“I should turn him over to my relatives. Two of my brothers, Kane and Mike, power lift.”
“What’s that?”
“It builds muscle.”
“Is that where you got yours?”
Frank was in front so his grin was hidden. “Me? They think I’m fat and flabby.”
“You’re not!” Miranda said. “And it wasn’t very kind of them to say that.”
Frank was smiling broader than he had in years. It was sinking in that this was Eli’s mother and it looked like she was as sweet natured as he’d said she was. It wasn’t easy, but Frank was beginning to get over his deep embarrassment from last night. Joy was replacing his discomfort. Eli had done this. Like Frank, the boy had seen what he wanted and went after it. Frank could only marvel at all the boy must have done to arrange this meeting between his mother and his friend. And Frank couldn’t have been more proud!
Behind him, Miranda was talking about how Eli and Chelsea did things they weren’t supposed to. “Sometimes I’m afraid to find out what those two are doing.”
Again, Frank hid his smile. Twice his company had been contacted by men wanting to know about a letter they’d received. The men weren’t paying child support. Each time, Frank had turned the problem over to his lawyers, who’d contacted the police.
“You’ve not mentioned your son’s father,” Frank said. They’d turned down a side path. When Miranda stumbled, he took her hand and helped her down the steep hill.
At the bottom was the wide, cold stream, a flat, graveled area beside it. There were big overhanging rocks nearby.
“This is beautiful. Eli would like this.”
“Would he?” Frank asked, glad to hear it.
“I’ve talked too much about me. Tell me more about your family. Are they all like you?”
He put his pack on the ground. “You mean cold, unfeeling, and dedicated to money?”
Miranda winced. “We certainly did get off on the wrong foot, didn’t we? I’ve never before said anything like that to anyone.”
“And I’ve never made a proposal of marriage, so we’re even. At least yours wasn’t ridiculous.”
“I thought it was sweet,” she said.
He didn’t comment on that. “Are you one of those women who baits her own hook or one who squeals at the thought?”
“Neither. I’m the one who cleans the fish and cooks it. Mind if I look around for some wild herbs I can use?” She nodded toward the surrounding forest.
“Just don’t go too far. There really are bears here and you do tend to get lost.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Miranda wandered around the area, never going too far as she looked for wild herbs. But it wasn’t easy to keep her mind on anything. The Colorado mountains were so beautiful she kept stopping to look around her. It had been years since she’d had any time off.
Unfortunately, the lack of huge amounts of work was giving her time to think. She remembered Mr. Taggert’s assessment of her life with a mortgage and an ex who thinks money is a game. She sounded a bit pathetic. What would it be like to be fabulously wealthy?
The thought made her smile. If she had any sense, she would go running back to Mr. Taggert and tell him yes. But the thought of trading her little house and laughter with her son for houses where all the towels were in exactly the same place gave her cold chills.
She found wild onions and thyme but not much else. But then, she wasn’t looking very hard. Her mind was too full of her thoughts.
When the first drops of rain hit her, she looked up in surprise. At this high altitude, she knew that the rain would be icy. She looked about for shelter but saw none. She should go back, but the truth was that she wasn’t quite sure which way the cabin was or where the stream ran.
The rain was beginning to come down harder. Just a few drops so far, but it was increasing. A clash of thunder rolled across the mountains.
She got under a clump of trees but they were pines and aspens, neither of which gave much shelter. The temperature dropped by degrees and she shivered. How did she get back?
There was a quick flash of lightning and Miranda wasn’t the least surprised to see Mr. Taggert standing between two tall pines. At the moment he looked as tall and as big as the trees.
He didn’t say anything, just held his big flannel shirt open. With her head bent against the rain, she ran to him and ducked inside his shirt. She put one arm around his waist and the other held on to his shirt. Together they quickly walked through the trees to the campsite.
Frank led her to an overhanging rock where it was dry underneath. “Can you build a fire?” he asked over the rain, which was coming down harder.
When she nodded, he ran back out and gathered their belongings. By the time he got back, the rain had turned into a storm and Frank was drenched.
Miranda had found a stack of dry branches piled in the back of what was almost a cave. And toward the front was a circle of rocks enclosing some burned wood.
Frank put the two packs and loose gear on the stone floor.
“You come here often, don’t you?” she asked. She’d found plastic-encased matches with the wood, as well as dried leaves needed for tinder.
“When I can. Do you mind?”
He was asking her permission to remove his wet shirt.
Miranda got up and helped him, peeling the wet cloth over his cast.
“Damned thing!” Frank muttered. “I hate being helpless.”
“I would too.” She tossed his wet flannel shirt onto the stone, then started on his long-sleeved undershirt. It was plastered to his skin. “I think I should have left a bread-crumb trail.”
“Didn’t the birds eat those and the kids ended up in serious trouble?”
“So you have read something other than a business report. Bend down.” He was too tall for her to reach to pull the shirt over his head. When she had it off, she put it on the rocks, then turned to see him, nude from the waist up.
For a moment she stared at him, at his muscular chest, with its light coating of hair. The rain outside, the darkness of the cavelike rock formation, the warm light of the fire, all made them seem very isolated. And it had been a long, long time since Miranda had felt a man’s body against hers. She missed the hardness of a man’s flesh, the warmth of him, the way he could make a woman feel protected and safe—and the way he could ignite a raging desire in her body.
As she went to her pack, she made herself turn away. She’d put in one of the cotton shirts she’d found in her suitcase. “Sit,” she told him.
She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes. If there was even a hint of invitation in them, she didn’t think she could resist. Between the atmosphere and the longing, she knew she’d slide into his arms and they’d make love on the stone floor.
She walked behind him and began to rub his wet back with her dry shirt, rubbing hard to generate warmth in his skin. He kept his head down, letting her do what she wanted to him.
After a few minutes, he put his hand up and she handed him the shirt so he could dry his chest. He was facing the entrance to the rock formation and the fire was before them.
Miranda couldn’t help herself as she ran her hands over his shoulders. The shape, the hardness of them made her own body grow warm. There seemed to be no fat on him, just acres of warm, honey-colored skin that curved and dipped over lean muscle.
He sat very still, not moving, and she knew that if she made even the slightest gesture, he’d turn to her. Could he kiss? she wondered. Or did he think kissing wasn’t needed? Not “efficient”?
She stepped back from him. “Did you bring another shirt?”
“In my pack.” There was an almost sad tone to his voice, as though he knew the moment had been lost.
She got the shirt out, helped him pull it on over his cast, then tended to his
wet clothes. She wrung them out and made a makeshift rack by the fire to get them dry.
“How about you?” he asked. “Dry?”
“Sure. Thanks to you. I guess you assumed I was lost.”
“No,” he said. “I missed your company. I’ve never had anyone up here before. My brothers come, but . . .” He trailed off. “I caught a few fish.”
“So you did,” she said. “While I clean and cook, why don’t you tell me about your big family. Do they think like you?”
Frank leaned back against the rock wall. “Not at all. Some of my brothers are fairly good businessmen, but they don’t take it seriously.”
As he talked, Miranda gutted and scaled the fish. She’d brought flour and butter and even capers with her, and she handed Frank the little potatoes to peel and slice.
It took a bit of encouragement from her to get him to talk about himself, but he did. What she heard was of a life with an underlying loneliness to it. His siblings had all been gregarious, laughing kids who tumbled over each other like puppies. But Frank had been quiet.
“I was changing diapers when I was eight,” he said. “We had help, but—” He shrugged.
“The kids wanted you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure how it happened, but they all seemed to think of me as a second father.”
Miranda hid her smile. She could understand that. If he was then like he was now, yes, toddlers would see him as an adult. “Eli was like that,” she said. “Sometimes I think he knew what his father was like from the beginning. Leslie used to get angry because when he tried to hold Eli, the child would start kicking and fussing. He never really cried, just tried to get away.”
Frank put the potatoes in the bowl Miranda held out. “Intuition. You probably won’t believe this, but a strong and reliable intuition is a big basis for my success.”
“That’s the same as Eli! Many times he’s said to me, ‘Mom, don’t do that.’ He never has a reason, but it always turns out that he’s right.”
“It’s good that you listen to him. How do he and his father get along now?”
“Not well at all.” As she cooked, Miranda talked about the joy of her life with her son, Eli. Twice, she said she should stop as she was boring him, but he encouraged her to go on. Now and then he’d ask a question about Eli’s schooling, how he got along with other kids, even if Eli was eating enough. Frank leaned back against the stone wall and listened as though what she was telling him was fascinating.
“You now know more about my son than his father does,” she said as she handed him a metal plate full of fish and potatoes, then watched as he began to eat.
“This is very good,” he said. “None of my chefs could do better. Why don’t you sit here? You can get a better view.”
He indicated a place beside him. Miranda hesitated, but then sat down near him. It was very pleasant under the rock, with the rain pounding outside.
“I could help you with the legalities of getting your ex-husband to pay,” he said softly.
Miranda started to say that she needed help, but didn’t. “That’s a very kind offer but I’ll manage. Tell me more about your family. What was it like growing up in a large family?”
“Hectic,” he said. Long ago he’d made it a rule not to talk about his childhood, but with this woman things were different. “Shall I tell you about the time my brothers Mike and Kane decided to tame all the broncs we brought down off the winter range?” He paused a moment. “They were five.”
Miranda laughed. “Yes, please do. Unless it has a sad ending. I can’t bear stories with unhappy endings.
“If you mean did they live to grow up and marry and have kids, yes, it’s happy. But back then, when Mom got hold of them, it wasn’t happy at all.”
“Then tell me,” she said as she put another fish on Frank’s plate. “I want to hear all the happy stories you have.”
Frank had never thought of himself as a storyteller, but when Miranda started laughing, he enjoyed the sound so much that he kept embellishing his story. When he told how he, a child himself, had run under the horses’ bellies to get to his little brother Mike, Miranda put her hand to her throat. She gasped in such a satisfying way that Frank told another story about his brother Mac and a rattlesnake.
Miranda was a great audience, laughing, showing fear, congratulating him. By the time they finished the meal, they were smiling at each other.
“Oh, look, it’s stopped raining,” she said as she cleaned their utensils.
“About half an hour ago.”
Miranda smiled. “I guess we should go. We should—” When she looked at him, there was regret on her face. They’d had such a pleasant time that she didn’t want it to end.
Neither did Frank. “We have two and a half days with nothing whatever to do,” he said as he stood up. “Any suggestions?”
“I have no idea.” Her head came up. “Do you have a secret place where you’ve taken no other human being? A place not even your family knows about? I’d like to see that.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Actually, I do. In the 1880s a prospector was sure there was gold in these mountains and he lived alone up here. He went down twice a year for supplies. I found his cabin. It’s a day’s trek up there, but we could stay a night then return. I promise I’ll behave myself.”
“Darn!” Miranda said before she thought. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—”
Bending forward, Frank smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Let’s go home and plan our trip.”
For a fraction of a second, the backs of his fingers touched her cheek, but then he moved away.
The little touch so unnerved Miranda that she searched for something to break the silence. “Wish I’d brought my camera,” she said. “Eli would love to see photos of an old cabin.”
“I have one here. We can take it with us.”
“Great. And what do I get if we find the prospector’s gold?”
“I’ll have to consult my board before I can answer that,” he said solemnly.
She wouldn’t have known he was teasing except for the sparkle in his eyes. “How about if I buy a fifty percent share? A raspberry tart with ground hazelnuts in the crust enough?”
“Make it almonds and I’ll give you eighty percent.”
“Done!” she said and held out her hand to shake his.
He took it, held her hand for a moment, then smiled warmly at her. “Best deal I ever made,” he said and picked up both packs. As they walked back to the cabin, they made plans for their coming excursion.
3
Frank couldn’t sleep. All his life he’d had a clear vision of where he was going with his life, but right now he couldn’t seem to see what was ahead for him.
There was a faint buzzing sound and he knew what it was: Julian was calling. Reaching across to move the blanket Miranda had put up, he saw that she was asleep. She was snuggled deep under the covers so just a bit of her face peeped out.
He silently got out of bed and went to a blank log wall to the right of the fireplace, pushed a knot, and a door opened. In contrast to the rugged, almost primitive cabin, the room Frank entered was ultramodern, its walls painted a hard gloss white. Along three sides were tables, each covered with machines: computer, fax, television with the stock market playing on it, telephones, and other devices of communication.
He picked up a blue phone, the one Julian used. “What is it?”
“And good evening to you too,” Julian said. “There are some problems with Tynan Mills that you need to decide about. And Tokyo needs to talk to you. I know you weren’t planning to return for another day but I think I should send the chopper tomorrow. Besides, Gwyn has been here asking for you. I better warn you that she had a bridal magazine in her briefcase. She—”
“Don’t come here until Thursday.”
“But that’s three days away!”
“Right,” Frank said. “And pay Gwyn off with the usual gifts.”
For a moment, Julian was stunned into silence. “Are you sure you want to do that? I thought maybe this one was serious. I know Gwyn certainly thinks so.”
Frank didn’t comment on that. “I want you to check on someone for me. He’s a kid. Elijah J. Harcourt. Make sure he’s all right. And find out about his friend Chelsea Hamilton. And pay off the mortgage of Eli’s mother. No! Wait, that might cause some problems with the dad. Find out what that bastard is up to.”
“Anything else?” Julian asked.
“Yeah, call one of my brothers and tell him to take care of Tynan Mills.”
Julian drew in his breath. “You’re going to delegate? You’re going to trust your financial-genius brothers to handle a family business?”
“Julian?” Frank said. “Cut the sarcasm. Just do the job and don’t give me any more problems. And don’t call here again. You might wake—” He broke off. “Thursday. Late afternoon.” He hung up and went back to bed.
“You okay?” Frank asked as he stopped on the trail that led up the side of the mountain. He had on a fifty-pound pack full of the things they’d chosen last evening—and he’d enjoyed planning with Miranda.
Gratefully, she sat down on a rock and drank from her water bottle. Her pack was less than half the weight of Frank’s but it was still heavy.
“It’s the altitude,” he said.
“You’re being kind. It’s also my lack of aerobic exercise. I should spend more time in a gym.”
“In your line of work, have you ever saved anyone’s life?”
“A few times,” she said, smiling.
“I have a full gym off my office and I work out at least an hour a day, but I have never saved a human life. Which of us do you think has accomplished more?”
For a moment she blinked at him, then smiled. “What a very kind thing to say. And you know what? You’ve made me feel better.” She stood up. “But just in case of a relapse, is it much further?”
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