Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel

by Pamela Clare

  Eric went on. “What about the first time we climbed Mount Bierstadt together? You were like, ‘Follow me. This is the way.’ We ended up on the summit of Mount Spaulding instead.”

  Chaska laughed. “Wow, buddy. Really? You climbed the wrong mountain?”

  His reaction made Vic laugh. “How did you do that?”

  Austin met Vic’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “It’s easier than you think.”

  But Eric wasn’t finished. “How about the second time we went to climb Mount Bierstadt and ended up on the summit of Mount Evans? That was fun.”

  Lexi was into it now. “There was also the time you took me to that bridal store in Denver. We drove in circles for twenty minutes trying to find the place because you’d taken a wrong turn.”

  Austin chuckled. “Okay, okay! I’ll get gas. But I never get lost in my mountains.”

  “Okay, that’s true,” Eric said. “I’ll give you that much.”

  Austin pulled over at a gas station on the edge of town. Everyone else seemed to be leaving, too, the pumps crowded with vehicles.

  Vic decided to take advantage of the chance to buy a few things—water, lip balm, more sunscreen. “Does anyone want anything?”

  “I’ll come with you,” Lexi said.

  They climbed out of the SUV and walked through the late afternoon heat toward the convenience store. Inside, they found a long line at the cash register.

  Vic tossed the things she wanted into a basket and went to stand with Lexi in line.

  Lexi’s basket was full—graham crackers, chocolate bars, marshmallows, water, mosquito repellant. “I got stuff to make s’mores. We can’t camp without s’mores.”

  “Camp without s’mores? No way.” Vic loved s’mores. “I haven’t had those since I was a kid. I feel like I’m at summer camp.”

  “I hope you’re having a good—”

  “You’re that chick from the website, right?” A man’s voice cut Lexi off. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  Oh, God.

  Panic sent Vic’s heart racing, her worst fear coming to life.

  “Ignore him,” Lexi said, loud enough that he heard.

  “I’m not talking to you, little red, though you’re fine, too. I’m talking to your friend there.” The man leaned down and lowered his voice. “You’ve got the sweetest tits, and one fine ass. How much?”

  “Back off, jerk!” Vic whirled on him, found herself facing six feet of leering asshole—plus a friend.

  “Who is she?” the friend asked, his gaze moving over her.

  “She’s that chick from online I showed you—the call girl.”

  “I am not a call girl.” She whispered the words, sure that people had overheard him and were now watching.

  Lexi took Vic’s arm. “Come on. We can buy this stuff somewhere else.”

  Vic followed Lexi toward the door, the two of them setting their shopping baskets down on the end of the counter as they passed.

  “I’m so sorry, Lexi.”

  Lexi pushed open the door. “It’s not your fault.”

  Vic hadn’t taken two steps outside when a hand closed painfully around her arm and held her fast.

  “Now, come on. Don’t be like that. I know who you are. I got fifty bucks for you if you’ll do both of us. Is your friend a hooker, too?”

  She jerked her arm free. “Don’t touch me!”

  Behind her, three vehicle doors opened. Vic glanced over her shoulder and saw Eric, Austin, and Chaska heading her way, rage on their faces.

  “Back off, asshole!” Eric reached her first and put himself between her and the jerk. “Go get in the car, Victoria.”

  “Yeah, that’s your name. Victoria Wood—or something like that.”

  Vic’s stomach dropped to the ground.

  “Forget him.” Lexi caught her arm through Vic’s and led her to Austin’s SUV, where Britta stood by the open door. But Vic couldn’t get herself to climb inside, fear for her friends rooting her to the spot.

  The jerk sneered. “Who are you—her pimp?”

  Oh, God, no!

  This could not be happening.

  Eric took a step forward, got right in the man’s face, his hands clenched into fists. “Taylor, you’d better arrest this piece of shit before I kill him.”

  The man’s gaze shifted to Austin. “You’re a cop?”

  “Man, let’s just get out of here,” said the jerk’s friend. “He’s probably got a gun.”

  “I’m an off-duty law-enforcement officer. Your buddy obviously has more brains than you do,” Austin said. “Third-degree assault for grabbing her like that. Soliciting for prostitution. You’d better listen to your friend and run.”

  The jerk raised his hands in surrender and took a step backward. “Hey, I got no problem with you guys. I just want—”

  Eric took another step forward, crowding the man. “You talk to any woman like that, and you’ve got a problem with me.”

  “With all of us,” Chaska said.

  The man’s friend stared at Chaska. “What are you? Some kind of Indian?”

  “Wow, you really did get all the brains. Yeah, I’m some kind of Indian—the kind who’s going to rip your balls off and hang them over my front door if you don’t beat it.”

  The two men turned tail and hurried away.

  Eric turned to find Victoria standing next to the SUV’s open rear door, her gaze fixed on him, her eyes wide, her face pale. He walked over to her and drew her into his arms. She was shaking like a leaf.

  Son of a bitch!

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “It’s not your fault. You have no reason to be sorry.”

  He’d had his window down and had heard what the fucker had said to her, calling her a hooker, offering her money for sex. The asshole had said he knew her, even called her by her name—sort of.

  What the hell?

  He drew a breath, fought to rein in his anger. He was used to helping people, not wanting to punch the shit out of them. “Lexi, do you mind taking the front seat? I want to sit next to Victoria—if it’s okay with her.”

  Victoria nodded.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Lexi climbed out and got into the front seat.

  Eric watched as the two men who’d harassed Victoria jumped into a rust red pickup truck. He didn’t want them doubling back with a firearm. When everyone else was settled, he climbed into the seat beside Victoria and buckled his seatbelt. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Hold on.” Taylor was writing something on a piece of paper. “I want to get their plate number and see which way they go so we know whether we’ve got a chance of running into them again down the road.”

  “Good idea.” Eric reached over, took Victoria’s hand. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head, but Eric could see the red blotches on her arm where the bastard had grabbed her. They would become bruises.

  Damn it.

  Victoria looked over at him. “I’m really sorry.”

  He massaged his hand over the red marks. “You didn’t do anything.”

  Lexi turned to look back at Victoria. “It’s okay, Vic. No one blames you. It’s good you guys came along, because I was about to kick that creep in the shins.”

  The rust red pickup truck pulled out of the parking lot, turned onto the highway, and sped away toward the junction with Highway 24.

  Hell.

  That’s the same direction they were headed.

  As he started the engine, Taylor met Eric’s gaze in the rearview mirror, his unspoken message clear.

  Keep your eyes open.

  They made a quick trip to a nearby grocery store. Victoria stayed in the car, while Austin and Lexi went inside to pick up the things Victoria and Lexi had wanted to buy at the gas station. Then they set out for the campground, finding their way without getting lost or running into the bastards in the pickup again.

  The site sat high above St. Elmo in a grove of old aspens, giving them an amazing view of Mt. Princeton a
nd Mt. Antero. A little creek ran down a gully to the west, while the Arkansas River Valley stretched out to the east. A cool breeze blew in from the north, carrying the scent of distant rain.

  While the women shaped beef into patties and Belcourt gathered wood for a fire, Eric and Taylor pitched four two-man tents—one for Lexi and Austin, one for Britta and Victoria, one for Winona, and one for Eric. Belcourt planned to hike off into the trees and sleep under the stars without a tent.

  Eric pounded the last spike into the ground with a rubber mallet, his gaze moving to Victoria, who was slicing a tomato. “How did I end up by myself?”

  “Moretti stayed home.”

  Oh, yeah. “Poor Moretti.”

  Eric didn’t blame him. He couldn’t imagine that he would feel much like rafting after a call like that. What a damned tragedy it had been.

  “Are you going to be okay alone, or do you need a teddy bear?” Taylor grinned at his own stupid joke.

  “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  Soon, burgers were cooking over the fire, the scent of sizzling beef making Eric’s mouth water. The job of grill master went to Winona, who had more experience cooking over a wood fire than the rest of them combined. It was a skill—one of many—she’d learned from her grandmother growing up on the reservation.

  Victoria sat with the rest of them, following along with the conversation, laughing when everyone else laughed, but it didn’t take a degree in psychology to see that she was deeply upset by what had happened this afternoon. He could see it in the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes—and the way her gaze searched the periphery of their camp, as if making sure no one else was there.

  Her reaction was more extreme than he’d expect from a woman who’d been randomly harassed by a stranger in a convenience store. Something that son of a bitch had said to her today had shaken her to her core.

  Shit.

  That fucker had believed he’d known who she was. He’d been so certain that he’d offered her money for sex on the spot. But there was no way Victoria had ever been a call girl. Yeah, she could be assertive and flirty, and she’d probably had sex with her share of guys. But a woman who didn’t want him to see her panties wasn’t the kind of woman who’d display and sell her body online.

  They ate dinner at the picnic table and then gathered around the fire to make s’mores, the sweet scent of roasting marshmallows making the camping trip complete.

  “You know,” Taylor said, piercing another marshmallow with the end of his stick, “St. Elmo is supposedly haunted.”

  While they devoured every last marshmallow and bit of chocolate, he told them a story about poor Annabelle Stark, who was raised by her strict parents in St. Elmo during its rough and rowdy days as a mining town. They refused to let her meet men and wouldn’t let her attend any of the town’s social functions. Annabelle remained unmarried. Then the bust times hit, and the population dwindled. Annabelle’s parents died, leaving her alone in a hotel that rarely had guests.

  “They say the loneliness eventually drove her mad. She died in the hotel where she’d lived all of her life, a prisoner of her parents’ fears. They say she’s still there, watching over the town. More than one sheriff’s deputy has reported seeing a woman looking out of the upstairs window in the ruins of that hotel, but when they go to check, they find the place empty and the stairs to the second floor gone.”

  For a moment, no one spoke, the night silent apart from the crackling of the fire and the whisper of wind in the pines.

  Eric saw Victoria shiver, whether from the story or from the chilly night air, he couldn’t be sure. He got to his feet, grabbed a blanket from his tent, then walked over to where she sat on a log and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  He sat beside her. “That’s not very scary. All this ghost does is look out the window? She doesn’t even say ‘Boo’?”

  Even Taylor laughed. “You got something better?”

  “Nope. But Belcourt here does.” Eric had listened to him tell ghost stories from the reservation one night when they’d been camping in the backcountry, and he’d found it damned hard to fall asleep afterward.

  “The difference between my sister and me and the rest of you is that we believe in spirits of all kinds—good spirits, evil spirits, trickster spirits.” Belcourt said. “These are not just stories. They are true things that happened to people we know.”

  Here we go.

  Vic listened, mesmerized, as Chaska shared his stories, barely able to breathe, his words—and the man who sat beside her—taking her mind off what had happened today.

  “My grandfather is a hereditary Sun Dance chief,” he said, beginning a new tale. “One day I got a tape in the mail—an old cassette tape. My grandfather sent it with a note telling me he wanted me to learn the old songs so they wouldn’t be lost.”

  Vic slipped her hand into Eric’s, his fingers threading easily with hers.

  “My grandfather has lived alone since my grandmother made the journey a few years ago. He’s a strong man with a good voice for singing. My grandmother had a good voice, too, and the two of them did the pow wow trail together, driving around in an old camper, drumming and singing with Native people from all over this land.

  “So I put the tape in an old tape player and listened, and there was my grandfather singing with a half-dozen other people, including my grandmother. I recognized her voice, though I didn’t recognize the others.”

  Eric pulled his hand from hers and put his arm around her. She rested her cheek against his chest, his heartbeat steady.

  How long had it been since she’d felt this kind of easy intimacy with a man? She hadn’t even slept with him, hadn’t even seen him naked, and yet sitting here beside him, she felt comfortable, protected, safe.

  Chaska went on. “When I called him to thank him for the tape, I asked when he and my grandmother had recorded it. It must have been years ago. He said to me, ‘I just did that the day before I mailed it to you, and I was alone in the house at the time. Your grandmother is gone. Don’t play cruel jokes on an old man.’

  “I told him it wasn’t a joke. His voice wasn’t the only one on that tape. I played it for him over the phone. He heard it, too—his wife’s spirit and those of his parents and grandparents singing the songs with him so that they wouldn’t be lost.”

  Shivers ran down Vic’s spine. “That really happened?”

  Winona nodded. “I’ve listened to the tape myself.”

  “I’ll play it for you one day if you like,” Chaska offered.

  “That’s okay. I believe you.” Vic wasn’t sure she wanted to listen to spirits singing, even friendly ones.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m beat,” Lexi said.

  “Same here,” said Winona.

  There was something Victoria had to say before everyone disappeared into his or her tents. “Thanks, guys, for what you did for me today. Standing up for me like that … I don’t think my own brother would have done that.”

  “Hey, no worries,” Austin said.

  “Happy to help,” said Chaska.

  “Your brother must be a jerk,” Eric said.

  “Yeah, I guess he is.” Victoria wasn’t ready to give up physical closeness—his fingers enfolding hers, his arm around her shoulder, his chest beneath her cheek—but everyone else was up and getting ready to sleep.

  He stood first, drawing her to her feet. “You’ve got chocolate on your lip.”

  “I do?”

  He ducked down, licked it away, his lips touching hers for the briefest kiss, the contact making her want more. But this wasn’t the time or the place.

  She took a step back. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  She helped get the food packed away, then brushed her teeth and made a quick trip to the restroom facility with Lexi and Britta. Moths danced around the fluorescent lights, the brightness making Vic squint.

  “I’m sleeping in the SUV.” Britta disappeared into the one a
nd only stall.

  “My sister is the Princess on the Pea.”

  “I just don’t like sleeping on the ground,” Britta said from inside the stall.

  Lexi rolled her eyes at her sister. “You’re not on the ground. You’re zipped in a tent, away from the bugs on a foam pad inside a sleeping bag.”

  But Britta wasn’t persuaded. “I’m sleeping in the SUV.”

  Ten minutes later, Vic found herself alone in a tent, eyes wide in the darkness. It wasn’t Chaska’s stories that kept her awake, but the vile words of the man who’d grabbed her at the gas station.

  Chapter 10

  Eric lay on his back, arm bent beneath his head, staring through the tiny square of mesh on the top of his tent at the stars. He couldn’t sleep, his head filled with images of her. Victoria kissing him on the riverbank, her dark hair wet. Victoria looking terrified when that asshole grabbed her arm. Victoria making s’mores and listening wide-eyed to Taylor and Belcourt’s stories.

  He needed to get her out of his mind. She’d be leaving Sunday, going back to Chicago, and he’d be staying here. Sunday. That was five days from now. Five days. God only knew when he’d see her again.

  Shit.

  He was falling for her. Taylor had been right.

  There was only one way to deal with that. He needed to put some distance between them, clear his head. He would finish working on the video, and that would be it, because no way was he getting tangled up with her.

  From outside, he heard footsteps, a shadow crouching near his door.

  “Eric?” Victoria whispered. “Are you awake?”

  He sat up, unzipped his tent fly, found her crouching there, sleeping bag and foam pad wadded up in her arms, day pack on one shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I can’t sleep. Can I stay with you?”

  But this wasn’t a booty call.

  Even in the darkness, he could see fear on her pretty face. “Sure.”

  What did you just say about creating distance, dumbshit?

  Yeah, well, that would have to wait. He couldn’t leave Lexi’s best friend terrified and alone. Besides, the idea of spending the night beside her …

  Can you hear yourself, buddy?