Page 44 of No Hope of Rescue

I’m standing there helpless, immobile, when Ross steps in, looking clean shaven and rested.

“Here’s the cheese,” he says, handing up a block in a plastic storage bag. “I’m not much of a cook, but I know how to talk to a grater.”

It takes ten minutes to get everything on the table and then somehow, I’m in charge of heating up flour tortillas.

Brock hasn’t made eye contact with me since that kiss. My panties are wet, and I’m trying so hard to concentrate on sliding tortillas on plates that I’m left mute.

Then I hear “Afghanistan.” It’s Ross.

“Yeah. Afghanistan. I was stateside for a long time, training—medical mostly. Then I was sent to Afghanistan after that, Germany, and then back to Afghanistan again. Kind of all over but yo-yoing back to the Middle East. Then I left.” Ross nods and picks up the freshly opened beer I set on the table for him. “You?”

Without a glance at me, Brock just shakes his head and takes a sip from his own bottle. “I was in for five years. The plan was seven. Just didn’t make it through the last two.”

Ross shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Yeah. I was never in it for a career.” He pauses, makes a decision, and changes the subject. “How did you two meet?”

They both look at me as if I have all the answers. I start piling food onto my plate and roll my tortilla as I answer. “We were both smokejumpers, but the pay sucked and we both decided to quit.”

“Well, isn’t that how you got into search and rescue? I mean how did you meet? The first time. You met on the job?”

Brock shakes his head. “No. Riley was overachieving on a bouldering exercise out at the Garden of Gods and got stuck.”

Ross starts to laugh.

“It wasn’t funny! It was terrifying,” I say and lick some sour cream off my finger.

Brock does a double take. “You never said you were terrified. You acted cool as a cucumber.”

“Well, you never asked. It was scary and then you showed up, being all you—and Carter . . . I was so embarrassed.”

“What do you mean, being all me?”

“I was too scared to take a step. Okay. He rescued me.”

“And then you both ended up becoming smokejumpers?”

“No.” I swallow. “I was already done with training and had deployed a few times. He was just back from—” I stop, not sure how to proceed.

Brock doesn’t miss a beat. “I was looking around for something to do. Like you. What’s your next step?”

“I haven’t decided what I want to do. I’ve got . . . I’ve got resources. So, I don’t have to decide on anything yet.”

This gets Brock’s attention. “You have ‘resources’?”

Ross ducks his head and seems a little embarrassed. “Yeah. I mean, I’m—my family’s well-off, and I just . . . it makes it hard in a lot of ways.”

Brock’s face is set.

Ross is oblivious to the slight shift. “Trying to figure out what I want to do is hard because I don’t really have to do anything. I don’t need a paycheck.”

That’s enough for Brock. I can hear the wheels spinning in his head. Crystal left him for a multimillionaire. This guy shows up, money in his pocket, doesn’t really know what he wants. Ross has just dropped about ten rungs on Brock’s ladder of integrity, which Brock angles at a tough tilt.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Brock says before taking a swallow of beer.

“Yeah, I know. It’s a rich boy’s problem, but it’s there and it’s real for me. I’d appreciate if you don’t say anything to your brothers.”

“So, on a need-to-know basis?”

Ross nods.