The Way Back Home

"In ""the small California town of River Rock, the river is always there--sometimes unpredictable and wild, sometimes a source of comfort, always a part of life. Bestselling author Barbara Freethy will capture your heart with an emotional story about love, family . . . and fighting for what matters most. "

Ex-Marine Gabe Ryder is fulfilling the last request of his best friend, Rob, who was killed in a firefight during their final days of service. He promised to help Rob's family-- especially Rob's twin sister, Alicia--with their struggling river rafting business. Gabe has a hidden past with Alicia, though. She's the woman who taught him that love might exist, yet he walked away from her.

Alicia has more than enough on her plate with her brother's death, her father's injury from a tragic rafting accident, the entire town turning against them, and a series of dangerous attacks on her business. She doesn't need this rugged loner who broke her heart. But passion flares between them, and this time, they can't walk away. Alicia can't help wondering: did Rob really send Gabe to watch over her--or did he want her to show Gabe the way home?

One

We need to buy rafts, hire guides, and update the reservation software, and I have no idea where we’re getting the money to do any of that,” Alicia Hayden told her father, frustration overwhelming her as she walked across the back deck of Hayden River Adventures. The one-story building, set on the banks of Northern California’s Smoky River, was the launchpad for their world-class river-rafting adventures company. Next to the one-room office was the boatyard where they kept their rafting equipment. On the other side of the building, tucked behind the trees, was a dirt parking lot that was empty now. About a hundred yards away and up a grassy incline stood the family home.

In the spring and summer months, they rented rafts and launched day trips off the pier. For more adventurous white-water experiences, they bused their guests ten miles north for the higher-class guided rapids tours. They’d been in business for more than sixty years, and three generations of Haydens had run the company. But now their business was sinking fast, and Alicia wasn’t sure they could save it.

Her father, George Hayden, didn’t reply. Leaning heavily on his cane, he’d fixed his gaze on the wide, winding river that ran through the Sierra Nevada mountains. The late-afternoon foggy mist that had given the river its name was a little thicker than usual. While the winter rains had finally tapered off, the late-March air was cold, and luminous clouds shadowed the sun.

As a brisk wind lifted the hair off the back of her neck, Alicia shivered and wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing she’d thrown a jacket over her knit shirt and worn jeans. She’d been hunkered down in the office all afternoon, trying to find a way out of the mess they’d gotten themselves into, but there was no clear path. Rafting season would officially open in two weeks, and they weren’t even close to being ready. She needed her father to understand that, but he was living in a world of denial, believing that nothing had changed since the rafting accident six months before, since her brother’s death three weeks before. But everything had changed. Their world had turned completely upside down in less than a year.

Sadness, anger, and fear ran through her, but she couldn’t let her emotions take hold. This was the time for thinking, not feeling. She’d been trying to talk to her dad about the business since her brother’s funeral three weeks earlier, and he’d always managed to evade her. But not now, not today.

“Dad,” she prodded, stepping up to the railing next to him. “We need to talk about whether or not we can keep on going.”

He slowly turned his head. In his early sixties, her father had aged considerably in the last year. But while there was weariness in the weathered lines of his square face and more white than gray in his rapidly thinning hair, he still had some fight in his eyes.

“We’ve never missed an opening day, and we won’t start now, Alicia,” he said.

She sighed. “We need more than just a ‘can-do’ attitude, Dad. We need money and manpower, and we don’t have either.”

“We’ll get the money, and we’ll find some guides. We have time.”

“Very little.”

“We’ll figure it out. This is our family business, a business that will one day go to Justin. You don’t want to jeopardize your son’s future, do you?”

“His future is exactly what I’m worried about. I’m afraid our family business will take every last penny we have and still fail, and then where will we be? I need to make sure I can send Justin to college.”

“He’s nine years old, Alicia.”

“Almost ten, and I should be saving now. I’m a single mother, so it’s up to me.”

“Being a single mother was your choice,” he said with a frown.

She wasn’t about to get into that old conversation. “We’re getting off track.”

“Bill already got us some rafts. We just have to pick them up tomorrow.”

Bill ran the local hardware store and was one of her father’s best friends, but he was also one of her father’s enablers, continuing to tell him that he would be back on the river any day now, when the doctors were saying the opposite.

“Dad, we need to face reality.” She drew in a deep breath, then plunged ahead with words that needed to be said. “People have to trust us to keep them safe, and they don’t anymore. They don’t want us to reopen. They want us to shut our doors for good.”

Her father’s face paled. “Once we get back on the river, the trust will come back. We’ve had one accident in sixty years. It’s a damn good record. And it wasn’t our fault.”

Fault was debatable, but she wasn’t going to get into that. “Wild River Tours is breathing down our necks. They’re a national company with a sophisticated Web site, and they want our rivers, our runs. How will we compete with corporate money?”

“We’ll find a way. I’m not afraid of them. We know the river better than anyone, and we’ve always made our money on it. The river gives us life.”

“And sometimes it takes it away,” she reminded him.

It wasn’t only her father who had been hurt last year. A local man, twenty-nine-year-old Brian Farr, had lost his life when one of their rafts flipped over, and she’d come close to drowning herself. Another chill ran through her at the memory of those terrifying moments.

“Let’s go inside,” she said abruptly. “It’s getting cold.”

“In a minute.” He turned his gaze back to the water. “She tested us, that’s all, wanted to know if we were worthy.”

“We weren’t.”

“We will be next time.” Her father raised his fist to the river. “I’ll give you another run for your money. You can’t take me down.”

Her father often spoke of the river as if it were a woman. Her mother had complained on more than one occasion that George was more married to the river than he was to her. It was probably why she’d left when Alicia was twelve years old; Margaret Hayden just couldn’t take coming in second.

Distracted by the sound of barking, Alicia turned her head as Justin, her nine-year-old son, came running up the steps of the back deck, followed by Sadie, their very excited golden retriever.

“Grandpa, look,” he said. “I finished Uncle Rob’s boat.”

Her son held up a model boat that he’d been working on. Her brother had sent Justin the kit a few months earlier. It was a project they’d planned to do together when Rob got out of the Marines. But Rob had been killed in action on the other side of the world six days before he would have completed his service. Just six days, and then he would have been safe. She couldn’t get the bitter taste of injustice out of her mouth.

They’d taken one hit after another in the past few months, and she couldn’t quite get her feet under her. But she pretended she was coping, because that’s what her family needed her to do.

“I did it all by myself,” Justin added as he let his grandfather inspect the boat.

With his sandy brown hair, freckled cheeks, and blue eyes beaming with pride, Justin looked a lot like her twin brother. She and Rob had shared blue eyes but not much else. Her hair was golden blond, her skin tanned instead of freckled, and she’d never made it past five foot five, while her brother had topped the family at six foot three. Her heart ached as Rob’s smiling face flashed through her mind. Whenever she thought of her brother, she thought of his big toothy grin, his goofy personality. He’d been the bright, shining light of their family, and now everything seemed darker.

“Good job,” her father told Justin.

“Can I try her out, Mom?” He turned to her with a plea in his eyes.

“It’s getting late. You have homework, and I have dinner to make,” she said. “We’ll do it tomorrow.”

His face fell. “But Mom—”

“Why don’t you let him try it out?” her father cut in. “Homework can wait.”

It was difficult to face down the two of them, and she was reminded of many other times when her father had gotten Rob or Justin to side against her. It hadn’t been easy being the only female in a house full of males. Her dad was a guy’s guy, and Rob had been the same. While she’d grown up more tomboy than girlie girl, she was still a woman. Right now, she was a really annoyed, tired, frustrated, overwhelmed woman with a million things on her to-do list.

So why did she hear herself saying “Fine” when what she really wanted to say was no?

Justin led the charge to the edge of the riverbank, her father following far more slowly. As Justin knelt down to launch his boat, she heard the phone ring in the office.

“Go get it,” her father said. “I’ll watch Justin.”

She ran back into the office and grabbed the phone. It was Keith Andrews, the man she’d been seeing for the last few months. Keith and his ten-year-old son, David, had moved to town in September, just in time for the start of the school year. Keith was a history teacher and a soccer coach at the local high school, and David was in Justin’s grade. The two boys had become fast friends, and in turn, she and Keith had discovered a connection, too.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been much of a girlfriend in the last few weeks.

“I finally tracked you down,” Keith said. “I’ve been trying your cell phone all day.”

“I forgot to charge it. Sorry.”

“You do that a lot lately, Alicia.”

She did do that a lot—maybe because there were very few people she actually wanted to talk to. And the people she wanted to talk to didn’t call. “What’s up?”

“I heard that it’s your birthday on Sunday. Something you neglected to mention. I’d like to take you out to dinner.”

Another reason she’d been lazy about recharging her phone. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m not up for celebrating.”

“Justin wants you to have a party.”

“I know, but the thought of celebrating my birthday without Rob is unthinkable. I’d like to skip the day entirely.”

“I understand. Here’s another thought. Why don’t I take Justin off your hands? The boys have been asking for a sleepover. Sunday night seems perfect.”

“Really? It is a school night.”

“I’ll get them to school, don’t worry. I want to do something for you, Alicia. And I can do that.”

It would be nice not to have to pretend to be happy in front of her son. “That does sound tempting. Why don’t you and David come over for dinner tonight? We’ll make plans for the weekend. The Spring Festival starts on Saturday, and I know Justin and David are interested in entering some of the contests.” The sound of barking and yelling drew her attention away from the phone. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later, okay?”

Hanging up the phone, she walked quickly out of the office, across the deck, and down the stairs. Her father was a few yards away, by an outcropping of rocks. Sadie was barking up a storm, and Justin—

Adrenaline raced through her body. Justin was stretched out on his stomach on a large boulder, trying to snag his runaway boat from the river current.

“Justin, get down!” she yelled, glaring at her father as she ran past him. “Why did you let him go up on the rocks? They’re unstable and off-limits.”

“He got up there before I could stop him.”

She doubted her father had even tried. His favorite line was “Boys should be boys.” “Get down, Justin,” she commanded. “You know you’re not supposed to be up there.”

“We have to get the boat!” Justin yelled. “It’s Uncle Rob’s. We can’t lose it!”

She saw the panic on his face and the fear that he would lose the last gift his uncle had given him.

“I’ll get it,” she said decisively. “You climb down from there right now. And do it carefully.”

She kicked off her shoes, rolled up her jeans to her knees, and grabbed the longest stick she could find, then waded into the river. Her heart skipped a beat as the cold water hit her feet, the current swirling around her ankles. She drew in a quick, sharp breath, unexpected fear shocking her into stillness. She knew how to swim. She knew this river like the back of her hand. There was nothing to be afraid of—but she couldn’t seem to move.

She could hear Justin yelling at her that the boat was getting away. Sadie barked even louder. Her father was shouting something, but nothing was clear beyond the pounding of her heart. She hadn’t been in the river since that day six months earlier, that day she’d gone under again and again and again, struggling to find a foothold, something to grab on to—

A sudden splash next to her brought her head around. A man was wading into the river, heading straight toward Justin’s boat. The water was up to his waist by the time he reached the boat. He grabbed it, half walking, half swimming his way back to shore. When he reached her, he grabbed her by the arm, and she was shocked again, this time by the strength of his grip.

Gazing into his dark eyes, her heart skipped another beat. His thick curly brown hair, rough-edged features, strong jaw, dark eyes, and five o’clock shadow were very familiar. Gabe Ryder.

She’d been expecting him to come ever since Rob’s death. She’d rehearsed over and over the things she wanted to say to him, the questions she wanted to ask. Now that he was here, she couldn’t speak.

“Let’s go,” he said, dragging her toward the shore.

Under his grip, she stumbled onto the bank. As soon as her feet hit solid ground, she yanked her arm away. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Saving you,” he said.

“I didn’t need saving. I was fine.”

“You didn’t look fine.”

Justin came running over, her father and the dog not far behind.

“Is this yours?” Gabe asked, handing Justin the boat.

“You got it,” Justin said with reverence. “Thank you.”

“Good job,” her father said approvingly. “Didn’t think Alicia was going to make it out there in time.”

“I was just about to go after it,” she protested, hating that they’d seen her momentary hesitation. Her dad had always been tough on her, treating her like a son instead of a daughter. Be tough, be strong, don’t cry, he’d always told her. Today she hadn’t been as strong as she’d needed to be, and it infuriated her. “Where the hell did you come from, anyway?” she demanded.

“Your house,” Gabe said. “I rang the bell, but no one answered. I heard voices and the dog barking, so I came down here.”

“I mean, why are you here now? The funeral was three weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he said. “It was unavoidable.”

“Alicia,” her father interrupted, a quizzical look in his eyes. “Why don’t you introduce us?”

“You’ve met him before,” she snapped. “This is Gabe Ryder, Rob’s best friend. The man who was supposed to be watching his back. The man who let Rob get killed.”

Gabe paled under his dark tan, but he didn’t deny her words. Instead, he turned to her father. “Mr. Hayden, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“I remember you now, of course,” her father said with a contemplative nod. “You spent Christmas with us a few years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

“Not a problem. It’s good to see you again.”

“Rob spoke very highly of you,” George continued. “I think your name came up in just about every e-mail.”

“Rob was a great guy, the best,” Gabe said. Turning to Justin, he added, “I don’t know if you remember me, Justin. You were a lot shorter when I saw you last.”

Justin gave Gabe an uncertain look. “I kind of remember you. How come you let Uncle Rob die if you were his friend?”

An awkward silence followed his question. For a moment, Alicia regretted her impulsive comment, but she couldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to take it back. S...