“A winch is a long steel cable with which the medic is lowered down to the ground.”
“You mean he jumped out of the chopter! Wowwee! I wish I coulda seen it! I’ll bet that was cool.”
Kelly watched father and son, mesmerized by the picture they made. It was a picture she’d seen a thousand times in her dreams, but had known reality would never yield.
Buzz re-hung Eddie’s wet clothes from a tree branch above the campfire pit. Eddie sat on a log, kicking out his feet, and watched every move the big man made, a combination of curiosity and awe showing plainly in his young eyes.
“Was the lady hurt?” Eddie asked after a moment.
“We treated her for hypothermia.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s when you get really cold.”
“I got frosted on my big toe once when I was ice-skating.”
Buzz looked up from his work. “You mean frostbite?”
Eddie nodded. “That, too. Mommy had to take me to the doctor.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, but it was okay. I’ll bet I had hippo terma today. I was really cold.”
“You mean hypothermia.”
“Yeah. Hippo terma.”
Buzz rubbed his hand over his jaw, obviously trying to hide a smile.
“Do we get to ride in the chopter tomorrow, Buzz?”
“Sure do.”
“Do I get to ride on the winch?”
“That depends on where they pick us up. Chances are the pilot will land at a pre-designated point and we won’t have to use the winch.”
“Are you going to come with us?”
Buzz reached down and mussed his hair. “Yeah, kiddo, I’ll be there.”
Kelly wasn’t sure why the casual gesture of affection got to her, but it did. Like a hand reaching into her chest and giving her heart a single hard squeeze. She knew it was silly for her to be getting all emotional now that they were safe. She knew her emotions were riding high because she’d come so close to losing her son. And because the man she’d tried so desperately to exorcise from her life—from her heart—kept finding his way back to both.
Why did things always have to be so complicated?
Of all the men on this earth that she could have fallen in love with all those years ago, why did it have to be Buzz? A man who was everything she didn’t need, everything she didn’t want—everything she longed for.
For three years she’d loved him with every fiber of her heart. It hadn’t been enough. Experience told her he would eventually hurt her, hurt her again. Only this time, he would hurt her son, too. She couldn’t let that happen no matter how she felt about him.
Buzz Malone might be a good man, he might be courageous and daring and kind, but it took so much more to be a good father. Her own father had been a good man. Jack McKee had been kind and courageous and daring. But he’d also been a risk taker. He’d put his family through hell. When Kyle followed in his footsteps and they’d perished in that fiery crash, Kelly had lost the only two men she’d ever loved. Her life had been forever changed.
She’d grieved for months. But she’d also been angry with them. Angry that two men she’d loved had chosen their dangerous profession over their family. Over her.
In a small corner of her heart, she knew that was selfish. She knew that if it wasn’t for the brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day—police officers and firefighters and a dozen other nameless professions—countless innocent people would die. Still, right or wrong, Kelly had never been able to forgive.
No matter how powerful her feelings for Buzz, she could never give in to them. She could never open her heart to him, could never let him get too close to her son. If she did, she would not only risk her own heart, but her son’s, and she swore that was the one thing she would never do.
Realizing she was just standing there in the shadows of the trees holding an armload of kindling and watching them, Kelly shook the thoughts from her head and started toward the clearing where Buzz and Eddie were embroiled in yet another conversation.
“What does R-M-S-A-R stand for?” Eddie asked, referring to the letters emblazoned on the cap Buzz wore.
Buzz repositioned a tiny pair of jeans over a branch and looked down at Eddie. “Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue.”
“My mommy’s a tour guide.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
For a moment, Buzz looked flustered. “Your mommy and I are friends. She told me.”
“We’re going to move to Lake Tahoe. It snows a lot there.”
“I know that, too.”
“You ever been there?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Then how do you know it snows a lot?”
“I just do.”
Feeling guilty for eavesdropping, Kelly cleared her throat and stepped into the clearing. “I found plenty of kindling,” she said, dropping her armload of wood a few feet away from the fire.