Rescue Me(22)

He turned out onto Main Street, away from town.

Truth was, not only did he want to take a sledge to that rank bathroom, but he really did need Jess’s help with the résumé, despite the fact that her comment about his brother choosing the new incident commander pulsed in the back of his mind.

Sam probably wouldn’t hire him to park cars, let alone lead the team during a callout.

Unless Pete could prove to his brother that he had changed.

He turned onto the highway and flicked on the radio. Chuckled when a Ben King song came on. One of his new singles, cut right here in his new studio in Mercy Falls.

We said good-bye on a night like this

Stars shining down, I was waitin’ for a kiss

But you walked away, left me standing there alone

Baby, I’m a-waitin’, won’t you come back home.

Pete found himself tapping his hand on his steering wheel. See, if Ben King could turn his life around after getting his high school girlfriend pregnant, after leaving her for a decade, only to come home and woo her back into his arms, then certainly Pete could figure out how to earn Sam’s forgiveness.

Maybe.

He pulled off the highway toward the PEAK ranch and slowed as his tires rumbled over the cattle grate, then crunched on the dry dirt road. The ranch house and barn had once belonged to the family of Chet’s now-deceased wife, and when billionaire Ian Shaw bought the ranch, he gave the ranch house and barn to PEAK Rescue.

The white barn loomed pretty and clean against the backdrop of blue sky and the hazy purple rise of the Cabinet Mountains to the west.

Pete had spent most of the last five summers fighting fires in those mountains.

The words “PEAK Rescue” written in red against the white of the barn shone against the morning sunshine, a beacon of hope.

In a way, the team had pulled Pete back from the crazy, dangerous edge he had treaded, jumping from planes and fighting fires.

That part of him that loved the taste of danger, the rush of holding his life in his hands.

Okay, he still loved it—hence the BASE jumping trip a couple weeks ago with Tucker Newman off Vulture Peak. But he’d mostly agreed to the trip because Tucker was passing through and needed a jump buddy.

Pete had told Jess where he was going, just in case their jump went south. But he’d been extra careful, even attached a secondary chute.

See—responsible.

Although today, he could taste the need for something to take the edge off this crazy, frustrating week.

Maybe purge the roar of the grizzly from his brain too.

He pulled up to the white, two-story ranch house next to Kacey’s Ford Escape and Gage’s Mustang.

Pete checked his phone one more time before heading inside.

Still no text from Jess.

Really, it was for the best.

The renovation of the ranch house included a new kitchen area, open to the main room. A huge map of the entire Glacier Park area spanned the far wall, with radios and Doppler radar and two computer stations that fed information about current weather conditions.

A scanner hummed in the corner, quiet for the moment.

Chet King, their boss, stood at the counter in the kitchen, putting a Styrofoam takeout box in the refrigerator. “Pete,” he said as he closed it, then moved over to reach for a freshly poured cup of coffee.

“I got that,” Pete said, and reached for the coffee to carry it into Chet’s office.

“Thanks,” Chet said. “My physical therapist says I can upgrade to a cane soon.”

The fact that Chet had not only survived a chopper crash last spring but managed to be moving around after breaking both hips spoke to the toughness of the old Vietnam vet. Chet swung himself into his office, set the crutches against his desk, and eased himself into his seat.

Pete set the coffee down. “What are you working on?”

“Next year’s budget,” he said. “Now that we’re under the control of the city government, we have to submit an open budget to the city council for their approval. It was a lot easier when Shaw footed the bill.”

Back when his niece went missing, Ian Shaw founded PEAK to search for her. He kept the doors open when the search came up empty.

After three years, they’d located a body earlier this summer in the park. While Sheriff Blackburn wanted to close the case, the body still hadn’t been identified. And Shaw refused to give up hope that he’d find Esme alive.

“Kacey and Audrey are in the hangar. I think Ben’s out there too—they’re doing some inventory for us.”

“I saw Gage’s Mustang.”

“Yeah. He’s resupplying some of the packs.”

Pete looked out the window toward the barn, which housed their chopper, the pretty blue Bell 429. “Chet, can I ask you something?”