The Virgin and Zach Coulter. Lois Dyer Faye

Чтение книги онлайн.

      For my sister Shirley—

      children need more extraordinary schoolteachers like you

       Prologue

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ