Page 1 of Luke

One

"Winds are picking up," Luke Brannigan muttered, as he adjusted the camera on his helmet and prepared for his jump off the infamous Kjeragbolten boulder on the mountain Kjerag in Norway, one of the most extreme base jumping locations in the world. He'd been planning this jump for weeks. It would be the centerpiece of his next documentary film on extreme sports, but unfortunately the weather was starting to threaten his ambitious plan.

"I'm sure you're still jumping," Pete Ramsay said knowingly, as he readied the drone that would film Luke's free-falling jump off the mountain. "The word abort is not in your vocabulary."

Pete knew him well. Once he had his eyes set on a goal, he rarely backed down. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had bailed out of anything, but he had a churning feeling in his gut. In fact, that feeling had been there for days, and he didn't quite know what it was all about, but he didn't have time to figure it out.

"Now or not today," Pete said, tension in his tone, as their gazes met.

"Let's make it now," he said decisively. "I'll see you at the bottom. Get ready to buy me a beer."

"You've got it. Good luck."

"I don't need luck. I'm prepared." He double-checked his rig and then climbed down onto the infamous boulder that hung between two cliffs some four thousand feet above a deep abyss. He looked up at Pete, held up his hand and counted down on his fingers: three-two-one.

Then he jumped.

He'd free-fallen many times before, but it was impossible to get used to the exhilarating terror-filled adrenaline rush, the speed of flight, the magnificent view, and then the feeling of incredible calm and clarity. Nothing else mattered. He was on a cloud. He was in the heavens and his real life was far, far away.

It was such a spectacular feeling that he wanted to hold on to it, to keep flying forever.

But the wind was stronger today, and he could feel it pushing him back toward the cliffs. He had to fight to stay free of the perilous rocks. With his brain once again engaged in saving his own life, he launched the chute that would stop him from dying.

The parachute yanked him back up into the sky, and then he had only a few seconds more to enjoy the ride. The wind blew him a little off course, but he managed to find solid earth to set down on.

When his feet touched the ground, he waited for the usual mix of joyous relief and intense sadness that often accompanied his adventures: relief that he'd cheated death once again and sadness that the experience was over, that nothing that felt that good could last very long.

But today he felt—different. He didn't know why. He didn't feel nearly as good or even as bad as he normally did. Instead, he just felt…tired.

Shaking his head, he repacked his chute and told himself he just needed a break. He'd been working on this film for the past seven months, traveling all over the world to both capture and perform some of the most incredible death-defying feats in the world.

Normally, he liked waking up in a different city each day, but the transient quality of his life was beginning to get stale. It was ironic that boredom was setting in when it was the very thing he tried to avoid by moving around so frequently.

A fellow jumper landed not too far away from him, interrupting his thoughts. As she pulled off her helmet, her blonde hair fell free, and for just a split second his heart squeezed in anticipation, but it wasn't Lizzie's face that he saw. It wasn't her sky-blue eyes that met his. It wasn't her sexy mouth, her sun-warmed skin with the freckles that dotted her nose in the summer.

This woman was a stranger—just another adrenaline junkie like himself.

She gave him an exhilarated smile. "That was amazing," she said.

"It was," he agreed, watching as a man landed not too far away and quickly ran over to join the woman. The two embraced, and he felt another tug at his heart.

There'd been a time when he'd thought that might be him and Lizzie…that they'd travel the world together. What a crazy thought that had been.

Frowning, he shook his head. Damn! What the hell was wrong with him?

He and Lizzie had broken up ten years ago. He'd been twenty then, and he'd just passed his thirtieth birthday last week. Maybe that's why he felt so unsettled. His twenties were gone. It was a new decade.

A better decade than the last one, he told himself firmly, as he walked toward the parking lot. Pete would hike back down the mountain, which would take a few hours. In the meantime, he'd go back to the hotel and run through the film he'd shot until they met up for dinner and that beer Pete owed him.

He was just getting into his car when his phone rang.

The area code for Calabasas, California gave him a jolt. Calabasas was home—or at least the home he'd grown up in…he hadn't actually been to the house there in years. But it wasn't his father's number flashing across the screen.

He answered with a short and automatically wary, "Hello?"

"Luke, it's Aunt Claire."

"Is everything all right?" He knew even before she replied that everything was not okay.

---