Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)(3)

That was a story Jesse knew only too well.

Since then, he’d done what he could to support her, shoveling her walk early in the morning on his way to work, moving her trash bin onto the curb when she’d forgotten trash day, and keeping an eye on the house, especially during the summer when tourist season made the crime rate spike.

“You bought the old cabin?” Her face lit up with a genuine smile this time. “And you never came down to introduce yourself?”

“I guess I never got time.”

Bullshit. He had avoided it.

He’d spent ten years of his life in sustained combat operations with Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had seen his share of death and slaughter. He had his own emotional shit to deal with. He couldn’t take on anyone else’s.

“You’re with the Team, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m a primary member.” He didn’t want to brag, but he’d worked his ass off to make the cut, spending every free moment learning to climb, honing his skills on tough technical routes, even getting certified as an EMT.

“What’s it like?”

He got that question a lot but never had a real answer. How could he explain what being on the Team meant to him? “It’s busy.”

“I bet—especially in the summer.”

“Yeah.” But this past summer hadn’t been busy—not for him.

After a rescue he’d led had gone terribly wrong, Megs, director of the Team and a real hardass, had benched him, refusing to let him go out on operations until Esri, the trauma therapist who gave free counseling sessions to Team members, evaluated him. At first, he’d refused. The last thing he’d wanted was someone digging around in his head. Besides, Megs had been overreacting.

Sure, he’d been shaken up. Who wouldn’t have been? He’d watched a little girl drown and hadn’t been able to do a damned thing for her. But benching him hadn’t made things better. Far from it.

Megs didn’t understand how important working with the Team was for Jesse, how it held his world together. He’d had no choice in the end but to do what she’d demanded and meet with the therapist. It hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared. In fact, Jesse kind of liked Esri, though he’d stopped going to sessions once Megs let him go active again.

“The Team is all volunteer, right?”

“Yeah. No one who works for the Team gets paid, but being able to wear the yellow Team T-shirt feels like a badge of honor for most of us.” Jesse was almost as proud of it as he was of his Ranger tab.

“If it takes up so much time, how do you make a living?”

“I work for Scarlet Mountain Resort—ski patrol in the winter, trails crew in the summer. I handle explosives for avalanche control. My boss likes having a Team member on staff, says it makes him feel safer. He lets me take time off for rescues.”

Scarlet Springs was one of the few towns in the world that owned its own ski area—Scarlet Mountain Resort. With some first-class terrain and slopes that were only an hour-and-a-half drive from Denver, it was a favorite of locals. Let the tourists battle their way up I-70 to the big resorts. Skiers from Colorado’s Front Range came to Scarlet.

“Do you like your job?”

“It pays the bills, and I like staying active, working outdoors.” The more exhausted his body was, the less likely he was to think too much. “My dad wanted me to come back to Louisiana and work at a refinery. But I knew from the moment I set eyes on these mountains that I was here to stay.”

Why had he told her that?

“Is that where you’re from—Louisiana?”

“Born and raised.” Jesse stopped at the crosswalk as a big, shaggy figure stepped into the street, head down, walking into the wind.

It was Bear. Big like his namesake but with the mind of a child, he made his home somewhere in the mountains west of town, living off the land and the kindness of those who bought him meals or gave him change in exchange for a blessing or Bible verse. No one seemed to know where he’d come from or how he’d ended up the way he was. For decades, the residents of Scarlet had accepted and watched over him.

“I wonder how far he has to go to get home,” Ellie said. “It’s so cold.”

“Bear knows more about surviving in the mountains than the rest of us combined.” In the two and a half years that Jesse had lived in Scarlet, he’d never known Bear to ask for anything more than spare change or a warm meal.

Jesse accelerated, felt the Jeep’s rear tires slip just a little, and shifted into four-wheel drive. The snow was coming down hard now, fat flakes clinging to his windshield wipers. “How about you? Where are you from?”

“I grew up here. I moved to Kentucky to be with my husband. He grew up in Scarlet, too, but was stationed at Fort Campbell. I moved back after … He was killed while serving in Iraq. I was four months pregnant.”

Jesse tried to ignore the way her words pierced that dark place inside him. “I’m sorry. It must be hard to raise twins by yourself.”

“Especially on nights like tonight.” She turned her face away from him, looked out the window. “My parents have been a big help. My mom watches the twins when I work. My dad is a pediatrician, so I get free doctor’s visits and house calls. People in Scarlet set up a scholarship fund for the kids for college. My neighbors have been great, too. They shovel my walk, move my trash can, help with yard work. I don’t even have to ask. They just do it.”