Also by Morgan Q. O’Reilly
Frozen
Chinook, Wine and Sink Her
Til Death Undo Us
Open Window Series
Courage to Live
Weathering the Storm
WEATHERING THE STORM
Open Window, Book Three
By MORGAN Q. O’REILLY
LYRICAL PRESS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/
To those who have climbed–those who have triumphed and those who fell before the challenge. Your stories and your photos are inspiring.
Acknowledgements
Help for this book came from two unique sources. I had many, many questions for Missy Smother of the Denali National Park & Preserve, Talkeetna Ranger Station. She patiently responded to each email and shared some insider details of living in Talkeetna.
Timothy J. Carrig, PhD., physicist extraordinaire, helped me with my fictional device. I had bits and pieces from my days of dogging his physicists for their project reports back in the day when did I some document control and tech editing. He helped me make it sound authentic.
Extra special thanks to my brother, we’ll call him Sean Quinn, for the background photo on the cover. Little did he know it would be mostly covered with a half naked man. All four of my older–please note the older part–siblings are extremely talented and have provided more substance for my books than they know. Now I have something visual to add.
Continuing support for this series comes from Carlee, Jane, and my AKRWA critique partners. No book is complete without your input. Love you all!
Prologue
“I have to go.” Trying to explain my need to escape to the two people who loved me more than anyone else in the universe was as difficult as re-learning how to walk and do basic things people took for granted every day. Things like pulling on socks or cutting a steak. “I have to do something with my life.”
“Azzette Chantel Bettencourt,” my mother said, then stopped and sighed. “You think you’re ready? Is this really because I turned off your doohickey yesterday?”
“No. Yes. Sort of.” I huffed in frustration So what if five hours of work had been flushed when she’d peeked into my home workshop and flipped the switch on the diagnostics I had been running?
“I’m sorry, honey, but you know…” She shrugged and lifted her coffee mug.
I understood her hesitancy and her reservations. I felt all that myself. But it had been three years. I was twenty eight, and in three years I’d gone from a broken body lying at the base of a rock wall, with less than an infant’s ability to care for myself, to the best physical condition of my entire life. However, it wasn’t my body everyone worried about.
It was my brain.
I had flown through school, entered CU Boulder a year ahead of my peers, earned a double BS and an MS degree in five years, all on full ride scholarships and generous grants. Inside my skull my gray matter retained many past memories, but somehow couldn’t remember what I’d watched on TV ten minutes ago, or whether I’d turned off the shower just hours before. Had I lived alone, my brain would maybe remember a load of laundry three days later after I’d started it. Not a horrible situation when the washer or dryer were the appliances in consideration, but things got dicey when the stove or faucets were involved. Hence, the reason Mom and Dad were reluctant to let me walk to the store two blocks away. Forget about driving–I wasn’t cleared to drive again–much less climb on a plane and fly to Alaska for the summer. It was also the reason my work kept getting interrupted, because they saw an electric switch on and thought I’d forgotten to turn it off. Probably because they were afraid something would overheat and burn down the house.
“Mom, Dad, I have to move forward. Step out on my own sometime. I can’t ever thank you enough–” At this they both snorted. “Or pay you back–” They gasped in horror that I’d ever feel indebted. “But, theoretically, I’m a grown woman now.”
Leaning on my arms folded on the table in front of me, I pushed on, overriding their attempts to speak. “You’ve done more than your parental contracts ever called for. Twice now, you’ve spent years changing my diapers and teaching me how to function as a normal, physically able, human being. Twice you’ve taught me to walk, eat, bathe and do the chores required to take care of myself. You’ve been with me step by step through rehab. I say you’ve earned your retirement. Someday I even hope to give you grandchildren.”
They smiled, genuine delight on their faces. Faces that had grown lined as the gray gathered in their hair these past few years. Signs of stress I’d unintentionally caused.
“So that’s why I want to spend the summer in Alaska. I can get a direct flight, no need to worry about me changing planes. Karl will meet me in Anchorage, and I can stay at the B and B with him. Even help out.”
“You’ve talked to Karl?” Dad asked.
“We’ve been emailing and texting.” I could handle those tasks at least.
The typing skills had come back fast once my arms were out of the casts. I’d broken both of them, among other body parts, when I’d fallen thirty feet. I had reason to be grateful to the surgeons who’d put all my broken pieces back together, from ankles to cranium. I especially adored my neurosurgeon, who’d stuffed my brains back into place and left me with very little scarring to show for it. It wasn’t his fault I now had a streak of white growing over the site of the injury near my left ear. Had I been blonde, it wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but since my hair was dark brown, well, it tended to stand out when I left my hair unbound. I adjusted the loose woven scarf I used as a turban to hide the streak. It sure beat the helmet my parents had made me wear when learning to mobilize again.
“I can show you the emails,” I said because they were both frowning thoughtfully.
“No, no, we trust you,” Dad said. “It’s just…” He held up both hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Mom patted his shoulder, while sharing a wry smile with him. “It’s sort of like watching you climb on the bus for your first day of kindergarten all over again. We can’t help it. Yes, we know it has to happen sometime. Doesn’t mean we have to like it.”
Dad started to protest only to stop, mouth open, when Mom overrode him. “Marc, she’s right. And she’ll be with Karl. Not like she’s heading off to a college dorm full of partying kids.”
Blowing out a gust of air, Dad relented and took Mom’s hand in his. “You’re right, Deni.”
Well. That had gone easier than I’d expected. Strange that it had been me to force the weaning this time. At the beginning of this ordeal they’d had to poke and prod me to move on to each next step in my recovery. Back then I hadn’t really cared. But things had changed in the past six months. They said I was coming back to being myself. According to stories I’d heard over and over again these past three years, I’d always strained against the boundaries, pushing and stretching them while my parents fought back just enough to make me stronger