“We hoped you would both say that,” Duster said.
“We were pretty sure you both would,” Bonnie said, laughing.
“So is this secret actually in Silver City?” Madison asked. He had been up to the old ghost town a number of times and had studied it a lot. He liked focusing his work on lesser-known areas of the history of the Pacific Northwest region. Now the people who owned the buildings in the actual remains of Silver City were very, very protective of the property and the history of the city was clearly documented.
“Nope,” Duster said. “It’s in a mine on Florida Mountain above Silver City. Now, no more on that until we get there because we honestly can’t explain it until you see it, and even then it’s almost impossible to believe.”
“Breakfast at that fantastic little café in Murphy?” Bonnie asked.
“Please,” Dawn said in that wonderful voice of hers. “I don’t care where, just breakfast.”
“Never been there,” Madison said, “but breakfast in an hour does sound perfect.”
“Mind if I doze off until then?” Dawn asked.
Madison was very glad she asked that, because the shock of meeting her was starting to wear off and he didn’t want to be rude by just dozing on his own.
“No problem at all,” Duster said, his voice happy and filled with far, far too much energy for this time of the day. “I’ll get us there, but if you are all snoring, I might turn up the music.”
“Deal,” Madison said, leaning back and closing his eyes.
With the most beautiful woman he had ever seen on this crazy trip, he was going to need to be as rested as he could be. Not counting whatever crazy secret Bonnie and Duster had in store for them on the mountain above Silver City.
Behind him he heard Dawn say softly, “I hate early mornings.”
All he could do was smile.
She was more perfect than he had even imagined a woman could be.
And he didn’t even know her yet.
CHAPTER SIX
THE DRIVE INTO MURPHY, IDAHO, seemed to be instantaneous.
Dawn had dozed off right after the announcement they were going to Silver City first. She’d never been up there, so the idea kind of excited her, as long as they were actually headed to the Thunder Mountain area and Roosevelt after that.
Duster pulled into the café parking lot and shut off the car, then said, “We’re here.”
She managed to sit up and wipe the sleep from her eyes a little and run her fingers through her hair. Then she quickly checked to make sure she hadn’t been drooling.
Bonnie was doing the same thing as she climbed out the other side.
The sun was up and was promising a hot August day as Dawn stepped onto the concrete and stretched. There were in front of a one-story old building with a faded sign on it and dust-covered windows. The sign said, “Highway Café” which was about as original as it came in these parts.
She had pulled off her coat and had been using it as a pillow. Now she was only dressed in a white cotton blouse tucked into her jeans with a sports bra under that.
The air wasn’t cool, even though it was just barely after six in the morning. The day was going to be hot. Very hot.
The air around the small town of Murphy smelled like sagebrush and the wind was barely rustling the tops of the nearby cottonwoods.
On the other side of the car Madison seemed to almost be staggering as well and his hair was mussed up. She smiled, liking the fact that he was as much a night person as she was.
“No talking about the secret at all,” Duster said to her and Madison as they headed for the front door of the old Highway Café. “Or any mine. Or Silver City for that matter. The people here think we have a ranch up in the hills.”
“We actually own one,” Bonnie said, laughing as she stretched. “Cattle and everything.”
Dawn nodded, actually surprised that Bonnie and Duster would own something like that. It showed how much she didn’t know about them. They had offered to fund some of her research once, so she knew they had money. She did as well, actually. So much that she didn’t really have to teach if she didn’t want to. She actually had a vast amount, in the millions, which had been left to her from her grandmother. When they had offered the funding, she had thanked Bonnie and Duster, but said no.
But they had insisted on paying all the expenses on this trip and she didn’t feel like arguing. She really never let anyone know just how rich she really was. It always caused more problems than it was worth.
Dawn stretched and ran her hands through her hair, working to shake the sleep from her mind.
Madison was doing the same thing.
God, even half asleep, the man was fantastic. She couldn’t remember when she had been this attracted to a man in just a physical way.
And he seemed attracted to her as well, which meant they were both going to have to be careful on this trip if they didn’t want to spoil the few days for Bonnie and Duster with wild and noisy sex.
She honestly wouldn’t mind the thought of that, but she really liked Bonnie and Duster and wanted to keep them as friends.
Inside, Duster got them a scarred-top booth looking out the dusty front window while she and Bonnie and Madison all headed down the narrow hallway toward the restrooms. Pictures of the area in cheap frames covered the hallway walls, but Dawn was far too tired to stop and look at them.
Bonnie made it to the sink first and splashed water on her face, pulling out a comb and working on her hair while Dawn used the toilet.
Then they switched positions.
Dawn let the water in the sink run cold for a minute, then splashed water on her face. The ice-cold water felt perfect, knocking back the sleep some, enough to get her through the rest of the day and more than likely into a hotel room in McCall later this evening.
“You know how hard it is to not ask about this secret thing?” Dawn said softly to Bonnie as they headed down the narrow hallway back into the restaurant.
“I got a hunch,” Bonnie said, laughing. “But trust me, it will be worth it.”
“I am trusting you,” Dawn said to Bonnie as she sat down in the booth next to Madison.
At a glance he looked like he had splashed water on his face as well.
She suddenly felt like a first date back in high school, all afraid to talk or get too close to her date for fear of even brushing an elbow.
So instead she glanced around at the café.
It was one that looked like it had been here and functioning since the 1950s. It had a few stuffed animal heads on the walls, two deer and a large elk, and lots of pictures of various things along the Snake River that ran nearby.
Murphy was founded out here in the middle of the desert, away from the river in 1890-something when a rail line came in. Now it wasn’t more than a stop on the two-lane highway.
The menu for the place was covered in plastic and tattered from use.
There were only two other customers in the place sitting with their backs to them at the counter. She could see a cook behind an open counter and a waitress in a blue apron over jeans and a blue blouse. The waitress looked like she had had a tough life with far too much time in the sun for her skin.
Looking at the menu and smelling the wonderful breakfast smells of bacon and coffee, Dawn suddenly realized she was very hungry. More so than she expected to be at this time of day.
All four of them ordered basically the same thing. Eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns, and a small stack of pancakes. It was called “The Basic” on the menu and Dawn had no doubt there would be far, far too much food to finish. But it all sounded so good.
“So,” Madison said to Duster, “exactly where is this ranch of yours and how big is it?”
Duster and Bonnie talked about their ranch, the house on it, and everything, like proud parents for most of the time it took for the food to start arriving, which thankfully wasn’t that long. Dawn was afraid to even sip on the coffee in front of her until she had some food in her sto
mach.
Beside her, Madison didn’t touch his coffee either. And even after sleeping like that in the car, he smelled wonderful. She wanted to just lean over and put her head on his shoulder and let his soft smell fill her nose, but she had no doubt that would just freak him out.
It turned out that Bonnie and Duster’s ranch was a historical ranch and she recognized a few of the names that Duster and Madison were mentioning. The history of this area just hadn’t been her focus, but it was still history of the Old West and she loved anything to do with that.
Then as they started eating, Duster asked Madison how his research on the mining wars of Northern Idaho was going. Madison talked about that for a short time with both Duster and Bonnie asking very pointed questions at times that surprised Dawn. Those two really, really did know their western history.
They had done the same with her a few times.
Dawn mostly sat and listened and ate and was happy for that.
She was mostly lost in Madison’s clear and wonderful voice and a couple times found herself just staring at him beside her as he talked.
She flat-out loved that dimple on his right cheek when he smiled.
And just as two kids on a date, they both avoided any physical contact in the small booth. She wasn’t sure what she was so afraid of with touching him. Maybe just bursting into flames.
It had been a while since she had spent any physical time with a man. Too long, in fact. More than a year if her memory served, and even that hadn’t been any good.
So maybe she should be afraid of bursting into flames with a man as hot and good-looking as Madison.
It would be kind of embarrassing if he touched her arm and she just had an orgasm right there in the booth.
Bonnie and Duster would never let her forget it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY ONLY MADE SMALL TALK after they left the café and Murphy and headed east along the river. Madison had managed to get through breakfast sitting next to Dawn without doing anything really stupid, or even touching her in anyway.
He was afraid to, honestly. Even though all the way through breakfast it felt like it would be natural to reach down and just touch her leg or her hand on the table.
But he hadn’t.
Amazing self-restraint on his part, not because he wanted anything from her, although he did, but because it would have felt so natural to touch her. Part of him just felt at home with her, at ease with her.
His feeling for her scared him more than he wanted to admit. It had been a long time since his work had allowed him to even meet a woman he was interested in.
Dawn hadn’t said much through breakfast, and now he was afraid to ask her about her work, even though Duster and Bonnie had talked with him about his work. And as most discussions with them, he had been stunned at how sharp their knowledge about western history was.
They had surprised him a couple of times with questions just over breakfast. They seemed to do that a great deal with him.
Duster slowed and turned the Cadillac SUV off the highway and onto a dirt road that led up and over War Eagle Mountain and then down into Silver City.
The road was gravel, but wide, clearly two-lane, smooth, and well kept. Madison was surprised.
“Wow, they really improved this road.”
Duster nodded. “A couple years back they started working some of the old mines up on War Eagle. They were sifting the tailings, actually, and finding enough to make it worthwhile. They needed to have a good road to get the big trucks up and down, since they were doing the sifting at a plant down on the river. The road up is two lane and pretty smooth gravel all the way up to the top of the mountain now.”
“Thankfully,” Bonnie said. “This used to be a terror ride.”
“That’s my memory of it,” Madison said.
Duster then went on to tell him the history of the mines that had opened back up and now were mostly closed again, and why they had closed, and the politics of the entire thing.
It wasn’t until they left the improved road and started down the narrow, winding old wagon road into Silver City that Duster turned to talking about their destination. Madison was glad he was, because the road from the top down was the terror that Bonnie described and what he remembered as well. Basically not much more than a trail working along a cliff face.
“We’re not actually going into Silver City,” Duster said. “We’re going to take another road from Jordan Creek a mile south of Silver City and go up on Florida Mountain.”
“How far up?” Madison asked, looking down at the drop beside his passenger window as Duster expertly took the big SUV around some corners. He clearly knew this road.
“About eight hundred feet up to an old mine my family has owned for a long time.”
“It’s called The Trade Dollar Mine,” Bonnie said from behind him. “It officially played out around 1871, one of the first to have the gold vein pinch off, as they used to say.”
Madison nodded. He had heard that term a lot. Gold veins often just went down to slivers and then stopped. The mine owners usually dug a little farther hoping the vein would start back up, but it seldom did.
Duster got the SUV to the bottom of the twisting road and then he slowed to a stop just short of a wide wooden bridge, letting the dust around them die off slowly. Ahead of them on the other side of the bridge the road went in three directions.
To Madison it looked really warm outside the window and it was still three hours before noon. It was going to be one really hot day.
“You ever been up here before?” Bonnie asked Dawn.”
“Never,” Dawn said. “A lot drier than I imagined. I like the central Idaho area better for that alone.”
“Yeah, this is dry,” Bonnie said. “But not as high. “This is just over six thousand feet here. Monumental Summit is around eight thousand.”
“Higher,” Dawn said.
Madison twisted around in his seat a little so he could see Dawn. Again she just shocked him with her looks and his attraction to her.
“This is Jordan Creek,” Bonnie said. “And down the valley a few miles are the ghost towns of Delemar and Dewey. Up the creek about a mile is Silver City.”
“You can get out of here by going down the stream and through those two towns,” Duster said, “but the road out to Jordan Valley on the Oregon side is so rough, I wouldn’t want to try it.”
“I agree with that,” Bonnie said. “Scared me something awful the one time we did try it.”
“We’re headed straight,” Duster said as he started the SUV up and bounced them across the rough wooden bridge with a loud clatter and up the road. “We’ll be there shortly now.”
“And then we can see this secret?” Madison asked, smiling at Dawn who smiled back before he turned to face forward.
“I can promise you that you won’t believe it, even when you see it,” Duster said, laughing. “I sure didn’t.”
“You should write mystery novels,” Dawn said.
Beside her Bonnie said softly. “Nope, this would be science fiction.”
Madison wanted to turn around and look at Bonnie and ask her just what she meant by that, but didn’t dare considering the road Duster was powering them up. It had more washouts and ruts than it had smooth spots.
Even the huge Cadillac was bouncing like a wild bull.
And the term road was not really accurate. Trail would be a generous description, actually.
And holding on for dear life was Madison’s plan at the moment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAWN DID EVERYTHING SHE COULD to hold on as Duster bounced them up the roughest road she could ever remember. The Cadillac had great suspension and was normally a smooth ride. Even with that, she felt like she was inside a dryer set to tumble dry. If it hadn’t been for the handle over the door and the seat and shoulder belts, there would have been no telling where she would have ended up. More than likely she and Bonnie both would have ended up in a broken pile on the floor.
&n
bsp; Thankfully the rough part didn’t last very long, even though it seemed like it did.
Duster finally turned the car onto what looked like nothing more than an old wagon trail that wound through a stand of scrub pine going across the mountain and slightly up along the top of a ridge.
It was smoother, but on this trail it felt like the car was going to roll over and not stop until it reached the valley below. She wanted to hold onto Bonnie who seemed to be above her at the moment.
She could tell that Madison wasn’t riding this out any better than she was.
Bonnie seemed indifferent to it, like it was just something to get through and not worry about.
Finally Duster turned the car into an opening in some brush under some thin pine trees and stopped.
“We’re here,” he said, shutting off the car and letting the silence of the mountain crash in on them. “This is as close as I can get with the car.”
“You get the plate on that truck that hit me?” Madison asked, slowly easing his grip from the handhold above the door.
“Yeah,” Dawn said. “I’d like that as well.”
Duster laughed. “No worry, it’s easier going back down.”
“Oh, great,” Madison said.
Dawn laughed.
She loved the fact that on the surface the two of them had a lot in common. They both hated mornings and rough car rides and they both loved studying history. Might not be enough for a relationship, but she figured it was more than enough for some great sex.
She shook her head of that thought and opened the door into the hot, dry, and very thin mountain air.
Everything around her had the wonderful smell of sage and warm pine needles. It reminded her of so many great memories of being in the mountains as a kid. Her parents used to take her up outside of McCall in central Idaho and on hot summer days near the lake, this is what it smelled like.
She loved it and those wonderful memories. More than likely all those childhood trips were why she loved being in the mountains so much.
Right now the air around her felt hot, and she had no doubt it would get much, much warmer before the day was done.
Thunder Mountain Page 3