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Wyatt skidded to a stop at the base of the peak. Abe followed suit and helped Jo off the snowmobile. He unholstered his weapon, his skin smarting as if he was being watched from the dense forest behind him.
Jo’s hand clutched his, far too tight, as they crunched through the snow, searching for tracks. This was more than her just being worried about the man she hired to look after her. She was distraught that something might have happened to him. Had something occurred between these two in the time they’d been alone together?
“Griff!” Jo screamed and darted past Wyatt. She fell to her knees at a rubble pile ahead.
Abe’s stomach turned leaden. A man was trapped under the rock. Abe crashed to kneeling beside her, taking hold of the man’s limp wrist. No life beat there—but a gold wedding ring glinted back, unfamiliar. Not Griff. Abe rocked back on his heels, a crazy laugh ripping from him. Thank fuck. “It’s not Griff.”
He shook his head as Wyatt joined them.
Jo hiccuped and wiped ineffectively with her sleeve at tears soaking her cheeks. “I thought…I thought it was him.”
Carefully, Wyatt helped unearth the body’s face from the icy rocks. Abe started—he recognized this man.
“It’s Horton,” Jo breathed out unsteadily. “The MP who worked with Pharmasyn.”
“So, where’s Griff?” Jo’s voice shook, but not just with fear. Again, something deeper, more substantial. Real anguish.
Rocks scattered down the cliff side. Wyatt raised his gun. “Someone’s up there.”
More pebbles rained, clattering down the sheer wall.
Jo scrambled to her feet. “Griff?”
Stones scattered, tumbling from above.
“Holy shit. It might be him.” Abe backed up to get a better look, his eye pressed to his weapon sights. “Can’t see anything.”
“How do we get up there?” Jo clawed at the unyielding stone.
“This way,” Wyatt hurried away, before disappearing around a bend. Abe took Jo’s hand and hustled after him, worry eating away at his nerves. The cliff looked endless, but around the corner, Wyatt halted at the base of a sloping scree path that snaked upward. Wyatt scrambled up, dropping to his hands and knees as loose rocks submitted to his weight. Chest burning, Abe helped Jo climb. By the time they reached the top, his shins were bruised from the grinding rockfall. Every step he’d slid almost as far as he’d climbed.
Jo rushed past him. “Oh God, Griff!” She collapsed over Griff’s motionless form, cradling his head.
Abe’s heart stopped pumping. He’s too still—
“Jo…” Griff raised one bloodied hand.
Abe gasped and doubled over as relief crashed over him. He clasped Wyatt’s shoulder, pulled himself upright. “Fucker’s alive.”
Wyatt’s eyebrows lifted. “Seems so.”
Jo’s back shook with her sobs, her arms locked on her man, because Abe was sure that was what this was. Griff was hers.
When she finally released Griff’s head, it was to grip his shoulders so fiercely her knuckles shone white. “Don’t you dare leave me again! I thought you were dead.” Sobs punctuated her words.
And then all the fight drained from her and she dropped her head against his chest.
Over her shoulder, Griff caught Abe’s attention, his eyes bright with new light as he gingerly rested one bloodied hand on her back. Jo had changed his friend, his brother. And so, it seemed, Jo was Griff’s as well.
Happiness swelled within Abe, momentarily overwhelming his weariness. He’d known Griff a long time. He knew the darkness his friend had fought against, the scars of childhood that had shaped the man he was. The broken man he’d visited in the hospital after his shoulder surgery was gone. Griff had navigated a way out of his own personal darkness into the embrace of a brilliant, sexy woman.
Happiness for his friend warmed him. No one deserved this more than Griff.
But it’s not for me.
That depth of bond, of having someone be that worried for him—it just wasn’t in the cards. So many of his team had fallen in love and with amazingly strong women who matched their men perfectly and Abe loved being around them all. But he’d never tied himself down long term to any one woman, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Shaking off his uncomfortable thoughts, he turned away to give Griff and Jo a moment of privacy. He shared a side eye with Wyatt. “Feel like a third wheel here.”
