“The bar.” He waited for her to continue.
“You need to be there for the opening. Which is in five days.” She glanced sideways at him and he nodded to confirm her statement. “If we push on harder today and reach the section where the trail splits, we can check it out and then, if we don’t find any more chips or other proof Karl went that way, we have a couple more days to explore the rest of the trail as far as the next village.”
“Your point?” O’Malley asked.
“My point is that you have given up more of your valuable time than you should. The bar is your business and you have other people who depend on you and depend on it being a success.” She scraped the last of the oatmeal out of her bowl and her spoon hovered in the air as she said, “In three days, if we still haven’t found Karl, you should ask Kelos to come and pick us up.”
“You mean to abandon the search?” O’Malley asked. “I am willing to see this through to the end with you.” He winced. “Sorry, that’s a poor choice of words.”
“No, you’re right, there has to be an end to this.” She looked up at the mountain above them as she ate the last of her food.
“We could come back.” He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “As many times as you want.”
Hannah nodded and leaned forward. Pressing her lips against his, she kissed him. O’Malley longed to take her back to bed and chase all thoughts of Karl from her head. Just for a while. To give her respite from the challenges ahead.
“Let’s not make any decisions until we have exhausted our time here.” She curled her fingers around his and squeezed them. “We should go.”
“We should.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek before he got up and busied himself breaking camp. With the fire safely extinguished and their gear packed away, he glanced up at the gunmetal gray sky before they made their way back to the trail.
As they walked, they both kept a close watch out for more piles of rocks or any other signs that Karl might have left one of his poker chips. However, it seemed unlikely he would just leave them in haphazard places. So far, he’d left them in specific places.
They stopped briefly to eat lunch before they hiked to the section of the trail that was possibly blocked when Karl made this journey. As they walked, they were both lost in their own thoughts, the quiet of the mountain turning them to both look inward.
O’Malley thought about his life up to this point. Of the many paths he could have taken. Of the choices he’d made that had led him to open the bar and his decision to move to Cougar Ridge. All those small minute steps had meant he was there on the fateful day when his mate needed him.
One small deviation might have meant the difference between him meeting Hannah and never finding his mate. As they reached the section of the trail, O’Malley couldn’t help but see the similarities between the path Karl had taken and his own.
If Karl had found the trail blocked by a landslide, he could have chosen to go back or find a way around. If he’d gone back, he would have no doubt ended up at O’Brian’s door once more and would have gone back to his old life. A life he didn’t want. A life he’d come here to change.
Whatever Karl’s decision was, at this very point his life did change.
“Are we going to follow the trail or try to go around?” Hannah asked, her voice small in the vastness of the mountain around them.
O’Malley turned to look at his mate. She looked tired, her features pinched as she stared at the trail before them. “Both the search party and O’Brian and Elvie took the main trail.” He pointed to their right. “But they might have missed the poker chips.” He pointed to their left where a small game track was barely visible. “But did Karl decide to follow this trail made by the animals that live on the mountain? They would have found the easiest route around the landslide.”
“Karl came here to change his life. If it were me, I would see the blocked trail as a sign. A sign that he should take a different path.” She put her hands on her hips and sighed. “But I’m not Karl. He could have seen the blocked trail as one he had to conquer. That the mountain was testing him to see if he dared to overcome the obstacles life puts in front of us.”
O’Malley took out his water bottle and sat down on the edge of the trail. “Both valid points. We have no real idea of what Karl chose to do.”
“What would you do?” Hannah asked.
“Me?” O’Malley shrugged. “I don’t think I am the best person to make the choice.”
“You’re similar to Karl. You are a similar age, you served your country, you’ve been single and yet wanting a family.” Hannah was looking to him for help. He’d seen the same look in the eyes of people caught up in a war zone. All looking for answers, for help out of their current predicament.
But O’Malley didn’t have all the answers. “There’s no right or wrong answer here, Hannah. Neither of us can step into Karl’s shoes and know for sure what he was thinking.” He held out his hand. “Let’s take the left fork. If we don’t find any clues, we’ll come back and explore the right fork.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Hannah took one last lingering look at the right fork before she followed him to the left. The game trail was narrow and difficult to follow. He figured once the normal trail had been cleared, the new trail was abandoned. The elements would slowly wash the trail away and the moss and grass that clung to the
