once again she was startled by the beautiful robin’s egg blue. “I didn’t know where I’d find you, Sierra. You could’ve been at the bottom of a ravine or something.” He pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt. “I got her, Sully. She hurt her ankle. I’ll bring her back.”
“You need transport?” Sully’s raspy voice asked into the radio.
“No, I’ll transport her.”
“How are you going to do that?” Sierra asked. “Are you going to cut down tree branches and build a litter and drag me home?”
“No, I’m going to piggyback you,” he said. “The preferred method is the fireman’s carry, over the shoulder, but a half hour of that would just about ruin you.” He unlaced her hiking boot. “I’m going to wrap this ankle to help get the swelling under control but I’m not taking the boot off—you might not get it back on and it’ll be easier to carry while it’s on your foot. When we get back to Sully’s we’ll elevate it, put ice on it and I’ll wrap it properly. We might have to go get an X-ray.”
“Do you think I broke it?”
“You’ll need an X-ray to know that, Sierra. You have water?”
“Yes,” she said, holding out her bottle.
He took it and shared it with Beau, who had done a lot of running lately. Then he gave Beau and Molly a couple of treats.
“Did Beau fetch you?” she asked. “I didn’t have many options but I thought he might be able to get himself home—he’s familiar with the trails out here.”
“He did. I think we got ourselves a search animal. Or maybe just a smart animal, I don’t know. But he did come for Sully and he brought me to you.”
“I couldn’t let Molly go. I thought she’d probably follow Beau, but what if she didn’t? I couldn’t go find her if she got lost.”
He finished wrapping up her ankle. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Only when I step on it and then, zowie.”
He dug around in his backpack and came out with two bottles of water, handing them to her. Then he stuffed the rope and harnesses in his backpack. He took the pack behind the rock she’d been sitting on and hid it behind a bush. He covered it with his rain slicker.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t need the extra weight. I’ll come back for it later or tomorrow. You about ready to go home?”
Her teeth chattered and she nodded.
“You’ll warm up a little with my body heat,” he said. He crouched in front of her. “You’re in charge of the water, for me and the dogs. Put it in your backpack and climb on—piggyback.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Connie. What am I going to do if I break your back?”
He threw her a look over his shoulder that said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Let’s think about this,” she said. “You don’t have to impress me. I know you’re very strong. If I could just lean on you...”
“That’ll take too long. Besides, I have to be able to carry seventy-five pounds up fifteen stories to stay qualified. This will be easier, so let’s do it. Come on.”
“All right,” she said. “It’s your funeral.”
“That was unnecessary,” he said. He hoisted her up, settled her with a couple of bounces. “How’s that feel?”
“I feel fine. How do you feel?”
“Like we’re going for a long walk,” he said. “Hang on to Molly’s leash. I’m not chasing her. Come on, Beau! Let’s do it.” And off he went. After ten minutes or so, breathing harder than he had been, he stopped and lowered her to the ground. He was a little raspy. “Little rest. Water please.” He shook out his limbs, stretched his back, drank some water, crouched in front of her again.
“Take a little more time,” she said.
“I’m ready.”
“Really, take a little more—”
“Come on,” he said. “I don’t want to be doing this all day.”
“All right, all right.” She climbed on. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier?”
“Tell me a story,” he said.
“A story?”
“Tell me your story, then. When did you decide to move out here? And from where?”
“A couple of months before I got here. Cal had been after me. He and Maggie wanted me to come. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea so I thought about it for a while.”
“But you came. From where? And why?”
“You’re very nosy,” she said. “I was living in Des Moines in a little house with some roommates. My parents live on a farm in the southern part of the state. I’d been through a series of dead-end jobs and I knew I needed to do something different. And I missed Cal. He’s my favorite sibling and we were really close growing up.”
“What kind of jobs?” he asked.
She sighed. “Seriously bad jobs. I had some college—about three years that took me about six to get because I had to work. I went to school in Michigan and when Cal’s wife died and he left the state, I—”
“Wait! His wife died?” Connie asked.
“You didn’t know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that!”
“Three years ago. They were married about eight years, I think. She was a lawyer, too. They were very happy, but she had scleroderma. It’s—”
“I know what it is,” he said. “It’s awful, that’s what it is.”
“Yeah, the poor woman. My poor brother. After she died and he left Michigan, so did I. About six months later. But he was off on some odyssey to find himself and there was no place for me in that. So, I went back to Iowa, kicked around for a few months near the farm, took a couple of jobs I hated but paid decent and had benefits. Over the last year and a half I waitressed, cleaned airport bathrooms, worked in a couple of nursing homes. The worst job was in a recycle center, separating stuff. Handling garbage, basically. It was awful. My life was going nowhere so coming out here to see if I could make sense of things didn’t seem like a bad idea. Cal made sense of his. I think it all came together when he found Maggie.”
“Maggie’s cool,” Connie said. “Didn’t you have a guy?”
She laughed. “Oh, Connie. No, there wasn’t a guy...”
“Why’d you say it like that? Like it was a dumb question?”
“It wasn’t a dumb question,” she said. “I don’t have a good answer, that’s all. I went out with some guys but... Okay, here’s the deal—I can’t pick ’em. That’s all. If I met some guy I liked, odds were excellent he was a loser. There you have it.”
“Describe ‘loser,’” he said.
“Come on, don’t ask me that. You’ll just find out how really incompetent I am and I’d rather you think I’m smart and nice.”
“I do. Describe loser.”
She took a deep breath. “Liars. Cheaters. Guys with bad habits or mean personalities or nasty tempers.” Or psychopathic stalkers, she thought. That was the real reason she’d left Des Moines suddenly. She thought she saw him there. She wasn’t absolutely sure but she saw a guy at a distance, about a block away, who was a dead ringer for Derek Cox. She decided this invitation of Cal’s couldn’t have come at a better time.
Connie just marched on for a while, silent. Contemplating. “Not one good man?” he finally asked.
“Well, the problem could be me,” she said. “I saw Colorado as an opportunity. For self-examination. For renewal. A fresh start.”
“Because you’d like to find a good guy,” he said.
“I’m not looking for a guy. Definitely don’t want to find another loser,” she said with a laugh. “Really, I love my life as one person. And now that I have Molly, I feel so connected. Molly is so wonderful. A little naughty and in the most innocent way.” The dog looked up at her. “Yes, I’m talking about you. She loves to please. She smiles, she honestly does. When she emerges from puppyhood she’ll be the most magnificent dog alive.”
Connie grunted.
“Need a rest?” she asked.
“Nah, I’m good. Just seems like since it takes so little to make you happy, you should’ve found the right guy years ago.”
“Maybe I’m finally changing, Connie. Wanna tell me about your girl?”
“My what?”
“Your girl. Don’t you have a girl?”
He snorted. “I have a lot of girls.”
She laughed. “That figures.”
“What do you mean, figures? I go out, okay. I have girls I go out with but I’m not in a relationship.”
“Well, that figures...”
He stopped walking and let her slide gently to the ground. “Water,” he said.
She pulled a bottle out of her pack and watched as he took a drink, then squirted water in both dogs’ mouths. He went through his shaking-out-limbs and stretching maneuvers again, took a few deep breaths, a little more water, then presented his back. “Up you go.”