Mountain Secrets

“We’ll find her, Winters. Though I have to say,” he added with a frown, “I didn’t realize you were in this deep.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tracy rushed up to her husband. Breathless, she pointed. “I think Solomon’s found something.”
Colin and David followed Tracy through the woods, around trees and fallen trunks, over rocks and boulders to Solomon’s bark and whine. Colin tensed at the dog’s signals. He knew Solomon had finally gotten certified as a cadaver dog.
He braced himself, unsure what they would find—a living, breathing Jewel or her body.

TWO
Something wet slid across her nose, eyes and mouth. Jewel stirred and tried to turn over to defend herself, but a bone-piercing throb coursed through her wrist.
A dog’s whimper and continued licking steadied her breathing. Calmed her fear. She recognized the animal.
“Solomon.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
Footsteps, twigs snapping and breaking, resounded through the undergrowth on the river’s edge.
“Jewel,” Tracy said. “Are you all right?”
Relief swelled inside. “Depends on your definition.”
Tracy spoke to someone nearby and then radioed others that Jewel had been found.
“Shouldn’t you be home with your babies? Your twins?” Jewel managed.
“Grandma Katy needs her time with them. Besides, you had to know I would come looking for you. Solomon and I.”
“Jewel!” A familiar, masculine voice joined Tracy’s.
Jewel heard the immeasurable relief in his tone. That ignited her heart. She was alive. She had survived.
“Chief Winters,” she croaked. Colin. She had always called him by his official title to keep personal feelings out of it. To keep her distance. Otherwise, the man could undo her resolve to protect her heart.
Her bruises throbbed with any movement or effort on her part. She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look at him.
“We’re here now, Jewel. You’re going to be okay. You just rest now.”
As other SAR members arrived and focused in on Jewel, they crowded him out and away.
“No! No... Chief Winters.” She reached for him.
He stepped forward, closer again.
“I’m here, Jewel. I never left.” His electric blue eyes pierced hers, concern and relief spilling from them. “What is it? What do you need?”
“Someone pushed me into those falls.”
Anger rose in his gaze and maybe a little disbelief. “Can you describe him?”
“No... I...”
Chief Winters grabbed her hand. “Whoever it was, we’ll find him, Jewel. Don’t you worry. You’re in good hands now. I have to go and make sure nobody else gets hurt.”
Then he slipped out of the way of her search and rescue friends. Jewel endured the poking and prodding and assessing and finally the hefting and assisting her back to civilization.
On the helicopter ride back to Mountain Cove, Jewel closed her eyes, wanting to forget what had happened, wanting to pretend it had simply been a bad dream. Wanting to wake up with a body free of pain and evidence of the nightmare. But she couldn’t let go of the blurred image of the person she’d seen standing at the top of the falls.
There hadn’t been room for Chief Winters on the helicopter, and maybe she was glad about that so she would have time to think about what she’d seen exactly before having to answer his questions. But he was probably searching for who could have done this. Making sure others were warned a crazy person was out there.
At the small Mountain Cove hospital clinic, Doc Harland attended to all her bruises and scrapes. He didn’t like the look of the deep gash along her shoulder and back from the fallen tree trunk’s branches, but she knew that though painful, that injury had saved her life.
That particular gash needed stitches. Her sprained wrist was already wrapped. Doc assured her it would heal within a few days.
“Hold still, dear.” Doc Harland had anesthetized the gash so she couldn’t feel the needle pricks as he stitched her up. “You aren’t afraid of needles now, are you?”
“I can’t stop shaking. My body has a mind of its own. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. You’ve had a scare. We’ll give you something to calm you if you like.”
“No, thank you.” Jewel needed to stay alert. Figure this out. “Are Tracy, Meral and Buck still out there in the waiting room?”
“Far as I know. You want me to send someone to check?”
“No.”
“I’ve treated a lot of folks in my life, but never anyone who has gone into those falls and survived. What happened out there?”
“If it’s all the same to you, Doc, I’d like to forget about it.” Jewel stared at the sterile wall. She might want to forget, but she knew she couldn’t.
“I want to run a few tests. Draw some blood. But not today—you’ve already been through enough. I want to see you back in a week to look at those stitches and your wrist. We’ll get the blood then.”
Was Doc wondering if she had some sort of medical condition that had caused her to fall?
“There. All done.” Doc Harland flipped down her gown.
“Jewel?” Meral peeked through the door. “I brought you some dry clothes.”
“Come on in,” Doc Harland said. “I’ll leave you to change.”
Doc Harland nodded and left to give her privacy.
Meral set the clothes—a pair of jeans, teal T-shirt, light jacket, shoes, socks and undergarments—next to Jewel. “I’m so sorry, Jewel. If we’d just stuck together this would never have happened.” She wiped at the remnants of tears on her cheeks.
She started to hug Jewel, but then acted as though she’d thought better of it. Jewel must look terribly beat up and bruised. Admittedly, a hug would hurt right now.
Meral, short for Emerald, was in her thirties and ten years younger than Jewel. She’d been a teenager when Jewel had run away to marry Silas. Beautiful as she was, she looked fragile and pale at the moment.
“Are you okay?” Jewel found herself asking.
“I’m feeling nauseous. Buck insists on taking me back now. Are you almost ready?”
“Sure, I just need to change.”
“You need help with that?”
“No, you go on now. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Meral nodded and left Jewel. Poor thing. She probably didn’t know how