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Tristan

T he large clock on the wall struck seven. Tristan pulled out a new report and started typing.

This wasn’t urgent work. He could have finished it tomorrow morning. But he didn’t want to go home to his empty apartment. He was sorely tempted to go back to Bar d’Up. Maybe he’d run into Lena there. Maybe she’d explain what had happened yesterday.

No.

Leave it.

She made it clear she wants nothing to do with you.

He recalled their brief exchange from the night before. He’d given her the perfect opening, asking if she was okay, and she’d replied with a terse apology. Nothing else.

He wished he knew more about her. Hell, he didn’t even know her last name, or where she lived, or … anything else about her, other than the fact that she’d grown up in Chamonix, and that her father still lived here. He should have asked more questions. Hell, Chamonix was a small town. Even though she was younger than him, they might know a lot of the same people.

But she’d been clear in her last message, and if she didn’t want to see him, he wasn’t about to start stalking her through town.

So he distracted himself with paperwork—by far his least favorite part of the job—and watched the minutes crawl slowly by.

Suddenly, Beau stormed into the office. “Tristan,” he said tersely. “I’m glad you’re here. Grab your things.”

Tristan stood up quickly. “What’s going on?”

“A missing young woman in the Col des Montets area.”

“A tourist?”

“A local. A professional photographer.”

Tristan’s heart sped up in his chest at the mention of the word. The first time they’d met, in the grocery store, Lena had been carrying a camera bag across her chest. She was a photographer. That had been one of the few personal things she’d been happy to talk about, and Tristan had loved the passion with which she discussed her work.

He forced a slow breath through, forcing himself to relax. It doesn’t have to be Lena. There were probably dozens of photographers in town.

“Her father gave the alert when he came home and she still wasn’t back.”

“She went out alone?”

“Yes,” a new voice said, startling them.

“Colonel Pelegrin,” Tristan said, standing up. He wasn’t surprised to learn the colonel was still in the office. The man worked harder than anybody else in the gendarmerie . What surprised Tristan was his pale countenance and disheveled look, so unlike his usual cool, fresh-pressed appearance.

In his hand, the colonel carried a small stack of photographs. He spread them out on the table in front of them.

Tristan’s heart did a double-take. Because there might be dozens of photographers in the Chamonix valley, but the last time they’d met, Lena had told him about the large family of chamois she’d been lucky to photograph.

Fuck.

The last picture in the colonel’s hand wasn’t of the agile goat-antelope mammals. It was of a young woman with wavy, burnished copper hair and beautiful hazel eyes.

“This is my daughter, Madeleine.”

The air left Tristan’s lungs. He gripped the table for support, but nobody seemed to notice because, at that moment, Lorenz, Alex, Hugo, and Ry stepped in through the doors. “We came as fast as we could.”

Because Tristan was still looking down, he saw how badly the colonel’s hands were shaking as he straightened the photographs. “Madeleine took these photographs several weeks ago, in the Col des Montets area,” he said, pointing at the wildlife photographs.

Tristan hadn’t even known the colonel was married or had children, let alone that his daughter … He pulled in a ragged breath. Fuck . He had to put aside his shock and focus on her. Treat this like any other rescue .

“She left a note saying she was going to look for the family of chamois again,” the colonel said in a shaky voice.

“When was that?”

“She was still there when I left this morning. She must have left shortly afterwards. She should have been back long before now.“ The colonel rubbed at his face and took a physical step back. “Beau, I’m going to need you to lead on this one.”

Beau nodded. “I’ll coordinate with Damien’s team. We’ll start at the Col des Montets and move out from there. Tristan, are you ready?”

It was the moment of truth. Tristan could tell them he knew Lena … Madeleine . Hell, he should tell them. A better man would tell his colleagues. He owed it to them. But Tristan wasn’t that better man . Something inside him—something fierce, selfish and possessive—told him he had to be there. Talking about his relationship with Lena would slow the rescue down until they found another pilot, and that was something Lena couldn’t afford. The colonel didn’t have a choice. He had to stay back, but Tristan didn’t have to.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Does she have her cell phone with her?” Alex asked.

“Of course,” the colonel huffed. “I’ve tried calling her but, wherever she is, there’s no cell reception.”

“Give me her phone number, Colonel. Even if we can’t track her real-time, we can request cell tower logs to try and approximate her location.”

The colonel nodded, his face a mask of agony, and scribbled the number down.

While Beau organized the search, Tristan brought up the latest weather updates. It’d been raining all afternoon in town, and he needed to see what the weather would be like up by the col. Bad weather and night-time did not make good flying companions.

Lena

Of all the things she could be thinking about, it’d be Tristan’s hands that would fill her thoughts. Or rather, his hands across the table from her, as they’d shared that first beer together. Strong, large, capable hands.

He’d told her he was a helicopter pilot, and she could easily imagine those hands, with their short, blunt nails, flying a helicopter, bringing tourists to remote locations, charming them with his knowledge of the valley.

Her thoughts roamed. She wondered why they’d never met before, when they’d both grown up in Chamonix. Probably because she was younger. How old was he? Probably close to thirty.

Oh, but those hands. She recalled the pleasure she’d felt when his hands had reached over across the table, those long fingers grazing her palm. She could just about imagine what his hands would feel like on her body … Warm. Warm, when she was so, so cold.

Lena shifted on the hard ground, the pain in her ankle bringing her back from the pleasant daydream. She wanted to go back. She wanted to go anywhere, except for this cold, wet overhang.

The darker it got outside, the more her fear grew. She’d placed her red scarf outside the overhang, held together by two fist-sized rocks, in an attempt to call attention to her location. But as evening fell, the scarf became less and less visible, even from her location just a few feet away. She wasn’t sure it’d be visible at all from higher up.

Which meant nobody would find her—assuming somebody was even looking. She prayed her father had returned home early, for once, and noticed her missing. If so, he would be out looking for her already. She had to believe he and his teams would come for her.

Outside her damp hiding spot, the rain continued to fall. It hadn’t let on for an instant. She’d left her half-empty water bottle propped outside the overhang, collecting water. It was now half-full, which meant she could cross thirst off the list of things she was likely to die from. Cross thirst off. Move hypothermia to the top of the list.

She was really cold. Cold and wet. Not a good combination. She huddled inside her rain jacket, wishing she’d thought to pack a warmer layer. Her clothes and supplies were barely enough for a day hike. She couldn’t spend the night out here.

Lena felt like a fool. She, of all people, should have known better. She’d grown up in these mountains. She knew how fast the weather could turn, how a minor miscalculation—a wrong turn, a storm rolling in quicker than expected—could turn deadly. She wasn’t a reckless tourist chasing Instagram photos; she was someone who had spent her childhood on these trails, who had learned caution from her mother, who had watched her father risk his life to rescue people who’d made foolish mistakes. And now she was the fool.

Her fingers curled into fists against the damp fabric of her jacket. She shivered violently, unable to stop the deep tremors wracking her body. Hypothermia wasn’t just a word in a survival dictionary. It was something she could feel creeping into her limbs, dulling her mind. Making her sluggish.

She couldn’t give into it. She needed to stay alert.

With effort, she shifted, pulling her legs up closer to her body, trying to conserve what little warmth she had left. The movement sent a sharp jolt of pain up her leg, radiating from her ankle like fire, but at least that kept her distracted, kept her from slipping into exhaustion.

She fished in the outside pocket of her backpack for the power bar she’d stuffed inside. She wasn’t hungry, but maybe chewing would keep her awake. She had to stay awake. She had to stay focused.

Her fingers brushed against something hard at the bottom of the pocket, and she suddenly remembered—the whistle. Her breath hitched as she fumbled it out, the metal cold against her lips. She blew out. Three sharp blasts. Pause. Then three more.

She waited, her ears straining against the sounds of rain and the distant hum of the river below. Nothing.

She tried again. Three shrill bursts, cutting through the quiet.

Again, silence.

A lump formed in her throat. Don’t panic . Maybe people were searching, just in the wrong place. But somebody would find her. They had to.

She looked outside her hiding place. The scarf she’d placed was hardly visible anymore. Maybe in the morning, if she could get her strength back, she could try moving it higher up.

Morning .

The word felt impossibly far away.

She thought of Tristan again, not just his hands this time, but his voice. Steady, self-assured, teasing. She remembered the way he’d looked at her—like he saw her, and liked what he saw. She thought of that single kiss they’d shared, of the way his fingers had skimmed her waist, the heat of his palm at the small of her back. She wished, more than anything, that she’d been braver that night. That she’d said yes when she’d had the chance to say it.