Chapter 1

chapter

one

Rylan was going to be so excited.

Rhiannon Cross smiled to herself and reached to turn up the happy pop song blasting on the radio of her rental car. She hadn't seen her brother in two long years, and the anticipation was making her antsy. He wasn't expecting her for another week, but her teaching job in Japan had ended early, so she'd flown into San Francisco and rented a car to road trip up the coast.

She couldn't resist surprising him.

The road ahead wound along the ragged cliffs of the coast while the bright California sunshine drenched the coastline in strands of gold, turning the waves below into sparkling sapphire. The sight was so breathtakingly beautiful that she could hardly believe it was real.

This, she thought, is where Rylan has been calling home.

Lucky guy.

Not that he didn't deserve it. Ry deserved beauty and contentment after the hell he'd survived.

Her smile dimmed a little at the thought, and she shook her head to clear away the melancholy. Rylan was better now. He was no longer the broken, shattered husk of a human being he'd been when he returned from the SEALs without his arm. Now, he was a pillar of strength for those who had seen the worst life had to offer. He was a beacon of hope, a symbol of resilience. Through his own hardship, he had found a way to guide others through their dark times.

She was so damn proud of him.

She could already visualize him standing on the porch of his cabin, his prosthetic arm glinting in the sunlight, those expressive eyes of his crinkling at the corners as he spied her car pulling up the gravel driveway. He'd probably be wearing that worn-out plaid shirt he refused to part with, sleeves rolled up to reveal the colorful sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. His thick, golden brown hair would likely be a rebellious mess, as usual, the wild waves of it not quite tamed by any attempts to comb it. His lips would twist into that smile that filled any room with warmth, his arms opening wide for a hug.

She couldn't wait. She missed that hug, the solidness of him, the security of his presence. It had been too long, far too long since she last felt the reassurance of her brother's embrace. After all of her wandering, she was ready to be home, to feel that comforting familiarity again.

A sign ahead caught her eye, and she grinned. It was for one of those hokey, tourist-trap rest stops promoting a literal "hole in the wall" gift shop built into a cliff. She loved stuff like that and followed the sign off the highway. A quick stop wouldn't hurt. She needed to stretch her legs, and—she eyed the giant iced coffee that sat mostly empty in her cup holder—she wouldn't hate another bathroom break.

The rest stop looked like every other one she'd ever been to—a combination of kitschy charm and commercial exploitation designed to appeal to travelers like her. Weathered wooden picnic tables sat scattered around a grassy area overlooking the ocean. A few trees offered sparse shade, and a vending machine hummed loudly in the midday heat between the men's and women's restrooms.

But The Cliffside Curiosities gift shop was definitely unique.

Built directly into the rock face, it featured a quirky fa?ade of mismatched stones and wooden beams that made it look like something straight out of a fairy tale… if not for the colorful banners and signs that declared, "World's Best Fudge!" and "Local Artifacts and Souvenirs!"

Rhiannon grinned. It was perfect, and she couldn't wait to explore the nooks and crannies of such a charming oddity.

The parking lot was dotted with a few other cars and one tour bus, families, and weary travelers stopping for a brief respite from the monotony of the road. As she pulled into a parking space next to a green Ford Bronco, she noticed a man stumble out of the driver's seat. He looked like he was having trouble breathing, and concern rippled through her.

She shut off her car and jumped out, hurrying to his side. "Are you okay?"

He sucked in several deep breaths, then looked up at her. His eyes were hazel like her brother's, but that was where the resemblance stopped. His were almost yellow and intensely predatory. She wanted to back up a step when he scowled but held her ground.

As he gave one sharp nod and reached for the door of his car, she noticed the black dog in the Bronco. At least, she thought it was a dog. It was covered in a long, thick, corded coat that resembled a mop and had a jaunty little ponytail holding the dreadlocks out of its eyes. She'd never seen anything like it?—

But, no, that wasn't true.

She had seen a dog like it in a picture Rylan had sent her of him and his new friends. In fact, she'd seen this man with the predator's eyes, too.

"Wait, I think I know you. You're Pierce St. James, right?"

He straightened like she'd poked him in the butt—a very nice butt, she couldn't help but notice—with a fire iron.

He didn't move for several heartbeats, and she wondered if he was going to pretend he hadn't heard her. Then he slowly faced her. His expression was scary blank—even a mask would have betrayed some underlying emotion. Instead, his face remained as impassively unreadable as stone while he studied her. She noted the ragged scars that marred the skin of his neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Rylan had mentioned those, too, but in person, they were so much more horrific than anything she could have imagined.

"I mean, I don't know you personally," she added quickly, heat rising into her cheeks. "I know of you from my brother. He talks about y'all all the time and sent me a picture of the team once. I recognize your dog." She nodded toward the strange-looking dog. "Raszta, right?"

The pup popped up in the window as if to say "hello!" and his tail wagged furiously, drumming against the seat. To her mind, that confirmed their identities as if Pierce himself had offered an introduction.

Pierce's hands came up. "Who are you?" he signed.

For a moment, shock flashed through her. She'd been born partially deaf and had grown up using sign language until she got hearing aids in elementary school. She still struggled sometimes, especially in loud environments, but she mostly only used ASL when teaching it nowadays.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, signing as she spoke. "I forgot Rylan said you use ASL to communicate. I'm Rhiannon, Ry's sister."

He just kept staring at her.

Raszta jumped out of the Bronco, trotting over to her with a happy jaunt in his step. She bent down to greet him, and he launched at her, enthusiastically licking at her face like they were long-lost friends reunited.

"Aww, look at you! You really do look like a mop, and a bear made a puppy." She ignored Pierce's soft growl and smushed the dog's face between her hands.

The man was scowling at them. Because, of course, he was.

She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and let Raszta give her one more lick before she ruffled his ears and stood. "Ry told me he was a unique dog."

Was she seeing things, or had Pierce's shoulders relaxed slightly? His grip had definitely loosened on the car door, and his breathing wasn't as choppy.

Good.

Raszta noticed his wagging tail and grumbled at it, spinning in wild circles as he tried to catch it. Rhiannon laughed. The dog was charming, unlike his surly owner.

She watched Pierce raise his hands, no doubt to make an excuse so he could extract himself from the conversation.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them lurched violently. Car alarms blared and panicked shouts rang out from the gift shop. A nearby telephone pole snapped like a toothpick, slamming into a parked car with a sickening crunch.

Rhiannon staggered, arms flailing for balance. Pierce reached out and grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her toward him just as the ground gave another ferocious lurch that sent them both sprawling. He curled around her, cushioning her fall, and she heard the crack of his head hitting the asphalt hard.

No. Oh, no. That didn't sound good.

She tried to get up and take her weight off him, but his hard arms only tightened around her as Raszta huddled against them, shaking with each tremor.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the earthquake stopped.

An eerie calm fell over the parking lot. The only sound was the distant wailing of car alarms and the labored breathing of Pierce beneath her. Around them, the ground was a mosaic of cracks and fissures. Dust hung in the air, dimming the sun to a ghostly haze.

"Are you okay?" Pierce signed.

Was she okay? He was the one who had just taken a nasty hit to the head, yet he was worried about her?

She blinked at him in shock before finally nodding and pushing off him.

Pierce exhaled hard and sat up, swaying slightly as he reached for his frightened dog.

She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but a subtle vibration rumbled through the ground under her. Growing up partially deaf, she had developed an acute sensitivity to vibrations. Her brows furrowed as she placed a hand flat against the cracked pavement.

Not another earthquake.

She stared up at the hill overlooking the rest stop. The whole side of it was moving, cleaving away, rolling toward them in a monstrous, billowing wave of dust and boulders.

Landslide.

"Pierce." Her voice came out hoarse. "Look at the hill."

The sound he made might as well have been a curse. He grabbed her hand, scooped up Raszta like he weighed nothing more than a football, and pulled her toward the gift shop as a deafening roar washed over them.

People were running in all directions, their frantic shrieks piercing through the rumble of cascading rocks and dirt. Pierce's grip was ironclad, pulling her along, his feet pounding on the asphalt. The world around them became a storm of dust and debris, visibility dropping to nearly zero as he shoved her into the shop. He all but threw Raszta at her, then turned back to wave a young family inside.

Just as the last of them made it in, Pierce slammed the door shut. Dust pounded against the aged glass, and Rhiannon heard the sharp crack of rocks striking it. People huddled together inside, faces pale and filled with fear.

Rhiannon stared out at the chaos and, with a sharp stab of horror, realized a small child had been left outside. The boy was screaming, his back pressed against a car as rocks tumbled around him. "Oh my God."

Pierce's gaze followed hers, and he made a sound that probably would've been a curse if he had been able to speak. Without a moment's hesitation, he bolted back out into the storm of dust and debris.

"No!" She tried to run after him but was pulled back by an older woman dressed in a blue polo shirt that looked like some kind of uniform. Probably a worker at the gift shop.

"No, hon. It's too dangerous."

"But Pierce…" she trailed off and watched as he disappeared in the billowing dust cloud. Seconds ticked by in agonizingly slow motion.

Where was he?

Finally, he reappeared with the crying boy tucked safely in his arms and sprinted back toward the door.

Her exhale of relief stalled in her lungs. A boulder as big as a truck hurtled down from the hillside, crashing into the car that the boy had been hiding behind, flattening it like it was made of tinfoil. Then it kept rolling—right toward Pierce and the little boy and the gift shop.

The woman beside her gasped and backed up. "Oh, no."

"Come on, come on," Rhiannon whispered, her heart like a jackhammer trying to drill through her chest.

At the last possible moment, Pierce threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the boulder. He rolled with the momentum, shielding the child with his body. Dust clouds billowed around them, but Pierce managed to get back up—miraculously unharmed—and race toward the building.

Rhiannon pulled the door open just as Pierce reached it. He stumbled inside and slammed the door shut again, throwing his back against it as if he could hold back the chaos outside with sheer willpower. He was panting heavily and covered in dust. But he was alive. And so was the little boy, clinging desperately to Pierce's neck as he sobbed.

Pierce dropped his cheek to the boy's head and held him tightly for a moment as if even he couldn't believe they were both alive.

She reached for him. "Pierce?—"

The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass filled the air, and he lurched away from the door, ushering her toward the back wall of the shop where the others huddled.

Nobody there claimed the boy, and Rhiannon's heart sank. Where were his parents?

Shelves of souvenirs rattled off the walls, shattering into shards of ceramic and glass. The lights flickered as dust seeped in through the cracks in the doorway, casting eerie shadows in the dim light. Above them, the untreated wooden beams that held the roof groaned under the weight of the mountainside collapsing outside. Pierce grimaced, and for a moment, Rhiannon saw a flicker of uncertainty cross his stoic expression.

Shit. If he was worried, did they have any chance of surviving this?

The lights went out.

And then all they had was the dying light filtering in through the dirty windows, the dust turning it into a sickly yellow haze. The air tasted like dirt and fear.

She thought about her brother. Would Rylan spiral into a suicidal depression again if she died? Would he lose all the progress he'd made?

And, God, her poor parents back in Kentucky. They'd already been through so much. They would?—

No. She couldn't worry about them now.

Rhiannon squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to push past the adrenaline that was making her shake all over. When she opened them again, she found Pierce staring at her, dust-caked hand outstretched toward her across the gloom.

She hesitated for only a moment before reaching back. His grip on her hand was reassuringly firm.

The tremors lessened, and finally, everything grew quiet.

Pierce turned his attention back to the sobbing boy in his arms. The kid couldn't have been older than four and was shivering violently from trauma and fear. Rhiannon watched as Pierce's hardened gaze softened just for a moment. He looked at the clinging child, and then he gently pried the boy's fingers away from his shirt. With an encouraging nod, he somehow convinced him to let go and passed the sobbing child to her.

"Shh. Sweetheart, it's okay. You're safe now." She ran her fingers through the boy's hair, whispering comforting words despite her terror. His sobs subsided to whimpers, his small body trembling in her arms. "There you go. I'm Rhiannon. What's your name?"

The boy only stared at her with watery eyes and stuck his dirty thumb in his mouth.

"I don't think he can hear."

Rhiannon looked over at the young woman who had spoken. She was college-aged, with streaky blonde hair now coated in dust.

Rhiannon returned her attention to the boy and signed, "What's your name?"

He signed back with shaky hands, "Michael."

"Hi, Michael," she signed. "I'm Rhia, and this is my friend Pierce." She looked back at the girl. "How did you know he's deaf?"

The girl eyed Pierce. He was hovering nearby, somehow looking both menacing and protective in the fading light, but she must have decided he wasn't a threat because she moved closer. "I saw him and his parents on our tour bus. They were all using sign language."

"How many people were on the tour bus?" Pierce signed, and Rhiannon translated it for the girl.

Again, she eyed him warily. "Is he deaf, too?"

He scowled at her, and she backed up a step.

"Oh. Um, I don't know. Like, maybe fifteen or twenty? We were on our way to see the redwoods."

"Are his parents here?" Rhiannon asked.

The girl scanned the small group, and Rhiannon also took the opportunity to study the people huddled along the rock walls of the gift shop. There was an older couple, a Japanese family with a teenage daughter, and another family with two young boys who looked to be twins. There was also the older woman in the gift shop's blue polo shirt, two younger people—a college-age boy and a teenage girl—wearing the same uniform, and a man who didn't appear to be part of the family units.

The girl shook her head. "I don't see them."

"What about your family?"

"They're safe in Missouri. My boyfriend was supposed to come on this trip with me." She made a face. "But he's my ex-boyfriend now because I caught him cheating. I decided I wasn't going to waste a vacation and came by myself." She stuck out a hand. "I'm Brooke."

"Rhiannon." She accepted the handshake and nodded toward Pierce. "That's Pierce."

Brooke squinted at Pierce through the dust-laden air, then refocused on Rhiannon. "Nice to meet you."

Pierce's attention shifted to the room around them. His gaze was hard, sweeping over each individual before he whistled to get her attention and motioned toward the door.

"Is it safe?" the older of the gift shop workers asked. She had a poof of gray hair, and her name tag said her name was Dorothy.

Pierce shook his head and signed, his hands moving quickly.

Rhiannon translated aloud. "The landslide—" She broke off, realizing maybe she shouldn't be translating word-for-word. She shifted to ASL and asked him, "Are we trapped?"

His lips thinned into a hard line, and he gave one short nod.

She exhaled a shaky breath and looked at the group, who were all staring at them with wide, frightened eyes. She cleared her throat. "We… we can't leave right now. The entrance is blocked."