Page 94 of One Last Shot

Oaken turned to her, his blue eyes on hers. “Listen. We have things to sort out. And talk about. And maybe even decide. But for now, I’m going on this callout with you. So don’t die on me, and... we’ll continue this little chat when we get back.” Then he smiled, leaned down again, and kissed her, shoving his foot against the door.

Oh boy. But London was in her head with,“He’s not going to turn on you.”So Boo held on to Oaken’s jacket and let him kiss her, hard and fast, and when he leaned back he smiled, those blue eyes sweet and twinkling.

And maybe today wasn’t a disaster. “Okay,” she said quietly. “But you don’t die on me out there, either.”

“Me?” he said, holding the door open for her. “Have you met me?”

“Oh boy,” she said as she pushed into the locker room. “Let’s make sure we have extra batteries for our PLBs.”

“What’s a PLB?”

“Personal Locator Beacon. We wear them on our packs.” She pushed past him to the locker room.

He followed her in. “That would have been nice to have when I was out with Mike.”

“He probably had one. You just didn’t activate it in your panic to save him.”

His mouth opened. “That hurt.”

She grabbed her gear from her locker. “First rule of rescue—don’t panic. Use your resources.”

He laughed. “Sorry, honey, but the show is over. You can stop giving me lessons.”

She pointed past him to where Huxley had come in with Beto. “Tell that to them.” She walked past the camera and gave it a thumbs-up.

CHAPTER 11

Even from a layman’s perspective, the odds didn’t look good.

But Oaken was also starting to think like a rescuer. Which meant he considered the weather, the low ceiling for the rescue choppers, the falling temperatures, and the blizzard forming on the horizon.

They needed to get moving.

Which Moose must have agreed with, because he held a hasty meeting with Deke Starr, the sheriff from Copper Mountain, and the Air One pilot from Sky King Ranch, a man named Dodge Kingston. He recognized him as the pilot who flew the chopper they’d jumped from.

They huddled over a map of the Copper Mountain ski resort in a conference room that overlooked the wide ski runs and silent gondolas, buried in snow and ice.

“I give us about three hours of decent searching time before the ceiling crashes. Maybe four, if it holds, before darkness sets in,” Moose said.

Dodge, tall, dark haired, embodied a sortof calm, the kind that came before a storm, maybe. He leaned over the map. “There are five girls missing. They’re here for a girls’ bachelor weekend, although the guys are also here.” He looked up at Moose. “And making noise. A few already went out looking, came back nearly frozen. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have casualties. The groom is nearly frantic, and the bride’s father is here too, so that’s even better.”

“They’re all in the resort restaurant, in the catering room,” Deke said. “A few are drunk, which doesn’t help. But it was the best place to put them for now.”

“What were the women doing out there?” Axel asked. He wore his insulated jumpsuit like a wetskin, unzipped to his waist, the shoulders and arms of the garment hanging around his hips. Shep did the same, but Moose had simply unzipped his, leaving it gaping around his chest.

Oaken took a note from Axel and kept his unzipped too. He stood in the room, listening, thinking, one of the team.

Huxley stood with Beto in the corner, capturing the conversation.

Boo and London were packing med kits outside near the choppers.

“There’s a hot spring down a shoveled trail on the backside of the resort,” said Dodge, running his finger along a trail. “It descends about four hundred feet to a river. The resort has created a sort of rocky pool there. Apparently, the women were headed there, but when they didn’t return hours later, the groom went down to check on them. No one there had seen them. And by then, the blizzard really hit.”

“How long have they been out there?”

“Since last night.” Dodge stood up. “Apparently they were tired of being cooped up.”

Silence. And Oaken could guess what Moosemight be thinking. Moose took a breath, then studied the map. “Okay, let’s sort this out. Any bear activity in the area?”