Breaking Free: A Colorado High Country Crossover Novel, Pamela Clare [i can read book club .TXT] 📗

“Aww!” Sasha held the phone so Megs could see over her shoulder. “Look at all that hair. He’s so tiny.”

“Uh-oh.” Megs shook her head. “He does look like his daddy. He’ll be breaking hearts before he’s in high school.”

Laughter.

Winona thanked Kat and Gabe for making the meal and helped them serve it, filling bowls and handing them to volunteers, the rich scent making her mouth water. When everyone else had been fed, Winona filled a bowl for herself and sat beside Grandpa, who was now on his second serving.

The sun had sunk behind the mountains, the camp slipping into shadows, heavy clouds threatening rain. Some of the volunteers had built a campfire in a fire pit in the middle of the ring of tents and sat around it, one of them playing a guitar. Jason, Zach, and Gabe sat together at one table, ribbing one another. Most of the Team members sat at another, laughing and talking.

Winona closed her eyes for a moment, exhaled, willing herself to relax. She had so many reasons to be grateful today. So many people had helped her and her family—volunteers, her fellow Team members, Ellie, Dr. Peterson, the hospital staff.

She sent up a prayer of gratitude to Creator.

Pilamayaye. Thank you.

She made a spirit plate, setting aside a little bit of everything she was eating as an offering. When she’d finished her meal, she set the spirit plate on the porch of the Mess Hall, cleared the tables, and went inside to help Kenzie, who was three months pregnant, wash the heavy stew pot and other dishes.

By the time they had finished, it was dark outside. Winona thanked Kenzie, Megs, and the other Team members, who promised to be back in the morning if they weren’t toned out for a rescue.

“Taylor and Hawke wanted to be here, but Taylor is on duty, and Hawke…” Megs didn’t have to finish.

Austin Taylor was a park ranger and worked most weekends. Eric Hawke, the town’s fire chief, had been badly burned on one leg during the fire and wasn’t yet back to his regular routine.

“Thanks, Megs. This means so much to us.”

Megs gave Winona a motherly pat on the arm. “I know.”

Winona spotted Jason standing with Gabe and Zach on the creek bank, and she knew what they were doing. She walked over, heard Gabe recounting the day of the fire. Even two months later, the story sent chills down her spine.

“We stood on the banks of the creek, knowing we were trapped. Then I saw it.”

Jason looked up, frowned. “I don’t see a cave.”

“That’s because it’s hidden behind that arete.” Gabe took a few steps to his left. “We didn’t see it either, not at first. Look now.”

Jason stood where Gabe was standing, then his jaw dropped. “Holy … shit. You climbed up there?”

“I climbed up, hammered a pulley into the rock, and pulled the others up.”

Jason was still looking up at the cave. “That cave is a geological accident that’s millions of years old. It’s amazing to think it’s been waiting there all this time just for that day.”

“Yeah, we got lucky.”

“That wasn’t luck, man. That was a damned miracle.”

Winona couldn’t have agreed more.

Firearm in hand, Jason moved as quickly as he could through the darkness, fresh blood on the spines of an ocotillo and the distance between footprints telling him the suspect was getting careless and running now. Jason knew where the bastard was heading. He thought he’d slip across the border and disappear. Jason wasn’t going to let that happen. The son of a bitch belonged in a prison cell.

As the ground leveled out, Jason picked up his pace, the border less than a half-mile away. He watched for movement, listened for footfalls or heavy breathing.

There you are, cabrón.

A dark shape moved through the night, a gray-on-black shadow running toward the vehicle barrier that marked the US-Mexico border. The fucker was angling for one of the gates intended for use only by the O’odham. If Jason didn’t stop him before he made it through, he would lose him.

Jason ran. “¡Alto!” Stop!

But he was too late.

The suspect slipped through the gate into Mexico and kept running.

Fuck that.

Enraged, Jason pushed his way through the gate, closing in on him.

Then the suspect turned, raised his weapon.

But it wasn’t a man at all.

“Elena!”

Jason jerked awake, his pulse pounding. He found himself in his tent, the day’s first light filtering through the mesh flap. He was in Colorado. Camp Mato Sapa.

Hell.

He sat up, drew in a breath, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Elena had been his world. He’d believed that what they had was real, that they would get married, raise a few kids. How could he have been so wrong?

Let it go.

That was easier said than done.

These past six months, he’d been trying to figure out who he was without Elena. Now, he might have to figure out who he was without the Shadow Wolves.

He closed his eyes, focused on the world around him.

The morning’s chill. A raven’s throaty caw. The lingering scent of rain in the air. The solid earth beneath him.

There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so he crawled out of his sleeping bag, slipped into his jeans, and put on his boots and fleece-lined denim jacket. Then he left his tent, took a leak, and washed his face and hands with water from his water bottle, the cold helping to clear his head.

McBride poked his head outside his tent, looking half asleep, stubble on his jaw. “Jesus, Chiago. It’s six-thirty.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You okay, man?”

Jason didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m going to make coffee.”

He got his fire-starter kit out of his pack and walked down to the picnic area. Once he had a good fire going, he walked to the Mess Hall, where the door had been left unlocked in case anyone needed anything during the night. In the kitchen, he found both ground coffee