Chapter One

Jake

I could taste the cold every time I drew a breath. Snowflakes hit my nose and cling to my eyelashes. I stuck out my tongue, relishing the feel of the icy cold droplets. I loved the snow. It always made everything feel fresh and clean. Despite my warm coat and heavy, lined boots, the cold seeped in and sent a chill down my spine. I don’t generally mind, in fact usually like it. The cold has a way of reminding you of your vulnerabilities. We are all fragile, no matter how big and tough we may appear on the outside.

With every long stride, I am closer to home. I’m looking forward to a hot cup of coffee and a night sitting by the fire reading the book Gabe let me borrow. Up here, reading is the best past time. Television is overrated, and it rarely works. That discovery actually made me very happy. I loved being cut off from the world. Quite frankly, I am not fond of most of the inhabitants. There is far too much evil, but not up here on the mountain.

Crocker Mountain in the Carrabassett Valley in Maine, is my hiding place. I’m never leaving. Never going to face the horrors I once witnessed so many years ago. Not on my mountain.

My small cabin came into view as I emerged from the trees. I picked up my step, anxious to get everything ready before the snow really started to fall. This was going to be a big one. I was ready. I was always ready. It was part of my Army training.

Heading straight for my woodshed, I carried some logs to the cabin’s covered porch. After a few more trips, I determined it was good enough, and I’d have enough wood close at hand to get me through tonight and part of tomorrow morning. I knew I’d have to shovel a path through deep snow tomorrow to get more wood which was fine by me. I loved the grueling work that stretched every muscle in my body. It made me feel alive.

“Hey, buddy!” I greeted the large animal, a one hundred twenty pound lab mix, currently napping on the couch as I stepped through my unlocked door. I rarely locked the thing, especially with my so-called guard dog on duty. He was big, but the only real threat he posed was death by drowning in a pool of slobber.

Casper, one of my two friends in the world, lifted his head, looked at me, and thumped his tail a few times before laying back down to continue his nap.

“Appreciate the enthusiasm,” I grumbled. “See if I feed you dinner tonight.”

The mention of the word dinner had his tail thumping hard against the couch again, but he didn’t bother getting up. He knew it wasn’t time yet. The dog had a better internal clock than any human. Right now, it was the middle of the day, siesta time.

“You ready for this one, boy?” I asked the dog as I kicked off my boots and hung my coat on the hook near the door.

My feet were protected by heavy wool socks, keeping them nice and toasty warm. The wood floors of the cabin tended to be chilly. Cold feet could make a person feel cold. My personal rule was to always make sure my feet were warm and dry, whether inside or out. I may look rough and tough on the exterior, but I really hated cold feet—something guaranteed to ruin my day.

I set the portable radio, my only communication with the outside world, on the small kitchen counter, turning it up a couple of notches. I couldn’t afford to miss a call for help or updates on the storm. Gabe and I had a pact. We always checked on each other before and after a storm, and were on standby for one another and the few other neighbors on the mountain just in case something went very wrong.

“I’m going to make some coffee, then you are going to have to scoot your big ass over, Casper,” I warned the dog.

No response. None expected.

“We’re probably going to lose power pretty soon. Another big storm coming in,” I said, making small talk with the creature.

Yes, I talked to my dog. A lot. He was my best friend and most importantly, he didn’t talk back. Casper had been a lifesaver. Five years ago, I had been fishing in the small stream and the dog had appeared out of nowhere. He was skinny as hell and clearly very lost. At first, he had been afraid of me, but was smart enough to realize I was his only hope. I took him all the way into town, paid a shitload of money to a vet and got him all fixed up. They told me he was likely a dump off, something that happened far too often in our little neck of the woods.

Now, Casper and I were bonded for life. He was spoiled to the max and I loved doing it. I needed a companion and he was the perfect one for me. I sure as hell wasn’t suitable to be a companion to another human. Gabe, was about as close to a friend as it came, and he lived a mile away, which was plenty close enough for me.

I put some coffee grounds in my percolator and set it on the woodstove that was against the wall. The cabin had one bedroom. The small kitchen and living room were basically one large room, which made it easier to heat with the woodstove. Wood was my only source of heat and more often than not, my only way to cook food. The power was off as much as it was on, it seemed.

“I better put some wood on this thing and get it stoked so we don’t freeze our butts off tonight.”

My silent audience responded with a loud yawn. I was obviously interrupting his sleep.

“Fine, sleep then,” I mumbled.

After ten minutes, my coffee was hot, and I was more than ready to relax with my feet up and what I hoped was going to be a good book. I settled on the couch, moving the huge dog’s paws to make room for my own big body and sighed.

“Seriously, is there anything better than this?” I asked the dog.

His response was a tail wag that nearly landed his tail in my coffee.

I opened the book, but didn’t get to read the first sentence before a crackling sound cut through the silent cabin.

“Uh-oh, buddy, this can’t be good,” I said, waiting to hear the transmission.

Listening carefully, I heard the safety coordinator for the local ski resort report a lost skier.

“Shit,” I groaned. “There goes my nice evening by the fire.”

I worked at the resort on a part-time basis as part of the ski patrol. These kinds of calls happened all too often. Newbies thought they knew it all, went off course and ended up lost. In some cases, they ended up dead, because they smacked into a tree or we just couldn’t find them in time. With the heavy snow coming in, every minute counted on this one. We didn’t have long to find the missing skier, in this case, reported to be a woman.

That detail made the situation more critical. My basic male instinct I guess, but the thought of a woman out in the snow alone and cold triggered an animalistic response deep inside me. I had to save her.

“Come on, Casper. I’m going to need you on this one.”

The dog jumped up, and it was as if an energy bolt zapped him. Instantly he was waiting at the door, tongue lolling and tail wagging. He was ready to go.

I grabbed the radio as I walked to the kitchen table to sit in one of the chairs while I put my boots back on.

“Gabe, it’s Jake,” I spoke into the radio.

“Go to four,” his voice came back.

I switched the channel as requested. “You there?” I asked.

“Yep. You headed out?”

“Yep. Getting my boots on. You?”

“I’m ready. I’ll meet you at the tree line.”

“See you in five,” I said, and picked up the pace.

I put on my heavy coat, gloves, and hat, then grabbed my small pack with the basic survival essentials neatly packed inside.

“Let’s go, boy,” I said, opening the door.

Casper bounded out the door, full of energy. I wasn’t quite as exuberant, but did my best to keep up with the dog. The snow was already falling, adding another inch to the four already covering the ground.

Gabe was waiting for me when I reached our regular meeting spot.

“Any more information?” I asked him.

“Nope, but we better get a move on,” the burly man grunted.

Gabe was a mountain man through and through. I didn’t know if he had ever experienced city living. He wasn’t all that tall, but he looked rugged with his shaggy hair and scruffy beard. I probably gave people the same impression when they saw my own long, blonde hair and matching beard. Though I kept mine a bit tidier, I still had a feeling I was rocking the mountain man look as well.

We walked up the mountain to the ski resort. It wasn’t all that big, but it was a popular attraction for the folks that lived nearby. We didn’t get a lot of out-of-towners, which was exactly how we all liked it.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming out. Let’s get started with the briefing,” the man in charge, Tom Garrison, announced. “We are looking for a single female, Calla, twenty-nine years of age. She went out mid-morning and never reported in. Here are the quadrants. Same teams as usual,” he barked.

I took the paper to find out where Gabe and I would be searching. It was an area close to my cabin, and I knew it well.

“Move out! Check in often please. I don’t want to go looking for anyone else!” he shouted.

The search group was comprised of four two person teams. We had all worked together for a lot of years. We were usually successful, but there had been a few cases when we had been too late. Every time we heard that call, we knew that every minute counted. We didn’t waste any by finishing our dinner or getting a just a bit more of sleep. When we heard the call, we dropped everything and rushed to the rescue.

Gabe and I trekked back down the hill, our eyes peeled and our ears open, listening for sounds indicating we had found our missing skier.

“Did he say her name was Calla?” I asked Gabe, not sure I had heard correctly. The hat on my head, covering my ears was thick after all.

“Yep. Weird name. Probably after Calla Lily—I bet her parents are hippies,” he muttered.

“Oddly enough, I met a woman named Calla a long time ago.”

“Was she a hippie?” he grunted.

I shook my head, thinking back to the hot little redhead. “No.”

My mind drifted to the woman that still visited me in my dreams. Although it was freezing outside, I was suddenly very hot. That memory always had a way of stirring up embers in the pit of my stomach.

“Better get our snowshoes on,” Gabe said, stopping and pulling his shoes out of the pack on his back.

I followed suit, leaning up against a tree for support.

“I’ll take the right half,” I told him, testing the shoes on the snow.

“Got it,” he said, and headed towards the left.

Gabe was former Army, just as I was. We had both fought in the desert, but in different wars, or conflicts as the government called them. He was in Desert Storm and I had been part of Iraqi Freedom. The irony was that we had fought the same war in different decades.

I trudged through the deepening snow, my flashlight dancing across the area in front of me, looking for a lost woman. It was too late to find her with tracks in the snow. Those would have been buried long ago. I hoped she was dressed for the weather and had some basics to keep her alive. I didn’t want to find a body. I wanted to find a woman, cold, but alive.