Page 42 of No Hope of Rescue

Oh, I have a plan, but it’s not anything Riley would approve of.

The door swings open again, and it’s Mom, looking tired but calm. She’s always calm. Raising four boys and a girl on her own was a lot like steering a ship in rough water: she had to learn to navigate her life and ours with a patience I know I will never have.

“How is she?” asks Riley before I can open my mouth. I feel like I’m one step behind everyone. I shift so my side doesn’t pull.

“She’s asleep. She’ll give a statement in the morning before she’s discharged.”

This time, my thoughts are out in front of me. “So, they’re pretty sure she is going home tomorrow?”

Mom nods. “She’s going to be fine, Brock. Thank you all for finding her.” Her voice breaks slightly. “And for bringing her back to us.” Her touch is light on my shoulder before she squeezes it. “You three need to go home and get some rest. I’m staying here with Codie tonight, so why don’t you crash at my place?” she says to Ross. “It’s close.”

She then explains, “We live in a sort of compound, so Brock has his place, I have mine. We share a driveway. Carter has a cabin across the field, and Jace and Ryan share a second cabin a stone’s throw away.” Then she turns her attention to me as only a mother can do. “You need to rest, Brock. You look exhausted. Riley can use the guest room.”

She’s doing her mom thing: organizing. It’s how she copes—controlling what she can, offering suggestions no one in their right mind wouldn’t take. I shake my head. I can’t imagine what it was like with five teenagers at once.

Talk about outta control.

“Sounds great,” says Ross. “I’ve been up since three a.m. and it’s been go, go, go ever since. I don’t even have a hotel booked yet.”

Mom looks across the table. “Riley?”

Riley has stayed with me before, when we were monitoring teams on the ground on the north end. I have two guest rooms, and she always takes the smaller one toward the back. It’s nothing fancy, clean white sheets and a wool blanket, but we don’t sleep much when we work anyway.

“I need to decompress,” she says and then glances at me. “I think I’d better go home.”

“Your place is a half hour further down the road.” Mom’s not giving up. She gives my shoulder another squeeze. “Besides, I think Brock might need some help tonight. You know.” She gestures to her own side.

I swear she’s impossible to keep anything from.

“I have beer,” I say and nudge Riley’s arm. The movement, one I’ve done a hundred times, now seems crass, not worthy of her, and I instantly regret it. What I want to do is put an arm around her, tilt her face, and kiss her.

Her smile is small. “Okay. I can do a beer,” she says.

It feels like a date.

That must be why I feel both giddy and nervous at the same time.

Chapter Twelve

Riley Delgado

My place is a small apartment above the general store in downtown Echo Falls. And “downtown” is generous. Usually, I house-sit. The last place was a two-story house with two decks, a hot tub, a ski station, and an outside bar. The couple who owns it, Charity and Marshall Fournier, are wealthy, childless, and incredibly fussy about particular things.

The place even has a name: Knightrunner. They refer to their home by name, and my stifled laugh has disappeared over time.

It would be easy to complain about them because they’re rich, but Brock does enough of that for me. He hates people with money. I get it, though. Crystal was whisked off her feet by a millionaire within weeks.

But the Fourniers are incredibly nice and ask little of me. The three-page, single-spaced, laminated “Running Knightrunner” leave-behind is more about how to make the house perform for me and not a lot about maintenance. It’s a nice place, very digital, which is hilarious but comfortably decorated. My house-sitting gig with them ended two days after I moved to a four-month job in Bryce, house-sitting for a guy who’s a park ranger in the summer and a high school teacher during the school year.

Then I moved above the store, though the Fourneirs have me back occasionally for a week or two. Right now, I’m supposed to be there.

As much as I’d like to go to Knightrunner and soak in the giant oval tub with about fifty jets pounding on me, I’ll take Brock’s cabin with the cast-iron stove and handheld shower wand.

Brock’s hand is at the small of my back, fingertips gently urging me up the granite steps to his house. One of the boys must have shoveled and salted the steps before they left for the hospital.

Brock explains to Ross where to find his mother’s key under the faux stone next to the first step. We decide on dinner at six—parfait burritos.

“Parfait?” Ross looks at me for an explanation.