by Ann Evans
“Well…first, I wanted to say thank you for helping out with that guy.”
“No problem,” he said with a shrug. “You had a handle on it. I just made sure he understood the wisdom of leaving well enough alone.”
“It really was quite ridiculous. Everything got out of control so quickly. Is Tessa all right?”
“She’s fine. Trying to pretend it didn’t happen. She knows she shouldn’t have gone into that bar. She’s lucky I’m in a forgiving mood.”
“If it makes any difference to you, I don’t think she went in there with mischief in mind. She wanted a soda, and she just wasn’t thinking.”
He gave her a small smile. “Thanks for saying that.”
She cleared her throat, forcing herself to look him directly in the eyes. “I, uh, I also wanted to talk to you about that…the fact that you kissed me.”
He went very still for a moment, gave her a hard look, then scowled. “Yeah, I kissed you,” he said in a casual, noncommittal tone. “It happened. There’s no reason to blow it out of proportion.”
“I don’t think it’s blowing it out of proportion to ask why you did it.”
He made a small movement—impatience, annoyance?—and looked away. Then his gaze swung back, locking with hers. “Who knows? The adrenaline was flowing. I wanted to thank you for helping Tessa out of what could have been a bad situation. Let’s not overthink this.”
“I’ve been given thank-you kisses a few times in my life. That sure wasn’t one.”
A shuttered look came over his face. “Well, when you figure out what it was, Doctor Freud, let me know. In the meantime, I have work to do.”
He turned to head toward his Jeep. Kari latched on to his arm. “Nick—”
He turned back to her. “Look—” he said, clearly out of patience. His gaze dropped to her hand. The sleeve of her blouse had inched up her arm, revealing the bruise she’d gotten yesterday, now turned several shades of purple. He frowned down at it, muttering a curse. “Did I do that?”
“No. It’s a souvenir from our drunken friend Bobby.”
He shook his head. “I should have pulverized the guy. Drunk or not.”
“Nick—”
A couple of guests came laughing down the front steps, backpacks and guidebooks in hand. Both Nick and Kari smiled as they passed by.
As soon as they’d disappeared around the corner, Nick twisted a little so that once more they faced one another. “All right, you want to know why I kissed you?” he asked, seeming to have come to some decision to stop playing games. “Because I wanted to. Plain and simple. I’m a man, you’re an attractive woman. It’s not any more complicated than that.” He raised an eyebrow and added calmly, “Unless you want to pretend that you hated it.”
“No, I didn’t hate it. Just the opposite, in fact. But I think we should talk about it.”
“Well, I don’t,” he retorted.
“I don’t want to go back to fighting with you, avoiding you. Can’t we be adult about this?”
He put his hand through his hair in a loose, fretful way that told her he wasn’t finding this conversation at all to his liking. But they’d gone this far, it seemed silly to go back now, to pretend as if nothing had ever been said.
She took a deep breath. Might as well go for broke. “I’ll go out on a limb here and admit that I’m sexually attracted to you,” she said, trying to keep her eyes level with his. “I think you feel the same way. But I’ll be leaving soon—my next assignment is coming up—so there’s really no point in exploring a relationship.”
“No point at all,” he growled.
“And if what you said in the kitchen is true, you aren’t interested in getting involved with someone, either.”
“True,” he agreed suddenly. “I have my hands full running this place. I don’t need a relationship right now.”
“So neither one of us is going to…I mean, whatever we feel…there’s no reason to act on it…to take any of this any further… Right?”
“None that I can think of.”
“Good. And we can still be friends.”
“Yes. Unless you try to dissect this any more. God, I feel like I’m on Oprah.”
Had they crossed some bridge of understanding? Then why didn’t it feel better than this? she wondered. “I just want to be sure we’re clear.”
She watched Nick’s jaw tighten. “We’re clear as glass. Friends. No touching. No kissing. No relationship. Just friends. Anything else?”
“Well, there is one thing. I need a favor.”
“You want a signature in blood?”
“Nothing that dramatic. I’d like you to fly me out to Elk Creek Canyon.”
A silence fell between them as his gaze roamed her face. It wasn’t awkward, but Kari found herself holding her breath all the same. “All right,” he said at last. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning. Your father has given me an entire day off.”
He nodded shortly. “Meet me in the lobby at eight. Try not to be late this time.”
THE SOUND OF SOFT, girlish laughter woke him.
At first Sam thought it was Rosa. But when he opened his eyes, he discovered he was still in the lodge library and had evidently fallen asleep in his wheelchair. Dreaming again. Lately it seemed as if dreams were all he’d been left with.
He hated that the stroke had taken his health and destroyed his belief in his own invulnerability. The weakness in his left hand and leg. The inability to wrap his mind around certain words. But most of all, the lack of a sex life.
He and Rosa had always enjoyed active, healthy sex in spite of bad backs and extra pounds and workdays that had left them both reeling with exhaustion. He had always been a man who knew how to please a woman in bed. He had made Rosa gasp in excitement and blush like a Key West sunrise. When they had sex, it was thrilling and considerate, wild and loving.
But since the stroke, there had been none of that. Rosa had replaced their soft, inviting double bed with two singles that were as cozy as side-by-side cemetery plots. After a chaste good-night peck on the cheek, Rosa retreated to her bed while he remained trapped in his. For his sake, she’d said, but it didn’t feel that way. He missed the familiar contours of her body pressed against him, still warm from the heat of the day. He missed the tickle of her dark hair along his cheek and her intoxicating scent that seemed to pour straight into his veins. He missed her.
He was only fifty-eight, still a young man! But in this household he was treated like an aged family dog—loved and petted and gently cared for so that no harm was done—and he was sick of it. Sick of it.
He heard that light laugh again, and knew he was not dreaming this time. The library was tucked out of the way, a quiet, sheltered time-waster of a room, its many well-stocked shelves bewitching guests into daydreams and loitering. Countless games of chess and backgammon had been played here over the years on the leather-and-mahogany board his grandfather had brought all the way from Italy. On the cold days of winter, a fire always burned in the hearth.
Through the gloom of soft afternoon light, Sam saw two figures huddled side-by-side on a love seat against the far wall. Tessa and some boy. He watched them silently for long moments, then felt his blood heat as the boy reached out a finger to touch Tessa’s lips. Presumptuous brat! How dared he assume such familiarity?
But Tessa didn’t object. She merely blushed and ducked her head. When she lifted her face again, the boy tipped closer and put his mouth against hers. Sam, who believed in love and all the trappings, nevertheless found his heart hammering in his chest now. The pup had gall! Tessa was little more than a child.
He cleared his throat loudly. As expected, the teenagers jumped and looked around guiltily. As soon as they spied him, they popped to their feet like matching jack-in-the-boxes.
“Nonno Sam!” Tessa exclaimed in a high, excited voice. “Kyle and I were just—we were just studying.” To lend credibility to that claim, she lifted a schoolbook off her lap and waggled it in his dir
ection.
“Biology, no doubt,” Sam said, making no pretense that he was fully aware of what they’d been up to. He scowled at the blond boy, giving him a look that had once been able to set his own sons to quivering, though it seemed to have little effect on this youngster.
Tessa, on the other hand, had the good sense to look unnerved. She hurried across the room.
“We didn’t see you there,” she said. “You scared us.” She was not a good enough actress to pull off the silly laugh that accompanied that explanation.
“Catch you later, Tessa,” the boy said, quick to seize his chance to escape.
“Okay, later,” his granddaughter echoed back faintly, and Sam wondered if she was already missing his support.
She moved to the chair beside him, folding herself into it like the teenager she was, all elbows and knobby knees and attitude. She didn’t look at him, and when she settled finally, her chin rested on both her balled fists.
He said nothing.
“Well,” she said at last. “Let’s hear it. Although I think lecturing is really Dad’s department.”
Sam’s eyes rested on her profile with an intimacy like a caressing hand. She was trying so hard to erect a barrier of studied indifference between herself and the world. But when had he, her favorite member of the family, become the enemy?
“I don’t lecture,” he said. “I…advise.”
She cut a quick glance his way and he saw a flash of amusement cross her features, a glimpse of the old Tessa. It disappeared quickly. Her mouth found its favorite shape again, the corners turned down in exasperation and displeasure. He knew she’d been bitterly disappointed to have her visit with her mother canceled, but he wasn’t sure he could speak to her about that issue.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” she said suddenly.
He pasted on a confident smile, though Tessa still refused to look at him. “Good to hear,” he said. “I would not expect any granddaughter of mine to behave foolishly.”
She snorted delicately. “Then you have more faith in me than Dad.”
“Your father only wants to protect you.”
Her head swung around. There was such vulnerability in her open features. “From what? Kyle’s just a boy, not a monster.”
“Mia bella, it’s not Kyle that worries your father,” Sam said. “It’s you.”
“I don’t get it.”
Of course she didn’t. Not now. Not yet. “You care about this boy. Perhaps you dream it can be something more one day. But you’re rushing into something beyond your understanding. You don’t know how powerful these feelings can be. In a couple of years, you’ll be better equipped to handle someone like Kyle, but not yet. You are too young.”
She got up fast, facing him with a look so full of misery that it shocked him a little.
Oh, damn.
“Tessa—”
“I thought you’d be the one to understand,” she said. There was a tremor in her voice that could easily become tears. “But you don’t. No one does.”
She ran out of the room, leaving him to stare after her.
Sam started to follow, then let his hand drop from the control switch of his chair. No point. Tessa was as swift as a startled gazelle and there were so many places he could not follow now.
He tried to summon the energy to think, but his brain felt suddenly thick and unbearably slow to form anything substantive. An enormous sense of defeat overtook him. He had always shared a special bond with his granddaughter, but Tessa would not come to him again. Not about this.
Finally he did nothing but sit in his chair and watch the fading sunlight slide down the bookshelves on the opposite wall. In this house he served no purpose. He could not run his business or please his wife or comfort his granddaughter.
He really was useless after all, it seemed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“THERE IT IS,” Nick said. “Elk Creek Canyon.”
Kari looked out to the left of the helicopter’s Plexiglas windscreen, barely suppressing a little sound of surprise. The canyon wasn’t what she’d expected.
A broad, open bowl of land tucked between modest, nondescript mountain peaks, Elk Creek was unimpressive. Its slopes offered abundant shelter in scattered stands of evergreens and spruce, but there were few aspen, and most of the ground cover lacked the showy colors of autumn. A creek wove through the canyon like a tiny etched line of silver, its only point of geographical interest.
Though vast and as rugged-looking as the rest of the national forest, Elk Creek Canyon seemed relatively tame. It certainly didn’t look as though it would present much of a challenge for an outdoorsmen like her father. What could have drawn him here? And more importantly, how, in spite of sudden blizzard conditions and a broken leg, could Madison Churchill have lost his fight for survival here?
She looked over at Nick. “It’s not the way I imagined it,” she told him. “I thought it would be much more…imposing. Maybe just a steep ravine with sheer rock walls and no conceivable way out.”
“It will look very different in another month or so. At this elevation, and the way the canyon’s situated, it can get a hundred and fifty inches of snow before May.” He made adjustments to bring Raven Two into a sharp, banking turn. “Where do you want to set down?”
She didn’t know what to tell him. The canyon was larger than she’d expected. None of the reports and newspaper articles she’d read had ever mentioned where exactly the search-and-rescue team had finally located her father. “Do you have any idea where they found him?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, I’m no help to you there. Pop suffered a second stroke the week before your father turned up missing, and the whole family was down in Denver at the hospital. We weren’t keeping track of the news. It wasn’t until we got home that we heard about Madison Churchill having to be air-lifted out.”
Momentarily she felt bleak and unsettled. Had she overestimated her ability to carry out this chosen course? “Then I suppose anywhere will be fine,” she said, trying not to sound dispirited. “I thought I might hike a few of the trails. Just get to know the area better.”
She watched the ground come up as he set the helicopter down gently near the creek on a flat, granite boulder as broad as a billboard.
Meeting him at the hangar this morning, Kari had wondered if Nick would have any difficulty keeping to the agreement they’d made. Friends, and nothing more. She even suspected that he might try to fob her off on Pete, the helicopter pilot who’d been helping him out.
But if Nick had any trouble, it didn’t show. He’d been polite, asking a few questions about their destination and her father, pointing out sights along the way.
She wondered why her own heart wouldn’t stop beating so fast. It was more than coming to this canyon at last. Sitting next to him in the tiny cockpit of Raven Two had been maddening this past hour—a constant test of her self-control. The powerful awareness of his physical presence. The way the morning sunlight caught and emphasized the masculine stubble along his cheek. His every movement on the controls deft and sure, all that promise of easy grace fulfilled in every muscle.
Nick cut the engine. She twisted in her seat to grab her backpack from the rear of the craft, almost relieved to make her escape. She settled back when he touched her arm and spoke to her through the hot-mike headset she still wore.
“Mind if I ask what you’re trying to accomplish by coming out here?”
His expression said he honestly couldn’t fathom the answer. Kari wasn’t sure she knew how to respond. What would a practical, logical man like Nick D’Angelo make of the idea that some journeys just needed to be taken?
“I’m not even sure, myself,” she admitted. “I just know I had to see this place. I always thought of my father as such a strong person, almost indestructible, really. Since his death, I’ve tried to imagine how it could have all gone so wrong. I had hoped that coming here would give me some answers.”
She stared out the front windscreen, try
ing to picture the ground covered with dangerous mounds of snow and ice, offering no protection and only a cold, lonely death. On such a beautiful fall day, with a cobalt-blue sky overhead, such harsh consequences didn’t seem possible.
“You sure you want me to leave you here?” Nick asked.
“I’ve got everything I need,” she said, tapping her backpack. “And it’s only for a few hours.”
“I don’t like it,” Nick said, shaking his head slowly. “I’ve flown plenty of hikers into the backcountry so they could explore remote trails, but I’ve never brought anyone in this deep before. Certainly not alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Before he could say anything else, she slipped off her headset, unlatched the door and jumped to the ground. Nick leaned across the seat and said something to her, but without the hot mike and with the whoop-whoop noise of the rotor blades as they cycled down, she couldn’t make out his words.
“What?” She had to raise her voice to be heard.
“I said, I could stay if you need me to.”
The offer took her by surprise and made her feel strangely fragile. She saw concern in his eyes and was touched by it. “Thanks,” she said, “but truthfully, I’d rather do this alone.”
He nodded shortly—all business again—and pushed back in his seat. His hand flipped switches on the instrument panel and the rotor blades increased their speed once more, making conversation almost impossible.
“Stay on the trails and take it slow,” Nick yelled at her. “Remember you’re up ten thousand feet and the altitude can get to you. So can the sun, so use your sunscreen. I’ll be back at four o’clock.” He turned to look at her. “You’d better be here.”
She smiled and nodded, holding her hair out of her eyes as the rotor blades whipped the air furiously. “Gee, you sound like you’re actually worried about me,” she shouted.
“Bad for business if I lose a customer,” he yelled back.
The moment she closed the passenger door, he lifted off.
Squinting against the sun, she watched until he was no more than a black speck against that perfect, cloudless sky. And then…nothing.