Hidden Heart Read online

  Then the motion stopped, and he and Spencer were deposited on the deck of the helicopter with a rude thump right before the copter practically jerked from the sky.

  “The fuck was that?” Elsie screamed.

  “Damie!” the man—blond and scruffy and most likely Glen Echo—hollered into his coms. “We’ve got a raft attached to the bottom of the chopper. Lift a little slower or you’ll yank the runners off this fucker!”

  The pilot must have yelled something over coms because Glen and Elsie rolled their eyes.

  “Because we were short on time, asshole!” Glen yelled. “No, we can’t cut it loose! The cable is attached to the outside frame. Because we were using the crane for other things, numbnuts! Oh yes, you can too get this thing out of here with that attached. Don’t bullshit me. Fine. You’re the king of the skies. Elsie, Spencer, and I will buy you a crown and sing you a song. Just get us out of here!”

  The next jerk against the helicopter wasn’t so bad, and Theo opened his eyes enough to look outside the bay door before it was closed.

  Behind and below them, their little raft headed for the waterspout that arced savagely out of the valley and into the canyon. As the helicopter gained altitude, the raft launched itself through the air, still attached to the cable they’d used to anchor it to the Black Hawk, and stayed, gracefully swinging underneath, with hardly a bobble in the chopper’s stride.

  With a heave, Elsie slid the bay door shut and then joined Glen, both of them in flight suits and coms helmets, to kneel beside the basket.

  “Kid, are you okay?” Glen asked. “Any broken bones? Hypothermia?”

  “C-c-cold,” Theo chattered, and the next thing he knew, he was being pulled up by the armpits and wrapped in a heated wool blanket, stashed in a first-class, comfort-style seat.

  “We’ll get you something warm to drink in a minute,” Elsie said, as she bent down with Glen to attend to Spencer. “Can you tell us what his injuries are—oh! Hello-o, kitteh! Spencer, give me the cat.”

  “No,” Spencer mumbled. “This cat’s Stupid.”

  Theo laughed shakily and hauled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, suddenly aware that he’d been cold and wet for a really long time. And scared. Mustn’t forget scared.

  “He may be stupid, darling, but that’s why you should let us have it, don’t you think?”

  “It’s the cat’s name,” Theo said. “It belongs to the lady you rescued earlier this morning.”

  “Oh!” Elsie looked up at him, her sweet-natured face transformed into beauty when she smiled. “Oh, she will love hearing that he’s okay.” Her expression sobered. “But all your townspeople are stashed up in Sliver or Spelunker or whatever that town was by what’s left of the lake. You may have to hang on to that old lady’s cat for a while, kid. Those folks are crowding the high school gym and trying to find relatives out of town.” She bit her lip in the way some people had when they didn’t want to give bad news. “I’m afraid—”

  “My town is gone,” Theo said for her. “It’s okay. I know. I just want Spencer to be okay.”

  She nodded and met eyes with Glen. Glen Echo, for his part, was slicing Spencer’s flight suit open with his bowie knife even as Elsie took the cat from Spencer and handed it to Theo.

  “What happened?” Glen asked tersely.

  “Fought a tree,” Spencer mumbled. “Tree won. Fucking tree.”

  Glen looked to Theo for clarification, and Theo didn’t even want to look at the field dressing he’d put on that morning.

  “I pulled him out of the water and tried to dress everything and clean it and wrap it in bandages. But we couldn’t keep it dry.”

  Glen brushed the wound at Spencer’s shin and Spencer let out an agonized whimper.

  “That—he was standing in the water trying to keep the boat from raging down to the bottleneck. The wound itself was pretty bad, but—”

  “Gah!” Glen said, unwrapping the bandages. “Spencer! Fuck me! This is bad.”

  “Now we know,” Spencer mumbled, “why you’re not a doctor.”

  Glen scrubbed at his face and called into the coms. “Damie? The school gym in Splinter or whatever isn’t going to do it. We’re going to need surgery and a full course of antibiotics—we’ve got a banana bag and some Keflex for him, but he’s going to need way more. How soon can you get us to Portland, brother?”

  Glen heard him answer and nodded. “Phone it in, then. Tell them he’s wounded, he’s feverish, he’s infected, and he’s cold, and they’re going to need to work fast.”

  “I’ll tell Cash and Preston—they can meet us there.”

  Glen clicked a button on his coms helmet and looked up at Theo, his expression bleak and a little lost. “You did good,” he rasped. “This asshole here likes to make things tough, don’t you, Spence?”

  But Spencer had apparently checked out of the conversation, his eyes closed, shallow breath still moving his chest.

  “I….” Theo closed his eyes and swallowed. “I really need him to be okay,” he said, head pounding and throat sore. “I … he’s such a good man.”

  Glen and Elsie met eyes again and shared a slow, painful smile. “You think he’s a good man?” Elsie asked.

  “He’s the best,” Theo told her. “He tries to hide it—God, that mouth of his—but… but it’s like the sun. You can still see it. You still know it’s there. Clouds, smoke, rain—the sun is hiding, but it’s never gone.”

  “Kid—” Glen started.

  “I’m twenty-four!” Theo snapped, not even sure why, except Spencer had tried to use this too.

  “Well, then,” Glen said. “Well, okay. Was old enough for Cash. It’s old enough for you. What’s your name?”

  “Theo,” he said. “Theo Wainscott. Spencer calls me Woodchuck.”

  Glen and Elsie let out a strained chuckle before they started calling orders to each other, and Theo shut up for the rest of the ride and let them work.

  DAMIEN had to land the chopper in an empty part of the parking lot, carefully lowering so the raft jolted to the ground in a splinter of wood and then scooting ahead just enough to land free and clean on a bare spot on the concrete.

  Theo knew this was pretty impressive because Glen said, “Holy fuck,” and Elsie said, “Dear God, we’ll never hear the end of it,” and then they both shouted into the coms, “Yes, goddammit, you’re King of the Goddamned Skies!”

  Then Glen opened the bay door, and he and Elsie hopped out, grabbed the basket with a blanket-wrapped Spencer between them, and set it on the stretcher waiting with a medical team when the helicopter landed.

  Elsie pulled off her coms helmet and stashed it in a compartment on the side of the Black Hawk and then looked at Theo.

  “If you come with me now, we can get you some dry clothes and something to eat while we wait for Spencer in surgery. Damien’s got to take care of the chopper, but we’ve got a ground team here. Otherwise, Damien can get you hooked up with the shelter people, and maybe you can go meet your friends from your town. Did you have family there?”

  “No.” Theo shook his head and looked down at Stupid, who had been sleeping tucked in his arms for the whole ride, finally warm and apparently exhausted from what had been a helluva day.

  “What do I do with the cat?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Bring him. Preston’s got his truck—he usually has dog crates in the back. I’m pretty sure we can take care of Stupid as well as anybody at the shelter.”

  Theo sighed and stood, handing Stupid to Elsie so he could hop stiffly out of the helicopter. The bright lights of Portland were a welcome contrast to the big roaring rapids of nothing he and Spencer had been facing all day. The rain still fell, but it was a smaller thing when they were heading for a brightly lit building. Elsie turned and slid the door closed, then squatted down and unhooked the carabiner that secured the steel cable holding the raft to the struts on the bottom of the helicopter. Then she pounded on the door twice so the pilot would know it was secure. They ran
to clear the chopper blades and the ferocious updraft, and then, when they were well away, they both slowed down.

  Two men were waiting in the hospital lobby—one tall and blond and enough like Glen Echo to be Preston, his brother, and the other smaller and slighter and, well, famous.

  “Cash,” he said, extending his hand. “Cash Harper.”

  “Quincet,” Theo said dumbly. “Oh my God. Spencer—I’m gonna strangle him.”

  Cash laughed. “Let me guess. ‘Oh, now, my boss’s boyfriend’s in a band. But Preston has dogs, and that’s cool.’”

  “Yes!” Theo burst out. “Oh my God—I have your albums!”

  “Yeah, well, to Spencer the dogs are cooler than the band. It’s why Preston loves Spencer too.”

  Preston looked down at the two dogs at his heel, one a rock-solid, dark-brown, ginormous dog with a head the size of a volleyball, and the other a German shepherd mixed with something else who appeared to be holding on to himself with every last thread of patience.

  Theo fell to his knees—that undone, that suddenly. “Colonel,” he said gruffly, and then, of all things to wreck him, he wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck and cried.

  IT took a while to get sorted after that. Finally, like Elsie had promised, he was clean after a warm shower, wrapped in brand-new sweats and tennis shoes, with thick socks, with his sodden, ripped clothes from that day in a plastic bag next to him.

  He sat with the others in the waiting room by the surgery. Elsie sat next to him, still holding Stupid. An enormous paper cup of hot chocolate mixed with coffee was warming him from the inside out, and the remains of a hot sandwich sat on the table next to him.

  Glen and Elsie had both used the same EMT shower facility Theo had and had changed, and they were waiting for Damien, who had taken the bird to a local airfield and caught a ride to the hospital with a search-and-rescue guy coming off shift.

  Preston and Cash—and Colonel, and Preacher, the other dog—were with them. Colonel had perched his chin on Theo’s knees and watched soulfully as Theo ate, but Theo had been cautioned by a very stern Preston not to give him snacks that way.

  The dogs were wearing their orange Service Animal vests, although Preston had very gravely confided to Theo that Colonel was wearing his under false pretenses, because the dog was of no service to anyone but Spencer. Cash was holding so tightly to Glen Echo’s hand they both had white knuckles.

  Theo had gone over how he and Spencer had survived the day several times, drawing approval from everyone involved, including Glen Echo.

  “Smart thinking,” he said and then looked sideways at the cat cradled in Elsie’s arms. “With one exception.”

  “Remember the snake?” Cash said. “The giant snake with the highly toxic venom that not one of you would kill because hey, snake’s gotta snake, and why’s a snake gotta pay with its life? Yeah. At least Theo risked himself for something that apparently loves him back. That snake was nobody’s friend, and as far as I know, she’s still back on that island, eating small deer, so no. You don’t get to give Theo crap about the cat.”

  Theo found himself chuckling weakly. “Well, he’s the only thing I’ve got left of my home,” he said, and apparently that was too much honesty because a thick silence fell over the group, and Theo—channeling Spencer—couldn’t let that stay. “What took you all so long?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Spencer thought it would be three hours at the most. We were out there for, what?”

  “Twelve hours, thirty-three minutes,” Elsie said promptly, voice bitter. “Oh, baby boy. The things you do not know.”

  Theo looked at her, wrapped in pink stretch pants, a fuzzy sweater, and a flight jacket so big on her he knew it had to be Spencer’s. He could tell she’d had a hell of a day.

  “Tell me,” he said, curious.

  And she did. Once she’d gotten the kids and Thelma up to Splinter, the rescue calls had come thick and fast. Elsie had been on coms begging for help because she knew that she couldn’t get Spencer and Theo out without a crew, but she’d also been flying to below the waterspout over the interstate, picking up refugees from Sticky and getting them back to the small town above the dam because it was the closest place of refuge.

  In the meantime, she’d managed to contact Glen. He and Damien were in the middle of their second supply run, but as soon as they heard that it was Spencer on the line, they had called Preston and Cash to start running supplies in Preston’s truck while they tried to scare up some more search-and-rescue people to help them find one small raft in the middle of a big valley.

  No dice.

  By the time Elsie was refueled and able to pick Glen and Damien up, it was dark, and Elsie was exhausted. They’d had to run out of Splinter with the local law enforcement threatening them with no goddamned thing at all. There were so many demands for help, but Glen’s outfit had used up all of their flight time, and Glen, it appeared, was done.

  “We’ve got a man out there, and you all may not give a fuck, but he’s ours. We are not even supposed to be here right now, do you understand? So we’re going to take our highly illegal, overflown asses out to get our brother before it’s too late. You’re welcome for all the food and water and the people who didn’t die. We’ve got shit to do.”

  Elsie told that part of the story, cackling to herself as Glen rolled his eyes in disgust.

  “That poor man was the sheriff,” said a newcomer, freshly scrubbed, clearly exhausted, and striding in wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and the same sort of swagger that Glen, Elsie, and Spencer had, even if his came with a slight limp. Theo imagined this was Damien, whom he hadn’t seen but was still grateful to, and that supposition was backed up when the man—stunningly beautiful with golden skin, slightly tilted brown eyes, and thick black hair—put his hand on Preston’s shoulder and squeezed firmly.

  Preston looked at him and gave a grave smile, returning the squeeze. “Why were you illegal?” Preston asked.

  “We were hired to fly cargo,” Damien told him. “None of us were equipped with the manpower for rescues, and we had the equipment by sheer dumb luck, which is why I just left the remains of someone’s deck in the middle of the parking lot here.” He sighed. “Gecko, we’re going to have to have that removed, by the way.”

  Glen groaned. “I’ll get to it,” he promised. “We’d also logged in too many flight hours—all of us. They were just….” He let out a sigh.

  “Unprepared,” Theo said softly. “Not enough search-and-rescue guys for this part of the country—federal forests need federal funding.”

  “In one,” Damien said, putting his finger to his nose in the time-honored gesture. He held out his hand then and Theo shook it. “You were the guy Spencer jumped into the drink to save. Nice to meet you. I’m—”

  “King of the Goddamned Skies,” Theo said dryly. “I was there.”

  Damien let out an evil laugh, and Theo could see why Spencer loved these people. Yeah, they were full of bullshit, but Glen Echo had stood up to the local sheriff to come out and get his friend, and that was all there was to it.

  The waiting room was quiet then, and Theo gave a worried look toward the door leading to the OR.

  “He was so hot,” he said softly. “God, his leg looked bad.”

  “Did Spencer tell you how we met?” Elsie asked into the oppressive quiet.

  Theo nodded. “He said he was supposed to be your squad leader, and he was picking lieutenants, and you were the smartest one.”

  She huffed. “Goddamn that man. Now see, he’d enlisted—and gotten an ROTC scholarship to flight school—during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. His CO knew he was gay and didn’t give a ripe shit, but the rest of his squad… well, let’s say Spencer had new bruises every day, but he never lost a fight. So Spence gets assigned new cadet training, and we’re expecting him to pick the big guys, the strong guys, the smart guys, and then he set his sights on me. Told me he wanted someone who would help him dine on the blood of his enemies, which was a pretty good li
ne. And then, when he was picking the rest of his squad, he went out of his way to pick the small guys. The fuckups. The picked-on guys. The girl who might have washed out. And right when I’m thinking, ‘Great, I really was a pity case,’ he starts putting us together in ways….” She shook her head. “We had squad competitions—drills, obstacle course, weapon assembly, strategy. Nobody but Spencer would have thought these things were our strengths, and they were. And him and me, we had each other’s backs. And that’s Spencer. He doesn’t think the way other people do, you know? That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means that for him, the shortest distance between two points may mean taking a pogo stick.”

  Theo thought about him cutting down the barge poles before he got too tired and too sick, because he knew it was coming. Thought of the way he’d stepped into the water, knowing the consequences but also knowing they were dead if he didn’t.

  “That’s a good description,” he said quietly. And then, because Spencer had avoided this question, “I know how you met. Why’d you leave?”

  Glen looked at him, an odd expression on his face. “That’s a good question. We haven’t heard that one either.”

  The look on Elsie’s face went hard. “It pisses us both off,” she said, but her gaze slid to Theo, like Glen’s had. “But you just spent twelve hours with him, and you didn’t try to kill him once. And you’re here, waiting to see how he is, when you could have gone off to sleep in a hotel. I think maybe… maybe it’s time someone heard this story.”

  She sighed and hugged the cat a little closer. “Maybe I should have Josh get one of these,” she mumbled, resting her cheek in his fur.

  They were quiet, and Theo didn’t know about the others, but he felt the importance of the story with every moment she paused.

  “Sexual assault happens more often in the military than the government wants to admit. Spencer knew this. He used to make the girls in his squadron spar with him and the biggest guys, teach us how to fight dirty, how to make every hit hurt, he used to say. And Spence had fought his way through basic training. By the time we got our wings, nobody fucked with him, and I started to feel invincible, even when we were on other bases where people didn’t know us.”