8

TY WOULD FREEZE TO DEATH before the pain consumed him. Maybe. Because the agony of his fractured knee still made him cry out with every step.

He’d fought, and lost, the battle for bravery long ago. Sheer desperation pushed him now, as the snow scoured his eyes and his body shook all the way to his core.

But his gut said he was still headed in the right direction, following the river cast off the mountain deep in the Swan River range where they’d crashed. The river, a mere stream in the summertime, turned into a torrent of crashing whitewater, foam, and destruction this time of year.

However, it made for a clear path that led him straight west, across Morrell Creek to Morrell-Clearwater Road.

Please let there be a car, a plow, even a dogsled trekking the county road. That thought pulsed through Ty’s head, a feeble hope dying with every breath-shattering step as the sun fell beyond the western horizon.

Around him, the forest rose, pine, alder, and birch running shadows across the lethal powder that hid tangles, bushes, and even drop-offs that could cast him into the deathly clasp of the river.

His foot came down hard into a nest of branches, jarred his knee, and he pitched forward. Catching himself against the trunk of a whitened paper birch, he gasped, breathing hard.

A whimper tunneled through him, and it roused a fear, long buried.

How had he ever thought he could rescue anyone—he couldn’t even rescue himself. The thought seared through him, a fire that singed his core even as the cold turned him numb.

He forced himself to his feet and trudged through the snow, but he couldn’t stop shaking. With each step the whimper grew, thundering through him until it turned into a high-pitched keening.

He shook his head, fighting through it, but it was now a shriek. He pressed his hands over his ears, ducked his head as the branches slapped him, pushed him back.

Get to the road. Get to the—

“Ty, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

Hands clutched him, and he struggled, fighting, even as the voice broke through the pane of the dream. He fell back, came up thrashing.

Ty opened his eyes to see Gage standing over him. Gage backed away, hands up as if in surrender.

It took a long second to orient himself. To realize he’d fallen asleep on the Marshalls’ sofa.

He reached for a knitted afghan, pulled it over his shoulders.

“You okay, dude? You were making the funniest noise.”

The shrieking hadn’t abated, and Ty winced even as he searched for it, frowning, sitting up.

He spied Jenny Marshall in her kitchen, removing a teakettle from the heat of her stove.

Oh.

His gaze landed, however, on the woman sitting in the corner, typing on her computer. Brette.

Who’d heard him whimpering like a three-year-old.

Perfect.

“I was dreaming of the accident,” he mumbled.

Gage nodded. “I thought so. You make those sounds sometimes at home, so . . .” Gage lifted an eyebrow. “I figure you’re remembering being out there in that storm, huh?”

“Something like that.” Ty looked out the window, at the somber drizzle that hovered over the day. The wet breeze wafted into the room, and he got up and shut the window. “We would have died out there if Sam and the team hadn’t found us.”

Gage stepped up beside him. “But we did. And you did everything right. Headed for a road, blew your whistle—”

“I was desperate and made a stupid decision based on fear. I should have never left Chet. He nearly died.”

“Sometimes there are no good choices. You followed your instincts—”

“Which is a pretty poor way to manage a search,” Ty said.

“Your gut led you to the road. To us.”

His gut. Ty was tired of listening to his instincts. They only broke his heart.

He dropped the afghan on the sofa. “We need to rouse everyone, start looking for Creed and the others. We’re going to find them today.”

Gage hadn’t shaved this morning, had tied his long hair back into a black bandanna. “Yes, we are.”

“We can’t screw this up.” No, he couldn’t screw this up. He might have found Chet, but there were too many people depending on them. On him. Ty hardly had the credentials to lead a callout, but with his finding of Chet, he’d somehow become the de facto leader. Ty headed over to the table.

“I spent most of the night mapping out a search strategy, starting from the school and moving out past that in a grid. But truthfully, we need to talk to the other parents, see if they had an idea of where the students might have gone for practice, then start a grid from that last known point too.”

Gage stood over the map for a moment, then headed to the big island, where Jenny had poured him coffee.

“You want a cup, Ty?” Jenny said, looking ragged and red-eyed. But she offered a smile, as if grasping for hope.

Oh, he wanted to give it to her. So, he met her smile with one of his own and nodded.

He couldn’t bear to look at Brette.

The coffee poured life into him and he headed upstairs for a quick shower.

He stood under the hot water, shaking away his nightmare, and emerged at least a halfway new person. He was charting out the search grids in his mind by the time he headed downstairs.

Garrett, Jonas, Ned, Ian, Shae, Kacey, Audrey, Ben, and his bandmates had risen and were eating muffins and downing coffee.

Chet even shuffled out and took a seat on a high-top at the bar.

“No one expects you to go out looking today,” Ty said as Chet poured himself a cup of coffee.

Chet just peered at him over the rim of his cup, giving him a look that a man who hadn’t grown up under Chet’s tutelage might interpret as a challenge.

No, it was a challenge, but Ty wasn’t up to a fight. Today, he just wanted success. Hope.

Wanted Brette to see that not all things ended badly.

He finally glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She got up and grabbed coffee and a freshly baked bran muffin. Then she sat back down at her computer at the breakfast table, neatly ignoring him. She wore a peach headband, her short blonde hair poking out of the top, along with a gray Vortex.com T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.

For a moment, all he could think of was the way she came alive in his arms, how he’d wanted to pick her up and run away from this nightmare.

Except, as she pointed out, her nightmare would keep following them.

Somehow, he had to show her that he wasn’t ditching her into its clutches. Ever.

Which meant, right now, not giving up hope.

He got coffee, then walked over to the table and called the group together. “I spent some time last night mapping out a search grid. We should assume that for some reason, after Creed texted his mom he had decided to go back to school. So, we’re going to start at the school and work our way out. Meanwhile, Jenny, you get on the phone to the other parents and ask if they heard from any of their kids before the storm.”

“I will. I got a call early this morning that the Red Cross is setting up in town. They’re sending a man over to help with the search.”

“Good.” Ty glanced at Garrett, who stood with his arms akimbo, frowning.

As if thinking.

“What?” Ty said.

“It’s just—we assumed that Creed rode in the coach’s van. But if he was with his team, what car did he drive? If we find his at the school, could he have ridden with someone else?”

“He sometimes rides with this girl he likes,” Jenny said quietly. “Addie Ridley. She drives a red Impala.”

Ty stared at the map. “Or, he drove and they made it back to the school . . .”

“We know they’re not there,” Ned said.

Shae came up behind Ned, her arms folded across her body, her mouth in a grim line. “We were there when they pulled out the teacher and that janitor.”

But Garrett’s words burned inside Ty. “Are we sure they didn’t go back to the school?”

“The school is an empty lead.” The voice came from behind them, and it was familiar and just bossy enough for Ty to place it immediately.

Ty didn’t even have to turn to confirm the identity, to know it belonged to a tall blond with confidence in his swagger and command in his eyes befitting an incident commander.

Former PEAK team member Pete Brooks.

For a second all the air left the room. Pete walked in, wearing his white, collared Red Cross shirt and a pair of black jeans, but Ty couldn’t tear his eyes off Pete’s hair, which was cut short to match his nearly clean-shaven face, as if he had joined the ranks of responsibility. Pete’s gaze scanned the room a long second before it landed on Gage.

His fellow EMT. “Hey,” he said to Gage, but really to everyone, Ty guessed. “I see you’ve started without me.” He shook Gage’s hand, came in close for a thump on his back, turned to Ben, met his grip, then Chet, who he pulled close. “So glad you’re okay,” he said, a little husk in his voice.

He gave Ian a fist bump, Shae a half-hug, Kacey a firm embrace, and finally turned to Ty, offered him a smile and a tight grip. They’d never been close, but they had worked together.

Pete turned to Garrett and the rest of the Marshall family. “Pete Brooks. I’m here with the Red Cross.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jenny said and wrapped her arms around Pete’s neck. He leaned in for a hug like it might be a practiced move. Maybe it was—Pete had traded in his small-town SAR stats for a national gig over a year ago. A special, elite search and rescue team put together by a senator, the SAR team assisted the Red Cross disaster relief teams. Pete was their first national incident commander. No doubt he’d seen plenty of tornado-damaged disaster zones.

Probably knew exactly what he was doing.

Ty couldn’t decide if his sigh contained relief or just the slightest edge of disappointment. Still, he stepped back, folded his arms over his chest, and made room for Pete to scan the map.

“So, this is the area you already searched,” he said, fanning his hand over the roads to the west of the school. “And this is your new search grid?” He traced the areas. “Good job.”

No one mentioned it was Ty’s handiwork.

“We’ll start in vehicles along the tornado path. Kacey, can you do a flyover?”

“Of course,” Kacey said. Ty noticed that she hadn’t gone to stand by Ben, who had his hands shoved into his pockets and was standing a little behind everyone else, as if he might be debating bolting.

Better not—Ty had made this family a promise.

Ben wasn’t the only one who had a skittish aura. Brette was working on her computer, as if barely listening, her attention elsewhere.

Ty suppressed the urge to walk up to her, to ask . . . maybe simply if she was okay. And fine, it burned him that she could occupy the same airspace as he did without a blink in his direction, as if he might be a piece of furniture, or an afterthought.

Maybe he was.

“Let’s break into teams. I brought walkies for everyone, along with a GPS device that will monitor where everyone has searched,” Pete was saying, clearly taking over. “We’ve set up a base in town, at the fire station, and we’ll coordinate from there.”

Ty turned back to the table. “What about the school?” He couldn’t stop the niggle in his head that maybe searching for Creed’s car might be a clue they couldn’t ignore.

“According to local EMS, they searched the school,” Pete said. “I don’t want to use valuable manpower digging up a dead end.” He sighed, glanced around the audience. “We’re coming up on forty-eight hours past the event, which means we’re running out of time. Let’s get moving.”

Running out of time.

Pete led the group out of the kitchen.

Ty gave a quick glance at Jenny. “We’ll find him.” Scooping up a walkie, he followed Garrett and Kacey out to the truck.

Chet and Ben left, and Ty noticed Brette following Jonas. He couldn’t shake the sense that their search had taken a turn in the wrong direction. And for a second, he was standing in the snow, the wind howling around him as he stared into the gray sky.

If they didn’t get this right, kids would die.

“You getting in?” Kacey said as she stood at the truck. He glanced at her, then at Ben, who was taking the wheel of one of the Marshall Vineyard SUVs.

“No,” he said.

Kacey frowned at him, but he ran up to Ben, catching the door a second before it closed. “Ben—I need you to go with Kacey. I . . . I need to check on something.”

Ben frowned, glanced at Kacey. Swallowed. “Okay.” He got out.

Ty slid in. Chet sat in the opposite seat.

“What’s up?” Chet said.

Ty turned the SUV over, put it into drive. “I hate to tell you this, but—”

“Your gut is at it again?”

He glanced at Chet. “Pray that I’m right.”

Ty was pulling out of the driveway when he noticed movement in the backseat. He glanced in the rearview mirror.

Brette offered him a slight smile. “So, where are we going?”

While Ty barely noticed her, Brette was aware of every breath he took.

Especially the way his eyes widened, just for a second, at her question. Or maybe by her appearance in the backseat of the SUV.

As if he’d forgotten she existed. Okay, that might be overstated, but he’d barely looked at her this morning.

Whereas she’d been watching him since the first fall of rain, somewhere around 4:00 a.m. She’d listened to the patter on the roof, her instincts finally compelling her from the bed to see if she could get a glimpse of the horizon. She’d dressed, grabbed her camera, padded downstairs, and gone out onto the porch.

Not a torrential downpour but a sad weeping from the sky, as if it was mourning the advent of a new day with five kids still lost somewhere out in the razed landscape. The humid air rose through her, and the smell of a damp morning—mud, grass, moistened wood—stirred memories through her.

The kind that could make her collapse into a puddle if she let them. In a blink, she saw her mother sitting in an Adirondack chair, a blanket wrapped over her shoulders as she cradled a cup of coffee. She was bone thin, weary, staring at one of her final sunrises. “Isn’t it beautiful, Brette? Sunrises are meant to be shared.”

Brette shook the voice away and instead took a shot of the awakening horizon, a narrow burst of light against the darkened clouds, a sliver of fire that fought the night.

She went inside and opened her laptop, loaded the shot in, and posted it on her blog.

That was when she heard the sound. A huff of breath, the slightest groan, or maybe a cry of pain, and it raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She froze and cast a glance around the room for the source.

She found it in the huddled form of Ty sleeping on the sofa. He wore last night’s clothing, and his arms were curled around him as if attempting to warm himself. She had the urge to get up, pull the knitted afghan over him, but she feared he’d wake and see her standing there.

And if he even just looked at her, she might find her resolve dissolving. So instead she simply watched him.

Then he began dreaming, and it wasn’t a happy dream. The urge then to wake him from the nightmare, to pull him back from whatever abyss threatened to yank him down, caused her to push her chair away from the table.

Before she could rescue him, a creak sounded on the stairs and she spied Jenny Marshall coming down into the kitchen. Jenny paused, taken by the sleeping man on her sofa, then turned to the kitchen and reached for her teakettle. Filled it and popped it on the stove.

Still, Ty seemed fitful.

Jenny had likewise shot a look at Ty, a bit of worried mother in her gaze. The teakettle began to whistle, slow at first, then building.

Brette stood up just as Gage came down the stairs. She watched, the knot in her stomach unraveling as Gage went over, shook his friend awake.

Jenny opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of batter.

Brette had focused on her computer, refusing to be an interloper in the conversation between the two guys. While their backs were to the window, she got up and poured herself coffee.

“Good morning,” Jenny said quietly. “Muffins will be ready in about ten minutes.” Jenny’s eyes appeared cracked and red, as if she’d spent the night crying. Probably few people actually got any real sleep last night under the Marshall roof.

Ty headed upstairs as others began to appear—Ben and his crew, Kacey and Audrey, Jonas and Ned. She uploaded her pictures from yesterday’s rescue and began to sort through them.

The teenager wrapping her arms around Ty. Chet and Ben. The fireman and his little sister. A picture of the mangled house enshrouding the van. A few of the torn countryside.

But it was the shot of Ty and Chet that caught her attention. The way Ty held him, his eyes closed, such a vivid, pained relief on his face it made her wonder at the depth of their friendship.

The photo montage could make for a good story. And she hated how her brain turned to that, but . . . it was her livelihood. Capturing the tragedy . . . and the triumph.

“Those are good,” said a voice, and she turned to see Audrey catching the crumbs of her fresh from the oven muffin.

“Thanks. I thought I’d send them to my editor at Nat Geo. See if he thinks they could work for a photo essay.”

Audrey’s eyebrow went up, but she nodded. “Cool.”

Ty returned, his dark hair wet and curly around his face, a few droplets of water on his gray T-shirt.

She got up and refilled her coffee, grabbed a muffin, and escaped before he wandered over to the kitchen bar.

Averting her eyes as he called the group together, she opened her email and jotted a quick note to her editor at Nat Geo. She attached a few of the photos and had it sent by the time Pete Brooks walked in.

She remembered him too well from eighteen months ago. Bossy, a little arrogant. In the end, he’d brought her flowers in the hospital, offered to tell her his story, and turned out to be a charmer. But today he was all business.

She watched as Ty stepped back and let Pete take the reins of the search. Ty wore an odd expression, as if he wasn’t quite buying what Pete said. She knew from Ella that Pete fashioned himself as some kind of national hero, the way he jumped into a rescue with both feet, but she’d seen Ty in action too.

Ty’s hero stats could stand up to Pete’s any day. And he had Pete’s good looks beaten, hands down. Sure, Pete was wide-shouldered, blond, and resembled a Marvel-inspired Norse god. But Ty had tall, dark, and handsome written all over him, with that tousled dark hair, the solemn face, those pale green eyes, his biceps thick against his shirt.

Yeah, Pete Brooks had nothing on Ty Remington.

What was she thinking, running away from this man who so clearly wanted to be in her life?

When the group disbanded, Brette had gotten up, tucking her camera into her satchel. She didn’t quite have the stomach to ride with Ty in the chopper again, so she followed Ben and Chet out the door, toward the SUV.

Climbed in the back.

And had tried to be perfectly fine, not bothered at all that Ty hadn’t even said good morning, that he hadn’t stopped for one millisecond to see how she was.

Then . . . “Ben—I need you to go with Kacey. I . . . I need to check on something.”

His voice had stopped her heart cold in her chest, and when he slid into the front seat, she couldn’t breathe.

When Ty put the SUV into drive and tore out of the driveway, she knew something was up.

That was when he noticed her in the rearview mirror. His eyes widened, as if shocked to see her. What could she do? She flashed a quick smile. “So, where are we going?”

“Oh, uh . . .” He glanced at Chet as if he might be debating stopping and leaving her in the driveway, and for a second, she wondered if she’d reduce herself to begging that he take her along.

No, she didn’t recognize herself at all anymore.

But he met her gaze again in the rearview mirror. “Everyone else is searching the surrounding roads. But I can’t get past the feeling that we need to go back to the school. That maybe they’re still there.”

The school. “But—”

“I know what Pete said. But I . . .” He made a face, stared back out onto the road. “I get these gut feelings that something isn’t right, and—”

“Like you had with me this past year?”

She didn’t know why she said that, why she suddenly yearned for the answer to be yes. Yes, I thought of you. Yes, I couldn’t forget you no matter what I tried.

He caught her gaze in the mirror. “Yeah. I’d get these . . . feelings. That you needed me.” He looked away, as if he might be regretting that admission.

But his words had reached in and took ahold of her, warmed her body to the core.

“And you were right,” she said, so softly she doubted he’d heard her. So, she cleared her throat. “I get it. We reporters have hunches too. And the first rule of being a journalist is . . . always follow your hunch.”

And her particular hunch said to hold on to Ty Remington for as long as she could, no matter what it cost her.

He who hesitates is lost. That thought alone rippled through Ben’s brain as he watched Kacey drive away with Garrett.

He could have climbed into the backseat of the truck, could have spent the day with Kacey, and despite the chaos of the chopper noise, maybe figured out a way to talk to her. Beg her not to run away from him.

Give them another chance.

He could have even suggested that they find a quiet corner somewhere in the middle of all this trauma to talk about their future. Audrey.

The fact that Kacey had broken up with him.

But he stood there, watching her drive away, and the loss left him unraveled.

Because, in that moment, he saw it. For some reason, he just kept hesitating. Sure, he said he wanted to get married, but it hadn’t been Kacey who canceled their nuptials, twice.

Worse, he couldn’t put a finger on why. He blamed his busyness. But that was the easy reason. Something else niggled at him, something—

“Ben, you need a ride, buddy?” Pete had pulled up behind him, and he turned at the question. Pete drove a black Hummer with the Red Cross emblem on the door. Gage and Ian were tucked inside.

“Yeah,” he said and climbed in back. Gage scooted over. Ian sat in the front seat and glanced back at him.

“You okay? I thought you were headed out with your dad.”

“Ty got into the truck and said he needed to follow a hunch or something. I . . .” He glanced out the window. “I was going to ride with Kacey, but it looks like she’s got it covered.”

Pete pulled out, following the caravan—Ty in front of him, and Jonas and his brother, along with Shae, in the Suburban out in front. His bandmates had headed out with yet another vehicle to scour the festival site. And check on the towing of his RV to Minneapolis for repairs.

Hopefully they’d also finish salvaging the rest of their equipment. They’d have to rent their instruments for the gig in Wisconsin, but . . .

The gig in Wisconsin. Ben tapped his fingers on his knee, thinking through the text from his manager. And his stupid slip in front of Audrey. He should have never mentioned the gig—the look on her face had opened a wound that was still throbbing in his chest.

But in truth, it tugged at him, the temptation to fall back into the music, wrap himself into the words, the beats, the familiar, and forget, at least for two hours, the fact that somehow he’d blown it again.

He hadn’t a clue how to woo Kacey back into his arms.

“I wish you’d called me when Chet went missing,” Pete was saying, glancing into the rearview mirror as he drove. “I would have been here earlier.”

“Sorry. I called PEAK. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“We should have called you,” Ian said quietly. “Sorry. How is the Red Cross working out?”

Pete lifted a shoulder, strangely noncommittal. And then, “So, Jess isn’t here.” His voice was casual, as if he could fool any of them into thinking that it might be a random, meaningless observation. Right. Even Ben had heard about the altercation in some hospital in Miami when Jess’s past charged back into her life, one that included a fiancé. Apparently, despite Pete’s inclination to level the fancy pants Frenchman who’d tried to claim Jess, Pete had simply walked away, left the choice to Jess.

“She’s still in New York,” Ian said, matching Pete’s casual tone. “I saw her a month ago. Apparently, her mother is thinking of selling their home, and Jess decided to stick around and help.”

Ian said it as if Jess’s home wasn’t the entire penthouse floor of a high-rise in Manhattan, worth eight figures. They probably had an armada of real estate brokers working on the sale.

Pete’s mouth tightened into a line. Quiet filled the cab until he said, “I should have punched him in the mouth and thrown her over my shoulder.”

Gage suppressed a smile and glanced at Ben. But he agreed with Pete.

“There’s a reason I married Sierra as soon I could. I was afraid she’d come to her senses,” Ian said.

Pete glanced at him. “Really?”

Ian held up his hand. “I’m not saying you and Jess aren’t the perfect match, but a year of waiting for an answer . . . I’d lose my mind.”

Pete’s mouth tightened, as if yes, that’s exactly how he felt.

“You waited seven years, dude,” Gage said. “You’ve been crazy over Sierra for as long as I’ve known you.”

Ian’s face twitched with the truth.

Tires ground out the dirt road, wet gravel from the rain pinging against the tailgate. They’d have to go off-road today to follow the tornado’s path to find the missing red Impala driven by Creed’s teammate.

“Jess needs time to figure out what she wants,” Pete mumbled.

The stretched silence suggested that maybe Jess had found it.

“Maybe I’m an idiot,” Pete said, as if reading their minds.

“By Kacey’s standards, you’re a gentleman,” Ben said before he could stop himself. “I was planning on eloping this weekend, and when Kacey found out, you would have thought I’d kidnapped her into a forced marriage.” He didn’t exactly mean his tone, but . . . okay, maybe he did.

“You were going to elope?” Ian said. “And you didn’t tell any of us?”

“It was a surprise. That’s why my dad was here. And Audrey. We had the whole weekend planned. And then the storm hit.”

“That’s some rotten luck,” Ian said. “So, Kacey found out and she wasn’t thrilled?”

Ben stared out the window. “She broke up with me.”

“She broke up with you?” Gage said. “Kacey?”

“No, Taylor Swift. Of course, Kacey.” He took off his hat and scrubbed a hand down his face. “But maybe it’s for the best.”

He could barely believe his own words—and by the silence in their wake, neither could the rest of the car’s occupants. “Maybe I’m just fooling myself that this could work out. I’ve been thinking about why I’ve put this wedding off so many times and . . .”

“Is it because you’re busy trying to keep your career alive?” Gage said. “That means commitment and sacrifice and—”

“And I’ve already messed up Kacey and Audrey’s life once,” Ben said. “I love being Audrey’s dad. And I love Kacey, but I watched my parents struggle for years on my dad’s here-and-there income and . . . I don’t want that for Audrey. Being a musician takes total commitment—and these days, I need to tour to make money if I hope to keep the studio alive. But if I tour, I’m never home. Audrey deserves better.”

Gage stared at him as Pete turned onto the main highway into Duck Lake. “So, let me get this right. You’d let some other guy marry Kacey? Be a stepfather to Audrey?”

Ben just blinked at him. Gage’s words were like a fist to his gut.

No.

“Because if you let Kacey walk away, you free her to be with someone else.”

The thought made him physically ill. Still . . . “At least this way I can still provide for them. If I walk away from music for Kacey, we could end up with nothing.”

“Or everything.” Ian hiked his elbow over the backseat. “Sheesh, Ben. I have a little experience with losing everything. First, my wife and son, and then, did you happen to read the article in the Wall Street Journal where the IRS fined me over ten million dollars? Yeah, that hurt.”

Ben looked at him. “So that’s why you sold your house.”

Ian nodded. “But out of the two losses, only one took me to my knees, made me want to stop living. And it wasn’t the money. You don’t know what the future holds—you could lose your voice, your entire career could implode, but Kacey and Audrey are real. They’re not going anywhere.” He glanced at Pete, then back at Ben. “It matters who you choose to spend your time—and your life—with. And when it’s the person you love, then you can’t fail.” He looked at Pete. “Jess loves you, man. You’d have to be blind not to see that. Have a little faith.” He grinned, and his gaze spanned the backseat. “I learned that bit from Sierra.”

“You’re way too happy, man,” Gage said.

“You should talk,” Ian shot back. “When are you going to stop goofing around and propose to Ella?”

Gage lifted an eyebrow, looked out the window.

Ben’s phone buzzed, and he dug it out of his pocket. A text from his drummer. Are we headed to Wisconsin?

He shoved the phone back into his pocket.