Back in the Soldier's Arms (42 page)

A small rock ricocheted off his left cheek, leaving a sharp stinging sensation, a larger one cracked him on the head. Dazed, he scrambled the last few feet on hands and knees, coughing as the dust cloud tickled his lungs and made his eyes water.

He’d been a bloody idiot taking the risk, letting the time pressure get to him. The forest sank back into silence. For a moment he lay in the bracken, then Dan turned onto the backpack with a groan, gingerly stretched out his limbseac¡€† and tested his joints. He was okay. Covered head to toe in dust, but okay.

When I said act like a girl I didn’t mean a dumb blonde, Lee said and Dan laughed shakily. Great. Now he was hallucinating voices. Pushing to his feet, he drank from the water bottle and ate a Mars bar.

The clouds were clearing, enough to get a reading on the sun. But mist still obscured the lower reaches, which meant he couldn’t risk going down and getting lost. Aiming the hour hand in the sun’s direction, he bisected the angle between the hour hand and twelve to find a rough north.

Trying not to notice it was nine-fifteen.

Thirty minutes later the weather had closed in again. Dan swore as he alternated left and right around obstacles to counter a tendency to veer in one direction.

Having to constantly look forward and back to line up the two landmarks that kept him in a straight line had seriously slowed his progress. And he still had no idea how much farther he needed to go.

Mentally, he adjusted his calculations. Three and a half hours’ drive could be reduced to three if he drove like a bat out of hell. Assuming he could beg a car. And Jo would wait.

Shit. He turned to check his landmark, found it obscured by a swirl of mist and stopped waiting for it to clear. Shit, shit, shit. At least his forward mark was still visible—just.

A rusa stag appeared in the dense scrub below him and Dan froze. This one was a beauty, deep red with antlers growing up three by three—six points. A wily animal to escape hunters for so many years.

The mist rolled around and between them like broken clouds. For all the movement, the air was quiet. The animal stopped grazing and raised its head, nostrils flaring and flanks heaving as it caught his scent. It looked straight at him with dark velvety eyes. Unaccountably his own filled with tears.

Last time he’d walked here, he’d been one of five young men, honing skills that would take them through a decade of soldiering together. A sob ripped through him and the stag vanished between one blink and the next.

Sinking to his knees on the rocky outcrop, alone with no witnesses, Dan laid his cheek against the cold stone and cried.

The wind gradually numbed the lobes of his ears under the woolen beanie. Finally lifting his face, he closed his eyes and imagined it blowing through him. Slowly, peace filled the hollow places inside him and Dan remembered not what he’d lost but what he’d been left. And who.

Sunlight hit his eyelids and he opened them. The cloud and mist were starting to evaporate. In the valley below the river winked in a shaft of sunlight and was gone. But he had a fix on it now.

Standing, he rubbed his wet eyes and his knuckles came away a dust-streaked gray. Wiping them dry on his jacket, he started down. While he jogged, Dan thought of Ross, scarred and driven by vengeance; Claire and Lewis, struggling to make sense of the senseless; and Nate, who’d cut himself off from the only family he had.

One of them had to take the first step on the road back. He had to win this one, not just for him and Jo but for all of them.

In the end, there was only one way to lead.

By example.

Back in the Soldier’s Arms/Here Comes the Groom

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CHAPTER TWENTY

PAT STEPPED BACK WITH the makeup kit and Jo’s face reappeared in her bedroom mirror. She blinked in surprise. “Well?” Pat prompted.

“Forget Dan,” said Jo. “I can do better.” Her eyes had been highlighted with a smoky gray shadow, lashes lengthened, skin tone taken back to flawless porcelain.

Pat laughed. “Too late now.”

Jo smoothed out the skirt of her wedding gown and tried not to look at her watch, a delicate silver thread on her wrist, sparkling with marquisette. She’d only checked it a few minutes ago. It was twelve-thirty. And not a peep from Dan.

“Every bride suffers the jitters.” Pat twisted one of Jo’s red curls so it spiraled artfully over her left eyebrow, then smoothed the lace on the short sleeves. “You’ll be fine.”

“Of course I will.” Standing, Jo took a spin in front of the mirror. “You made me beautiful,” she said and hugged her future mother-in-law. “Thank you.”

Pat fumbled for a tissue on the dressing table and dabbed carefully under her eyes. “Don’t you dare make my mascara run.”

There was a tap on the door and Ross’s dark head appeared. “Ready?” His mouth was grim, which meant he hadn’t heard from Dan either. Ignoring a flutter of panic, Jo picked up her beaded white bag.

“Ready.”

“You might at least compliment the bride,” Pat complained.

The best man cast a perfunctory scan over Jo’s appearance. “Gorgeous.” Silver eyes met hers, steely with anxiety. “Shall we go?”

Jo picked up the skirt of her gown and started downstairs, her dress a slither of cool silk against her legs. “Relax,” she said to Ross. “There’s still plenty of time.”

“And it does make sense to visit Rosemary first.” Pat had misinterpreted the comment. “But it is a shame Dan’s seeing you before the ceremony. Is he downstairs, Ross? Let me look at him.”

“He was running late,” Ross lied smoothly, “so I said I’d pick Jo up first and then go back for him.”

“That’s not like Dan.” In the hall, Pat gave Jo the soft white stole that would keep her warm en route to the church. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be driving yet.”

He wasn’t. Jo answered for Ross. “Something came up last minute on the farm, I expect.” Hold steady, she told herself, no wobbles. She draped the stole around her shoulders and gave her appearance a perfunctory check in the mirror.

“Nip that in the bud right now,” warned Pat. “You don’t want Dan ending up like Herman. So how a.&#e.&#xre the nerves, Jo?”

She smiled. “I’m holding them at bay.”

“By rights Jo should be a basket case,” Pat commented to Ross. “Her bridesmaid is missing in action, Tilly tore a flounce on her flower girl’s dress and Merry’s had to rush her to the dressmaker’s for emergency repairs. And what did Jo do this morning but go to work!”

“Deadlines,” Jo said. “You learn to live with them.”

Ross massaged the groove between his eyebrows. “Your bridesmaid’s missing?”

“Not exactly.” Patiently, Jo waited for Ross to open the front door. “Delwyn sent a text to say her future happiness was at stake, that she’d meet us at the church and she knew I’d understand.”

Pat frowned. “You’d think it could have waited.”

“I do understand,” Jo said.

Ross closed his eyes briefly, as if for strength, and finally reached for the door handle. In passing, Jo patted his forearm. “You look handsome.” He wore a suit like Dan’s, charcoal black, except without a waistcoat. Jo straightened his taupe tie. “I think Barry was right about this color.”

Outside the day was still overcast and a light wind chilled her exposed skin. She refused to shiver.

Ross had driven over in Dan’s ute; from here they’d travel in the bridal car, a white Daimler polished and decorated with white ribbons that had been delivered earlier.

“I think I left a key in Dan’s car,” Jo said. “Won’t be a moment.”

Walking over to the ute, she opened the driver’s door. As she’d hoped, Dan’s Swanndri hung over the back of the seat. Making sure she wasn’t seen, she leaned forward and pressed her nose into the wool, breathed deeply, then straightened, shut the door and returned to the Daimler. “Ready,” she said, pretending to close her beaded bag.

“Let me grab my camera,” Pat said. “Jo, you look a picture. Any man would be lucky to have you.”

“Good,” Ross muttered as they waited for Pat. “We might need a stand-in.”

“That’s the best man’s job,” she deadpanned.

He smiled suddenly, the harsh lines of his face relaxing. “You’ve heard from him. You wouldn’t be this calm otherwise.”

“No.”

Pat came back and snapped a couple of shots. Jo settled in the back of the car, fanning out her white skirt.

“So rendezvous at the church in a few hours,” Pat said.

Jo smiled. “See you there.”

Ross eased into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Waving a cursory farewell to Pat, he pulled out of the driveway, “Whatever you’re taking, I want some.”

“He’ll be here,” Jo said and shivered.

Ross said nothing, but he turned the heat on high.

“He’ll be here,” she repeated.

“I don’t blame you,nd±€†201D; he said, “I blame myself. You don’t know the Ureweras. I do. There’s plenty of hazards to trip up a guy in a hurry … I didn’t even leave him a goddamn compass.”

“Don’t start melting on me now, Ice-cream.”

“I hadn’t anticipated having to lie to his mother.”

“A white lie. No point worrying anyone until … unless we have to. Now pull over and let me drive. I can see it’s painful for you.”

As usual he ignored her. “If we haven’t heard from him by the time we get to the church I’m calling in a search party.”

“When he’s thirty minutes late,” she said evenly, “you can start pushing alarm buttons. Until then you’re doing what I’m doing.”

“What’s that?”

She noticed her hands had clenched in her lap. Jo uncurled her fingers, laid them flat and wide on the silk georgette. “You’re believing in him, Ross.”

DAN STOOD ON THE BANK studying the river. If water levels had been low he could have walked across; high he could have floated. Instead the river was neither one, which meant plenty of hazards lay hidden just under the surface.

Using his hunting knife, he finished trimming the twigs off the sapling he’d chosen as a walking stick and eyed it critically. Good enough. Then he stripped to his underwear, shivering as the cold wind goosed his skin.

With quick economy, Dan rolled his clothes tightly in the polypropylene groundsheet and jammed them inside the rucksack, then put his boots on over his bare feet. Slinging the pack over one shoulder so he could shrug it off if he got swept away, he waded into the river.

The water was so cold it made his toes ache and by the time it swirled around his knees, his feet were numb. Using the stick as a probe, he shuffled across the riverbed at a forty-five-degree angle.

The water rose to mid thigh and lapped at the hem of his boxers, wicking up the silk until, wet, it clung to his ass. Ignoring the discomfort, Dan focused on finding footholds in the slippery, river stones. The toe of his boot jammed in a crevice. Bracing himself with the stick, he wiggled it free.

Two-thirds of the way across, the stick missed the bottom and disappeared under the fast-flowing water. Frustrated, he looked at the opposite bank, tantalizingly close, then downriver to where the channel narrowed and foamed between glistening rocks. If he had to swim, he needed a bigger margin of error.

The alarm on his watch beeped 12.30 p.m. Dan hesitated.

You won’t be any good to Jo drowned.

“Son of a—” Shuffling his way back to the bank he’d just left he got dressed, frozen hands fumbling with zips and buttons, cursing himself warm. He wouldn’t make it in time, had no fricking hope of making it in time. If Jo didn’t know that, Ross did. He would kill his so-called wingman when he got back. Slowly, torturously, painfully.

Hell, he might as well slow down … viciously Dan reshouldered the pack … take his time, enjoy the goddamn walk.

He broke into a jog.

It took twenty minutes he didn’t have anymore to find the right place to cross.ass±€† Stripping again, Dan emptied his water bottle for extra buoyancy and packed it in the rucksack. Then holding it out in front of him, he launched into the water and started kicking.

Halfway across he spotted a telltale ribbon indent snaking across the muddy water ahead of him—an underwater snag. He flattened out, hoping to float over it but the strap of the pack caught, swinging him around and downstream. His grip on the canvas tightened. The strap held, water gushed around the pack as he bobbed in front of it like a human starfish.

A dozen thoughts raced through his mind.

My wedding suit is in there.

Like you have a hope in hell of making it now.

Let go.

Twisting his head with the flow of water he saw there was still a clear run to the bank. His biggest risk in holding on was hypothermia. Every two minutes his body was losing another one degree Celsius. Nine minutes and he’d pass out.

With monumental effort, Dan hauled himself closer to the pack and, ducking his head, fumbled under the surface trying to find where the broken sapling held the strap. Water poured up his nose. He lifted his head, gasping and coughing. One arm hugging the bobbing pack, he strained with numb fingers for the knife sheathed in the net side pocket, clamping his fingers around it through sheer force of will.

Gritting his chattering teeth, he sawed at the resistant strap. The pack shot toward him, slamming into his face and nose. Dan almost dropped the knife and grabbed it in a death-grip, rolling the rucksack downstream while he started kicking toward the opposite bank. His legs jerked feebly.

In a last frantic flounder he kicked to where the water eddied and slowed and grabbed a clump of trailing tussock grass. As he staggered onto the muddy bank his legs gave way and he toppled forward. For a moment he lay gasping, then hauled himself up to higher ground.

With violently shaking hands, he wrestled with the pack’s straps and dragged out his dry clothes. It took him fifteen minutes to dress himself, piling everything on—the long johns, the wedding suit, the Swanndri and beanie.

Then, stumbling around like an old man, Dan gathered driftwood and made a fire, sitting as close as he dared, wrapped in the ground sheet. He choked down another couple of energy bars while he set river stones at the edge of the fire. When they were warm, he stuck them under his armpits and between his thighs, letting the major arteries there carry the heat around his frozen body.