Kyros put another dent in the pot as his son left the room. Lunch. He needed to think about lunch. He didn’t feel like cooking. As he set about preparing a lunch he didn’t want to cook, he thought about all the nights Samantha Rainford had come to the kitchen late at night for hot cocoa. They’d talked, sometimes for hours, with Alpha sitting at their side. He felt at times like she was the daughter he never had as they shared a few confidences, with Sam always saying, “This is just between us, Kyros,” which meant he wasn’t supposed to tell Pappy. He was a Greek. Like Zorba. A man of his word. All he wanted was for the young woman to feel like she had an ally there on the mountain. If he had visions of dandling little ones on his knee, he kept them to himself.

Kyros chopped peppers and onions for the sausage and peppers he was making for lunch. He felt sad suddenly, knowing his son was never going to leave the mountain, just as he himself was never going to leave it. What kind of person would commit to a life like this? Not Samantha Rainford. When it came to women, his kid simply wasn’t cooperating. He put another dent in one of his pots.

Life would take care of itself without any help from him. Hopefully.

The recruits marched to the wall. So far, they had aced everything. They looked, as one, at the wall and the dangling rope. Pappy had expected chatter, even some grumbling, but they were silent. The silence bothered him, and he didn’t know why. He held out the coffee can his father had provided. “Take a number.”

Sam stepped forward, looked him in the eye with steely determination. She drew the number four. She felt jumpy and irritable. Being number four in anything didn’t please her. She’d lived for a while being the fourth Mrs. Rainford, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like being the eleventh Mrs. Rainford any better. Then there was the lawyer Prizzi, who was number four in the legal offices. She looked at Hawkins, and he mouthed that he was number nine.

Kate, the leggy blonde, went first, and was up and over in record time. She rappelled down on the other side, walked around, and went up the rope so fast, Sam almost gasped aloud. She could see that Pappy was impressed.