Too Hot to Handle (Jackson Hole 2)

He glanced toward the north, trying to place himself in relation to the road above, but at this time of year, it was hard to find a landmark. He pressed on, passing the ice house and the memories of Merry when she’d still been happy with him.

Screw this. He wasn’t giving up on her.

He liked her. As a friend and a lover and maybe something far more. He wasn’t giving up. But he owed her something. Something big. Something bigger than Providence, which he’d had no right to take from her, anyway.

The canyon narrowed here. The aspens above him began to thin and the far bank grew darker with pine. When he spotted a manageable incline on the other side, he turned his mount through the stream and urged her up the bank. She scrambled a little, but once she got her hold on the ground, she had no problem working her way up the other side to a higher plain above.

He was almost sure he was near the washed out area of the road. More importantly, he was close to that place he’d spotted something pale below the trees.

Whatever it was, if it was out here, it was old. And if it was old, then Merry would like it. She was funny that way. And perfect. And his chest hurt when he thought of her.

Damn. How was it he’d managed to screw up so badly with the only girl he’d ever fallen for? How had he managed to ruin everything before he’d even touched her for the first time? He’d been so worried about screwing up a relationship in the long-term that he hadn’t realized how bad he was at dealing with women in the short-term.

He wound his way through the trees, the muffled thump of his mare’s hooves against the pine floor pulsing through the forest like rings of water. She snorted and frightened a flock of blackbirds from a tree. Shane looked up to watch them scatter, and when his gaze fell again, he spotted white.

He pulled the horse to a stop and puzzled over the vivid white filtering through the branches of a low pine. What could be that starkly white out here, aside from ice or snow? Stone? Was it a stone building? Some kind of fort, maybe?

He turned off the path, ducking as he rode beneath a low branch, then cursing as his mare slid on grit as she picked her way over a flat boulder. When her hooves thumped on pine-needle ground again, Shane peered ahead, and he finally registered what he was seeing.

Not bright stone, but white vinyl. Straight edges, aside from where the vinyl had crumpled in on itself. He dismounted and tied off his horse before ducking beneath another low branch and moving forward. Slowly. He held his breath, alarmed by the strangeness of the sight before him.

This thing didn’t belong here, whatever it was. It was out of place and not right, and he still couldn’t quite process what his eyes were telling him.

But then he saw the words on the side of it. He saw the taillights. The door, popped open and bent down on one hinge. It was a camping trailer. It had crashed long ago, if the ten-foot-tall aspens growing out of one crumpled window were any indication.

And then he saw the truck.

It was twisted around a pine a few yards beyond the trailer, the deep blue paint fading and cracking in the sun. The truck lay at an angle, the driver’s side still held slightly aloft by the pine trunks it had run into. Grass grew tall around its bumper, obscuring the license plate he’d memorized from photocopying thousands of missing posters for his mom. But Shane didn’t need to see the license plate. He knew.

All those years of searching, all that heartbreak and abandonment, and his dad had been right here the whole time. Goose bumps broke out over his whole body, but Shane shook them off and forced his feet to move.

His brain scrambled to try to urge him back, but he didn’t stop. He moved on, slowly yes, but he didn’t hesitate once.

The cab was elevated on this side, and he was eye-level with the steering wheel. He braced himself, somehow expecting to see his father there, his face blackened and bloated like a horrifying scene from a scary movie. But of course, it had been too many years

for that. He didn’t see anything but a bowed dashboard and the jagged edges of glass that used to be a windshield.

Strangely, that was the moment he wanted to turn and run. He’d been brave. He’d looked inside. And he’d seen nothing. It was time to go. He’d done his part for his father, and now he felt like a ten-year-old boy, desperate to turn the duty over to someone else.

Shane closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath and watched the shadows of the pine boughs against his eyelids. The last rays of the sun would be gone soon. He needed to hurry.

Opening his eyes, he let the air fall from his lungs and took one more breath. Then he retraced his steps to the bumper and cut across to the other side of the truck.

He’d thought the door might be wedged into the ground on this side, but it had been wrenched open and pressed to the side of the hood as the truck had tumbled down.

Just as on the other side, he saw nothing when he peered into the cab. No bodies. No horror. Just a broken truck left exposed to the elements too long.

Maybe it was all another dead end. His dad had crashed the truck and then he’d walked away and kept on going. Left the truck behind along with his kids and wife.

Shane squatted down next to the door. The goose bumps broke out again. The door looked obscene, bent so far forward, the hinges bulging outward. It looked like a broken limb.

Even as he wished he hadn’t noticed, Shane saw the way the bench seat of the old pickup slanted toward the open door. He closed his eyes again, telling himself no, but then he let his head drop. He opened his eyes. He reached toward the long grass under the lip of the truck and parted it. Nothing. He tried again, his hands arching the grass open, like parting the seas. On the third try, he spotted something near the ground. Something white and dull and definitely not vinyl.

“Oh, no,” he breathed, falling to his knees at the sight of the long bone that looked so pale against the brown dirt. “Damn it. No.”

It wasn’t until that moment that Shane realized he’d still hoped his dad was alive. Despite all his big, belligerent words to his mom, he’d still wanted it. More than anything. To look up and see his dad standing in the doorway, older and haggard and so goddamn sorry about what he’d done.

That wasn’t going to happen now. It wouldn’t ever happen. His dad was dead.