But this one looked like it planned to stick around awhile, and it was violent. With the way the trees were bending in protest, she figured the winds were close to seventy-five miles an hour. Every few seconds lightning flashed—or rather cracked viciously—and thunder rolled.

“I can’t believe they’re out there in this,” she murmured. “It’s crazy.”

“He’s been in worse,” Gray said, and peeled into a clearing with a bunch of other trucks and rigs.

“Incident Command,” he explained. “We’re three miles out from Aidan’s position. Stay here.” Shoving the truck into park, he exited the vehicle. Lily followed suit and ran around the front of the truck, head down because of the rain.

Which was how she ran headfirst into Gray.

He caught her and she couldn’t hear his sigh over the weather but she felt it.

“What part of stay here didn’t you understand?” he asked.

“All of it.”

“Lily—”

Hudson pulled up in a county SUV. Looking serious in his uniform, he exited the vehicle, his gaze going straight to his brother.

“What?” Gray asked him.

“You don’t have your radio on?”

“It’s busted.”

“Aidan and Mitch rescued some idiot off the face, but the unit had to pull back in a big hurry when lightning hit.”

The look that crossed Gray’s face told Lily this was bad. “So where’s Aidan?” she asked.

Hudson and Gray exchanged another look.

“Someone better speak before I go batshit crazy on your asses,” she said tightly.

Hudson met her gaze. “He and Mitch are still on the rescue site.”

“You mean on the face of Dead Man’s Cliff?”

Another glance between brothers. “They’re a few miles up the trail on a rock outcropping forty feet down from the top,” Hud said.

“What?” she asked on a gasp of horror. “Out in the open with this lightning? They could get hit like those climbers did last year. Why aren’t they getting them off the face?”

When Hudson hesitated, she started to storm off toward the trail, but Gray grabbed her hand.

“Let go,” she said, heart in her throat because all she could think was that she’d lost Ashley on a day just like this. “I’ll go pull him up myself, dammit. What’s wrong with all of you? You can’t leave him there!”

“What we can’t do is have you out here in the open in a lightning storm,” Gray said. “Get back in the truck.”

She understood what he was saying, but she was picturing Aidan and Mitch on a tiny ledge, huddled in this crazy-ass storm. She tried to move forward, but Hudson caught her against him.