In a clearing deep in the thickly forested slopes of Glen Durie, I faced off to my attacker.
All in black tactical gear, he raised a handgun and pointed it directly at my chest. Then, with menacing ease, he flicked off the safety.
“What are you going to do?” he growled.
Sweat dripped down my face and into my short beard, the summer sun strong even for Scotland, and I subtly shifted my weight so I was on the balls of my feet. Tiny movements so not to telegraph my intent.
To stay alive, I needed that gun in my possession and the man immobilised.
“Wait—” I started.
A deflection.
With practiced reflexes, I shot out my left hand and grabbed the weapon, simultaneously hitting and buckling his wrist with my right.
Oh, and swerving my body out of the line of fire.
The gun boomed, a shot discharged, just before I forced the barrel to face the assailant—a tactic to get him to give it up.
It worked. I danced back, the revolver now mine. I trained it on the man then threw a fast glance down my body.
No marks.
This time, I’d survived.
“Better,” Jack announced. He’d dropped to the ground to show his submission. “Now what?”
I raised the weapon, acting out smacking it into his temple.
“Dead.” From the edge of the clearing, Max sang his bet.
I tilted my head. “That would knock him out.”
“I’m with Max,” Lochie said from his lean against a tree, my dog rolling in pine needles on the ground beside him. “Ye don’t put yourself at risk of role reversal. If he gets the gun back, he won’t hesitate.”
Jack pointed at Lochie. “What he said. You’re thinking about this with too cool a head, Cameron. If you ever go up against a gunman again, it won’t be in a controlled environment. It’ll be a surprise, and you need to train your instincts to protect yourself, not just attack. Disarm, then fire or get away. Let’s take it from the top.”
For a day per week over the past three months, we’d drilled in defence techniques. Jack’s deadly teachings had me growing in confidence. We’d even spent time at a shooting range. I’d handled a shotgun, though it had fucked with my head.
Here with a pretend weapon, I had no such problems.
Jack took back the fake gun—one that shot paint pellets to mark where a bullet would’ve torn into me—and gestured for me to try again. “This time, lad, get angry first.”
I squinted at him.
Jack rolled his hands. “I need you pissed off. What was the last thing that caused you to fly into a rage?”
That was easy. Elise had.
Or, rather, her belief that I’d sold her out.
Add to that the person who’d taken a photo of her in that intimate moment, one that had been branded on my mind as the single most erotic scene of my life, and then shared with the fucking world.
Her expression as she’d smashed up my car. The pain that little lunatic had been in.
At the time, I’d had no clue why she was acting that way.
But after…
Anger and hurt built in a steady rolling wave.
“Oh fuck,” Max quipped from the side. “He’s flipping out. It’s the lass, aye?”
Max was the only person who knew what Elise had done. Even Isobel, whose garage I’d driven to and paid to replace the windows, didn’t know the source of the damage. Max had been inside the crofthouse, though halfway to being drunk. He’d seen it all.
“Shut it, Max,” I warned.
“Make me,” he jeered, enjoying himself.
“Good. Channel that.” Jack’s instructor persona dropped.
He trained the gun on me, both hands now on the barrel. “On your knees, kid. I’m going to put a bullet through you, then I’m going to fuck your pretty girlfriend while you watch. What are you going to do about it?”
The last few words were his key to prompt me to take action.
Instead, my mind leapt to a different scene. One where I was protecting a woman. Elise. I’d failed her with the photographer on the estate.
At my hesitation, Jack advanced a step. “Come the fuck on, prick.”
Right.
I snapped out my left and grabbed the gun, swerving out of the imaginary line of the bullet. But instead of following it up with my right hand taking the top of the gun, above Jack’s grip, I encircled his wrist.
A mistake.
We wrestled for a second, and he angled the gun back at me, regaining control.
Bang.
A splat of yellow powder hit my t-shirt.
Groans sounded from Lochie and Max. I dropped on my arse in the forest floor.
“Dead,” Jack confirmed. “You forgot your technique. It happens under pressure. You’re stronger than me, Cameron. Over two decades younger. All you need is to keep your head.”
In a move fuelled by irritation and the ever-present memory of Elise, I leapt up. “Again,” I demanded.
Jack gave an evil smile of approval then raised his gun one more time.
Late the following afternoon, my emergency radio blared with a mountain rescue alert. Lochie was away for a few days, so I was on point. My heart sped. In short order, I took the message and rallied the crew, jumping into my car to head to the hangar, my dog at my side.
Life had been restored.
My days were filled with work, call-outs took me out into the hills with regularity, and I packed my free time with training. Physio had improved the range of movement in my shoulder. Peace had been restored.
Except I was anything but chill.
That buzz of disquiet I’d felt in the spring hadn’t faded. If anything, it had worsened. I couldn’t settle. At all. And I had no clue what to do about it.
Maybe another trip out with Max would help.
At the hangar, Gordain hailed me. “Cameron, do ye have a minute?”
A group of mountain rescue volunteers including Maddock hustled in and passed me, into the operations room where our equipment store waited.
I pointed at them. “Had a call. After?”
The older man lifted his chin. “Come down to the castle. No matter how late, I’ll be working. It’s important.”
“See ye then.” I forced away the need to know his question and got on with the job.
In two Jeeps, I led a crew south through the Cairngorms. As rescues went, this could be a straightforward one—an eighteen-year-old man had become separated from his friends while out on a hike and lost contact—but that wasn’t always the case.
The route they’d taken—the Three Bridges trail—meandered over low-lying hills and across gravel rivers and a gorge. It was an easy hike on a beautiful, warm evening. In all likelihood, the missing person would walk in by themselves.
“Do we have details yet? Which path the party took?” I asked.
Alasdair, the twins’ da, had been talking to dispatch. He removed the phone from his ear. “It’s a lad and two lasses, out for a swim. Only two made it back to the pub where a parent was picking them up. They don’t know what happened to the missing lad.”
“He just vanished? At what point?”
Alasdair stroked his bearded chin. “They seem to be confused. Or maybe not telling the whole story. Ye know what I think? They were doing something they shouldn’t and didnae want to say.”
“What makes ye think that?”
“I know the area. The last of the three bridges is high over the water. Kids jump off it, tombstoning into the river below.”
All six of us in the Jeep stiffened. A river rescue made this infinitely more complicated. Pelvic or spinal injuries were common, which meant a helicopter out with a vacuum stretcher. All procedures I’d witnessed in the past, though never as the lead member of the service.
But that wasn’t the only source of my discomfort.
I exchanged a glance with Max. From his position in the front passenger seat, his gaze met mine. We’d been the idiot kids doing exactly that in the spring. My idea of going out with him again when I just needed a therapist, a run, sex, or whatever now seemed a stupid idea.
The swim in the loch with Elise had been a far better way of relieving stress. The moment alone with her in the bothy—though ruined by the press—had been better still.
With a rapid communication to the team in the other car, I thanked my lucky stars we hadn’t been harmed and pushed the thoughts away.
With night falling fast, we rendezvoused at the country pub, setting up a base. Inside, I located the missing person’s friends: two lasses huddled together, various adults gathered around them.
In my inner monologue, Lochie’s instruction guided me.
Family members were often a hazard on rescues. Inexperienced, they were at risk of getting hurt or injured themselves.
I pulled Alasdair aside. “Take the parents and throw a few questions at them. I need to talk to the friends.”
He did as I asked. It had been a strange transition moving from youngster in awe of my big strong uncles to being their team leader on call-outs with the mountain rescue service, but no one questioned me. I’d stepped up, trained hard, and gained respect as a peer.
I had to nip my wilder instincts in the bud.
At the table in front of me, the two young women peered up, eyes red-rimmed and expressions bleak.
I leaned on the table and tried to gentle my expression. “I’m Cameron, and it’s my job to find your friend today.”
“Why are ye all in here?” One of the lasses flipped a hand at the door. “It’s dark now. Tam’s out there and lost. He needs help.”
“I need ye to answer me honestly, then we’ll get out and find him. Where exactly did ye last see him?”
She threw a glance at her friend, a pale woman with a pixie haircut. “We’d been swimming in the river just down from Morr bridge. We’d got out and dried off, but Tam stayed in by himself. I wanted to go and called for him, but he didn’t answer. We searched, but he’d vanished.”
“What time was this?”
“About half seven.”
An hour ago. “What was he wearing?”
“Only his boxer shorts. We left his clothes by the river in case he came back.”
“Give me his full name?”
She glowered. “Ye have all this already. We told the police.”
“Humour me.”
“Tam Thomson.”
“How old?”
“Eighteen,” she growled.
I switched my gaze to the other woman. “How do ye know him?”
“From school,” she stammered.
“Did ye all swim or just him?”
“All of us, but it was too cold to stay in.”
“How many times did he jump off the bridge before ye lost sight of him?”
“It was the third. Wait…” The lass reddened, and her eyes widened.
Fuck. Alasdair had called it perfectly.
I pushed away, needing to move. “So Tam jumped from Morr bridge, went under the water, and ye didn’t see him again? Is that the full of it?”
Pixie-hair hung her head. “Aye.”
My thudding heart raced.
We now knew he’d gone into the water hard and not resurfaced in sight of his friends.
We needed that helicopter. A greater number to our search party.
I had to get alongside that river. I’d left Ellie in the car while we set up, but right now, we needed to mobilise and she, plus the heli, would be our best bet for rescuing the lost man.
Alive or otherwise.
I thanked the women for their account and strode outside. With haste, we organised into teams, planned our target areas, and left the pub’s grounds. In her harness with flashing lights, Ellie kept tight to my heels, delighted to be out and waiting for her order to search.
The bright lights of the crew’s headlamps and torches lit the riverside path. We found the bridge and Tam’s pile of clothes, right where the women had left it.
I shone a light down at the rushing water, the river full despite the season. Though the mission drove me, I pictured myself jumping like that. I couldn’t blame Tam for wanting to have fun.
“Heli’s on its way,” Alasdair reported.
“Grand. Let’s do this.”
In practiced motions, my teams set out. The river branched a half mile downstream, so we divided our resources. In many rescues, Max and I acted as the advanced party, taking the quickest route to the most likely place the casualty would be. In this circumstance, Tam would’ve almost certainly been swept downriver. It had been over an hour so he’d be stuck, or badly hurt and unable to get himself out.
I didn’t dwell on the other scenario: that he’d met a worse fate. That kind of thinking sapped energy.
Now unleashed, Ellie bounded ahead. Max and I jogged, calling for Tam. Behind us, and from the right side of the water, others echoed our yells. A more methodical team would check the weeds alongside the bank, maybe even a boat team later, but we were operating under the assumption that he was alive and therefore we needed to find him fast.
“Tam,” Max shouted. “Call out if ye can hear us.”
Our lights sliced over the path and the river.
Again and again, we called, keeping a steady pace over the rough ground.
The river curved then split, breaking me away from half my team. My target zone was ahead. The river narrowed here but deepened, too.
“Tam!” I bellowed. “Shout out. We’re here to help ye.”
No answer came. Nothing but the rushing of water and the light wind in the tree-heavy banks.
Ellie barked.
I caught my breath. That was her alert. Max gripped my shoulder, and the two of us closed in on her, taking care on the uneven barely there path. The bank merged with the forest, fallen trees, and washed up logs littering the river’s edge.
“What have ye found?” I asked.
My dog kept up her barking, her nose pointing in the direction she wanted me to see. Max lifted the powerful flashlight he’d been carrying, and I peered into the gloom.
He swept the beam in long lines, and we clambered down to the rocks. Shadows chased over the detritus at the edge of the river.
Then it fell on a white face and a hand, clutching a log.
“Got him,” Max said on a breath.
The man’s eyes were closed, his body hidden in the water.
My pulse raced.
I turned fast to Ellie and ruffled her fur, taking the treat I had stashed in my pocket as her reward. The game for her was up, but it had only just started for us.
“Tam Thomson.” I stepped into the shallows, the water rushing over my boots. Ten feet of river lay between me and him, my footing unstable. “Tam, can ye hear me?”
“Aye,” came a small crackle of a reply.
Thank fuck.
Alive.
“Report this in. Keep the light on him,” I ordered Max.
He made the call, and I waded in deeper. The current tugged at my legs, cold water filling my clothes. I hesitated, considering my own safety. If I could reach Tam without a rope, getting him out would be easier.
Then again, he hadn’t managed it himself.
“I’m Cameron. You’re going to be fine. Talk to me. Are ye in any pain?”
“My hip hurts. I cannae use my leg,” Tam managed. Pain laced his voice.
“Is that from your jump into the water?”
“Aye. I passed out, I think.”
Christ, he was lucky he hadn’t drowned.
“How good is your grip on that log?”
“Naw sure. Get me out.”
“Heli’s incoming in ten,” Max called. “Full medical evac, aye?”
He’d heard Tam’s words then read my mind. The likely scenario was that Tam had damaged his pelvis, or worse, his spine. Moving him from the cold water introduced the risk of injuring him further.
“We need more people here, and the heli’ll need somewhere to land,” I replied and turned back to Tam. “You’re going to be just fine,” I repeated.
“I’m so tired,” he moaned.
Time pressed into me. This was going to be tricky.
“Here,” called more of my team, arriving at the bank with heavy rucksacks of equipment. Maddock and Alasdair with Lennox and Brodie.
They’d look to me to command this, and I had to make my choices fast.
For a moment, I let the fear of fucking this up wash through me. I’d rolled people off the hill countless times on a stretcher but never plucked a person from the water.
If I made an error, either in practice or judgement…
No. That wasn’t going to happen. I had experienced people here and enough strength to save this man.
The fear passed, and I refocused. “Maddock, I need ye in the water with me. Max, ye, too. Alasdair, get that heli down as close as ye can. Lennox, Brodie, be ready with the stretcher.”
Bringing equipment, the first two men joined me, wading in knee-deep without hesitation. In the past couple of months, Maddock had taken a number of advanced training courses with me. Max was my rapid responder, and I trusted his strength. Both twins would work together in the moment.
Lochie tended to separate them. As his brothers-in-law, he wanted to keep the peace. Now wasn’t the time for their spat.
In quick sentences, I talked through my plan. We had to stabilise Tam’s position with a spinal board, bind him in the sheet then get him onto the mattress. Once out of the water, it was plain sailing. We’d inflate the mattress and carry him to the heli that chopped the air overhead, lowering by the second.
But there was nothing so nerve-racking as holding someone else’s life in your hands.
“Tam, keep talking to me. We’re going to get ye out.”
He gave a grunt of a reply, weaker now.
I had to get behind him before he let go.
Maddock held the board, and the three of us moved closer, our headlamps cutting into the murky water. Branches tangled under the surface, piled up by the current and littering our way.
“That log’s an issue.” Under his helmet, Maddock frowned at the thick branch Tam clung to. “If we try and pull him over it, it’ll twist him. Can’t go around it either, it’s too cluttered.”
“What are ye thinking?”
“Get him secured then move the log away. We can guide him closer to shore.”
“Max, do ye agree?”
My friend’s mouth fixed in a flat line, his expression hard, but he nodded once at Maddock’s suggestion.
We eased in waist-deep, and I stepped over the log barrier and edged around Tam. River water filled my jumpsuit, but the chill barely touched me, the weak state of the man we’d come to save driving adrenaline into my blood.
“I’m going to support your head and take your weight. When I say, let go of the log.”
Tam fluttered his eyelids but couldn’t reply.
With care, I reached under him and slid my hands under his neck, fingers wide on both sides until I supported his head with my forearms.
The current tugged at me. I locked my muscles to hold still.
Max took position at Tam’s shoulder, providing support.
“Tam, we’ve got ye. Let go. Maddock, careful as ye can, get the log away.”
Tam obeyed, either by hearing me or because his strength failed. Max and I floated him away, keeping his position.
Maddock tugged at the weighty branch, strain obvious across his features. “Fuck, this is a heavy bastard. Back up a couple of feet. There’s more underwater. I dinna want to swipe ye as I raise it.”
We did, and I swapped glances at Tam’s pale face with the sight of Maddock hauling the huge half-tree aside. Brodie and Lennox splashed in to help, but, with a roar, Maddock hefted the log out of our path.
The way was clear.
Someone handed a collar to secure a now unconscious Tam’s neck.
The spinal board and sheet were applied.
We lifted him to the waiting stretcher.
“Got him. We fucking did it.” Maddock stood straight, dripping but happy as hell. “I’ll go in the heli. I want to see that side of it.”
“Aye, man, go.” I sat on my arse on the gravel, relief hitting me in a wave.
From the helicopter, a highly experienced medic waited. She’d take it from here. Tam was still breathing. I only hoped his injuries weren’t too great.
My teams moved around me, relief and joy in their conversation. Equipment returned to backpacks, and the party waiting at the pub had their report. His family and friends knew he was alive.
I should be buoyant. My fears removed. We’d done it. Saved the man we’d come here to find. On my watch, too.
So why did I only feel worse?
At Castle Braithar, Gordain ushered me inside and, upstairs, I took a hot shower then changed. I should be exhausted, but I only needed more. Of what, I had no clue.
When I emerged, he had his grandson on his shoulder and a meal waiting for me.
“I texted your da and told him what ye did tonight,” he informed me, his voice low so as not to startle the bairn.
My parents were away for a couple of weeks on a job.
“Better to have done that after the fact when they wouldn’t worry,” I answered.
“Aye, I waited until ye were heading back.”
We sat at the dining room table, Gordain’s laptop open with all manner of plans onscreen.
My uncle lifted Baby G to a more comfortable position and considered me. “In a couple of days, we leave for the States. Leo has two days of festival gigs back to back followed by interviews and promotion shite. Viola and this little man are going, too. Come with us.”
I stalled in my mouthful.
Gordain continued. “Ye told me no last time I asked, but I need another person I’d trust with Leo’s life. Trust with my daughter and this bairn’s life. You’ve been training in the exact skill set I need. The pay is excellent, and what will ye be doing here? Lochie will be home tomorrow. Take some time out and broaden your horizons.”
In my job on the land, I’d worked solidly through summer. No matter my reasons for staying close to home, I was due a break.
More, it could help the demons in my head that wouldn’t let me settle.
Except… “Ye know why I’ll always live on the estate.”
“This is for a week, tops. I’m naw asking ye to abandon your family, or take risks I wouldn’t take myself. What did ye do tonight?” He changed tack.
“My job.”
“More. Ye took charge of an entire rescue service—a job ye told me ye were too young to do. Ye have no idea of your capabilities.”
I shrugged, my cheeks warm.
“Max is coming,” Gordain added. “I asked him earlier and he agreed. Say yes.”
I had no choice.
Staying here, I’d go mad. But going there… Elise was booked in to perform with Leo. Neither had cancelled, though Leo had given her the option.
This time would be different. I wouldn’t be there for her. She’d come and go, and we’d barely see each other.
I wouldn’t get burned.
Slowly I inclined my head. “I’ll do it,” I agreed.
