Falling for Hope by Natalie Vivien Page B

in the storm.
    Amy was so grateful that Chris was
there.
    It hadn’t been a given—after all,
Hope and Chris had gotten into a serious argument the day before, and it was
because of that argument that Hope had gone off for a hike by herself.   She’d wanted to clear her head, not
realizing that a mighty storm was descending upon the mountain.  
    Upset, Amy stumbled over the trail:
she couldn’t shake the feeling that, in a roundabout way—though the logical
part of her brain insisted otherwise—this whole thing was her fault.
    Chris and Hope had gotten into an
argument because of her.
    Once, Hope and Melissa had been a
couple, but Melissa had passed away six months ago in a car crash.   Hope had loved Melissa, but they weren’t
right for each other, and they’d had a heated on-again, off-again romance for
years.   Many times they’d broken up and
dated other people, and they weren’t together when Melissa died.   But Chris—jokester Chris, who never let
anything bother her—had been Melissa’s best friend.   And, perhaps, something more during one of Hope and Melissa’s
separations.   When Chris found out that
Amy, who had been secretly in love with Hope for five years, was at last
beginning to date Hope, Chris had exploded in anger, saying that Hope was betraying
Melissa’s memory.
    Betraying Melissa’s memory with
Amy.
    Amy was a mostly logical
person.   As a veterinarian, her logical
side had served her well: she was capable of making hard decisions from a
rational place, tempered with emotion, when animals needed to be put down, when
nothing more could be done.   But since
Melissa’s death, Amy had been far more emotional than logical.   Melissa was the first close friend she’d
ever lost, and their small group of friends had been rocked by her death, but
something, something sleeping, had been awakened inside of Amy that long-ago
day (had it really just been six months?   It was starting to feel like a lifetime), as they stood in the snow at
Melissa’s graveside, as Amy realized, perhaps for the first time, how fragile
life was.
    And now Hope was alone on the
mountain, lost in a terrifying storm.   Perhaps hurt.   Perhaps worse...
    Amy hated that her mind went to
such a dark place.   Hope knew the
mountain like the back of her hand; she knew trail safety protocol, and she
must have seen the storm advancing toward the mountain range.   But all morning, Amy’s stomach had been tied
up in knots, a feeling of dread building within her.   Amy was mostly logical, yes, but her intuition was essential for
her line of work, too: she trusted it completely.
    And her gut was now telling her
that time was running out.   They needed
to find Hope soon.
    Lightning struck close by,
illuminating their surroundings perfectly for half a heartbeat in a haze of
white light.   The trees stood out
starkly in the lightning blast, like skeletal hands reaching toward the
sky.   Amy shuddered as the thunder
boomed around them.
    “That was really close,” shouted
Irene over the pounding rain.  
    “If you feel the hairs on the back
of your neck stand up, drop to the ground, roll up into a ball and cover the
back of your neck,” shouted Chris back.
    “Very comforting!” said Irene,
brandishing the flashlight.  
    The trail surface was now a slick
mixture of mud and the previous autumn’s fallen leaves, and as the path began
to slope upward at a steeper and steeper angle, Amy’s footing began to
suffer.   She kept tripping, her feet
sliding out from under her, the rainwater streaming over her face as she
blinked blearily, trying to make out the outline of the two women ahead of her,
trying to follow the beam of the flashlight.   The knees of Amy’s jeans were now wet and filthy, and she was completely
drenched from head to toe when she tripped again and sat for a long moment, her
hands wrist deep in the mud, her head bowed.
    Chris paused next to her, offering
her a hand.
    “Thanks,” she muttered, as