High Ground

by Madelon Smid

  “Your face is the color of the snow falling outside.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry I was so worried about Josh that I never noticed what bad shape you were in.”

  “Sam, don’t go there. You’ve been the best friend and boss. This happens if you stand comatose in a heavy rain.” She joked, hoping he’d lighten up. “I’ll be out of here in just a few days.”

  A paroxysm of coughing stopped her. A nurse hurried in, raised the head of the bed higher, plumped her pillows, and offered her water. She checked her vitals and lingered looking serious.

  Cat reached for Sam’s hand. “Please don’t tell Josh.” She clutched him. “I don’t want him going through any more.”

  “I can’t tell him. He’s out of contact. He took off yesterday for a few weeks, and nobody knows where.”

  “He’s gone. Will he be all right?” Her eyes darkened with concern.

  “Sure. He’s eminently suited to look after himself. He’ll find some quiet spot, meditate, and get his peace back. He’s probably checked into an ashram in Mumbai or a hut in Indonesia. It’s not unusual for him to disappear when he’s working through something personal.”

  “But surely he’d tell you and Jake.”

  “Nope. He considers himself all grown up. He spent his entire childhood on his own. He just says ‘no news is good news’ and disappears. So use this time to get better. Don’t put out any negative energy, as Josh would say, and use all you have to get healthy again. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  True to his word, Sam stopped by daily. At the end of the week, a little stronger, her pneumonia cleared and her fever down, he drove Cat home. He left her with a warning to stay put. “I’ll buy you a ticket for D.C., as soon as I hear Josh is returning. If you’re strong enough, I’ll give it to you. Meanwhile, I’m leaving you a new case to keep your mind on something besides him.”

  Cat hugged Sam. “You’re the best. I’ll be ready. I’ll do everything I need to get strong.”

  She set herself a routine, copied from Josh, hearing his voice encouraging, as she made her choices. Meditation, healthy eating, exercise. Every day, she took a long walk, rebuilding her strength. She filled the rest of her time with work.

  When she felt ready, she ventured back to the gym. Making only the easiest climbs, she tested her shoulder and her lungs. She went carefully, an instructor belaying her. Hanging on the side of a sixty-foot drop by her fingertips made her feel closer to Josh. She discovered the high of being fully alive, as he’d described climbing. She compared it to making love with him. She kept herself living in the moment, safe from fear.

  At night, she imagined how he would react, making up Cinderella-like scenarios of them running into each other’s embrace. But when sleep claimed her, he would tear away from her arms, be blown to bits, or writhe under a hail of machine gun bullets. Sometimes his torso would lie on the ground, while his legs and hips would walk away from her. She’d wake quaking, sweat soaking her nightshirt. She wouldn’t sleep again, but would work on a case. The old nightmares fused with the new in a more horrific mix than she could handle.

  When Sam handed her the ticket to D.C., she started shaking. Nerves? Excitement? She dressed with care. Her suitcase, packed the night before, sat by the door. Sam was driving her to the airport. She shivered in the chill air. A steady fall of white formed a curtain outside her windows. Her phone rang. “Sam, are you on your way?”

  “Sorry, Cat, bad news. The airports have cancelled all flights from here through to Helena. There is a weather system moving through, freezing rain, zero visibility. You won’t be going anywhere for at least forty-eight hours.”

  “What if he comes home and leaves again and I miss him?

  “Don’t worry about that. I just heard from Josh. He’s home. He sounds good and seems determined to get back into the swing of things.”

  Cat immediately had a vision of Josh with a beautiful woman on his arms, forming a relationship, building a new life.

  Sam went on, not realizing his words had upset her. “He’s interviewing for a foundation director and two techs, freeing up more time for himself.” When her silence lengthened, he asked, “You okay?”

  “I’m paying a high price for giving in to my fear. He may have moved on, and I’m stuck waiting to find out. I have to believe there’s a reason I’m not supposed to go today. If it’s meant to happen, I’ll get there at the right time.”

  “Josh really did rub off on you.” Sam chuckled. “I’ll rebook your ticket as soon as I hear the planes are going up again.”

  Cat stared out the window, peeling off her gloves and boots, unwinding the scarf around her neck, and dropping her long coat onto the sofa. More time before she spoke with Josh, more nightmares, more dreams. She lay back onto the sofa and built a fantasy of loving him.

  ****

  Josh sat at his desk in the High Ground Foundation offices. He had a mission. He would not leave the building until he’d hired a director. Thirty-two applications lay in a sliding pile before him. He’d tossed seven into an out basket. He’d interviewed the candidates and already excluded them from his High Ground criteria.

  He needed to take a leak. He needed a cup of coffee. He used the time between the last and next candidates to do both. His P.A. kept them coming though, so when the light tap sounded on the door, he’d just settled back at his desk.

  “Come in,” he called. He flipped open the next file. Cat’s face stared up at him. Before he could adjust to the shock, the door opened and she stepped inside. He didn’t have enough sensors on his body to deal with her—the impact of her beauty, that woodsy dark scent that wafted in with her, the curves his body remembered nightly in his dreams. These hit him hard and fast, but his feelings swamped him.

  Anger at her for putting him through hell fought cravings so intense he wanted to leap over the desk and take her. The thrill of seeing her warred with the warning to stay cool. He could not give an inch of ground. The last time he’d done so it crumbled beneath him.

  “Ms. Duplessis.” This was a business meeting, nothing else.

  “Josh.”

  He noted her choice of familiarity. “Have a chair.”

  She crossed the room, narrow hips swaying, head held high, shoulders back. He admired her flair. It must be darn hard to approach him after their last time together.

  “So you applied for the job.” He gestured her into the chair in front of the desk and almost groaned when she sat and crossed her legs in a slither of silk on silk. She set her purse on the floor beside her, straightened, looked him in the eye, and smiled, devastating him.

  “I thought I already had the job. You offered it to me, remember.”

  “And if I reconsidered?”

  Her tongue darted out licking her lips. She hesitated long enough for him to know he’d thrown her. He didn’t like himself much for the stab of satisfaction he got from the knowledge.

  “Have you, Josh?” She leaned forward, eyes intent.

  “I don’t believe this is a good idea, as things stand.”

  She slid forward in her chair. “If you won’t consider me for director, I wonder if I can apply for my old position.”

  “What, bodyguard? I thought you were out of the business?” Surprise jolted his heart rate up a beat.

  “I am.” She hesitated. “I meant the other one.” She seemed to have as much trouble formulating sentences as he.

  “Oh…” He snapped his fingers, fell back into his chair. A wave of fatigue washed over him. “You’re applying for one of the openings for technical analyst.” He opened his mouth to say, “No way. I’m not working alongside…” Her words stopped him halfway through the thought.

  “No, Josh. I’m hoping you’ll consider me for the position of live-in lover.”

  Every cell in his body lit up like a nova star heading for earth’s atmosphere. He played the words over and over in his mind. He couldn’t get them to make sense.

  “As my lover,” he croaked.

  “Yes, I want to
be your lover for as long or as short a time as you want me. Is that position still open?”

  He could tell she was holding her breath, waiting for his response. “Those are your terms…for as long as I want?”

  “Yes.” She gasped.

  He stood and walked around the desk until his knees almost touched hers. He looked down into leaf green glimmering with gold sparks. Eyes showing vulnerability, beneath determined strength. He reached for her hand, drew her up. “You better think long and hard about that. I told you I’d love you forever, want you forever. Nothing has changed.”

  She sagged against him, breathed, choked off a small sob. “Thank God, I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore. I love you, Josh. I’m so sorry for being a coward and running away from loving you. I—”

  “If you hadn’t shown up, I was going to give up the high ground and grovel. I’d slither downslope on my belly to win you.” He kissed her then, sent his soul soaring into her, through his lips and drew hers into his keeping.

  The kiss went on and on, making up for five months of loneliness, hunger, vanquishing the uncertainty. They told each other everything through the kiss, how much they were loved, wanted, indispensable to each other’s happiness.

  His P.A.’s voice over the intercom broke them apart. “Josh, do you want me to send in the next candidate?”

  He drew Cat back into his arms. “No, Linda, you can send the others home. The position has been filled. And take the rest of the day off.” His lips settled over Cat’s plush mouth.

  “Does that mean I get the director’s job, too?” she whispered an inch from his lips.

  “It’s yours, if you want it.” He pressed kisses to her throat, the soft curve of her breast. “Just as long as you never make it more important than the first job I gave you.” He straightened, meeting her eyes.

  She smiled into his, hers sparkling with joy. “Impossible. Nothing could take precedence over loving you.”

  They measured the love in each other’s eyes as inch by inch he entered her, became part of her, took her over, as she took him. Mindless, trapped in a cave of craving, awed by the ecstasy wrought when lips trailed across flesh, an arc of one body created a wave of sensation in the other, they moved together. A moan elicited a groan, a sigh a whisper.

  Slowly, slowly savouring each sensual second, they swam through the languid waters of desire, until caught in a whirlpool of wonder they climbed—one form, one hunger, one desperate ache. Whirling in the mad spin, passion flung them into orgasm.

  He registered the way their hearts beat in time, her moist breath cooled the perspiration on his neck, her strong hips cradled him. He’d never felt more complete, more at peace. Together, they’d won the high ground. Together, they would keep it.

  A word about the author...

  Madelon Smid is nature’s child and happiest when she’s kayaking a river or skiing down a mountain. Her characters share her love of adventure, risk, and living fully.

  An avid reader, she discovered the romance novel at fourteen, then found writing them even more satisfying and sold her first romance in 1991.

  She parted ways with her first love—fiction—to build a successful career as a nonfiction writer, co-authoring the Canadian Best Sellers Smart Women and Smart Women Get Smarter. The desire to spin fantasy into gold for her readers drew her back.

  She returned to writing romance in 2013 with the successful launch of Climbing High.

  She lives with her husband by a lake in Saskatchewan, where she writes about the strength and passion women and men demonstrate when they conquer the trials of life and love.

  Visit www.madelonasmid.com for more.

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.