At Last

Chapter 6

Chocolate is not a matter of life and death-it’s more important than that.

Matt spent a few mornings a week in the gym, usually in the ring with Ty Garrison. This morning they were doing their usual beat-the-shit-out-of-each-other routine. He ducked Ty’s left hook, feeling pretty damn smug for one solid beat-until Ty snuck a right uppercut to his gut.

Matt hit the floor with a wheeze, and then it was Ty’s turn to be smug. “Gotcha.”

Hell, no. They’d been at it for thirty minutes, and Matt was exhausted to the bone, but the last one down had to buy breakfast. Kicking out, he knocked Ty’s feet from beneath him. Then it was Ty’s turn to land with a satisfying thud.

“Jesus,” Josh muttered from the weight bench.

Josh was also a good friend, but he didn’t know much about having fun. He was a doctor, which left his taste for occasional recreational violence greatly diminished.

“You keep going at each other like that,” Josh said, “and you’ll end up in my ER.”

Breathless, Matt rolled to his back. “Sorry, I only play doctor with the ladies.”

Josh snorted and kept lifting. In Josh’s opinion, weights were much more civilized.

Matt swiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm, keeping a close eye on Ty, a formidable opponent, as Matt knew all too well. They’d been in the Navy together. Matt had left after four years of service and gone to Chicago.

Ty had gone on to the SEALs. He wasn’t someone to mess with lightly so Matt stayed back and gave him a careful nudge with his foot. Actually, it might have been more of a kick, but he knew better than to turn his back.

Josh stopped lifting. “At least check him for a pulse.”

Matt poked Ty again. “Not falling for the dead possum shit, man.”

“I’ve got an adrenaline pin I can stick him with,” Josh said mildly. “Hurts like hell going in, but it should wake him right up.”

“Come near me with a needle,” Ty grumbled, “and you’ll be the one who needs medical attention.” He groaned and rolled over, eyeing Matt. “And that was a total pussy move.”

“Yeah? Who’s flat on his back?”

Ty swore and laid an arm over his eyes, still breathing heavily.

Matt collapsed back to the ground himself. He felt like he’d been hit by a bus, but at least his brain was too busy concentrating on the pain rather than on what his next move should be with Amy. If he didn’t come up with something good soon, those few kisses would be all he’d ever get, and they hadn’t been enough.

Not even close.

Ty staggered to his feet. “Another round.”

Ty liked to push himself. Matt didn’t mind doing the same, but he’d prefer to move onto something else-say a big plate of food. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah,” Ty said. “Because you skipped dinner last night. Loved getting stood up, by the way. I could have been with Mallory, and dinner with Mallory includes things you’ve never offered to do for me.”

Matt laughed. He’d have pegged Ty as the last guy on the planet to hook up with the same woman more than once, much less commit to her, but that’s exactly what Ty had done. He’d gotten serious with Mallory Quinn, Lucky Harbor’s sweetheart. “Told you,” Matt said. “Something came up.”

“Like…?”

Like kissing Amy. “Had to see someone. About a work thing.”

“A work thing? Since when do you work at night?”

“There was a lost hiker, and some follow-up.” There. That was at least half the truth. Okay, maybe a quarter of the truth.

Ty flashed Matt a full-on smile. “You do remember I’m sleeping with the woman that Amy called first that day, right?”

Well, hell. “Fine, so I was visiting the lost hiker, who turned out to be Amy.”

“Interesting,” Ty said.

“What?”

“That you only go to the diner when Amy’s working. And now you’re finding excuses to ‘visit’ her.”

Suddenly Matt was ready for round two after all. He pushed to his feet and gave Ty the “come here” gesture.

Ty, who’d never met a challenge he wasn’t up for, grinned and came at him, but Josh whistled sharply through his fingers and stopped the action cold. He gestured to Matt’s cell phone, which was buzzing on the floor.

“It’s work,” Josh said, tossing Matt the phone.

Ty sank back to the mat. “Handy, since I was going to hand you your own ass.”

“Fuck if you were,” Matt said, wisely stepping out of Ty’s arm range before answering the phone.

Thirty minutes later, Matt was showered and on his way to Squaw Flats. A group of hikers had called in to report a theft from their day camp.

Matt parked at the trailhead and hiked up to the area. He took a report for the missing gear: a camera, an iPod touch, a smartphone, and a Swiss Army Knife. The campers hadn’t bothered to lock up any of their stuff-a situation that Matt had seen a hundred times. He liked to call it the Mary Poppins Syndrome. People left the big, bad city for the mountains and figured they were safe because apparently the bad guys all stayed in the city.

The fact was that National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers suffered the highest number of felonious assaults, as well as the highest number of homicides of all federal law enforcement officers. People never believed Matt when he spouted that fact, but it was true.

After taking the report, he spent a few hours in the area, a visible presence to deter any further felony mischief. He had four park rangers who worked beneath him, each assigned to a quadrant of the North District, and they patrolled daily, but the quadrants covered far too much area for them to be 100 percent effective.

Budget cuts sucked.

Since thieves rarely bothered to get a permit first, Matt detained everyone he came across to check them. At the south rim, he found two guys perched on a bluff, readying their ropes for a climb down into Martis Valley.

Lance and Tucker Larson were brothers, though you couldn’t tell by looking at them. Tucker was tall and athletically built. Lance was much smaller and frail as hell thanks to the cystic fibrosis ravaging his twenty-something body. They ran the ice cream shop on the Lucky Harbor pier, and when the two of them weren’t climbing, they were trouble seeking.

They both nodded at Matt, who gave them the once over, trying to decide if he needed to check their bags. The last time he’d found them up here, they’d been consuming Tucker’s homemade brownies in celebration after a climb-brownies that had made their eyes red and put stupid-ass grins on their faces.

Not to mention, brownies that were also illegal as hell.

“Hey,” Lance said with an easy smile.

Tucker, who was never friendly with anyone holding the authority to slow him down, didn’t smile. Nor did he say anything.

“Any brownies today?” Matt asked.

“No, sir,” Lance said. “No brownies on us today.”

This made Tucker smile, so no doubt they’d already done their consuming. Great. “Careful on the rocks,” Matt said. “You check our site for the latest conditions?”

“Mudslides,” Lance said with a nod. “I’m hoping to see Tucker slide down the entire rim on his ass like he did last year in this very spot.” He patted his pack. “Got my iPhone this time so I can get video for Lucille.”

Matt shook his head and left them to it, intending to head back to the station, where a mountain of paperwork waited for him. But just outside the Squaw Flats campground, he found evidence of an off-site campfire. This was illegal, especially this time of year. The campfire was abandoned, but the ashes were warm, and as he stood there, he heard the footsteps of someone running away.

There was only one reason to do that: guilt. Someone had something to hide. Matt took off running, catching up to a figure dodging through the forest, off trail. A kid, maybe a teenager. “Stop,” he said.

He didn’t stop. They never stopped.

Matt sped up and caught the back of the kid’s sweatshirt, yanking him to a halt. “Hold still,” he said, when his arsonist fought to get free.

Of course he didn’t, so Matt added a small shake to get his meaning across. The kid’s hoodie fell back from his face, exposing dirty features, a snarling mouth, eyes spitting fury, and a surprise-he was a she. A scrawny she, who was lanky lean, as if three squares hadn’t been a part of her recent program. “Let go of me!” she yelled, and kicked Matt in the shin. “Don’t touch me!”

Christ. She was maybe sixteen. He let her loose, but before she could so much as lift another foot in his direction, he gave her a hard look. “Don’t even think about it.”

She lifted her chin in a show of bravado and crossed her arms tightly over herself. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Her voice was cultured and educated, but her clothes were dirty and torn and barely fit her. “Then why did you run?” he asked.

“Because you were chasing me.” She didn’t add the duh; she didn’t have to-it was implied.

“Where’re your parents?” Matt asked.

Her face was closed off and sullen. “I don’t have to answer any of your stupid questions.”

“You’re a minor alone in the woods,” he pointed out.

“I’m eighteen.”

He gave her a long look, which she returned evenly. He held out his hand. “ID.”

She produced an ID card from her ratty, old-looking backpack, careful to not let him see inside, which reminded him of yet another prickly female he’d come across, two nights ago now.

The girl’s ID was issued by the Washington Department of Motor Vehicles for one Riley Taylor. The picture showed a cleaner version of the face in front of him, and the birth date did indeed proclaim her eighteen as of two weeks ago.

Handing the ID back, he nodded his chin toward the trail from which he’d come. “Was that your campfire back there?”

Her gaze darted away from his. “No.”

Bullshit. “You need a permit or a paid campsite to overnight out here.”

She just stared stonily at a spot somewhere over his shoulder. “I know that.”

More bullshit. Matt eyed her backpack. “Some folks about a mile west of here were ripped off earlier today. You know anything about that?”

“Nope.”

“What’s in your backpack?”

She hugged it to her chest. “Stuff. My stuff.”

His ass. The only thing that saved her was that when he’d grabbed her a minute ago, her backpack had seemed nearly empty. Far too empty to be carrying the stolen loot. She’d either fenced it already or she’d stashed it somewhere. “What are you doing out here?”

“Camping.”

“With your family?”

A slight hesitation. “Yeah,” she said.

More bullshit. “Where?”

“Brockway Springs.” Again her gaze darted away.

She was racking up the lies now. Plus Brockway Springs was a campground about seven miles to the east. “That’s a long way from here.”

She shrugged.

“Look,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. You need to go back to your family. I’ll give you a ride.”

“No!” She took a breath and visibly calmed herself. “No,” she said more quietly. “I don’t take rides from strangers. I’m leaving now.”

With no reason to detain her, there was little Matt could do to stop her. “Put your ID away so you don’t lose it.”

She once again opened her backpack, and he made no attempt to disguise the fact that he took a good look inside. A bottle of water, what looked like a spare shirt, and a flashlight. He put his hand on her arm. “Where did you get that flashlight?”

“I’ve had it forever.”

It was the same model and make of flashlight that had gone missing off Matt’s bumper the other night. It was also the most common flashlight sold in the area. More than half the people on this mountain had one just like it.

Riley zipped up her backpack, or tried to, but the ragged zipper caught. This didn’t slow her down. She merely hugged the thing to her chest and took off, and in less than ten seconds, was swallowed up by the woods.

Matt shook his head and went back to the station, but he didn’t sit more than thirty minutes behind his desk before he was called back out. Being supervisor of the district required him to wear many hats: firefighter, EMT, cop, S &R. Over the next several hours, he used the S &R hat to rescue two kayakers from the Shirley River, which at this time of year was gushing with snow melt. Finicky and dangerous, the river had been closed off to water play. But the kayakers had ignored the warning signs and had gone out anyway, then got stuck on the fast rushing water.

It took Matt, his rangers, and an additional crew from the south district to get the kayakers safely out of the water. Two rangers were injured in the rescue, but even after all that, the kayakers refused to leave, saying they had the right to do as they wanted on public land.

Matt ended up forcibly evicting them for violating park laws, and when they argued, he banned them for the rest of the season just because they were complete assholes.

Sometimes it was good to wear the badge.

Now down two rangers, he went on with his work. He assisted in the daily reporting on the condition of the trails, tracked the movement of various wildlife as required by one of the federal conservation agencies, then checked on the small forest fire that was burning on the far south end-which was thankfully 95 percent contained, which was good. By the end of his shift, he was hot, sweaty, tired, and starving. But before he left the area, he took the time to drive by the campsite where Riley had said her family was staying to check the registers. Easy enough to do, it was early in the season, and the snow had barely melted off in the past few weeks. He had four sites booked at this time, and only one of those sites had been booked by a family.

When he pulled up, that family was standing around their campfire roasting hot dogs and corn on the cob. His mouth watered. He’d had a sandwich hours and hours ago, before the river rescue.

The campers didn’t have a teenage daughter.

Which meant that his dinner was going to have to wait. Turning his truck around, he headed back up the fire road to the site of the illegal campfire, where earlier he’d found the teen girl.

The fire was still out and still emitting residual warmth. Huddled up as close as she could get to it in the quickly cooling evening sat Riley.

She took one look at him and leapt to her feet.

He pointed at her as he got out of his truck. “Don’t,” he warned. “I’m not in the mood for another run through the woods.” He was tired as shit and hungry, dammit.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, still as a deer caught in headlights, though not nearly as innocent as any Bambi.

“That’s my question for you.”

“I have rights,” she said.

“You lied to me.”

Her eyes flashed. “You weren’t going to believe anything I told you!”

“Not true,” he told her. “And for future reference, lying to law enforcement officers isn’t a smart move. It makes them not trust you.”

“Oh, please.” Her stance was slouched, sullen. Defensive. “You didn’t trust me before I even opened my mouth.”

“Because you ran from me.”

“Okay, well, now I know. You don’t like running or lying. Jeez.”

“I don’t like attitude either,” he said.

She tossed up her hands. “Well, what do you like?”

“Not much today. Where’s your family, Riley?”

“Okay, fine, I’m not with my family. But you saw my ID. I’m eighteen now. I’m on my own.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Town.”

Well wasn’t that nice and vague. “What are you doing in town?”

“Visiting friends.”

He sighed. This conversation was like running in circles. “What friends?”

“I watch all the cop shows, you know.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Christ. “Fine.” He gestured back to his truck. “Let’s go.”

“Wait-What?” Her eyes got huge, and she scrambled back a few feet. “You can’t arrest me.”

“Have you done something arrest worthy?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then you’re not getting arrested. I’m driving you into town. To your friends.” And then he planned to call his friend Sheriff Sawyer Thompson to run her ID to see if she was a person of interest or reported as missing.

She looked away. “I don’t need a ride.”

“You’re not sleeping out here tonight. Get in the truck.”

She threw her backpack into the truck bed with enough attitude to give him a starter headache. Then she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

Matt drew a deep breath and walked around to the driver’s side. He drove her attitude-ridden ass into town, wondering what it was with him and stubborn females this week.

In the heavy silence of the truck cab, Riley’s stomach grumbled. She ignored both it and Matt, keeping her face firmly turned toward the window. But by the time they drove down the main drag of Lucky Harbor, her stomach was louder than the venomous thoughts she was sending his way.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Here’s fine.”

Here was the corner where the pier met the beach. “Your friends live on the pier?” he asked dryly.

“I’ll walk to their place.” Her stomach cut her off with yet another loud rumble.

Matt sighed and pulled into the pier parking lot.

Riley immediately reached for the door handle but Matt gripped the back of her sweatshirt. “Not so fast.”

She stiffened. “I’m not thanking you for the ride with anything that involves me losing my clothes.”

Jesus, he thought, his gut squeezing hard. “I’m not looking for a thank-you at all, but I’m not dropping you off on the damn corner. I’m taking you into the diner to feed you.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“Because you’re hungry. And no,” he said before she could speak again. “I don’t expect a thank-you for that either.”

Like a cornered, injured, starving animal, she didn’t so much as blink, and he felt the punch of her mistrust more forcibly than he’d felt Ty’s right uppercut this morning.

“I don’t have any money,” she finally said.

“You’re not going to need any.”

This produced another long, unblinking stare.

In the silence, his own belly grumbled. “Let’s go.”

Her eyes swiveled to the diner on the pier’s corner. “What kind of place is called Eat Me?” she asked, unwittingly cementing what he’d suspected all along.

If she hadn’t known the name of the only diner in Lucky Harbor, she hadn’t come from town. She didn’t belong here any more than she’d belonged out on the mountain. And he knew what that likely meant, he’d seen it all too often in Chicago. Homeless teens, a rising phenomenon that no one had yet come up with a solution for. She was either a runaway, abandoned, or a juvenile delinquent dodging the authorities. “The food’s good,” he said. “And I’m starving. So are you.”

The girl seemed to fold in on herself. “I’m not cleaned up good enough for a fancy place like that.”

Eat Me was just about the furthest thing from fancy he’d ever seen, but he gave her a cursory once-over. “You look fine.”

“But-”

“Now, Riley.”

She slammed out of his truck and grabbed her backpack, hugging it tight to herself.

Matt almost told her to stop abusing his door but he thought back to all the times his dad had yelled at him for doing the same thing and kept his mouth shut. He refused to turn into his father. Not that there was anything wrong with his dad’s parenting skills, but it was unnerving to hear himself become that guy.

As he opened the diner’s door for her, he said, “The waitress is a friend of mine. Be nice.”

“Friend or friend?”

Ignoring that, he nudged her to a booth, not happy that under the harsh fluorescent lighting, he could see a fist-sized bruise on her jaw.

Amy was several tables down, serving from a large tray and clearly babying her wrapped wrist. She was wearing a black sundress with her kick-ass boots, topped off by the ever-present pink Eat Me apron. Just looking at her short-circuited his brain.

She turned her head and met his gaze, revealing nothing. She was good at that, too good. But two minutes later, she came by their booth with two sodas, and Matt smiled at her.

Amy didn’t return the smile but her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he knew she was thinking of their last kiss up against her door.

Worked for him, since he’d pretty much done nothing but.

Riley picked up the tension between them, Matt’s smile and Amy’s lack of, and cracked a small snarky smile. “Thought you said she was your girlfriend,” she said to Matt. “She doesn’t appear to like you much.”

Amy gave Matt a long look.

Matt didn’t bother to sigh. “Thanks,” he said to Riley. “Thanks a lot.”

The girl flashed her first real smile.

Not Amy. Her eyes narrowed in on Riley like a hawk. “Hey, you’re the one who was watching me through the bushes on the mountain.”