Her gaze fell to the picture of her parents on her bedside table now. In it, they looked so happy, so proud. She sighed. What the hell would they think if they knew what she was up to? They would disapprove of the lying and they’d never particularly liked Brent... Her stomach twisted a little.
But they’d always said they just wanted her to be happy, and she hadn’t truly been happy since she was with Brent. She’d yet to find someone she wanted to spend her time with the way she’d always wanted to be with him. Back then, her parents had worried because he was a teenage jock with a reputation for being a bit of a rebel. But if they could see him now and the success he’d made of himself, they’d have to reevaluate their opinion, wouldn’t they?
Unfortunately, they weren’t here, so she’d never really know. She would just have to go with her gut.
“Sorry, Mom and Dad, desperate times call for desperate measures.”
* * *
MISSING HIKERS IN the Chugach Mountains in summer were one of the least complicated searches, but each one held its own unique challenges and surprises. Therefore, the search and rescue crew were always prepared for anything.
Though Callum was sure no one had really prepared for this particular search. A ninety-year-old man visiting from Texas had gone missing with his forty-year-old wife. The two were reportedly on their honeymoon.
“Is it obvious to anyone else that the woman might have been trying to get her new husband lost?” he asked Reed as they trudged slowly through the trails along the north side of the mountain as the sun started to dip low in the sky.
Reed laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re all thinking.”
Even Diva looked unimpressed to be hiking in the dead summer heat to look for two people who probably shouldn’t have been out there in the first place.
“Stop being so judgmental,” Tiffany, one of the other crew members, said behind them. “Maybe they really are in love.”
Of course Tiffany would come to the couple’s defense—she was dating a woman ten years older and was completely paranoid about what others thought about that. Coming out had been hard enough for her, but then announcing the age gap had added to her stress. They’d all known she was gay, and they were thrilled she’d found someone she cared about after a string of men who’d never made her happy. “Ten years is a lot different than fifty. Name one woman you know who’d like balls shriveled up like prunes,” Callum said.
She laughed. “Okay, so maybe this age gap is a little suspicious...given the circumstances.”
The circumstances being that the old man was a multimillionaire with no dependents. This was his fifth marriage, and his health wasn’t so great.
Callum’s phone chimed with a new text from Ellie, the “Could You Be Loved” ringtone he’d assigned to her contact garnering an eyebrow raise from Reed.
He ignored it as he read her message about pickup the next day. He quickly texted back.
I’ll be there, my love.
Her emoji response of an unimpressed koala bear made him laugh as he tucked the phone away.
“I noticed your week-off request from the call list,” Reed said. “You going on vacation?”
“Sort of... A few of Ellie’s high school friends are heading to Birchwood Cottages for five days. They invited us along.”
Reed raised an eyebrow. “Your coworker Ellie? Things heating up between you two?”
He hesitated. How much did he want to share about the situation? Reed would find the whole fake fiancé thing hilarious, but he didn’t want anyone judging Ellie...and he was still holding out hope that maybe their situation wouldn’t be as fake by the end of the trip. “We’re just going together as friends. It’s a couples thing and she didn’t want to go alone.”
Reed eyed him. “But obviously you’re hoping to change the current status?”
Man, were his feelings for Ellie that obvious? He talked about her a lot. Maybe too much. But he wasn’t trying to hide it. He did like her. “That would be the goal, yes.” A goal he really hoped he could achieve.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF SHE SURVIVED the week, it would be a miracle.
Ellie’s juvenile asthma returned as she waited on her front step for Callum, her overnight bag in hand. She reached for her emergency inhaler, which she hadn’t had to rely on in years. Fantastic timing for the ailment to reappear. She was sweating in the muggy humidity of the overcast day, and her heart raced as her mind overthought absolutely every little detail of the upcoming camping trip.
How were they supposed to fake a relationship all week while she was trying to get to know Brent again?
She’d been awake all night thinking about it, and the only thing she could come up with was that they’d have to stage a believable breakup at the end of the week if she and Brent were reconnecting, if there was any sign from him that he might still be in love with her and want to get back together. The way he’d looked at her at the reunion and the way he seemed disappointed to hear of her sudden engagement had her hoping...
“Come on, Callum.” Ellie checked her watch. What a surprise, he was late. Everyone else was driving up together in Nick’s six-seater SUV, and there would have been space for her, as well, if Callum wasn’t tagging along. The extra man made it necessary for them to drive up on their own together.
Alone for the three-and-a-half-hour drive up the mountains. She’d be a huge ball of anxiety by the time they got there.
Seeing Callum’s silver SUV turn the corner of her street, she lugged her heavy bag down the steps to meet him on the sidewalk as he parked and got out.
“Good morning,” he said, looking relaxed and confident. No sign of the anxiety she was struggling with.
But why should there be? He was getting a fun week away. It was just her future happiness on the line.
“You’re late.”
“I would have been here faster if my phone wasn’t blowing up with text messages from you asking me where I was every two minutes,” he said, opening the trunk and taking her bag from her.
“I wouldn’t have to text if you could be on time,” she said as he opened the passenger door.
He grinned. “Look at us...our first lovers’ quarrel.”
She glared at him as she got into the car. “Not funny. Get in, we need a game plan.”
He laughed as he closed the passenger door and walked around the front to climb back behind the wheel. He was in shorts and a T-shirt that day, and the way the sleeves of the shirt seemed to be struggling to accommodate his tanned, toned arms had her mind flashing back to the way she’d gripped them to balance herself when he’d kissed her at the reunion.
Her mouth went dry, and she looked away quickly.
She needed to focus and not get caught in that weird spiral of trying to figure out why that kiss had affected her again. She’d wasted far too many brain cells on it already.
“Ready?” he asked as he closed the door.
“As ready as I could ever be,” she said. And as soon as he pulled away from the curb, she launched into her strategy. “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this. Today when we arrive, we act friendly to one another, but not over-the-top in love.” She gave him a pointed look. “Meaning no more of those impulsive kisses.”
“You think your friends will believe we’re engaged if we don’t kiss at all?”
It would be odd, but she couldn’t risk another one. “Yes. It will be a sign of our ‘rocky’ relationship.”
“My mother kissed my dad every morning before he went to work, even on the day she left his ass,” Callum said.
Ellie’s eyes widened at the rare mention of his mother. He talked about his dad a lot, but in all the time they’d been coworkers and friends, he’d only mentioned his mom a few times. She knew the woman was living in Colorado, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Until now, that apparently she�
�d kissed her husband goodbye every morning even when she’d fallen out of love.
“Anyway, go ahead...what were you saying?” Callum said, realizing he’d shared something personal.
What was she saying? Right, the gradual downward spiral of their relationship up to the believable breakup. “Tomorrow, we start to act like we’re fighting, like maybe we’ve had a huge argument and are trying to hide it. Then you start acting jealous, controlling whenever I spend time talking to Brent...”
“Jealous I can handle but controlling—nope.”
Ellie sighed. “Fine, just be believably jealous. Then we will have a big argument in front of everyone, you’ll leave early and I’ll tell everyone the engagement is off. And if everything goes to plan, I’ll have two full days with Brent and head back into town with everyone else.” Giving them an extra three hours in a car together to reminisce and reconnect. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it could work. It had to.
Callum sighed as he took the exit for the highway. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
Ellie studied him. “Of course that’s what I want.” Why else would she be putting so much at risk? If this didn’t work out, not only would she have lost her one shot with Brent, but she’d be a laughingstock in town. Everyone would think she was crazy and desperate. Callum would, of course, be let off the hook, seen as just the collateral damage in her insane ploy to get her ex-boyfriend back.
He shrugged one shoulder. “This dramatic, elaborate scheme just isn’t really your style, that’s all.”
Was he serious right now? “You’re right. It’s not my style. I wouldn’t be doing this at all, but you got us into this mess.” Maybe the pretending to bicker part wouldn’t be so difficult. All she had to do was remember that Callum had complicated the hell out of everything.
“Um, I’m pretty sure you had an opportunity to tell Brent the truth once you discovered he was at the reunion alone, and you didn’t.”
“You interrupted us before I had a chance.”
“What about while you were dancing? That conversation looked pretty intimate,” he said, a tinge of jealousy in his voice.
She stared at her hands as she shrugged. “We were too far in after that kiss,” she mumbled. “But you could have bailed on this trip, and then I could have told them we’d broken up. It’s not too late.”
He shot her a look. “Okay, and how will you get there?”
Shit. Everyone else had left already and she didn’t own a car. First time in her life she was regretting that choice. She sat back in the seat and sighed.
“What’s so great about this guy, anyway?” Callum asked as a light rain started to fall. He turned on the windshield wipers and glanced her way. “I gotta say, I’m not impressed so far.”
“You don’t need to be impressed. I’m the one who wants to relight the spark between us.” Callum’s opinion of Brent didn’t matter in the least. Still, it made her slightly uneasy that he disapproved after the first impression.
“Come on, humor me. What do you like about him?” he asked.
Ellie sighed. “He’s smart, successful, good-looking and funny.”
Callum shook his head. “Frat humor funny is not your thing. You find it immature and off-putting.”
She refused to admit he was right. Brent’s humor around the old gang consisted mainly of off-color jokes that did irritate her somewhat, but... “He doesn’t act like that when we’re alone.”
“Okay, fine. What else?”
“What do you mean, what else? He’s the total package. Any woman would be attracted to him.”
“I mean specifics. A lot of men are smart, successful, good-looking and funny. Present company, prime example,” he said, winking at her. “What’s special about him? What does he do that gets you going? What makes him different, unique—the one?”
Ellie frowned. “Oh okay... Well, um...” She thought hard. There were so many things she liked about Brent, reasons he was the right person for her... Just nothing specific was immediately coming to mind. Callum had put her on the spot, that was all.
“It’s not a trick question, Ellie,” he said as though her delay was perfectly illustrating his point.
She snapped her fingers. “His hugs. They were always so great.”
“My grandmother used to give great hugs too. What’s different about his?”
“He’d let me hold him as long as I wanted.” She shrugged. “It made me feel safe, I guess.” Most of the guys in high school were only out for one thing once the relationship turned physical, but not Brent.
Callum scoffed.
“What?”
“Dude was trying to feel your breasts squeezed up against his body.”
“He was not!”
“Oh right, I forgot, you have experience being a seventeen-year-old boy,” he said sarcastically.
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Not all seventeen-year-old boys are hormonal pigs.”
“They absolutely are,” Callum said as the rain fell harder and he turned the wipers on full to clear the windshield.
“Agree to disagree,” she said, leaning forward to scan the darkening sky. She loved storms. Too bad they weren’t already at the lodge. Under different circumstances, she envisioned how romantic this could be. Curled up by the lodge fireplace with a good book and a glass of wine. Brent on one end of the sofa, her on the other, reading together, just being together...
Callum glanced at her. “You really love this weather, huh?”
“I really do.” Living in Alaska provided the best of all seasons—the beautiful colors of fall, the snow-covered mountains in winter, mild springs when the flowers bloomed and hot, sunny days in summer—but her favorite was always the storms.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, followed by a large lightning bolt shooting across the sky to the right. “Wow, did you see that?” Callum asked, taking his eyes briefly off of the road.
“Amazing,” Ellie said.
Their eyes met and held for a fraction of a second before something flashed on the side of the road and they both swung their attention forward.
The Kodiak bear seemed to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the road. Its dark brown fur and massive three-hundred-pound body blocked the vehicle, and its eyes were wide and menacing as it turned to stare at them. Unyielding. Terrifying.
Callum turned the wheel to prevent hitting the bear just in time, and the car jerked violently to one side. Ellie’s shoulder slammed into the passenger door and an ache radiated down her arm. The vehicle spiraled on the slippery wet road, and Ellie shut her eyes tight and held on to the seat as Callum struggled to regain control. Her stomach plunged as though she was on a dizzying amusement ride, and the spinning seemed to last forever. She heard the loud pop of the tire blowing, and then the car came to a stop facing the opposite direction, safe on the shoulder of the road.
Thank God there hadn’t been oncoming traffic.
“You okay?” Callum asked, reaching across to touch her white-knuckle grip on the fabric of the passenger seat.
Ellie slowly opened her eyes, slightly dazed, and looked outside. “Where did it go?”
“Ran off back into the woods. Uninjured,” he said, releasing a slow, deep breath as though he’d been holding it.
“Wow, I’ve never seen one that close before.” Her heart still raced and her hands shook slightly. She peered out the window, looking for the bear. She’d heard stories about how powerful and fearless the creatures were. Being stuck on the side of the road with one in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm wasn’t exactly what she’d been hoping to do that day. The sky looked dark and menacing now, and the weather suddenly lost its appeal.
Callum touched her shoulder and she jumped. “Sorry,” he said with a small laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s gone.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Unfortunately, we blew out a tire.”
/> Ellie sighed. “Guess we’d better get started changing it.” They’d be soaked to the bone, but he was only doing this trip because of her, so she felt compelled to help and not just sit in the car while he went out in the storm. Damsel in distress wasn’t really her thing.
Callum looked slightly sheepish. “That actually was the spare.”
Ellie looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve been driving on the spare? For how long?”
“A few months...”
“A few months?”
“Okay, more like a year.”
“Callum!” Man, the guy seriously hadn’t a care in the world. If it had been her car, she would have had the tire replaced the same day. But Callum seemed to like living without a safety net...or maybe his privileged upbringing was the net he thought would always catch him. Not today.
“What?” he asked innocently, like this was something that couldn’t have been prevented. “It hasn’t had a lot of wear—I don’t drive much in Wild River unless the weather’s horrible.”
Ellie sighed as she pulled out her cell phone and opened a search for a local garage. “I’ll call a tow truck.”
As the call connected, she peered out the window at the ominous clouds overhead.
Please don’t let us be stuck out here for too long.
* * *
ELLIE MIGHT BE annoyed at the predicted two-hour wait for the tow truck, but Callum was seeing it as a stroke of luck. More time alone with her before they joined the rest of the group at the cottages. So far that drive, they’d been focused on Brent. And unfortunately, their joint enjoyment of the stormy weather had been cut short by the crazy-ass bear that had nearly forced them off the road.
But they were stuck here now and the sound of the rain beating against the roof of the car was definitely a romantic sound. One he knew she loved. If he could get her to stop pouting and ignoring him, this unexpected derailment might be a blessing in disguise.
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