Читать книгу The Virgin and Zach Coulter - Lois Dyer Faye - Страница 7

“Hey, Zach, the phone’s for you!”

Zach Coulter laid his cards facedown on the down-filled sleeping bag and stood. Outside the sturdy tent, the wind moaned and tugged at the corners and tie-lines while a half-moon cast silver light and shadows over the Mount Everest base camp.

“Don’t look at my cards,” he warned his two companions, grinning at their four-letter-word responses as he crossed the tent and took the satellite receiver from the team leader. “Hello?”

“Zach, it’s Angela.”

“What’s up? Everything okay?” Zach tensed, a frown creasing his forehead.

Static crackled on the line, but then his assistant reassured him with her usual crisp, no-nonsense tone. “Your brother Cade has been calling. I told him you weren’t reachable until you descended to base camp, but I promised to keep trying to contact you.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know—he didn’t say. All he would tell me is that he needs to talk to you.”

“I’ll call him,” he told her.

“How was the summit?” Angela asked.

“High. And cold. And snowy,” Zach said drily. “I notice you didn’t ask if I made it to the top.”

“Of course not,” she said with cool confidence. “I’ve never known you to fail. We’ll have champagne when you get back to the office, boss.”

Zach laughed. “You’re buying, right?”

“Absolutely. The grocery store carries bubbly.”

Zach groaned and his assistant laughed, her amusement clear despite the intermittent static. After she’d assured him there were no other urgent matters at the office, they said goodbye and hung up.

It took a few moments to place the call from the satellite phone in Nepal to Cade’s cell phone back in the States.

“Cade, it’s Zach.”

“Where the hell have you been, Zach?” Cade’s deep voice demanded. Once again, the line crackled with interference.

“Climbing Mount Everest in Nepal,” Zach told him without missing a beat, amused at his older brother’s growl. “We made it to the top and are on our way down. At the moment, I’m in a tent at base camp.”

“Good to know you survived,” Cade said. “There’s no easy way to say this, Zach.” His voice was suddenly solemn, grim. “The old man died. He left the Triple C to you, me, Eli and Brodie. I’m in Indian Springs and I need you to come home.”

“Hell.” Zach was stunned and barely aware he spoke aloud as he tried to get his head around Cade’s words. Joseph Coulter was gone—and his sons were his heirs? How was that possible? He shook his head to clear it, focusing on his brother’s last sentence. “I always said I’d never go back there, Cade, but if you need me, I’m on my way. Have you talked to Eli and Brodie?”

“I left a message on Eli’s machine asking him to call me but I haven’t heard from him. And I have no idea where the hell Brodie is. The last phone number I had for him isn’t good anymore. Have you heard from him over the last six to eight months?”

Zach frowned, trying to recall. “No, I think it’s been more like ten months. Last I remember, he was still on the road following the rodeo circuit. We talked about meeting up in Oregon this summer to go white water rafting and fly-fishing on the Rogue River.”

“Damn.” Cade’s disappointment carried clearly over the line, as if he were standing in the tent with Zach instead of thousands of miles away. “I was hoping you’d talked to him.”

“We’ll find him, Cade,” Zach said. “None of us ever goes a year without checking in. If he and Eli haven’t called you before I reach Indian Springs, I’ll have Angela start searching, too.” His assistant was as reliable as a bloodhound at tracking down information. “I’ll head out as soon as I can. First, I have to get off the mountain and there’s a storm kicking up so just leaving Nepal might take a while.”

“All right. Let me know if you need a ride from the airport. And Zach …” Cade paused, his voice rougher, deeper when he continued. “I’m glad you’re coming home.”

“It’ll be good to see you, Cade,” Zach told him, his voice quiet. “It’s been too long. And don’t worry about Eli and Brodie—we’ll find them.”

“Right. See you soon.”

And Cade hung up.

Zach switched off the satellite phone and frowned, staring unseeingly at the black plastic. He hadn’t seen his father since he and his brothers left the Triple C ranch thirteen years earlier. He hadn’t had any contact at all with Joseph Coulter—and he’d been fine with that, relieved even. So why did he feel a wave of sadness at the news that his father was gone?

A swift mental image of Joseph’s furious face the morning he’d left was quickly replaced by the same face, warm with affection, before Zach’s mother died.

That’s why I feel sad, Zach thought. Because there was a time when life on the Triple C was good.

But the good times ended for her family when Melanie Coulter died. Joseph became a different man—a man who hated his sons and blamed them for her death.

Zach shoved the painful emotions deep and forced himself to focus. He couldn’t do anything to change the past. He had to deal with the present. His mind raced as he considered the logistics necessary to leave the Asian continent and return to Montana.

And the home he’d left behind years ago.

“What’s the weather report for tomorrow, Ajax?” he asked, turning to the team leader. “I need to get off the mountain. Now.”