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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Morgenthaler
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Dawn Adams/Sourcebooks
Cover illustration by Kristen Solecki
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morgenthaler, Sarah, author.
Title: Enjoy the view / Sarah Morgenthaler.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Casablanca, [2021] |
Series: Moose Springs, Alaska ; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2020035778 | (paperback}
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3613.O74878 E55 2021 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035778
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
For Kyle. The mountains I climb will always be for you.
Chapter 1
Picking up hitchhikers never worked out for Easton Lockett. It would start fine, but then things always got really weird, really fast.
There’d been the guy who peed in his truck. And the teenage kid who barfed in it. The worst had been the old lady who kept hitting him with her cane until he gave her his phone. You’d think being robbed at cane-point would have been a lesson learned, but here he was, slowing down…again.
The problem was, when a man like Easton saw a woman walking along the road outside the city limits of Moose Springs, Alaska, with suitcase in hand, he couldn’t keep on driving past. Especially when the closest phone was a ten-mile hike through curving mountain roads, and she was going the wrong direction.
Easton pulled his old, faded red truck up next to her and hit the hazard lights. Stretching across the front bench seat to crank a manual window handle was easier for Easton than most. At six foot six, there was little the professional mountaineer couldn’t reach. He didn’t want to frighten her—a strange man arriving unannounced on the side of the road when she was all alone—so he tried for a pleasant smile. The beard would hide it, but the effort was there.
“Do you need any help, ma’am?”
The instant Easton opened his mouth, she wheeled on him. Tilted sideways from the weight of her suitcase, she threw her free hand up in apparent disgust.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Now, for the record, he’d had a very pleasant morning. Pleasant wake up, pleasant breakfast, pleasant trip into town to see his friends. Pleasant drive down the Turnagain Arm, a few miles below the speed limit. The kind of morning that made a guy relax in his seat and think, Yep, got life handled.
The fist on her hip as she glared at him said Nope, not handled at all.
Easton rubbed his neck awkwardly below the bun he’d twisted his hair into. “You looked like you might need a ride,” he hedged.
Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. “Don’t think I’m oblivious, buddy. I know what you and your lackeys are up to. You’re messing with us on purpose.”
Easton had absolutely no idea what to say to that. He couldn’t tell much about her from the way she was bundled up, except no one he knew would be wearing a jacket in early July. This woman was dressed as if it were winter, wrapped in layers from head to toe with only her nose and glacier-blue eyes poking out above her scarf.
“My lackeys?”
“Minions, flunkies, those with whom you’re in cahoots. Trust me, I know.”
Easton’s response was squeakier than what he’d hoped for when opening his mouth. “There’s no cahoots.”
“Sure.” She obviously didn’t believe him one bit. “You know, out here on this road, everyone is so helpful and wonderful and keeps stopping.” She gestured in the direction of Moose Springs. “Which would be great back there, where everyone has been awful. I’ve found the nexus of evil in the nicest state in the country.”
“I wouldn’t call us a nexus,” Easton defended. “Maybe more of a node.”
“Great, the last one was a creep, and this one is a thesaurus. Jessie, what is wrong with this place?”
The woman dropped her suitcase to the ground. She pushed back the hood of her jacket, revealing sweat-dampened auburn hair tucked beneath a white winter-appropriate headband. If he’d been wrapped up like a burrito in seventy-degree heat, Easton would have been sweating too. Doubtful he’d look as striking as this stranger did though.
“Sorry to correct you, ma’am, but my name isn’t Jessie.”
“I never said it was.” She gave him a frustrated look. “What can I do for you, now that my shot is ruined? Again.”
Never a big talker, Easton wasn’t used to explaining himself. But he hadn’t gotten a look like this one since he’d used his twin sister’s favorite Cabbage Patch Kid as a way to teach himself physics.
What came up was bound to come down, no matter how high he catapulted the sucker with a rubber hose and two pine trees.
Easton cleared his throat, concentrating on speaking with his normal, deeper tone. No more squeaking. “I saw you on the side of the road. I thought you might need a ride or a phone to make a call for one.”
“Right, I’m sure.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “It’s not going to work. The road is state property, and no one can kick us out of here.”
Oh yes, she was ready to fight. Both hands on her hips now, the stunning redhead glared at him as if she could make him talk through force of eyeball violence alone. Which she proba
bly could if he’d been up to no good. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. Staring right back, Easton wondered how he had gotten himself in trouble so fast. Normally, it took a few months of a woman getting to know him before he had her so riled up.
“I really don’t understand what you mean, ma’am.”
Those ice-blue eyes narrowed at him, as if she were trying to see right through him. Then finally she sighed, shaking her head.
“No, you probably don’t. You’re probably the one guy all morning who wasn’t an evil minion. The light was perfect, you know,” she lamented, quicksilver emotions going from angry to disappointed. “The road was gorgeous, except everyone keeps stopping.”
Aware he’d lost control of the situation here, Easton chose his words carefully. “I could always back up a few, if that helps?”
A slender hand flapped dismissively at him. “No, it’s fine. It’s already ruined.”
Easton prided himself on being a relatively intelligent individual, but he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
She tilted her head to the side. “What? Jessie, I can’t hear you. Reception is awful up here.”
And she thought she was talking to someone. Great.
“Jessie. Jessie, I can’t—and he’s gone.” A curse escaped her lips, and the frustrated stamp of her foot was dangerously close to being cute.
“I’m going to call someone to help you.”
Easton kept one eye on her as he picked up the handheld CB radio in his truck, flipping over to the channel he knew the local police monitored. There were limits on the range of his CB, but Jonah—the head officer of Moose Springs’ two-person police force—was known to drive the highway outside town to get a change of scenery. It was worth the effort to try.
“Hey, Jonah? I’ve got a lady out here on the highway just past Hunt Road who could use your help.”
A crackle, then the officer’s voice came on. “Is it an emergency? I’ve got a moose stuck in a swing set I’m dealing with.”
“Not an emergency.” Easton eyed the woman, who eyed him back. “I might need someone more official than myself for this one though.”
“Let me try to—” Jonah broke off, then he muttered, “And there goes the teeter-totter. East, I’ll call you back.”
“Who are you talking to?” She looked at him suspiciously.
“A nice man who’ll come give you a ride to Anchorage,” Easton told her. “He’ll take you somewhere with people who’ll help you better than I can.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Ma’am, I’m not the one talking to invisible people and ranting about minions.”
“I’m not talking to invisible people. I’m arguing with invisible people who should have switched phone providers like I told them before we left.” She turned toward the hill ahead of them, yelling, “Like I told you, Jessie.”
Easton shook his head, amazed at his own bad luck. “Listen, I can’t leave you out here.”
“Fine.” With a disgusted snort, she grabbed her suitcase and swung it over the side of the truck bed. It landed with a heavy, uneven thump.
“What’s in there?” he asked.
“Rocks.” Climbing into the passenger side of his truck, the woman pulled her scarf free from her mouth. At his dubious look, she frowned back. “What?”
“You’ve been walking down the side of the road carrying a suitcase full of rocks, and you think I’m the crazy one?”
A smirk was her only reply to his question. Instead, she pointed ahead of them. “You see that access road higher up the mountain? Can you give me a ride up there?”
Technically, he could. But it was a small winding mountain road, and he couldn’t think of a reason why a stranger to town would be headed that direction.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to Moose Springs?”
“My film crew is up there, and I can’t hear them on the ear mic anymore. Since you and the last four you’s that stopped to give me a ride have ruined this shot all morning, I need to talk to my coproducer. Is it me, or is it a thousand degrees in here?”
At which point she began to strip.
Easton usually didn’t have a huge issue with attractive women who wanted to take their clothes off in his presence, but this one was making him nervous. As she shed layer after layer, the woman craned her head to evaluate his vehicle.
“Nice truck. I’m a Dodge girl myself, but there’s something about these old Fords that I always liked.”
Yes. Trucks. Easton could talk trucks. Trucks were a much easier topic of conversation than why she had a suitcase of rocks. “It used to be my dad’s.”
“1982?” she asked.
“’83.”
His passenger shrugged out of her sweatshirt, revealing her tank top beneath. For some reason, she kept the scarf on. “Dual gas tanks really make a truck a truck, huh? And it helps with the crappy gas mileage.”
Who was this woman? She was simultaneously insulting his baby while giving him an unwanted strip show. “The gas mileage isn’t crappy.” He’d just not look her way. Yep, staring at the road.
“It’s not not crappy.” She waved a hand over her overheated, flushed cheeks. “Can you turn the air conditioner on? I’m melting over here.”
“Why would you wear so many layers in the middle of summer?”
“Because my outfit was fine for this morning, when the windchill was fifty degrees and Bree mic’d me. But now it’s boiling hot, and we should have been done hours ago.”
“The air conditioner doesn’t work.”
Closing her eyes in frustration, his passenger dropped her head back on the seat. “Of course it doesn’t. This is a Ford.”
“I’ll try to bring a better truck next time,” he murmured.
One eye opened, and the prettiest grin he’d ever seen on a woman flashed at him.
“If there is a next time,” she told him archly. “I am luring you into the woods, you know.”
See? Right there. It always had to get weird.
• • •
In hindsight, River Lane probably should have kept her temper better. If she had, she might have thought twice before stuffing herself in the passenger seat next to a man whose head nearly touched the ceiling of his truck.
Growing up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, the actress-turned-director was used to impressively sized men. Everywhere she’d turned, there’d been one more tall, muscled cowboy trying not to step on her feet. But she’d never seen a man this tall or this built. Muscle roped along biceps thicker than the thickest part of her thighs, and his shoulders took up the room of a regular man and half of another one. A thick inch-and-a-half-long beard covered his face, a shade darker than his brown hair. Hair that was smooth and shiny and long enough to be all wrapped up in a man bun so sexy, it would make the guys back in LA green with envy.
His dark blue T-shirt and worn, faded jeans wouldn’t have looked better on a fashion model. But really, it came down to the scuffed workboots. This guy was the real deal.
“You’re looking at my feet.”
River nodded. “Anything you need to know about a person, you can tell by their boots.”
An eyebrow rose over one skeptical eye. The other eye kept watch on her hands, like he thought she might pull out a weapon on him.
“I’m not going to rob you,” she sighed, exasperated as he pulled onto the road, driving far too slowly.
“You’re wearing tennis shoes,” he said.
“So?”
“What’s that say about your feet?”
“That they’re tired of everyone being a pain in my ass. Jessie? Hey, can you hear me?”
He kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye and not in an appreciative way.
She pulled her scarf away from her neck and waggled it at him. “The microphone is in the scarf. It
’s small so no one sees it, including looky-loos.”
“Looky-loos?”
“One who slows down to see whatever’s happening on the side of the road,” River explained.
“Ma’am—”
“I left Wyoming a long time ago, and the ma’ams along with it. My name’s River. Turn right up here.”
“I wasn’t being a looky-loo. I was being a neighborly, concerned individual.” His low rumble sounded like rocks rolling down a roadcut. “Which I’m regretting more and more every minute. Let me see the scarf.”
“No, I have it in perfect position.”
“I’m not going in the woods with you unless I see it.”
After her morning from hell, seeing him squirm made River finally laugh. “You’re actually scared of me. You? Of me?”
His beard twitched. “I’m not one to discount a woman’s ability to kick my butt. Not with a sister who’s done so more times than I can count.”
River tried to imagine what a female version of this man would look like. “Your family tree frightens me.”
“It frightens me too, ma’am. About that earpiece…”
He had to be ma’aming her on purpose because otherwise, he was the densest person on the planet. Rolling her eyes, River pulled her carefully placed headset out of the scarf and waggled it at him. “See?”
Warm, brown eyes looked at her, not the blacktop in front of them. And it didn’t matter if they were the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen on a man, River wasn’t about to die on the side of the road because he drove them both into a tree.
“Focus, big guy. Eyes on the road. Hands at ten and two.”
Exhaling a low chuckle, he did as he was told. For a moment. “You’re not shy, are you?”
“Why would I be? And turn right.”
He turned right, although not with as much enthusiasm as she would have hoped.
“You could have made me ride in the truck bed,” she said, unable to keep from teasing him. River waggled her fingers. “I can’t get you if I’m back there.”
“It’s still a possibility,” he muttered.
Bumping along the rough gravel road, River slumped back in her seat. A headache was forming between her temples, and it wasn’t the first one she’d had since coming to Moose Springs. She could only imagine how exasperated her film crew was with their lack of progress today. This was the first time River had been behind the camera too, not only in front of it, and she was so frustrated, she couldn’t see straight.
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