It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4) (22 page)

Jeremy grabbed him. The kinetic shift in the man as he braced his legs to absorb Mike’s fragility felt like a kind of grace you only see in a dance performance.

“We’re close,” he managed to say to Jeremy. “Get me to the top and then go get him.”

“We’re not that close!” Jeremy barked.

Mike looked up. Pa, Miles, and Dylan all peered down, then Dylan began screaming at someone tall next to him. Alex? The tall man’s hands were on Dylan’s shoulders and he bent down just enough to get in his face, Dylan coming back at him like an angry pit bull. Whatever conversation they were having looked like it was seconds from turning into a boxing match.

The unmistakable sound of the words “FUCK YOU!” filled Mike’s ears.

Dylan.

“Fuck me, but you’re not going down alone!” Alex shouted back as he moved within one of the headlight beams, giving Mike a look at his very angry, distorted face.

What were the fighting about?

Close enough to watch it all happen, but still too far from safety, Mike paused. So did Jeremy. Suspended about ten feet from the very top, the rope at their feet, they just halted. Froze.

Suspended themselves in time.

“Grab the rope!” Dylan shouted. Jeremy startled, his legs not moving. Mike could feel him start to tremble from the sheer force of preventing so much weight from falling.

Or maybe the shivers were from emotion? Fear? Cold?

The rope was a cold, stringy snake around his waist, pressing against the small of his back.

And then Mike watched in horror as someone—Dylan? Alex? Miles?—began a slow, inch-by-inch descent down those last ten feet.

Tired. So tired. Mike’s eye drooped and a sudden wave of warmth made him feel so happy. Pleasant. Content and peaceful, a blanket of love that contradicted everything Mother Nature had thrown at him. If he just closed his eyes, he could keep this feeling. If he just let go, everyone could stay safe, and he could linger in this sweet state of warmth.

“Hey!” Jeremy shook him. “Cut it out.”

“I got him,” said a voice that made Mike start to choke with tears of pure, unadulterated relief. Dylan’s scent filled his nose, warm, wet arms bulging with effort as they wrapped around his good side, and he felt himself more grounded, centered and rooted to the earth. “You go get your guy.”

“You sure?”Jeremy said, eyes wild, looking down the path. “I can’t even fucking see him!”

“I got
my
Mike. You go get
yours
. Alex is pulling us up by the rope.”

Mike looked up to see a tall figure braced at the very edge of the clifftop, rope in arms, with another rope around his waist, held in place by what looked like a crowd of men.

“Your local fire chief’s up there with an ambulance, ready to go. We have another truck for Alex and one of the injured guys. I’ll send Miles down in a minute,” Dylan answered, his voice tight with control but crystal clear. This was a mission, and by God, they were going to complete it.

“Right. Thanks. Good luck.”

“Don’t need luck. Just need strength,” Dylan barked, his arms round Mike and pushing him at the hips, Mike’s legs stretching to calibrate and manage the shifting, wet sand, the thick brush, and the heightened angle.

Dylan began pushing Mike, bracing himself to become the only obstacle between Mike’s rolling back down this hill. Dylan had turned himself into both counterweight and propulsion, his own body’s needs held back. Mike remembered Dylan’s stories of carrying two-hundred-pound fire victims out of homes, crossing burning staircases and crawling down hallways with victims on his back or in his arms. The tales were never told from a place of bragging, but rather one of wonder.

“I’m not really there,” he would explain, his eyes glazing over, as if staring at something in a different dimension. “I become pure energy. I focus on getting out and that’s all that exists in the world.”

Mike always interpreted that to mean that Dylan somehow left himself and let this vital force in, but as he became the object of that singular attention, he realized he’d had it wrong all these years.

Dylan became more
himself
in this moment.

He was Dylan, and nothing more, his power pushing Mike toward life.

Pain ripped through Mike’s left side like a hot branding iron and he screamed, then a hard shove from behind had him face down on grass, blades and sand filling his mouth, dirt grinding between his teeth as he choked and spat.

“Sorry,” said a deep, sincere voice. “Didn’t realize that was your bad arm.”

He could barely move, but turned his head up to see the worried eyes of Lydia’s brother Miles.

“You’re safe,” he said.

“Go help Jeremy,” Dylan barked to Miles.

Dylan’s face crossed in front of Miles, hair soaked and whipped against his cheekbones, face lined with a look that haunted Mike, had haunted him for more than a decade.

It was the look on Dylan’s face the day Jill’s cancer diagnosis had come in.

“I’m fine,” Mike whispered, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

Because everything faded to white.

Lydia

Lydia jolted, her body running cold, as if someone drained her of half her blood in one single second.

Something was
wrong
.

“Get Miles on the phone,” she snapped at Sandy, picking up her own phone to call Mike. As it rang and rang, she cursed him, cursed Jeremy for insisting on going with Miles, cursed Mother Nature for brewing up a storm and wanted to curse the whole fucking world.

“Miles isn’t answering.”

“Damn it!’ she shrieked, nearly throwing her phone into the wood stove that blazed now, the fire made by her dad, who stood talking to the local fire and rescue chief. How many men did it take to save one guy?

Everyone who stayed at camp was just waiting.

But that feeling, like a cold lick by a demon tongue along her spine, made waiting impossible.

She threw on a yellow rain slicker and shoved her feet into her mother’s boots.

“Where are you going?” Sandy asked in an alarm-filled voice.

“To find Mike and Jeremy.”

“We know where they are, honey,” Pete said, breaking off conversation with Joe and coming over, giving her mom a look that made Lydia angry. “We just have to wait.”

“Something bad just happened,” Lydia insisted.

“We know,” Sandy soothed. “And we’re all working hard to—”

“No, Mom, I mean something
bad
just happened.”

Sandy’s phone rang in that exact moment. Lydia lunged for it, snatched it from her, and saw it was a call from Miles.

“What the fuck is going on, Miles? Why aren’t you answering—”

“Mike fell,” he said.

“No shit, Mike fell! We know that! This entire operation is about Mike falling.”

“Not that Mike, Lydia,” Miles snapped back. “
Your
Mike.”

“My—my
what
?”

“Your Mike was helping the other Mike up the path on the cliff and he lost his footing. Rolled all the way down. Jeremy’s working on getting to him but Jeremy just fell on his ass and is scooting down the hill slowly. We have to get Mike Pine to the ambulance, and Dylan’s here administering first aid, but this is a fucking mess. I’m about to help Jeremy. Tell Dad we need him. Now.”

“Dad—” she started.

“On my way,” Pete said, out the door before the final word was said.

“No,” Lydia gasped as Sandy put her arm around her.

Laura and her friend Josie appeared from the other room, faces tight with worry.

“What happened?” Laura asked. “Did something go wrong? Is Mike okay?”

“Which Mike?” Lydia whispered, her throat swelling with tears.

“Mom? Lydia?” Miles’ disembodied voice floated through the phone. Sandy grabbed it and spoke quietly, rubbing Lydia’s back.

She knew from the looks on Laura and Josie’s faces that she should explain, but she couldn’t. Her mind was locked shut, her heart pounding like a hard tide against shore, her mouth trying to form the words to say it. Say what had happened.

To speak the unknown.

“Mike fell,” Sandy said, finishing her conversation with Miles and turning to Laura and Josie.

“AGAIN?” Laura cried out.

“No, no, dear. Your Mike is on the grass at the top. Dylan helped get him up. Miles has him in the truck cab warming up, and Dylan’s giving him first aid. They’ll bring him to the hospital shortly.” Her face fell. “But Lydia’s Mike stumbled while trying to help your Mike up the hill, and...”

Hearing it from her mother’s mouth made it real. Lydia collapsed into a small chair.

“Oh, thank God,” Laura said, her body lowering with a short, sharp sigh, her sniffles matching Lydia’s, but in a completely different way. “But I am so, so sorry your Mike fell! I’m sure the guys will...” Her voice faded, and she added a simple, “I’m sorry.”

“Josie!” Laura said, just as Mike’s mother, Mary, walked into the camp office in tears. “Go with Pete.”

“Me?” Josie squeaked. “Why?”

“You’re a nurse. they need all the help they can get.”

Lydia knew the subtext of her words: what if more people get injured?

With a curt nod, Josie sprinted out the door to join Lydia’s dad, Laura turning to Mike Pine’s mother with murmurs and tears.

“They’ll be just fine,” Sandy said.

Lydia knew better. Between the nasty squall, the steep pitch of the cliff, the fact that Mike was already exhausted from helping with the rescue, and the tone in Miles’ voice, she knew better.

She knew this had to be bad.

The question was: how bad?

Jeremy

Never had to deal with this kind of shit when I backpacked through Thailand
, he thought to himself as his wet ass slid down the steep cliff, heels dug in, moving him forward inches at a time. The rain felt like a large, wide firehose was pointed right at his neck. The way he had to scoot down the hill meant he was getting the biggest wedgie
ever
.

Distracting himself with stupid jokes in his own head was the only way to keep the deep fear at bay.

If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have gone to the top of the hill, grabbed some supplies, and then gone to find Mike, but clarity wasn’t in abundant supply right now. Instead, he slid to a point where he could stand without falling and walked into the sheets of rain that pelted the shore.

No Mike.

Squinting, he felt his muddy ass to find his phone. No phone. Must have fallen out somewhere. Great. He had nothing more than his shoes and clothing, and who the hell knew what condition Mike might be in when he found him.

A searchlight from above began covering the space where Jeremy suspected Mike had landed, Miles clearly thinking in tandem with Jeremy. The guy was a total asshole sometimes, but smart as hell.

A truck engine revved above, and then Jeremy watched as the F-150 disappeared, headlights on, pulling away. A pulse of panic shot through him. They were leaving?

No, he told himself. One of them was, probably to rush Mike Pine off to the hospital. They wouldn’t leave him here alone like this.

Right?

“Jeremy?” That was Dylan’s voice. “I’m here. Got the light. I can see you. Tell me where to point.” That answered his question: Miles had taken Pine, and left his partner. The partner who was a trained paramedic. Made perfect sense. He wondered if Alex was still up there, ready to give aid.

He wouldn’t let himself think about what condition Mike might be in when he found him. No shouting, no cries for help, no sound at all but the churning of the ocean waters and the sound of wind and rain against leaves, brush, shells and rock.

No sound wasn’t good. He knew that much.

“Mike!” he called out, trying two, three, four times until his voice got louder, his throat shredding with the effort. The pain made him pull back, his throat suddenly dry, a hacking cough his reward for his efforts. Pain was visceral. It required attention. It took him away from his imagined grief at what he was about to find.

And still no sound.

He began walking in a grid, imagining the curved shoreline as a half-circle, his eyes peeled for what should be easy to spot: a full-grown man’s body. The rain mixed with ocean water, the salt stinging his eyes, making everything blur.

And the
n
he found him
self
facedown, hands stinging from tiny shards of shells in his palms, his cheek screaming with scrapes and saltwater, his feet in the air.

He had tripped over something big.

Not something.

Someone
.

“Mike!” he said, but no answer came. Wiping away the rain from his half-blind eyes, he had to go by feel, finding Mike’s head and running his fingers carefully over the scalp, until he closed his eyes and willed himself to go slow.

The wet hair changed as he reached behind Mike’s ear, finding thick, gelatinous blood. No amount of light would make it more clear: Mike had a nasty head wound, and Jeremy’s stomach sank with the brutal understanding that the rescuer had just become a rescuee.

He held his fingers over Mike’s lips, relieved to feel steady heat coming out with breaths, and used one hand to rest his palm on the space over his heart.

Bah-DUM. Bah-DUM.

A tremor came out of Jeremy in the form of a sigh. His arms tingled with fear, his pulse racing, but by God, Mike was alive.

Thank
God
Mike was alive.

A shrill sound caught his ear, a tinny ring he couldn’t quite place. Mike’s arm twitched, then stopped, his leg kicking. Jeremy placed his hands on the limbs, wondering what the hell the brief movement meant.

And then that weird, high-pitched noise again.

Through the chaos of his external and internal worlds, both a storm of unparalleled craziness. He dimly realized he was hearing his phone’s ringtone.

The phone was somewhere within range, and he was being called.

Standing, he leaned into the harsh wind, willing himself to walk toward the sound. It stopped abruptly. Torn between needing to get back to Mike and worrying he’d lose the path, and needing the phone to explain what had happened, he froze. Paralysis set in.