It’s been one full week since Riley started working at North Ridge Search and Rescue.

Which means it’s been one full week of daily blue balls followed by furious bouts of masturbation every waking hour. My hand is cramped, my dick is sore, and I keep going back for seconds.

I can’t get her out of my fucking head.

The only saving grace is that it was her first week, which meant there was still a lot of getting to know the terrain and the local processes. I wasn’t alone with her often and sometimes I wasn’t with her at all. Tim took her out on a controlled avalanche expedition and Tony took her to the resort to get a feel for the scene and give safety talks. She hasn’t been on a call yet—none of us have.

Which is usually the calm before the storm. We’re almost always rescuing someone weekly, especially since our range and jurisdiction is so large, but this week there hasn’t been anything. With the law of averages, when something hits next, it’s going to hit hard.

Even the weather seems to be lulling everyone into a false sense of security. The light snowfall and sub-zero temps of last week have tapered off, bringing fresh, spring-like breezes and slushy streets. So much so that Fox thinks we’re in for an early spring.

“Which is a fucking shame in a way,” Fox says as he pours himself a cup of coffee. I’m sitting down at the kitchen table, slurping down a protein shake that tastes like ass. And not the good kind of ass.

“Why?” I love winter, the snow, the ice, the boarding, the storms, but it just goes on for far too long here.

“The sooner winter is over, the sooner my winter employment comes to an end,” he says, leaning back against the counter. “Then there’s a long, penniless window between then and when the forests start burning again.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re morbid? You don’t get paid until the province is burning.”

He takes a sip of his coffee and glares at me over the mug. “I’m not saying I want that, but it’s the truth. The forests will burn, every year it’s getting worse. Climate change isn’t going away. Sad to say, but I think I’ll be working more in the future, not less. That said, I hate scrambling for odd jobs.”

“You know you don’t need those odd jobs, Fox. You live here, we own this place. Mortgage is almost paid off. You’ve saved up a lot for times like these.”

“I’ve saved for the future. Because I know I won’t be able to be a hot shot all my life. It’s a young man’s job.”

“You’re not that old,” I tell him. “I mean, you’re definitely pushing it, but…” Thirty-three is young, but he’s the older brother and if I don’t do my job and tell him he’s over the hill, it’s a wasted opportunity.

“Right,” he says with a sigh. “But it’s a job for single men, really. The guys I know who have wives and kids, they don’t stick with it for long. It’s too hard. They realize it’s not worth it, sacrificing all that time away from their families, not to mention their lives.”

I watch him curiously. This is the first time I’ve ever heard Fox mention marriage or kids. I’ve always assumed he was a lot like me, no time or need for commitments. I’ve also assumed that it was Delilah that was holding him back from finding anyone else, whether he realizes it or not.

“So,” I begin, “this marriage and kids business…”

He shrugs, looking into his mug like it holds better conversation. “I’m just saying, eventually I’m sure I’ll settle down. And when I do, I don’t think I’ll be a hot shot for much longer.”

“Unless you find a woman who completely supports and understands your job,” I say carefully, wondering if he’ll get the hint.

“Right. Like that’s easy to find.”

Fuck, he’s dense. But I’m not going to go there, he’ll just say I’m crazy for thinking so. Now, I can’t figure out if he thinks it’s crazy that Delilah would be interested in him or that he should have any interest in her. But the denial is very real with those two.

“Maybe you’re not looking close enough,” I tell him, getting up to put my glass in the sink. “Maybe the right woman is there, right in front of your eyes.”

He looks to the ceiling in annoyance. “Please stop leaving dishes in the sink,” he says to me as I’m about to raid the cupboards for something else to eat.

I snort and shake my head as I then go and rinse out the glass. “Who needs marriage when you live with your brother?”

“Want to take bets on who will be the first to move out?” he asks, refilling his mug from the coffee pot. He fucking mainlines that shit.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred dollars.” He says it so confidently, like he’s actually been planning this bet.

“You sound so sure of yourself.”

“I guess I think you’ll be out before I will be.”

I eye Chewie, who is snoring loudly from the couch. The couch that Fox says she’s not allowed on and yet always is. “Is this your way of telling me you’re kicking us out?”

“Us?”

“Me and the doggo.”

“Nah. I need you to help with the mortgage. Would be nice if the doggo chipped in, though.”

“All right,” I tell him, sticking out my hand. “Five hundred dollars. Now what is the bet again?”

He shakes it. “I’m betting you’ll move out before I do. So if I’m right, you’ll owe me half a grand.”

“I’m surprised at your faith in me. Me, of all people.”

“Hey, it’s people like you that end up surprising everyone. Always the last person you suspect. Anyway, I’ve seen Riley…”

I frown. “Riley? What does this have to do with her?”

He gives me a steady look. “Oh, come on.”

“What?”

“She’s your type, Mav.”

“Every woman is my type.”

“Every woman is your type, in bed. I’m talking about more than that.”

This is ridiculous. “I don’t even know her.”

“But you’re going to. Don’t you know how easy it is to bond with someone when you do the kind of work you do?”

You either bond or do the opposite. Like kick Neil off a cliff.

“There are rules.”

“Right. The rules.”

“I’m serious. Look, I’m not going to pretend she’s not fucking amazing, but as much as she wants it to happen, as much as I want to screw her senseless, that’s not going to happen.”

“Back up. She wants it to happen?”

I nod, unable to stop from smiling. “She hits on me non-stop.”

Fox laughs, shaking his head. “Jesus. Only you would be pursued by someone like her. And you still haven’t done anything. You have willpower that I don’t have, brother.”

“It’s only been a week, I’m not an animal.”

He gives me a pointed look. Scratch that.

“I mean, I have some brains. I have a good thing going on with my job and I’ve worked hard for it. She’s worked hard too. If we hooked up…that could be the end of it for both of us. And as much as I want to bury my cock in her, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

He grimaces. “First of all, don’t talk about your cock around me. It’s enough that I catch you walking around here naked sometimes. And second of all, no one has to know.”

I shake my head. “No way. Uh-uh. You know I’m all about leaving it at just sex, but I think in this case, it would royally fuck shit up. Ever since I threatened Neil about her—”

“Why did you threaten Neil?”

I suck at my teeth, debating whether I should tell him what happened or not. “Okay, keep this on the downlow, but she slept with him.”

Fox’s eyes nearly fall out of his head. “She what?”

“She was drunk,” I tell him quickly, feeling defensive on her behalf. “She was drunk and lonely and had just got to town and I’m pretty sure he took advantage of her, something I want to knock his teeth out for. Either way, she didn’t realize he was a tool. Now she does and she’s beyond ashamed for it, which is why you can’t bring it up.”

“I won’t. Fuck. I bet Neil is running with that one. Fucking hate that guy.”

“So does Riley. All week I saw him leering at her. I know she can put him in his place no problem, but I’d still love to do the job for her.”

“Getting protective, are we?”

I ignore that. “Anyway, I told Neil that if it happened again, I’d have to report it. And then him being a douche, said the same about me. Said he’d be watching me and he has been. Every time Riley and I are together, he’s there, waiting for one of us to slip up.”

“What a mess.”

“Yeah, it’s a mess and it will definitely get messier if anything were to happen between us. So that’s why, as hard as it is to say no to her, to resist what she’s putting out there, I have to.”

“Hmmmm,” he muses, finishing his second cup. “I still think the bet will hold.”

“Dude, even if I were fucking her, what makes you think it would ever become more than that?”

“Because it’s about time.”

“That’s ridiculous. I have all the time in the world. I like my life. I have a good thing going on. I get laid when I want to, I’m out there saving people’s asses day in and day out, I make good money, I have good friends. A great dog. And one annoying roommate. Why fuck all that up just to get laid?”

“Because it’s about more than getting laid.”

“Okay, why fuck that up just so I can be in a relationship for a while before we both grow sick of each other and it goes up in flames?”

“Fine,” he says, leaving the kitchen. “You keep living in denial and I’ll be here to collect when you fail.”

“You’re the one in denial!” I yell after him, but he’s already closing the bathroom door. The only one listening to me now is Chewie, sitting up on the couch and giving me the stink-eye for waking her.

A few days later I’m awakened after only a few hours of sleep.

First I hear the wind slamming against the window, driving snow against it in thick spatters, then I’m letting out an “oof” as Chewie jumps on the bed, landing on my stomach. She doesn’t do well in storms, which is one reason why she’ll never be an SAR dog, along with the fact that she’ll only use her nose if food is involved. If a medium-rare steak and baked potato ever went missing in the woods, only then would she be the first one to find it.

I should go back to sleep but I can’t, because the change in weather has taken me by surprise. I’d been watching the forecast carefully, and while it seemed like there were a few storms brewing in Idaho just below us, North Ridge and the Selkirks didn’t look like they’d be hit. In fact, the forecast called for a continuation of the rising temperatures and I was getting ready to be on alert for flooding.

So this is a surprise. The wind is rattling the window panes and as I get out of bed, Chewie hiding under the covers, I look out to see nothing but white. Even the streetlight down the road emits only a faint glow, partially obscured by the whirling flakes.

“This isn’t good,” I say out loud.

Ten minutes later, after I’ve downed a glass of water from the kitchen, my radio crackles. I keep it in the den next to my bedroom, the door always open so I can hear if anything comes in. Fox hated it at first, but he’s gotten used to the calls coming in all hours of the day and night, and he can sleep right through them. We have the same radio down at the office, but when anything happens in the middle of the night, those calls go to me. Perk of being the boss.

“North Ridge SAR, it’s Phil at the lodge, come in.”

I quickly head to the den and pick it up, pressing the button to talk. “Maverick here, how can I help?”

“We have a skier with us, just came into the lodge for help. She and a buddy earlier came across an ice hiker with a broken leg at about seven thousand feet, below Thompsons Camp. One of the skiers stayed behind with him, the other came here for help. We’ve got a doctor at the lodge that you can take, if you don’t have a medic.”

“That’s fine, I’ll be able to get Tim, do you have the coordinates?” I ask, bringing out a pen and pad of paper and scribbling them down when he gives it to me. I stare at the terrain map on the wall. Thompson’s Camp is a popular spot for ice walkers this time of year, situated on the east side of the mountain. At least it’s away from the storm, which is blowing in from the west.

“It just started storming down here,” I tell Phil. “I have doubts the chopper can fly. Do you have anyone up there who can leave now and be team one?”

“That’s a negative. I can ski in, but it sounds like where he’s fallen would be inaccessible to someone like me.”

“All right, I’ll get a team up there whichever way I can. Over and out.”

If we can’t do a helicopter rescue, and that seems more and more likely given the storm and the location, we’re going to have to go up from the lodge. That means setting out for a long hike, up that mountain with our gear, right now. Every second that passes brings that hiker and the other skier closer to death.

I immediately put out the call for everyone on the team, as well as to a few of our volunteer auxiliary members. Anytime we’re going up into the mountains like this, the more searchers we have, the better.

I grab my gear and suit up, then get in the truck and head to Riley’s since she’s the only one without a car.

She lives in the basement suit of my old high school math teacher and she’s already outside, standing on the sidewalk and waiting when I pull up. This is the first time I’ve seen her in her full gear, head to toe in thick, waterproof material, headlamp on her forehead, and looks completely transformed. She’s gorgeous without a lick of makeup, but she no longer looks like a young girl. She looks strong now, unstoppable.

Even her expression is determined.

“Hey,” she says to me as she buckles up. “Run it all by me again.”

No time for chit chat, no smile or teasing words. She’s getting right down to business.

And so do I. As we drive up toward the lodge on the winding mountain road, snow already covering the plow’s earlier work, I give her the rundown. “Tim and Jace will be sorting out the descent route. It’s not an easy area and the hiker will most likely be immobile, so they’ll plan where we’ll lower and find our anchor spots to match the rescue ropes. The ski lodge has a doctor there, but they won’t be able to do much when it comes to getting the guy out. Thankfully we have Tim. Hope you’ve been practicing your rope skills, because I think it’s going to be a long, cold night.”

“I’m ready for it,” she says, a hardness to her voice. “Do we have plans for the skier who stayed with him?”

“We’ll probably have to treat the skier for hypothermia, I’ve alerted the hospital so they’re ready for when we come down.”

She shakes her. “Stupid. Brave but stupid.”

“The skier?”

“Assuming the skiers that found the injured hiker didn’t know them, they went out of their way to help. That puts their lives at risk.”

“But if they hadn’t, the hiker wouldn’t have survived. You break your leg at nearly seven thousand feet, in that terrain, you’re dead.”

“You don’t even know if they’re alive right now.”

I glance at her, the snow reflecting off the headlights, making her look ghostly. “Not exactly Miss Positive at this time of night.”

She manages a tight smile. “I’m nervous,” she admits, saying it like she’s angry about it.

“We all get a bit nervous,” I tell her. “And it’s your first time on call since…”

“Yeah,” she says quickly. “I know. I just don’t want to fuck up.”

“Riley, you’re not going to fuck up. We’ve got a big team tonight, I’ve even called in some of the aux members, including Sam. He retired from the army too early and still thinks he’s running a platoon. He also wears hot pink ski pants.” Her smile cracks just a little more. I go on. “A few weeks ago, we rescued someone off Kokanee glacier. It took all day to climb up to their spot and all night to get them down. Tim even slipped and it took extra time to get him out. But we did it. We’re an odd mix of people, but together we make a well-oiled machine and tonight, you’re part of that machine.”

She nods, chewing on her lip. After a few beats with the only sounds being the swoosh of snow as we drive further up the black mountain road and the rhythmic shoop shoop of the fast-moving wiper blades, she speaks.

“Have you ever lost someone?”

I swallow. I guess we’re getting personal. “On the team or outside of it?”

She considers that for a moment. “Both.”

“On the team? No, but we’ve had a few close calls. One summer, Tony went out marking trails, when he was supposed to be at home with a fever. He got sick, disoriented. Took a few days for us to first realize where he went, since he never told anyone, and then find him. Stupid bastard. Then there was a guy named Heath that used to work for us—this was a couple of years ago. He was a good guy, had a wife and kids. Like Sam, he was also retired from the army, for losing sight in one of his eyes. Took a bullet to the head in Afghanistan, but he was damn good at his job.”

“Even with the lack of depth perception?”

“Even so. But one day he went out to get a snowmobiler who had fallen through the ice. As you know, in those cases, the outcome is rarely good, but he went and the snowmobiler was half on the ice, just needed a bit of help to make it. His friends couldn’t or wouldn’t risk it though. So he went. And he fell in.” I sigh, remembering the look on his face when I saw him in the hospital. “He was pulled out by Tim. You know, Tim, he grew up in the mountains of South Korea, he knows his stuff. Anyway, Heath recovered, physically, but I don’t know what happened under that ice. He was never the same. He quit a month later.”

“I get it,” she says quietly, rubbing her hands together as if she’s cold, but I have the heat on full blast. “A part of him died inside. You can never get that back.”

Her words chill me. I want to ask her about the accident, her partner in the coma, but I don’t. I know she’ll bring it up if she wants to talk about it, but otherwise I think I’ll make things worse.

“So, what about in the life outside of work?” she asks. “Have you lost anyone?”

I nod. “My mother. She died when I was five.”

She fixes her eyes on me, curious. They glow blue in the dim light. “Really? How?”

That’s usually an insensitive question, but I know she doesn’t mean any harm by her bluntness. “She killed herself.”

Riley flinches at that. I can be blunt too.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Did you know at the time, I mean…”

“No. At the time they told me she died by accident. She drowned in the river. Years later I learned the truth. Then I learned about post-partum depression. It gives you answers but it doesn’t change anything. If anything, you get angrier. Because there were signs. There were signs and no one did anything.”

“So it happened after your…?”

“Younger brother. Shane. Poor guy, I know he still feels responsible for it, even though he was just a baby. The most fucked up thing about it is that Fox, my oldest brother, I swear he still blames him for it.” I pause, feeling a wave of shame. While I’ve always thought this, I’ve rarely vocalized it like this. When it comes to my brothers and my family, things are often so complicated. “Anyway, they aren’t close. And I can’t blame either of them for the way they feel. And then there’s me, stuck somewhere in the fucking middle, as always.”

“I get the feeling you don’t talk about that often,” she says.

“Well who the hell would I talk to? I can’t talk to them. I’ve tried, but they’re both stubborn in their own way and it just opens old wounds. My father would probably backhand me for even mentioning my mother’s name, even though he’s finally moved on and found someone to love. The only one is my grandfather, but even so, he’s getting older and I hate to bother him with something like this. I’m the easygoing one in the family, it would be…out of character for me to say anything.”

“And your girlfriends?”

I crack a wry smile. “You and I both know there are no girlfriends.”

“Not ever?”

I squint my eyes at her for a moment before focusing back on the road. She’s distracting enough as it is and the last thing we need is to end up crashed in a snowbank. “I’ve had some.”

“Unable to commit?”

“Oh, I’m able. I just choose not to. Besides, our jobs aren’t exactly cut out for commitment. You should know that.”

She taps her delicate fingers along the thick, rough material of her snow pants. “Yeah,” she eventually says, her voice soft. “I know.”

It sounds like there are so many layers to what she says, a story left untold. I just want to spend all my time talking to her, peeling all those layers back, seeing what this beautiful girl is hiding deep down. Because for all her bluntness and flirting and ballsy behaviour, I know she’s keeping some of herself tucked away. Maybe I’ll find out in time, maybe I won’t. But I want nothing more than to find it for myself.

But she’s the one asking me the questions tonight. “Do you miss her?”

“My mother?”

“Yeah.”

I feel my throat get thicker and it’s harder to swallow. “Yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t because I was so young, but I remember her so clearly. I remember the day she died, before she went down to the river. She had made me waffles. Fox was in the living room watching cartoons. X-Men, I think it was. The old kind. She’d just put Shane down in his crib. She said she was going to pick some flowers. But it was October and there were no flowers…” I take in a deep breath, surprised at how shaken up I feel just talking about it. Even more surprised that I’m opening up to her. “So yeah. I missed her from that day forward. We had a nanny after that, Jeanine, who is Del’s mother. They lived with us on the property. But as much as I love Jeanine, she’s not my mother. No one ever will be. I had her and then she was gone.”

My words hang in the air like clouds of breath.

“Do you think that’s why you’re afraid of commitment?” she asks after a moment. “You know what it’s like to lose someone you love?”

I glance at her sharply. “What are you, a shrink?”

“I’ve been to enough of them…”

“I’m not afraid of commitment, by the way. I’ve just never met someone that could make me consider having them be a part of my life.”

She looks at me, smiling shyly. “I’m the same way. Just wanted to put that out there in case you thought otherwise.”

I laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think when it comes to you.”

Other than how badly I want you.

And how fucking wrong that is.

“As long as I have you thinking,” she says, before she abruptly switches the subject and starts asking questions about the possible descent route and the volunteer team.

The problem now is, by the time we get to the ski lodge and meet in the parking lot with the rest of the crew, quickly going over the details before we ski into the endlessly cold, dark, and snow-blasted wilderness, the rescue mission floats somewhere into the back of my thoughts.

I can only think of Riley, about the drive, the ease we have with each other, the conversation, the fact that I opened up to her about things I never talk about with anyone. I think about her and not the mission we’re about to embark on.

And for the first time I’m realizing how dangerous that is.