From the book

Chapter One

Bundled tightly against the cold, the young couple lay on an outcropping over the Catoctin River, looking up at the cloudless sky, and wondering which of the countless millions of stars was truly the one that delivered wishes.

"You asleep?" Bobby whispered.

"Not yet." Susan's throat still sounded thick.

He pulled his bride of five years even closer and kissed the top of her head. "Happy anniversary."

Susan snuggled in, burying her face in his jacket.

The calendar had lied. After such a brutal winter, he liked to think that April would have brought warmer temperatures. Out here in the mountains, though, where West Virginia reached closest to God, the air still smelled of February. He'd never been so ready for spring.

This wasn't at all how he'd planned it. The spot was perfect, yes; and the night beautiful, but he'd hoped the sadness would have dulled by now. There had to be a way to make the pain go away. There had to be. If he were a better husband, he'd know what it was. Susan's thick brown hair -- invisible in the darkness -- felt warm and soft against his hand as he gently massaged lazy circles on her scalp. She liked it when he did that.

"We'll just try again," he whispered, hoping she didn't hear the tremor in his voice. "And again, if we have to. And again and again and again."

Susan just burrowed her head deeper. Her anguish felt like razor blades in Bobby's gut. He pursed his lips and stared at the sky, desperately trying to hide the little hitch in his breathing. His role required strength. If she sensed that dimples had formed in his armor of optimism, he wasn't sure how either of them would hold up.

They'd come so close last time; they'd let themselves believe. As much as he craved children, Bobby wasn't sure he could handle the cycle of hope and disaster anymore. He wasn't sure that anyone could. His tear tracks turned cold quickly in the night air.

It had been a week since the doctor had pronounced Susan's internal plumbing to be healthy and normal, and this was to be their weekend of healing. The tears were all a part of it, he supposed, as was the pain, but he worried about the anger. Sometimes when he was alone -- only when he was alone -- he raged about the injustice of it all, cursing God and Susan and himself for denying them the one blessing that would make their marriage whole. The anger ate at him sometimes, and on nights like these, as his best friend succumbed to wave after wave of grief, he wanted to hurt something just to exorcise the rage.

Time was the answer. He knew this, both from experience and from the advice of others, but it was the one element in the world that he could not manufacture.

Time heals all wounds. What a crock.

The river ran fast and loud just below them, swollen by melting snows. Every now and then, a few drops would rain down on them from an errant eddy that had slapped against the vertical face of their rock ledge. The thunderous noise of the water filled the void of the night, bringing to Bobby a momentary glimpse of the peace he'd hoped they'd find out here. What is it about water, he wondered, that settles the soul?

On a different night, he might never have heard the rustling in the bushes that bordered their secluded outcropping. It was a tentative sound, too random to be the wind, but bigger than a coon or a possum. Out in these parts, there was only one reasonable thought when you heard a sound like that.

"Oh, my God, it's a bear," Susan breathed, speaking their common fear. And it...

From the book

Chapter One

P>The Cessna danced all over the sky.

The pilot shouted to Scott over the engine noise, "Everything's gonna be just fine. The storm's just a little heavier than I'd anticipated."

A little heavier. As in, the walls of the Grand Canyon are a little steep.

The pilot tried to put the best face on it. "Forget it. In ninety minutes, our ears'll be bleeding from the music."

Scott shot him a look. "You told me ninety minutes a half hour ago."

The pilot tossed a tense shrug. "Like I said, the storm's worse than I thought."

Metallica was appearing at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, and the pilot -- a ski patroller named Cody Jamieson -- had somehow scared up two tickets from a couple of college kids who'd let the blizzard intimidate them. Nobody in their right minds would risk getting stranded on the back roads of the Wasatch in weather like this.

For Cody, however, road conditions were irrelevant. He had his very own airplane -- a twenty-five-year-old high-wing job that he'd picked up for a song and maintained himself in a little corner of the hangar at SkyTop's private airstrip. The idea was to fly out of the storm, then beat its arrival in Salt Lake City. If they ended up stranded after the concert, Cody knew some people at BYU who'd put them both up in a heartbeat.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The aircraft lurched violently, the worst bump yet, knocking Cody's flying charts onto Scott's lap. "Air currents," he explained before Scott could ask.

This whole thing was beginning to feel stupid. They'd met less than a week ago while Cody was writing Scott up for skiing out of control on Widow Maker. It turned out that the ticket was little more than a warning, but Scott had gone off like a bomb anyway. He was the only skier in control, for crying out loud. It was a matter of principle. He'd thrown down his poles and his hat, kicked off his skis, and was ready to fight it out. "Why don't you write up those assholes for doing two miles an hour on a black diamond slope?"

Cody ignored the challenge and asked him what he played.

"What?"

The ski patroller nodded toward Scott's head. "The hair. I figure you've got to be part of a band."

Scott's bushy crop of blue hair had earned him the nickname Smurf from his soccer teammates. "Guitar," he said, caught off guard by the randomness of it. "Lead guitar." Just like that, the acrimony evaporated.

At twenty-one, Cody was five years Scott's senior, and also a guitarist -- heavy metal all the way. A first-year member of the patrol, the guy was anxious to find somebody to jam with, and Scott put him to shame. As payment for impromptu lessons, Cody introduced his new buddy to the gang, giving him the chance to slug down illegal beers and participate in the ski patrollers' late-night snowmobile races. Best of all, it gave Scott a reason to spend as much time as possible away from his mom. They dubbed him their mascot, and thanks to the nod from Cody, they treated him like a full-fledged member of the crowd -- almost more a member than Cody, who, as a rookie, was the brunt of unrelenting teasing and practical jokes.

So, when the Metallica tickets became available, Cody chose Scott.

But this snowstorm crap was more than he'd bargained for. Rodeo cowboys enjoyed smoother rides. "Do you have any idea what you're doing up here?" Scott shouted.

The question drew a nervous glance. "I know enough to find the airport and set us down."

"Then how come we're still in the air?"

"I think the winds blew us a little...