My parents bought a cabin in Bear Lake at the beginning of the summer. It was the closest thing to ever come to that, but it had cell service. They could still work there. Camping’s different. No phones, no distractions.
“Just the two of us?” I gape at him, trying to imagine it… No Rex, no Ronny.
“Yep. Just me and you, kid.” He claps a hand on my back, and I jump up to hug him. Of all the gifts that have ever made their way into this three-story house, this is the best one I’ve ever been given.
“Woah!” He backs away from the open blade that’s swinging near his face.
“Sorry.” I cringe. I disengage the lock with my thumb and fold the sharp edge back into its safety position.
My dad’s voice remains playful, but his expression slips into a semi-stern glare. “Don’t make me regret trusting you with that.”
“Yes, sir.” I salute him. “I promise; I won’t.”
“Good. Well, we better start packing. We need to be on the road in an hour if we want our tent set up by nightfall.”
I shove the switchblade in the front pocket of my basketball shorts and leap from the couch cushion toward my bedroom.
I picture it. A whole weekend away, just me and him. His undivided attention. Time to tell him about all the things that I love.
It’s going to be the best weekend of my life.
A camping trip I’ll never forget.
CHAPTER ONE
REED
Present Day
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to remove your shoes.”
A woman in a crisply pressed security uniform points to my boots. There’s an edge to her tone that suggests uptight but no bite, so I’m not at all surprised when I look up at her and she blushes under my eye contact.
Airport security is the last place you’d find an adrenaline junkie like me. But I wasn’t the one who booked this flight. That man is the whiner behind me lacking his typical TSA PreCheck privileges. The same one who was so bent out of shape that he confronted what had to be the burliest security officer Salt Lake City Airport has ever employed—a guy with little tolerance for sob stories, even from an attorney at Morgan & Brown with frequent flier miles.
It may make me a heartless son, but I get a kick out of watching him squirm. Which is exactly what Emmett Morgan did when said officer pointed us in the same direction as theother 95 percent of the population flying out of this airport today.High five, airport security, for the comic relief.
But that was thirty minutes ago. And after listening to him relentlessly drone on, I flung my canvas duffle bag on top of the conveyor belt and cleared the metal detector in a single stride.
At the sound of that beep, maybe I should have taken my time.
“My bad,” I say, flashing the officer the cheeky grin women tend to swoon over and backing up through the archway.
Even if she looks a decade older than me, her reaction is a familiar one. Getting women to notice me has never been my problem. It’s getting them to stick around that I struggle with. But I’m not worried about that right now. All I need to do is to keep this lady happy enough so I can be on my merry way.
It takes a minute to loosen the laces on my new Whites, the premium leather manacled to my ankles and feet. Of all the items that came recommended by my recruiter, these all-terrain boots were at the top of the list, and I can see why. Once they’re on, they fit like a second skin.
She watches me jerk the rubber wedge heels and toss them on the rolling bars before plunging through the opening a second time.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sharp ringing stuns me. Not in a hit-to-my-confidence sort of way—even if I wasn’t expecting it—but more likeWhat the hell could I have possibly missed?
“Your, um”—she fumbles over her words and nods to my lap—“belt. Sir.”
I don’t have to look down to remember the leather band I strung through the loops of my khaki denim this morning. I simply hold her stare and unbuckle it, watching her eyes heat and then blink a handful of times in the ten seconds it takes me to pull itoff.
