Hard Loving Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  Breathe. Keep breathing. Never thought he’d have to remind himself to do things like that. “Beckett is still in a rehab facility.” Scarred and broken. Still trying to relearn how to walk…

  “Damn. Sorry to hear it.”

  Jaden already knew sorry wasn’t enough. Not for Kipp Beckett, not for the reporters, not for the officials. Not for fans of the sport. Not even for himself.

  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think you did it on purpose.” Levi was trying to be supportive, but the fact that he said it at all meant he’d thought about the possibility. Same as everyone else.

  “I didn’t,” Jaden said simply. “I wouldn’t.” In the replays, it might’ve looked like he’d lunged into Beckett—who’d been his rival in the snowboard-cross event since they’d both started out—but the truth was that he’d caught an edge and it had thrown off his balance. He couldn’t recover. He couldn’t stop the momentum that pitched him into Beckett, that sent them both careening through the barriers, cartwheeling and spinning until the world went silent. When the snow had settled, Jaden had gotten up, and Kipp Beckett hadn’t. His body lay twisted at an angle, and he was unconscious, maybe dead.

  Shock had numbed Jaden to the fact that his arm was badly fractured. He’d fallen to his knees next to Beckett before officials had raced in and forced him away. The papers and news shows and magazines all said Jaden was sneering as the medics tended to him. He wasn’t. He was crying.

  “I would’ve taken the silver.” If no one else believed him, maybe Levi would. “I didn’t care that much.” He didn’t value the gold more than someone’s life. Did he? God, the news reports had made him question himself.

  Levi gave him a nod. “Looked to me like you caught an edge. Could’ve happened to anyone.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, why don’t you stop over for a beer sometime? I just finished building my new house. Need to break it in.”

  “Sure.” Jaden said it like he did that all the time—stopped by a friend’s house for a beer. But it had been months. Months since he’d had a real conversation with another human being. Months since someone had actually smiled at him. When he wasn’t working on the mountains, his days consisted of sitting silently on the back deck with his chocolate Lab, Bella, sprawled at his feet while he tried to figure out how everything had collapsed.

  “What about tonight?” Levi shot a look toward his brothers. “Since my evening got interrupted and I’m now free.”

  “I’ve gotta head back up the mountain tonight.” They were discussing the possibility of lighting the terrain park for night boarding. “But I’d definitely like to hang sometime. Let me know what else works.” Levi was the first person who’d actually heard him when he said he didn’t mean for any of it to happen.

  Maybe he had one ally in a world full of enemies.

  * * *

  Up until this very moment, Kate Livingston thought the worst thing about camping was the bugs. No, wait. Actually, the mosquitos in Colorado weren’t nearly as bad as she had anticipated. So far she’d seen only one medium-sized spider, which wasn’t even hairy like some of them in L.A. So, before this moment, maybe she would’ve said the worst thing about camping was the dirt. Yes, definitely the dirt. She could feel it sticking to her skin, grainy and disgusting as she lay swaddled like a baby in the brand-new sleeping bag that still smelled like synthetic fluff.

  Another flash of light split the sky above her flimsy nylon tent. Which had cost about $450, by the way. And now the damn thing was sagging underneath the weight of a rain puddle that had collected right over her head. Waterproof my ass.

  She squirmed to unearth her arms from the sleeping bag and typed in a note on her phone. Extreme Outdoors Lightweight Backpacker Tent—Sucks. Unsatisfied, she underlined, highlighted, and changed the word sucks to all caps.

  When she’d landed the position as a senior editor for Adrenaline Junkie magazine, she had envisioned herself sitting in a corner office overlooking the hustle and bustle of Beverly Hills while she sipped frothy lattes and approved spreads and attended photo shoots with male models who cost upward of a thousand dollars for one hour of work.

  But there had been some budget cuts recently, Gregor, her managing editor, had explained on her first day. They weren’t working with as many freelancers, and the editor who was supposed to do a gear-test backpacking trip on the Colorado Trail for the fall issue had suddenly quit, so…

  Here she was, on an all-expenses-paid trip through hell.

  The ceiling of the tent drooped even lower, inching toward her nose. A drop of rainwater plunked onto her right eyebrow right as a crack of earsplitting thunder shook the ground.

  Now she knew. She knew that the worst thing about camping was not bugs or dirt but a thunderstorm in the mountains. In fact, she would probably die tonight. Either from getting skewered by a lightning bolt or from a heart attack, whichever came first.

  “I went to Northwestern journalism school,” she lamented over the pattering rain. After she’d walked out of there with her master’s degree, she’d assumed she could have her pick of jobs. But nope. Anyone could call themselves a journalist these days. It didn’t matter if they had interned at the Chicago Tribune or if they knew AP style or even how to use a fucking comma. If they had fifty thousand followers on their blog, they were in.

  Let’s just say respectable jobs in the world of journalism weren’t exactly knocking down her door. So when the opportunity at Adrenaline Junkie had come up, she’d done more than jump on it. She’d immersed herself in it. So what if she’d never actually camped? It wasn’t her fault her father was a yuppie attorney and her mother a neurologist. They didn’t believe in camping. But she could read all about it on the Internet.

  Who cared that the one time she’d felt a surge of adrenaline in the great outdoors had come when she’d lost her Gucci sunglasses in a rogue wave on the beach? She’d never swam that fast in her life. It was a job—a senior-level job—and she could finally move out of her parents’ basement and away from her role as the butt of every family joke. Both her older sister and her younger brother had become doctors too. Just to make her look bad.

  If only they could see her now.

  Bringing the phone to her lips, she turned on the voice recorder. “Day one. The Extreme Outdoors Lightweight Backpacker Tent appears to be made out of toilet paper.” She wondered if she’d get away with making that an official quote in her four-page spread. “I’ve worn a rain poncho that repels water better than this piece of—”

  A scratching sound near her feet cut her off. The walls of the tent trembled. Yes, that was definitely a scratching sound. A claw of some kind? “Mary mother of God.” The whisper fired up her throat. She wasn’t sure if it was the start of a prayer or a curse. She’d have to wait and see, depending on how things turned out.

  Scrunching down farther into her sleeping bag, Kate held her breath and listened. There was a huffing sound. An animal sound. A bear? Yes, this definitely called for a prayer. “Oh, God, please don’t let it eat me.” She squirmed to the corner of the tent where she’d stashed her overstuffed backpack. Yes, she’d read all about how she was supposed to empty the food from her backpack and hang it from a tree in a bear-proof container, but she hadn’t actually had the time to find a bear-proof container before she left L.A. Surely bears didn’t like freeze-dried macaroni and cheese…did they?

  Quickly and silently, Kate dug through the gear until she located her copy of The Idiot Guru’s Guide to Hiking and Camping. The binding was still crisp. She’d meant to open it on the plane, but she’d forgotten that she’d downloaded Sweet Home Alabama on her phone, and God she loved that movie. And Reese. She’d waved to Reese once, across the street on Rodeo Drive, and she’d actually waved back! Well, she might’ve waved back or she might’ve been pushing her hair out of her eyes. It had been kind of hard to tell.

  But anyway. The bear…

  Using her phone as a flashlight, Kate flipped through the pages in search of a chapter abo
ut bears while a dark shadow made its way slowly around the tent. “Come on, come on.” Hadn’t the Idiot Guru thought to inform other idiots what to do if they encountered a bear?

  The shadow paused and swiped at the nylon wall.

  “Oh God, sweet Jesus.” Kate ducked all the way into the sleeping bag, taking the book with her. If nothing else, maybe she could use it as a weapon to defend herself. It was thick enough to do some serious damage. Yet somehow there was no chapter on what to do when a bear was stalking you from outside your tent.

  Okay. Think. When she’d first gotten this assignment, she’d read something on the Internet about animal encounters. Was she supposed to play dead? Make loud noises? She fired up the satellite phone again—waiting for what felt like five years for the Internet to load—and searched bear encounter.

  Big. Mistake. Apparently, bears did eat people. There were pictures to prove it. Adrenaline spurted through her in painful pulses. How could anyone like this feeling? Adrenaline junkie? More like adrenaline-phobic. It made her toes curl in and her skin itch. Alternating between hot and cold, Kate crossed her legs so she wouldn’t pee in her only pair of long underwear. Lordy, she had to go so bad…

  A whimper resonated somewhere nearby. Hold on a second. She hadn’t whimpered, had she? No. She was pretty sure her voice wouldn’t work right now. Did bears whimper? She wouldn’t know because the Idiot Guru had left out that critical chapter…

  The creature outside her tent whimpered again, softly and sweetly. Kate peeked her head out of the sleeping bag. The shadow was gone, but the whimpering continued.

  Holding the sleeping bag around her like a feeble bubble of protection, she squirmed over to the zippered flap that the company had touted as an airflow vent and inched it open until she could see. The rain had slowed some, but it still sprinkled her nose as she peered outside. The shadowy figure of an animal lay a few feet from the tent, still whimpering weakly. But it appeared to be much smaller than she’d originally thought. Way too small to be a bear. It looked more like…a dog.

  “Oh no. Poor thing.” Kate fought with the sleeping bag until it finally released her. She unzipped the tent’s main flap. After slipping on her boots, she slogged through the mud and knelt next to the dog. It was a Lab. A chocolate Lab just like the ones she’d seen playing fetch on Venice Beach. “Are you lost?” she crooned, testing the dog’s temperament with a pat on the head. The dog licked her hand and then eased up to a sitting position so it could lick her face.

  “You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you?” She ran her hand over the dog’s rain-slicked fur. The poor love shook hard, staring at her with wide, fearful eyes. “I’ll bet you don’t like the storm, do you?” she asked. “Well that makes two of us. Come on.” She coaxed the dog into the tent. “You can wait out the storm with me.” And…seeing as how she couldn’t stay out here harboring a fugitive dog… “First thing tomorrow morning, we can head into the nearest town so we can find your owner.”

  Then she’d find herself a nice hot shower, a real meal that didn’t require boiling water on a camp stove, and a plush queen-sized bed where she could finally fall into a dry, peaceful sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Bella!” Jaden jogged down the hall of his rented ski chalet, hoping to God that his dog was simply hiding under the massive king-sized bed in the master suite.

  He tore into the room, flicked on the lights, and hit the floor next to the bed. His heart plummeted. Damn it. He should’ve brought her up the mountain with him tonight. Or at least locked the doggie door so she couldn’t get out. If he would’ve known a storm was coming, he would have. And he would’ve kept her right by his side. Though it’d been only a month since he’d gotten her from a rescue in Denver, he’d already learned that lightning and thunder sent her over the edge.

  Back in the hallway, he stopped at the closet to grab his raincoat and pull on a headlamp and his hiking boots. As soon as he’d heard the first clap of thunder, he’d told the crew he had to get home, but he wasn’t fast enough. It had taken him a good hour to navigate the ATV down the steep slopes in the rain, and Bella could cover a lot of ground in an hour, especially if she was running scared.

  Jaden slipped out the French doors and onto the back deck. The rain was drizzle now, but thunder still rumbled in the distance. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for the dog again. The echo of his voice sounded hollow and lonely—small in the woods that stretched out on all sides of him. Hundreds of thousands of acres of pine and spruce and clumps of aspen trees. There were jagged cliffs, rivers brimming with snowmelt, and predators—mountain lions and bears. And his poor dog started shaking at the sight of a rabbit crouched in the grass.

  Panic drove him down the steps, and he jogged into the woods, whistling and yelling her name. He hadn’t counted on getting attached to a dog. Lately it’d been hard enough to take care of himself. He hadn’t slept a full night since the accident. Hadn’t felt much like eating, either. The lingering depression brought on by the knowledge that he’d ruined someone’s life.

  But the last time he’d gone to visit Gram, he’d driven by one of those fancy local pet stores. They were doing an adoption event outside. As soon as he’d seen Bella hiding in the corner of the pen, he knew she’d be coming home with him. They had the same struggle. Anxiety. He’d recognized it right away. According to the worker, Bella had been rescued from a farm where they’d found over thirty emaciated dogs that had been abused and neglected. And that was it. Over. Done. No decision to be made. He knew she needed him as much as he needed her.

  “Bella!” The wind made his shouts sound so futile, but he had to do something. It killed him to think of her out there in the overwhelming darkness, terrified and cold and running blind. He knew how lonely it was. That’s what he’d been doing since the accident—navigating an endless darkness. The dog had been the first light he’d seen in a while. She’d taken the edge off the silence that had consumed his life.

  After the dust had settled, friends had stopped calling. Fans had stopped seeking him out. His grandma had started talking to him like he was a stranger. And there were times he felt like he had no one in the world.

  But then Bella would come and lie at his feet. She would trot by his side while he wandered the trails in search of freedom from the burden that always seemed to weigh him down. Every morning, she would whine at him from the side of the bed, coaxing him back to life because she needed him.

  She needed him to feed her and play ball with her. She needed him to protect her and to show her that there was good in the world. That not everyone would kick her or lock her in a cold, dingy basement or use a chain to strangle her when she peed on the floor out of fright. She still wore the marks of violence on the fur around her neck. It had taken a few weeks for her to trust him, for her not to cower in front of him when he’d call to her. It had taken her a few weeks to realize he wasn’t going to hurt her or leave her. And now she was alone again. He’d fucked up.

  “I’m sorry!” he yelled. Maybe the wind would carry the sound of his voice right to her. “Come on, Bella, I’m sorry!” Mud slurped at his boots as he tromped straight up the side of the mountain. “I won’t leave you out here.” It didn’t matter if it took all night. He’d rescue her the same way she’d rescued him.

  * * *

  Amazing how sunshine could make everything look so different. In the radiance of a bright morning, even the piece-of-shit tent looked pretty.

  Above Kate’s head, the blue nylon seemed to glow with a happy optimism. She turned on the phone’s voice recorder and brought it to her lips. “Day two: waking up in the Extreme Outdoors Lightweight Backpacker Tent doesn’t suck. It’s actually a very pretty color.” Maybe she wouldn’t write up the tent as the worst creation since tiny backpacks hit the purse market. (Seriously, how could Kate Spade have jumped on that bandwagon?) She was feeling generous this morning. Almost giddy.

  The dog licked her cheek. At some point during the night, Jane Doe—as Kate h
ad come to call her after discovering the dog was a lady when she’d taken her outside to pee at four o’clock in the morning—had snuggled right up against her in the sleeping bag. Now they lay side by side, spooning like a happy couple. “You saved me, Jane,” Kate murmured to the dog. “You know that?” Today, there would be no bugs or dirt, and she’d get her first real meal since the cab had dropped her off at the trailhead…Wait. Had that only been yesterday? Huh. It seemed like eons ago.

  In the sleeping bag, Kate could feel the dog’s tail wagging against her leg. “I know, I know. I’m ready too.” She glanced at the time on her phone. Seven o’clock in the morning wasn’t too early to get up and at ’em when you were in the backcountry. Right? With any luck, she could be sitting in a cute little coffee shop in town by eight o’clock with her new best friend Jane Doe curled up at her feet.

  On that note…She shimmied out of the sleeping bag and pulled on shorts and a tank top, which she had to rip the price tags off of since she’d had to purchase all new clothes for the trip. Once she was dressed, she dug out a stale bagel from her backpack and gagged down half before holding the other half out to Jane.

  The dog sniffed warily before taking a hesitant bite.

  “I know. They’re much better toasted and served with flavored cream cheese.” Strawberry. Or maybe with just a touch of honey. Kate’s mouth watered. “Don’t worry, girl. We’ll find some real food in town.” There had to be a deli or a diner nearby.

  Speaking of town…She rifled through her things until she located her topographical map. Not that she had any clue how to read the lines that supposedly told you how steep the terrain was. “But I do know how to find the closest town.” She pointed out the small black dot to the dog. “Topaz Falls, Colorado. Sounds like the kind of place that might have a really nice spa, don’t you think?”