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He landed on the floor of the raft. Dressed in a full dry suit, he wore goggles and gloves and carried a rescue halo.
“Hey there. My name is Axel. Let’s get you off this raft.”
She gestured to Ned. “Him first. He’s in rough shape.”
“Nope. She goes first,” Ned said.
“Sorry, ma’am. I have orders from his brother to do anything he says.” Then he tucked the rescue halo around her and clipped her to himself.
“I promise I’ll be right back,” he said to Ned.
Shae looked at him. “You’d better be right behind me this time.”
Axel took her out of the raft, and she was hoisted up to the deck of the chopper. There, another man unhooked her and then secured her to a seat. Handed her a blanket. “Hey,” he said. “You haven’t met me yet, but I work for your uncle Ian. Name’s Harry.”
“My uncle Ian is here?”
“On a rescue ship about a hundred miles from here. We’ve been looking for you all night.” He turned to the hoist. “Ready?”
Axel nodded.
“Swimmer’s out the door,” Harry said over the radio.
She watched as the rescue swimmer went down. Five minutes later, Harry was working the hoist to pull him back up.
Ned’s arms were clutched close to his body, and he’d started shivering again. But that was a good thing, his body fighting to stay warm. Harry and Axel brought him on deck, and Harry set him next to her, wrapped a blanket around him.
“We need some warm fluids,” he said to Axel, who’d unlatched and closed the door.
“How’d you find us?” Ned said, fighting chattering teeth.
“Your EPRIB. It started beeping about four hours ago.”
Ned closed his eyes, smiled. “I forgot I was wearing that.”
Then, as the sun broke the plane of the eastern horizon, rising over the water, the chopper followed the golden trail home.
Twelve
“You okay? You’ve been pretty quiet since you got home.”
The voice came from her uncle Ian, and Shae glanced over as he joined her at the window.
With a new layer of snow, the Montana landscape appeared forgiving, grace layered upon the rolling hills and inspiring peaks in the distance. Glacier National Park. Brutal. Breathtaking.
“I like the remodel,” Shae said of the great room, and of course, what wasn’t there to like? With the soaring two-story shale-rock fireplace, and wood flooring, overstuffed leather furniture, and a massive hanging chandelier, the inside almost matched the grandeur of the outside.
Ian and his wife Sierra had practically gutted the old ranch house. Of course, when they bought it, Ian had been nearly broke. But the ranch had been on the edge of bankruptcy, sat on the meandering Mercy River and faced the mountains, and Sierra wanted to raise her children on land instead of in the cute bungalow she and Ian had built in town, so Ian had sold his last stocks, bought the house, and rolled up his sleeves.
She didn’t know how her uncle had bounced back financially so quickly, but he was a keen businessman, so whatever he’d done, well, it’d worked.
He now owned fifty acres of cattle pasture, a beautiful log home completely remodeled inside. And sure, it was about half the size of his million-dollar estate he’d sold to country music star Ben King, but this was filled with the sound of their toddler daughter, a beautiful baby boy, and Ian and Sierra building a life together.
They’d given her a room, of course, because Ian had told her she’d always have a home with him.
“I’m fine.”
“I saw Ned outside earlier.”
