Page 3 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
So instead, they spread out again and continued to search. Although Steve knew that Nate was doing his best to push through, he’d slowed considerably, and Steve was torn between hurrying to find Camille as soon as possible and refusing to leave his obviously hurting brother behind. The tree branches clacked and groaned, snow whipping into Steve’s face and shoving his shouts for Camille right back down his throat. The light was quickly fading, the thickening storm clouds and heavy evergreen branches around the searchers blocking most of the remaining sunlight.
Reaching to turn on his headlamp, Steve gave an annoyed grunt when his fingers only found his helmet. That was the problem with starting over at a new fire department, especially as a volunteer. Until he’d proven that he was there to stay, he was stuck wearing leftover equipment that definitely wasn’t set up the way he liked it. He patted the pocket of his bunker coat and was relieved to feel the heavy cylinder of a flashlight. At least he wouldn’t be stumbling blindly around the woods once the last of the light disappeared.
“Camille!” he yelled, his voice rough from repeatedly calling for her. His mind was busy running through all sorts of possibilities—what if she’d fallen off a ledge or had a seizure or encountered a bear or stepped in a ground squirrel’s hole and broken her ankle? If something had happened, how many hours had she been stuck in the freezing temperature, possibly unconscious?
He moved more quickly, and Nate dropped even farther behind. Steve couldn’t let that affect his speed, though. The priority was to find Camille. Nate was upright and moving. Despite his injured ankle, he was fine.
Camille might not be.
The trees thinned, and Steve shoved aside an evergreen branch as he stepped into a clearing. With the sun setting, it took him a moment to recognize where he was—the old scrapyard. The spot was familiar, a favorite place to search for treasure as kids, but it was also slightly menacing in the dim light. The scrapyard had grown as more and more people dumped junk cars and other metal trash, the piles mounded even higher with a solid layer of snow. It had been an exciting, almost magical place when he’d been a kid, but now he saw it through a parent’s eyes, and there was danger everywhere. All of the worst-case scenarios he’d thought up while searching came back to him in a rush.
“Camille!” he bellowed, jogging through the snow, feeling his boot catch on uneven footing. So many parts and pieces were buried under sheets of white, just waiting to trip him up and send him flying. Considering the condition of the metal he could see, whatever he landed on would be sure to give him some mutant, vaccination-resistant strain of tetanus, too.
The wind roared, sending a piece of rusted sheeting flying end over end until it struck the remaining back half of an old Chevy van with a clatter. Glancing behind him, Steve saw Nate emerge from the trees, and a new urgency hit him. They needed to find Camille before Nate hurt himself even worse trying to stubbornly navigate the uneven terrain.
“Stay there!” he shouted, but Nate slogged through the snow, either not hearing or ignoring him. Knowing his brother and how he’d disregard his own pain if someone else was in trouble, Steve figured it was the latter. Biting back a growl of worried frustration, he moved even faster through the piles. “Camille!”
There!Had there been movement over by the ancient washing machine off to his left? He headed toward it but was forced to slow as he picked his way between an old piece of farm machinery and the remains of a bed frame. “Camille! It’s Steve Springfield! Yell if you can hear me!”
A head suddenly popped up above the pile right next to him, seeming to appear from nowhere. “Steve-freaking-Springfield?”
Startled, Steve lurched sideways and barely avoided tripping over the junk surrounding him. He peered at the small figure, his eyebrows flying up as he took in her safety goggles and Elmer Fudd hat. “Camille?”
“Yes?” She drew the word out tentatively, and Steve felt a rush of relief—and the slight annoyance that followed on the heels of worry. It was a familiar sensation, since his kids were too smart and adventurous for their own good.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, focusing on the parts of her that he could see. Between her heavy layers of clothes and the junk hiding her bottom half from view, it wasn’t much. “Do you need help?”
“No?” Again, she said the word slowly with an upward incline at the end.
“Good. A lot of people have been worried about you.”
“They have? Why?” She stared at him, her brown eyes wide behind the clear plastic of the safety goggles. Blond wisps of hair had escaped the hat and curled around her face. Eyeing her rosy cheeks and full pink lips that were parted slightly in confusion, Steve was transported back to high school, where he’d surreptitiously eyed her in the hall, feeling guilty for his interest in a freshman but unable to keep his eyes off her. Even then, there’d been something about the shy loner. They’d only talked a few times, but she’d had a way of looking at him that made him feel like he could move mountains. If she’d been closer to his age, he would’ve been tempted to ask her out.
“Mrs. Lin called and said you left yesterday morning and never returned,” he explained. “Did you spend the night out here?”
Her eyes rounded, and her pink cheeks darkened even more. “What? No! I went home last night and came back out this morning. Why’d she call you?” she asked on a squeak.
“Not me specifically,” Steve said. “She called dispatch. I’m here because Fire and the county deputies respond to all search-and-rescue calls.”
All the color left her cheeks, and Steve’s smile slipped away. “Search and rescue?” Her voice was barely audible above the wind. “Looking for me? Everyone’s here trying to search and rescueme? Are they all coming here? I’m not lost or hurt or anything. I don’t need to be searched and rescued!” Looking more and more horrified, she ended on what could only be described as a wail.
“It’s okay.” Steve took a step closer, trying to soothe her. “Most searches are false alarms. We’re used to that.”
“I’mnot used to it!” His reassurances didn’t seem to be having much of an effect. “I’m not used to it in any way. Oh, geez Louise, everyone’s been searching for me. They’re all going to be running over here, aren’t they?” The wind settled for a few seconds, and a dog’s excited barking could clearly be heard. Camille winced at the sound. “Dogs? Dogs are leading people toward me? I’m not lost! I’m right here, where I usually am. There was just so much to pick up yesterday and today, since I need extra pieces for the Christmas orders, and it took me a little longer than I’d planned, but I didn’t think there’d be search and rescuers anddogsand cops and Steve-freaking-Springfield…”
“Hey, now. Take a breath.” Hiding his amused bafflement over how she kept addingfreakingto his name, he kept his voice gentle but firm enough to cut through Camille’s building panic. “Things will be fine. Everyone will be relieved to see that you’re safe. The medics will check you over, and then we’ll all go home.”
“Medics? Plural? As in more than one? They’ll check me out in front of everyone, while people watch?” She seemed to alternately pale and flush, as if torn between horror and embarrassment. “No. No, no. That’s not good. I’m fine. I don’t need checking out. All my parts are where they should be, and I even wore my warmest hat, so my ears aren’t even cold. I’mfine.” She took a step back, her boot bumping against a sled piled with pieces of metal scrap. Steve wondered what she needed the parts for. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the items she’d collected.
Shaking off his distraction, he focused on the panicked woman in front of him. If he didn’t do something, she was going to bolt, and then things would get messy—and even more embarrassing for her as the well-intentioned rescuers gave chase. Steve really didn’t want that to happen. For whatever reason, he had an overwhelming urge to make things better for Camille. He just wasn’t sure how.
“Springfield!” the chief called, circling a scrap pile some distance away. “Did you find her?”
“Oh no.” Camille’s eyes grew wider and wider as the chief approached. “Here they come. All the people and medics and questions andstaring…”
“Don’t worry,” Steve said, and Camille whipped her head around to look at him, wild-eyed. “I’ll fix this.”
He just needed to find the right…There!
