It helped that the people she’d met so far neither knew nor cared about who her father was or what the expectations had been for her before her arrival. All they cared was she was the newest member of the Alpine team, a qualified doctor bearing Annie’s stamp of approval, and someone ready to add medical skills and expertise to their expanding search-and-rescue efforts.
Even more surprising, all they seemingly wanted in return was for her to approach her new life in Haven and everyone she encountered with acceptance and an open mind as she got to know them.
Stretching lazily, Dana scratched her arm, finally blessedly cast free, and turned to thoughts of one person in particular, the enigmatic head of Alpine Search-and-Rescue. She already knew Kellen was someone who was going to make her new life a hell of a lot more interesting than she’d envisioned. Definitely someone she was looking forward to getting to know much better.
She thought back to a singular moment after a team meeting, watching as Kellen chewed a bite of pizza, half closing her eyes in sensual appreciation as the flavors danced across her tongue. It was the first time in her life Dana had experienced jealousy. And of a damned slice of pizza, no less.
But behind the confident stride and sexy smile, she also sensed a very private woman when she looked at Kellen, one not easily moved to trust. So it would take time. And that was okay. If she had an abundance of anything right now, it was time. Time to get settled, time to feel comfortable, time to figure things out.
The cabin, as it turned out, also strengthened her feelings of finding a home, having far exceeded any expectations she might have had. Spotless and cheerful, it had come furnished with a large comfortable sofa, a couple of overstuffed chairs, and a fully functional fireplace. She looked forward to spending quiet evenings in front of the fire while it snowed outside.
Cody had pointed out the propane heater in the corner of the bedroom, but had assured her that the fireplace would probably generate all the heat she would ever want or need. And Cody and Ren ensured she had plenty of firewood, neatly stacked on the deck just outside her front door.
It was a need for caffeine that finally drew her from the comfort of her bed. After a wonderfully hot shower, she quickly dressed in jeans and a heavy Irish-knit sweater. Quite a change from hospital scrubs, she thought, as she finished off her new look by putting on the hiking boots she’d bought while in town with Annie. She tried to remember if she’d ever owned hiking boots. Probably not, but Annie had said they were essential.
Thinking of essentials, Dana wandered into the kitchen, only to discover she was out of coffee. With a sigh, she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door.
She blinked when she stepped out of her cabin into sunshine and stared up, not yet used to the heart-stopping, magnificent view that surrounded her. The woods were beautifully inviting in the morning light, the black of the tree trunks and branches in stark contrast with the bluish white of the snow dusting the boughs and shawling the ground.
The air held a silence that was still alien to her and she drew in another breath, letting the scent of pine and crisp, clean mountain air fill her lungs, while the silence soothed her heart and her spirit. She wanted to laugh at the joy she felt just from the simple, clean scent.
As she started walking down the snow-covered lane toward the office, Dana spied what had to be animal tracks. A few she recognized as likely belonging to Bogart. Other tracks looked like maybe deer. And still others, she couldn’t recognize at all.
She felt a keen urge to follow the tracks and explore her surroundings more than she already had, but first things first. She needed coffee.
And just maybe she’d see Kellen in the office and have another chance to get to know her better. Something she was looking forward to with admitted pleasure.
*
The river was angry. Swollen and dark, it was flowing faster and stronger than usual, thanks to the recent storm.
Kellen gritted her teeth. The water was bitterly cold and she could feel the icy temperature cut through her wetsuit, feel its sharp stings each time it splashed her face. She flinched as the pain registered.
Oh Jesus, that hurts
. It caused her chest to tighten as if gripped by a vise and was making it increasingly difficult to take a deep breath.
They’d been searching for a missing boy since dawn before finally spotting him. He was floating face down in the river. There was no time to waste and Kellen had plunged into the dark, frigid water the moment Tim had fastened the rescue harness on her.
Even then, she barely managed to catch the edge of the boy’s jacket, holding on with all her strength before the current could carry him out of her reach. Somehow, she managed to secure him to the rescue rope, then wrapped her arms and legs around him.
Holding him against her chest, fighting to keep his head above water, something struck her side with a glancing blow, distracting her momentarily. A familiar childhood nightmare flashed in her mind. Monsters—in the closet, under the bed, under the water. It was only for a second or two, but enough that she slipped underwater.
She surfaced quickly, coughing violently, but could see what had hit her—one of several small trees the river had claimed.
She renewed her focus on the boy as the one solid reality in the tumbling, shocking, cold universe she was in, while trusting her team and the belay rope to stop them both from going downstream. She knew it didn’t take long for hypothermia to kill, and she had no way of knowing how long the boy had been in the icy water.
Long enough, she feared.
He was completely unresponsive and his lips were blue. Kellen thought she might have felt a pulse, but it could have been wishful thinking. And he was so still, she wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. But she needed to believe he was.
Even as she felt the beginning of a headache brought on by the cold, she found herself wishing there was more she could do. But she knew it was taking all she had just to hold their position and keep the boy’s head above water. The world was fast becoming blurry, her arms ached, and she could no longer feel her hands or feet.
She was so damned cold. But she was equally determined to hold on. Time slowed to a crawl while she held the boy and waited. Almost seemed as if it had stopped. But finally help arrived.
Through the gray mist hanging like smoke over the river, she watched Jeff and Tim wade into the water, fighting against the fast-moving current as they moved toward her. Between them, they managed to get the boy attached to the tag line, then got him safely to the riverbank, where Kellen watched Gabe start CPR on the boy.
“Come on, Kel. You’re turning blue. Let’s get you out of here. Give me your hand.”
She heard Tim’s voice as if from a distance. Her headache had gotten worse, and as she slowly turned toward him, she connected with a hard, warm human hand that gripped her wrist. Beyond tired, she relaxed and was instantly buried in water. But Tim’s hand was still there, solidly holding on, and she gratefully let him help her out of the water.
As was becoming habitual, Cody was the first person to greet Dana at the office. “Good morning, Annie said to tell you she’s in Incident Command.”
Thanking her, Dana wandered down the hallway and listened to the muted sound of voices.
“Good morning,” Annie said, looking up briefly. “Come on in. Help yourself to some coffee and grab a seat. We’ve got a missing thirteen-year-old boy, separated from his parents and younger brother while hiking before dawn this morning. We’ve had two teams out since first light—one in the air, the other on the ground on snowmobiles. One searching north, the other south of where the boy went missing.”
Dana gratefully poured herself some coffee and thought the steam rising from the cup smelled like heaven. She grabbed the seat Annie had indicated and tried not to distract anyone as she watched over the rim of her mug.
It was then she realized she’d been so focused on overseeing the construction of the medical facilities that she was only now witnessing her first real search-and-rescue attempt. This was no simulation.
“We don’t always know where to look,” Annie resumed speaking a minute later, but her hands didn’t stop working the keyboard. “But in this case, we have fairly reliable information about where the family was when they lost contact with the boy.”
Looking over Annie’s shoulder at a pair of computer screens, Dana could see lights blinking over what appeared to be a topographical map. But she had no idea what exactly Annie was seeing.
“Every team member has a transmitter as well as GPS on their radios,” Annie explained without Dana needing to ask. “It lets us have both audio and visual on everyone in the field so we can track them.”
Nodding, Dana continued to watch and listened to the intermittent radio transmissions coming in from the teams involved in the search. The sun was out, but the temperature was still hovering near freezing and she knew the recent storm had dumped a lot of snow on the terrain being searched.
But as she tried to envision where the search teams were, what they were seeing, she realized she had no frame of reference for what they were doing. She would make a point to ask Annie or Kellen to take her out with a search team. Maybe a couple of times—by land and in the air. That would help her better understand not only the physical demands on the teams, but the emotional and psychological demands as well.
“IC, team one, we have a sighting.” The disembodied voice cut into Dana’s thoughts, jarring her back to the present.
“Team one, IC,” Annie said, studying a map on one of the computer screens more closely. “Can you confirm?”
The room grew strangely silent while they waited.
“Negative. Cannot confirm it’s our target,” the voice responded. “We’re checking it out.”
A short time later, Dana shared in the feeling of elation when team one confirmed they had located the missing boy. But the joy was short-lived. The next transmission indicated the boy was in a river. Facedown.
Dana could feel her heart pounding in her throat as she listened to the two teams synchronize their efforts in an attempt to reach the boy. She heard a familiar voice and realized Kellen was involved in the rescue, and that she was about to jump into a frigid, rapidly moving river.
She shivered at the thought. But as she watched and listened, more of what Annie had explained in New York began to make sense.
Alpine SAR was structured functionally into three interconnected teams. Kellen headed the operations team and had overall responsibility for personnel, equipment, and operations from the time of a team’s activation to its return home. She continuously assessed each situation as it unfolded, developed and implemented plans of action, and assigned resources.
Annie was the logistics team lead. She maintained Incident Command, their base of operations. She was charged with developing and maintaining communications plans and equipment, as well as managing communications with the sheriff’s department and any other agencies involved in a search. She also managed logistical supply and resupply issues.
And Dana would be medical team lead. Her primary role was to oversee the new medical center once it was fully operational and provide onsite trauma management. That meant working closely with the paramedics that went out with the search teams and ensuring any injuries received prompt and appropriate emergency care before they were transported to a health-care facility for further evaluation and treatment.
She also had a second and equally important responsibility. She was meant to monitor the health of all Alpine personnel, which included not only the nutrition and hydration needs of the teams, but also their mental and psychological well-being. Looking for any signs of stress.
As an emergency medicine specialist, Dana knew all about the endorphin high. The post-rescue rush that left first responders amped. But emergency teams often found themselves thrown into situations beyond their control, and they also knew going in they were not going to win every time.
She remembered that from too many times in the emergency department. Feeling as if she’d been thrust into the middle of a battle zone. Fighting to save the life of yet another youth caught up in a turf war, believing he was invincible only to have his chest torn apart by bullets. Trying to put kids back together even as she watched their lifeblood flow from too many wounds to count and the light dim from their eyes.
Dana recognized she’d hit a wall in New York and knew she needed something different. Something that didn’t involve moving back to Boston, working in her father’s posh offices, and returning control over her life to her parents. She’d taken a risk when she’d accepted Annie’s offer. But she was beginning to believe she just might have found what she needed.
Haven came with its own brand of drama. Here it was more likely to be a battle against nature. Storms. Floods. Fires. Avalanches. Even wildlife. More than enough to satisfy the adrenaline junkie in her, while equally enough to fill her need to make a difference. To help, even knowing she wasn’t always going to win.
But knowing didn’t make it any easier to deal when you didn’t win.
Like today.
The tension around her became more tangible with each passing minute as they followed the rescue attempt from the warmth and safety of the dispatch room, from the moment Kellen jumped from the hovering helicopter into the freezing water until the boy was brought to the riverbank and CPR commenced.
Dana could also see and feel the increasing tension in Annie the longer Kellen remained in the frigid river, although her voice never betrayed any of what she was feeling. She continued to communicate calmly with the rescue teams, remaining externally calm and professional until well after an out-of-breath voice on the radio informed them the boy was dead.
Once the two field teams transmitted their intent to return to base, Annie asked the paramedic on board the helicopter—Gabe—to check Kellen and make sure she was all right. Then, after glancing around the room and making sure her team had support, she excused herself and left the room.