Lost And Found (Vanguard Towers #2) - Aiden Bates Page 0,1
And I’m not old enough to be your ‘Dad’!” Jacob yelled from the desk while I was in the back, shoving protein bars and dried fruit into the side pockets of the pack.
I scoffed. “How old do you think I am?”
“Thirty-two. Sagittarius, though and through.” He’d made a big deal of my birthdays the last four years I’d been working with him and read my horoscopes out of the paper every day. “How old do you think I am?”
“Old enough to be my dad.” Jacob was nearing his sixties and had a gray ponytail to show for it.
He just grunted in response, the closest to an admission that I’d get out of him.
Uno stood at the doorway of the storeroom with her harness in her mouth and her tail wagging so hard it thwacked against the doorframe. We were both lucky that work often felt like play, at least most of the time. But things could get really, really quick out on the field, and I had a feeling this rescue was going to be more serious than fun.
I was shoving her harness into the pack when I heard the door to the cabin creak open, followed by a muffled conversation between Jacob and whoever had just arrived.
“He only took one meal’s worth of food and a tiny backpack.” A woman’s voice came in from the main room, pinched and broken like she was trying not to cry.
“Do you know the route he took?” Jacob’s voice was gruff and almost accusing, which I knew didn’t reflect how he truly felt. He was a man’s man, not great with emotion, and awkward as hell around women.
“N-no! I told you on the phone, he just said something about a rock?” She sniffled, which was my cue to stick my head out of the storeroom, hoisting the forty-pound pack onto my back with a grunt.
“White Rock?” I clipped the straps to my front while the curvy Latina woman widened her eyes at me. Whether it was because she wasn’t expecting a brown man to be leading a rescue in deep woods Virginia, or because she wasn’t expecting anyone to step out of the storeroom, I couldn’t say. Or maybe I was her type.
“Y-yeah. White Rock? Is that a place?” She sniffed again, tears clinging to her long eyelashes.
“It sure is. Jacob will get a map for you to look at.” I gave Jacob a pointed look as I reached around him and grabbed tissues from his desk drawer.
I offered them to her, the least Jacob could do when a woman was crying. He pointedly ignored me.
She took the tissues with a forced smile. “I’m Helena, Wyatt’s best friend.”
“Eli. I’ll be leading the rescue.”
Jacob grunted again, just loud enough for me to hear and know yet again that he didn’t want me going out alone until the rest of the crew arrived.
Ignoring him, I perched on the edge of the desk and gave all my attention to Helena. Uno did, too, and shoved her snout into Helena’s hand by her hip, demanding pats. “Do you know what kind of equipment he had with him?” I asked.
Helena shook her head and pushed her glasses up her nose. “A small crappy backpack, and probably just enough food for the hike up and back.”
“Any health issues?” I’d need to know if there were any extra medical supplies I’d need to take in the pack, or if there was a reason he might have wandered off into the woods, or fallen off the edge…
“Does a broken heart count?” She sighed and scratched Uno’s ruff, making the pup sigh happily.
“Bad break- up?” My heart twitched at the idea that the good-looking guy in the photo was now single, and I could practically hear Jacob scolding me from the depths of my subconscious for not thinking with my head.
But there was another, less selfish reason why it mattered that Wyatt might have been upset—White Rock Point had a big drop to the bottom, and suicide attempts had been made there in the past. Some successful. “Yeah, pretty bad. His boyfriend cheated on him. He came out here to clear his head. Shit.” Helena dabbed her eyes again. “I was the one who suggested it. I thought some nature would be good for him.”
“How upset was he?” Jacob's voice was a little softer but still had a sharp edge to it.
I made a mental note to force him into some compassionate communication training.