by Debra Kayn
"I'll pay you five hundred to take me today." She leaned forward, planting her hands on the surface of the desk. "I'll throw in an extra hundred if we can go within the next hour."
He latched his hands behind his head and looked her over. Whether it was through the business or his personal life, he had no desire to waste his time around a bossy woman, no matter how sexy she appeared.
He straightened and stood. "I can put you on the schedule for Friday or Saturday."
She had two options. Take it or leave it.
Owning Discover the Bitterroot, the only off-road rental company on the mountain, losing one customer wasn't going to hurt business. As it was, he'd need to squeeze her in on the schedule this week if she agreed and that irritated him. The men he thought of as brothers, Anders and Quint, along with their women, Iliana and Katelynn, planned to get together at Bitterroot Campground on Saturday and have a barbecue before Quint opened for the season. He wanted to make sure he went.
Their life-long enemy, Michael Jaster, hadn't shown himself all winter and he had a bad feeling a visit was long overdue. After losing Two-crow and Will over the last two years, it was imperative he and the others expect trouble.
He walked toward the door, letting the woman know they were done talking. There were three oil changes and lubes left to go in the garage, and he wanted everything done before next week when the rush of summer tourists started rolling in.
Carly stood where he'd left her, pursing her lips. He clenched his jaw, cutting off his sigh. Wasn't dealing with customers the reason why he'd hired Josh and Kyle?
She raised her gaze. "A thousand dollars. I think it'll only take a couple hours of your time."
He held on to the doorknob and chuckled. She wasn't from around these parts and knew nothing about him
"I don't need your money." He motioned his arm for her to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to—"
"Will referred me to you." She tilted her head. "He said you'd take me whenever I showed up."
He shut the door and faced her. The mention of his deceased friend's name got his attention. Knowing Will had kept to himself, he wanted to know why the woman dared speak of him.
The hollowness left behind when Will died had never gone away. "How did you know him?"
"I spent a week with him on the river fishing a couple of years ago." She stepped forward. "He promised you'd take me."
His bullshit meter went off. Will never would've promised her a damn thing. While he had no idea who Will had taken to bed, he knew there was no woman in his life worth sharing any of their secrets. If there had been, he would've heard about it.
She could be a tourist who had taken Will's recommendation more personal than it was intended. He still hated the way she spoke Will's name as if she knew him.
"Like I said, the best way to have a guided ride is to schedule a time block for a Friday or Saturday, and one of my employees or I would be happy to take you up on one of the designated trails." He reopened the door
She remained standing in the office. "I want to go to Bear Peak."
His body hardened. He reached up to his side and remembered he'd put a sweatshirt on and his side holster was hidden underneath.
Michael Jaster and the other men who were sent to kill him had never used a woman before.
"If a thousand dollars isn't enough, name your price," she said.
He needed to find out what she was doing here. If she wanted to kill him, she could've done that at any time. To have mentioned the mountain peak where Will, Two-crow, and Joney's crosses were erected meant she knew who he was. He couldn't have her going after Quint and Anders next. They had women they were responsible for.
Until he knew more, he wasn't going to let her know he was on to her.
"It'd be cheaper for you to rent an ATV and go alone." He shut the door, not wanting Josh or Kyle to walk in on them and get hurt if she planned to shoot him.
"I don't know how to get there. That's why I wanted you to take me."
If she were a man, he'd use his fists and demand answers.
"Why there?" He kept his hands free in case he needed to go for his pistol. "There's more than enough trails to ride. It'd take you a year to cover all the trails in the Bitterroot Mountains traveling over North Idaho and Northwest Montana."
"I need to go there." She looked away from him and squinted at the map on the wall.
Becoming impatient, he said, "Sorry, you'll have to find someone else to take you. Discover the Bitterroot has six trails we use for the guided tours. None of them include the area you want to go."
She walked over to the wall and gazed up at the map. He whipped off his sweatshirt while her back was turned. With access to his weapon at his fingertips, he could handle one lone woman.
"Do you have a copy of this map?" She pointed in front of her and glanced over her shoulder at him. "I can pay for it."
He had a stack of them in the desk drawer. When customers filled out the release form before renting one of the vehicles, he would give them a map with the trails marked. A GPS device on the mountain wasn't a reliable source if someone got lost. While he carried a satellite phone for better reception, a cell phone running off the nearest tower would drop the signal as soon as they left the main road.
"Nope. That's the only one," he lied.
She slid her hand into her pocket. He reached for his pistol, prepared for all hell to break loose.
Raising her cell phone, she took a picture of the map. He lowered his arm. Had Jaster sent her to fuck with him?
She turned around. "I'll rent an ATV for five hours."
Every instinct urged him to push her out the door and escort her from the property. He needed two minutes to call Anders and Quint and warn them about her. Then, he'd make sure she stayed away from Bear Peak.
He walked over to the desk, opened the drawer, and slapped a release form on the surface. "You need to fill out the contract that you're responsible for all damages to the ATV and in the unlikelihood that you have an accident or get injured, you won't hold Discover the Bitterroot responsible. Make sure you read the whole thing and if you agree, sign on the line and date it."
She removed cash out of her pocket and put the money on the desk. Then, she picked up the pen and scribbled her name on the contract. Used to customers not taking his advice, he pulled the paper toward him, glanced down, and held back the groan of frustration. He could only make out the C in Carly. Her last name was illegible.
He opened the second drawer, found a set of keys for a Polaris 4-wheeler. "Follow me, and I'll show you which ATV you'll be using."
Knowing all the available vehicles had gas and tire pressure checked, he headed toward the garage and stopped at the red one, knowing he wanted every advantage of being able to keep an eye on her as she rode up the mountain.
He stopped and held out the keys. "Any questions before you take off?"
"I need to change my shoes first." She pocketed the keys, looking at the quad. "It's an automatic, right?"
He should've given her a manual. "Yeah."
She continued to look at the handlebars. He waited for her to change her mind.
"Okay." She turned and faced him. "Thanks."
He dipped his chin and stepped away, going inside the open garage door. Out of her view, he used his phone and called Anders.
Two rings later, Anders picked up and said, "Yeah?"
"There's a woman here who wants me to take her up to Bear Peak. She claims Will sent her my way." He leaned to the side and looked out. "I don't think she's ever ridden an ATV before."
"What are you thinking?" asked Anders.
"I think Jaster sent her."
"The fuck?"
He tucked his chin to his chest. "You tell me why a lone woman who doesn't know how to ride is determined to go up to the peak? Maybe Jaster thought to distract us or catch us unaware with sending a female in to take us out. He's lost more men than he's had success. There's still three of us alive."
"How old is she?" asked Anders.
"I don't know. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty." He stepped back out of view, kicking himself for not taking more information from her. Sometimes, if a customer seemed sketchy, he'd photocopy their driver's license in case they tried to rip him off or search and rescue needed to go find the customer after they wandered off the designated trail.
Anders exhaled over the phone. "Do you really think he's going to send a chick in that's probably half our age to take out three men—who he knows will take care of any threat?"
He looked around the garage, making sure Josh and Kyle had ridden out on the trails to clear any debris. Assured he was alone, he said, "I hear you but do me a favor and give Quint a heads up. I rather her being here turn out to be nothing than be right."
"What are you going to do?"
"Follow her and make sure she doesn't get lucky and find her way up to Bear Peak after I start the damn ATV for her," he muttered.
"Let me know how that goes."
He stepped into the doorway. "Remember to call Quint."
Disconnecting the call, he put his phone in his pocket and walked over to Carly. Reaching in front of her, he adjusted the choke and started the engine. In her need to hide her lack of knowledge from him, she must've tried to move every switch to keep the quad running.
"Thank you," she said, loudly over the engine.
He glanced down, noticed the sneakers on her feet, and walked away. She wasn't his responsibility. She signed a contract to ride at her own risk.
Halfway to the house, the ATV continued to idle. He stopped and turned around, heading toward Carly. If she couldn't even get started, he couldn't follow her. And, he needed her to go so he could find out her true motive for coming to him.
Chapter 2
Headlights flashed into the window of the small cabin behind Anders' Lair. Carly looked down at the papers spread across the surface of the wooden table. Not one piece of evidence she'd collected over the years gave directions to Bear Peak.
Today had been an utter failure.
She stood from the chair, groaning at the soreness running from her ass down the back of her legs. Five hours of riding an ATV back and forth along clearly marked trails and trying to keep the tires out of the ruts and away from big rocks physically kicked her butt.
The handlebars physically had to move the tires. She thought it would be like driving a car, but it took strength, and there was a learning curve. A big curve.
It took her a mile to learn how to turn the vehicle. She'd gone through a ditch, over a thick bush where one of the limbs snapped her in the shoulder, and drove into a boulder—thankfully not scratching or breaking the plastic body—before she discovered leaning and using her weight would turn the wheels easier.
Stretching her arms above her head, she leaned left and right. She had three more days of staying at the cabin and then she'd be roughing it in a tent at Bitterroot Campground. Trying to get closer to Anders Stone, Quint Mathews, and Mark DeLane proved harder than she'd imagined.
If she failed to find out more from them, she would need to suck it up and contact Will Harmon. She lowered her arms and sighed. Knowing any kind of motion from a boat, ship, canoe made her queasy, she wanted to try getting close to the other three men first.
Opening her suitcase, she pulled out a sparkly black shirt with a plunging neckline and a pair of black jeans. She picked out flat ankle boots, knowing she'd never last more than an hour on her feet if she had to wear heels the way her tired body was feeling.
She went into the bathroom, brushed the snarls out of her hair from her shower earlier, and left it loose. Glancing at her phone, she was surprised to find it already nine o'clock. Probably too early to lose herself in the crowd but she wanted to make sure Anders was downstairs at the establishment. From checking things out that morning when she had breakfast inside the building, she'd learned Anders lived upstairs, making it convenient for her to try and catch him.
Though, as the owner, Anders probably went to bed at a decent hour, making it vital that she time her visit right. He couldn't live the high life every night, or at least she couldn't.
Hopefully, she'd get closer to him than she had Mark. She tucked in her shirt, pulled the material forward, and made sure the top swell of her breasts showed.
She groaned. Mark, the one man she'd hoped to get to know, had instantly hated her. He wasn't the rebellious loner she'd thought going by the information she had on him. He was a bitter, old man, probably three times divorced—which was what made him grouchy and stubborn. He'd made it perfectly clear that he had no desire to rent her an ATV or take her up to Bear Peak.
She spritzed perfume on her neck and returned to the table, putting the papers back into the file and hiding it under the mattress of the bed. What she'd figured would take two or three weeks, at the longest, now looked to be impossible. Her chances of finding her way around the Bitterroot Mountains by herself seemed too daunting of a task. She'd have better odds of winning the lottery.
If money was no object, she'd splurge and hire someone with a helicopter to fly her around the mountain. Though she probably couldn't figure out how to verify that two people were buried on Bear peak from the air.
She couldn't carry a shovel around digging holes until she found bones.
Her goal had seemed easier when she planned her trip at home. Being on the mountain was more difficult than she'd imagined. She thought getting to the top of the peak would be as simple as looking up and pointing. But there were many peaks, too many trails, and lots and lots of wilderness.
That's why it would be easier if she got one of the three men involved to talk with her.
She shivered and grabbed her purse, locking the door behind her. Walking through the parking lot behind Anders' Lair, she stayed to the side of the building and continued around to the front, entering through the main door.
Noise assaulted her after being on the mountain all day, surrounded by a peaceful silence only broken by the whistles of birds. She stopped, looking to her left into the casino. The flashing lights, bells, and laughter coming from the slots and video gaming machines appeared too busy for her. She wanted to sit and observe.
Walking across the hallway, she checked out the bar area. Attracted to the music and atmosphere of people lingering at tables, conversing, and paying no mind to others, she walked up to the counter, ordered a Bailey's on ice, and found a table nobody was using.
She sat, smiling at the customers near who turned in her direction. Used to going out alone, she knew they'd go back to ignoring her if she kept herself busy.
Pulling out her phone, she occupied herself by going through the pictures she'd taken while on the trail ride. All the switchbacks, pine trees, and rock walls appeared the same and gave her no answers on how to navigate the land.
A waitress approached Carly's table. She smiled, looking forward to relaxing and the medicinal benefits the drink would have for her aching ass.
"Would it be all right if I moved you over one table." The waitress smiled clear up into her eyes. "This table is reserved."
"Oh." Carly looked around the area and found a card next to the wall marking it as unavailable. "I was in too big of a hurry to enjoy my drink, I didn't even notice."
The waitress stepped back. "No more wait. You go ahead and enjoy, while I bring around dinner for you in a few minutes."
"I didn't order anything...yet." She sat and crossed her legs.
"It's on the house." The waitress set a coaster on the table and put her drink down in front of Carly. "For your inconvenience."
She raised her brows, left alone with a good feeling. Obviously, the employees of Anders' Lair took care of their customers.
Rolling the three ice cubes around in her drink, she lifted the tumbler and let the first sip sooth the tiredness of her day away. Thankful the musi
c playing covered the slight moan of pleasure that escaped. Already planning on finishing her night with another drink, she sat back in the chair and gazed around the room, coming to a stop near the bar.
Anders Stone.
She lifted her glass to cover her shock at seeing him. Though she'd come hoping to have a chance to get to know him better, until he was standing in front of her, she hadn't thought of a good excuse to approach him.
Anders strolled toward her. Her pulse accelerated. Caught staring at him, he nodded and veered away to sit down at the table she'd vacated moments ago.
Of course, she'd sat at his private table. How embarrassing.
A woman hurried across the room and slid into the chair beside him. Anders leaned over and tagged the back of the lady's neck and pulled her in for a kiss.
Carly sagged in her chair. None of the papers in the file mentioned a woman in Anders' life. That was going to be a complication.
She had a hard rule not to impinge on other people's relationship, even if it meant a friendly conversation intended in a purely platonic way. It wasn't fair to the other woman or herself.
The waitress arrived and set a plate of grilled salmon with a side salad down in front of her. "It's tonight's special."
"It looks good." She smiled, catching the name on the tag pinned to the waitress's shirt. "Thank you again, Maddie. I'll have to try sitting in the wrong spot next time if it gets me a free dinner."
The waitress laughed. "I like how you think."
"I really do appreciate this." She leaned forward. "I didn't realize how hungry I am until the food arrived. I've had a big day."
The waitress straightened. "Have you been enjoying the Bitterroot Mountains?"
"I have." She picked up her fork. "I took my first ATV ride today."
"That's always fun." Maddie put her hand on her hip. "I'm a local, so if you need any help finding something to do during your stay, just ask."
Hit by inspiration, she said, "Actually, I do have a question. Do you know where Bear Peak is?"