“A couple of bruised ribs never stopped me before,” Bree continued, ignoring him. “I’ve had worse on a climbing wall.”

Settling down at Bree’s side, River took her hand. “It’s not only your ribs, Bree. Jessie’s exhausted. It’s not safe for him to keep going.”

Exhausted was nicer than saying it the other way: his nerves were shot. Jessie shot her a grateful look, and River nodded with an understanding smile.

“We were close, okay?” River said. “We got enough footage, and it’ll be good enough.”

Bree didn’t answer for a long time. “Then it’s done.”

Heart in her throat, River nodded. “Yeah. It’s done. We tried.”

“No.” Bree shook her head. “One of us can get up there. You, River. You’ve been outclimbing everyone this whole trip. You look like you could run circles around the rest of us. There’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t summit.”

“There’s two great reasons, you and Jessie.” River added softly, “And, Bree, I’m tired too.”

“But you don’t really want to go down. If you tell me, right here, right now, that you want to go down, I’ll shut up. But don’t lie to me, River. You know I’ll believe you, so don’t lie.”

River opened her mouth…then she shut it again. Outside the tent, the summit hung above them. A visceral need to reach the top had her even now. Saying she didn’t want to summit would be an untruth of epic proportions.

Bree knew River’s silence for exactly what it was. “I’ll go down with Jessie if you go up. And you take the handheld. Otherwise, I’m staying right here, and when I feel better, I’m crawling up there myself.”

River wouldn’t look at Easton, because she could already feel his eyes boring into the back of her head. This was not what he wanted. This was not why he’d asked her to come talk to Bree. But right now, this wasn’t about him or her. It was about all of them.

Finally, River nodded. “I’ll summit. But you and Jessie are leaving.”

Squeezing her hand, Bree finally relaxed back on the bedding, sucking in a deep breath of oxygen.

“Deal.”

Chapter 15

River was going to summit.

There was no fighting her when that stubborn look was in her eyes. Which meant Easton’s options were limited to knocking her over the head and dragging her forcibly down the mountain or abandoning her to do it alone. Asking Ben to descend alone with both Bree and Jessie wasn’t even a possibility. It would take both of them to help the pair through the Veil.

Ben joined him, the other guide looking as worried as Easton had ever seen him. “Do you think she means it?” he asked.

“Which one?” Easton kicked the snow. There was nothing else to kick.