Page 3 of Countdown

Holly nodded. “Definitely. All right, Penny, take us to base.”

????

US Marshal Vincent Covelli sat on the couch that belonged to his best friend’s fiancée, Julianna Jameson. The big-screen television mounted on the wall across from him held a fraction of his attention. Mostly, he was interested in the dark-haired woman chatting with Holly McKittrick, Penny Satterfield, and Grace Billingsley.

Raina Price. Beautiful, but ... haunted, distant, seemingly unreachable. For some reason, those facts didn’t stop him from being drawn to her. Her sage-green eyes with the hint of yellow had captivated him from the moment he’d met her about a year ago when he’d been invited to watch a football game at this very house. It was Julianna’s, who was getting ready to marryVince’s best friend, Clay Fox, in three weeks. Vince smiled. He was happy for his friends. Clay and Julianna had been through so much. They deserved their happily ever after.

He couldn’t help wonder if he’d ever find his own. Not that he was looking.

Much.

Again, his gaze settled on Raina.

Okay, he might be lookingnow.

“Hey, Raina, what did they say was wrong with the winch on the chopper?” Penny asked. “Have you heard? I haven’t checked.”

“Mm, yeah. That it needed to be replaced, but thanks to all the safety measures, I was never in any danger of it coming disconnected.”

Penny snorted. “Well, I suppose that’s good to know.”

“It is.” Vince noted Raina’s absent agreement and rapt attention on the television. It was halftime and the station was doing a special report on Olympic hopefuls.

A young boy identified as Michael Harrison, age thirteen as of yesterday, according to the banner at the bottom of the screen, stood on a snow-covered mountain in Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin, snowboard in hand. Raina moved closer to the television, no doubt trying to hear over the chatter. But it was the fact that her face was two shades whiter than normal that made him frown. She snagged the remote from the mantel and turned on the captions.

“How does it feel to be the youngest person ever to win a national competition in the US? Not only in halfpipe, but also slopestyle?” the reporter asked. She held the mic out to the boy while the words continued to pop up on the screen as they spoke.

“It feels amazing.”

“Will we see you at the Olympics in four years?”

Michael laughed. “I hope so.”

“What about this year—will you be there, to watch the competition?”

“Not the competition,” Michael said, “my future teammates.”

The reporter turned and the camera zoomed out to include a woman. “Mrs. Harrison, has this always been a dream of Michael’s?”

“‘Always’ is pretty accurate. The dream started when he was about four years old and watched the snowboarders that year on the Olympics. He pointed at the television and said, ‘I want to do that.’ My husband went out the next day and bought him a snowboard and signed him up for lessons. He took to it right away, and it finally got to the point that we had to make some decisions about what to do. Four years ago, we moved from the Burbank area of California to Colorado, and snowboarding has been our life ever since.” She gave her son a warm smile. “I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.”

The reporter nodded to the button Mrs. Harrison was wearing. “I see you’re pro-adoption. Is there a story there?”

“Of course.” The woman shot a look filled with intense love at her son. “I’m not able to have biological children, so my husband and I went through the adoption process. We took Michael home the day he was born, and he was legally ours shortly thereafter. We’re so grateful to Michael’s birth mother for giving us the chance to be his parents.” A sheen of tears glimmered in her eyes and the camera zoomed in to catch the expression.

“Aw, Mom, stop.” Michael rolled his eyes but grinned at her, and she ruffled his hair before he could duck.

The reporter stepped back. “All right, Michael, it’s time. We’ve got a clip that showcases your talent here. This is the run that earned you enough points to qualify you for the Olympics. If only you were old enough. You ready?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The screen cut to the video of Michael’s run culminating with the Triple Cork 1800 and thunderous applause of those watching. The sound faded and the camera returned to the reporter. “Thank you so much for being here with us, Michael. We wish you all the best and look forward to watching you compete in a few years. This is Camille Johnson withNewsBreak. Thank you for joining us. I know we’re all excited to see if young Michael Harrison can bring home the gold in the next Olympics.”

The station cut to another site where an Olympic hopeful was in the middle of an ice-skating rink, but Raina’s eyes had shifted away from the TV to the far wall, still holding a frozen expression. Then she blinked, cleared her throat, and excused herself to slip into the kitchen.

Vince waited a good sixty seconds, then followed. Her back was to the door, arms braced against the kitchen counter, head down, gulping deep breaths. Her phone lay face up in front of her, a number programmed. “Raina?”

She squeaked and jumped back, the blazing fear in her eyes cutting him to the core. He stood still and waited for her to realize he posed no danger.

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