Page 74 of 15 Summers Later

Madison

When her sister and Cullen came down the trail after about twenty minutes, Madi could tell something had shifted between them.

Where they hadn’t touched when they walked away, now her brother-in-law helped Ava over a rock in the trail and touched her to show her a red-tailed hawk that flitted through the trees around the camp.

She exhaled deeply, not even aware until that instant how anxious she had been about the two of them.

“It’s good to see you, Mad,” Cullen said when they rejoined her. “Sorry I didn’t say that before. I was shocked when you both suddenly appeared.”

Cullen gave her an affectionate hug and Madi returned it. He smelled of dirt and pine and sage and sunshine. It was a smell that reminded her of hugging her father in thebeforedays, when they would all go camping together as a family.

She managed her lopsided smile. “Right back at you, Dinosaur Hunter.”

“Thanks for coming up here with my wife. I know it’s not your favorite place.”

“You have a cute dog and a beautiful view. That’s enough for me. Anyway, I know from past experience that if not for me, Ava would be hopelessly lost.”

It was the very first time in her life she had joked with her sister about anything to do with that time.

In reality, Ava had led them on a circuitous route away from the dogs and the searchers. In the process, they had both become twisted around and had gone for two days in the wrong direction, deeper and deeper into the wilderness, before they realized their error.

After a startled moment now, Ava huffed out a breath that almost might have been a laugh before she moved toward the side-by-side and climbed into the passenger seat.

“You said you wanted to leave before dark. We should probably go, then. You’re right. We don’t have the best track record up here together.”

Madi would have enjoyed having Cullen show her around the dinosaur camp and especially the actual dig site, but she knew it would take them at least an hour to drive back to the trailhead.

With one final pat to Bob, she climbed behind the wheel.

Cullen approached the side-by-side near Ava. “I’ll see you both later. I’ll try to stop by Leona’s this weekend.”

There was something meaningful in that, but Madi couldn’t work it out. Cullen reached down to kiss his wife and what started as brief, almost casual, quickly transformed into something else. A kiss even Madi could tell seethed with emotion.

“Be well,” he said, gazing at Ava intently.

Madi’s sister nodded, swallowing hard. Tears glimmered in her eyes as Madi started up the side-by-side and turned out of the camp.

For the first fifteen minutes of the drive, it took all her concentration to maneuver down the narrow, rutted trail toward the larger and better-maintained dirt fire road.

When they were perhaps two miles from camp, she couldn’t take all the questions swirling through her head. She pulled off the side of the road to a clearing, cut the engine and faced her sister.

“Okay. Tell me,” she demanded. “What was that all about? What was so important that you had to come all this way to a place you hate to talk to Cullen?”

Ava gazed at her, then looked away. Golden hour had transformed the mountainside into a masterpiece of colors, bathing the mountains in amber light. The fading sun filtered through the trees, splotching the road and the undergrowth with columns of light. One lit up a patch of columbine, turning it a brilliant blue.

The soothing sights and smells of the mountains somehow calmed Madi, centered her. She couldn’t help thinking that she had come a long way in her journey, if she could find any sort of peace deep in the backcountry.

“Do we have to do this here?” Ava asked, fingers working at a loose thread from her jacket. “I would rather get out of the mountains first so we’re not stuck here after dark.”

And avoid telling her the truth even longer?

“This thing has headlights. What’s going on, Ava. Are you sick? Is it cancer?”

“Why did you immediately jump to that conclusion?”

Icy fear gripped her. She didn’t want to lose her sister. Not Ava, as well as everyone else. “Are you sick?”

“I don’t have cancer.”

---