Summer at Lake Haven

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Once she reached the lake, she had the place all to herself and had sat for a good hour, in awe that she was there. She had been thrilled to see two moose in the distance as well as a handful of elk.

  This was exactly why she came to Idaho and took the job with Caine Tech—the chance to experience beautiful settings like that one, as far removed from their neatly manicured home in Dorset as she could imagine.

  And then everything went wrong. The trail back to her vehicle should have been easier but she had found even slightly downhill terrain more difficult to navigate with her bad leg. And then she had stumbled on a rock when she was about a half mile from her vehicle, twisting her ankle enough that she’d had to hobble the rest of the way.

  The snowflakes seemed to whirl and dance with increasing intensity now and her tires fought for traction on the road. If she went out of control, she would plunge down the mountainside with only trees to block her fall. There were no guardrails on this backcountry dirt road, no warning signs. Only darkness that plunged down for hundreds of feet.

  What if she couldn’t make it down the road the rest of the way? What if she was stranded here on the mountainside? She had passed a few ranches on the way up. Surely she could find someone who could give her shelter until she could make her way home.

  She shouldn’t have come alone. Gemma knew the rules about never hiking into the backcountry without a buddy. The salesperson at the sporting goods store in town had been firm on that.

  She had figured she would be going only on a short hike and would be fine on her own. While she had made friends since she came to town, she didn’t know any of them well enough to call them on a whim on a Saturday afternoon and ask if they would like to go hiking with her.

  Anyway, she had stocked up on survival supplies at the sporting goods store, extra rations in her backpack, even bear spray.

  None of that would do her any good if she slid down the mountain in her car.

  She should have heeded the warning signs that a storm was coming. Clouds had been gathering all afternoon. She had thought she might have to deal with one of the regular squalls that hit the area in the afternoons. She just never expected the rain to turn to sleet and now full-on snow.

  What had been her big hurry, anyway? She could have saved her exploring for the following spring and summer, when the weather would be nicer and she wouldn’t run the risk of frostbite. She was in Haven Point for the long-term. This was a life choice she had made, a chance to start over away from her family’s loving but suffocating influence.

  The vehicle slid again on the slick road. Gemma gasped, her hands sweaty and her stomach in knots. From the depths of her subconscious, memories clawed to the surface.

  A screech of tires, shattering glass, the sickening, horrible silence afterward as she cried out her brother’s name and received no answer in return.

  Her right leg ached a vicious echo of her thoughts, a constant reminder of that horrible day.

  As she had been trying to do for three years, she attempted to push away the memories so she could focus on the crisis at hand. They never entirely left her, always hovering just on the edge of her awareness.

  This wasn’t at all the same situation. She was in full control, even when the tires were sliding. The car’s all-wheel drive and traction control were doing their job. An out-of-control lorry was not about to run through a stop sign and plow into her.

  She had only to drive slowly, carefully, down the mountainside to her cottage, where she could turn on the gas fireplace, change into dry clothes and drink something hot and comforting.

  The sun seemed to set extraordinarily quickly. One moment she was driving through murky, snowy twilight, the next it was full dark.

  Only a little farther. She had to be close to where the dirt road changed to pavement. A few more moments. She could do this...

  She heard a rumble outside the car, distant at first and then growing louder. The trees on the mountain side of the road seemed to tremble and then the next instant, before she realized what was happening, a river of mud and rocks and debris poured across the roadway directly in front of her.

  She slammed on her brakes and felt the vehicle’s rear tires fishtail. She had braked too fast, too hard. The car was out of control now, heading for the trees on the downward slope. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. She couldn’t die in a car accident, after all the work it had taken her to survive the last one.

  She hit the brakes again and somehow, miraculously, the car bumped gently into the trunk of a pine tree and came to a shuddering stop just inches from plunging down the mountain.

  She wasn’t dead. How was she not dead?

  Gemma could feel herself shaking violently. What the bloody hell had just happened?

  Her mother would die if she heard such unladylike language coming from her. But Margaret wasn’t here, was she? She and Henry were safe and sound at Summerhill.

  A wave of homesickness washed over Gemma and for a wild moment, she wanted to be with them, even though their overwhelming concern had been strangling the life out of her.

  She sat for another moment, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. How was she going to get out of there? She checked her phone. While she had some remaining battery life, she didn’t have a signal, something not uncommon, she had learned, in the mountains surrounding Lake Haven.

  So she couldn’t call someone to rescue her. She would just have to find help. She thought of those ranch houses again. Maybe someone would be home at one of them and she could call for a tow—though how a tow truck from Haven Point would cross that mountain of debris that was taller than she was, Gemma had no idea.

  Still shaking, she opened her vehicle door and started to climb out. The snow immediately soaked her coat, cold and merciless. She needed supplies and her backpack was in the rear seat. She carefully made her way there and had just started to open the back door when her stupid bad leg decided to give out. Gemma had to grab hold of the door frame so she didn’t end up in the mud.

  She reached in for her backpack. When she stood again, she saw a huge creature emerging from the darkness, heading straight toward her.

  Gemma screamed. She couldn’t help herself, afraid she was about to become dinner for a bear or a cougar. The creature faltered for a moment but then kept coming. She aimed the torch she instinctively grabbed out of her pack at it and realized it wasn’t a mountain lion, it was a happy-looking chocolate Labrador retriever wearing a red collar.

  “Where did you come from?”

  The words were barely out when an even larger creature emerged from the darkness. It took her several seconds to realize it was a man on horseback wearing a cowboy hat and an oiled slicker against the elements.

  “Hey there. This looks like trouble.”

  Gemma knew that voice, with its slight Western drawl. She narrowed her gaze and then recognized Joshua Bailey, who owned the outdoor supply store in Haven Point where she had bought her backpack and other hiking items. She had met him several times since she came to town, as she was friends with cousins of his, sisters Katrina Callahan and Wynona Emmett.

  She didn’t know him well but had the impression he was the kind of man she generally despised, the sort who thought he could charm his way into any woman’s bed, that every female should come running when he crooked his finger.

  She couldn’t have said why she thought that. Maybe because of that drawl or that wide smile he freely bestowed on women of all ages or maybe because he was so extraordinarily good-looking.

  Or perhaps because of the intense way she had caught him looking at her a few times since she came to town.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  “The one and only.” His teeth flashed in the darkness as he dismounted from the horse with a grace she tried not to resent.

  “You look like you’re in a pickle, Miss Summerhill. What happened?”
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  “I was driving along, minding my own business, when half the mountainside fell away.”

  She seemed to be shaking more in delayed reaction. She would be having flashbacks to that slide for a long time.

  The dog nuzzled her hand and she reached down to pet its wet fur, finding an unexpected comfort from the warmth and protective stance.

  “I was afraid that would happen with the first hard rain. A couple acres on that mountainside burned up in a wildfire a few months ago, leaving it prone to mudslides without the trees and undergrowth to anchor all the rocks and dirt in place. I hope you weren’t hurt.”

  “I was able to swerve at the last minute and ended up hitting the tree. Not so much hitting it as bumping it, I suppose. I wasn’t even going fast enough for my airbag to deploy.”

  He frowned. “What were you doing on the mountain? Seems like a nasty day for a picnic.”

  “It wasn’t a nasty day when I started out. This only started about an hour ago. I went on a little hike and was trying to make it home.”

  “You’re lucky you weren’t a few seconds earlier or the mudslide would have carried you over the side of the mountain.”

  She could have died.

  Was she cursed somehow? Other people went their entire lives without near-death experiences. She had now experienced two.

  She looked at the debris field and then at her car, her head spinning and her knees weak. She felt dizzy and sick. She sagged against her car for support—and the next thing she knew, Josh Bailey was next to her, his arm around her and his face close to hers.

  “Easy there. Easy. You’re okay.”

  How had he made it to her side so quickly? “What...happened?”

  “I’m not completely sure. You were talking to me one minute then slumped against your car, unresponsive, the next. If Toby hadn’t been there to prop you up, you would have fallen to the ground. I think you may have passed out for a few seconds. Are you sure you didn’t bump your head somehow when you hit the tree?”

  “No.” Not this time, anyway. One other fun side effect of her accident three years earlier was an unfortunate propensity to faint in times of great exertion or emotion. It never lasted long. Doctors thought it might be a result of the head injury she had sustained.

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry. It...it must have been stress.” She didn’t want to move. He was warm and smelled delicious, rugged and masculine, and she felt safe for the first time since the rains started.

  Longer than that, if she were honest.

  She frowned. They were both drenched, the snow was piling up and she had to figure out a way to get home.

  Anyway, she was a perfectly capable woman, a smart, innovative computer programmer who didn’t need a man to make her feel better. Especially a man she didn’t know and didn’t particularly like.

  But, oh, it had been so very long since someone had held her.

  She knew exactly how long. Three years, since the accident that had changed everything. Facing months of recovery, she had pushed away Kevin, the man she had been dating at the time.

  She hadn’t known what else to do. Doctors hadn’t known if she would be able to walk again and as she and Kevin had only started dating, she hadn’t been willing to subject him to the uncertainty and turmoil.

  Kevin had let her push him away, with depressing willingness, and was now married with a toddler.

  “I’m sorry,” she said now, forcing herself to move away from Joshua Bailey and his sweet dog. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t believe I passed out. I’m usually not such a baby.”

  “You’ve had a shock. Your reaction is totally understandable. I don’t think you’re a baby at all.”

  The sincerity in his tone went a long way toward easing her embarrassment. Maybe she had misjudged him in their previous encounters.

  “I need to call for help. I have no idea how I’m going to get my car out of here.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but that car isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s going to take considerable work to clear those boulders and debris. Also, I’m afraid cell phones don’t work on this stretch of road. We’re in a weird gap between cell towers.”

  She had found out the same thing. What was she going to do?

  She shivered and tried not to panic. She could perhaps sleep in her car.

  “Here. Don’t pass out again on me.”

  “I won’t. I’m fine.”

  He looked doubtful. “First thing we need to do is get you out of this weather. My ranch is about a quarter mile back up the mountain. I do have cell service there. Why don’t we head back that way, get you warmed up and I’ll make some calls so we can figure out how we’re going to get down the mountain?”

  He was a virtual stranger. How could she just go with him to his house?

  On the other hand, she couldn’t stay here. Who knew how long it would take for help to arrive?

  While she didn’t know him, she did know his aunt and his cousins. She had quickly learned the Bailey family was well respected and well liked around the area. His cousin Wynona was the wife of the Haven Point police chief.

  Some of her hesitation must have shown on her face. He looked rueful. “You don’t know me and don’t want to go home with a man who is a stranger,” he said, accurately guessing at the reason for it. “I get that and applaud your caution. But I can’t leave you here at night in the snow. I would be kicked out of the Good Guys club.”

  When she continued to hesitate, not sure what to do, he grinned, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.

  “How about this? I know you bought bear spray when you were in my store the other day. I assume you took it hiking with you, right?”

  She nodded, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Bear spray works even better on people. Bring it along. If I try anything funny, you have my permission to blast me in the face with it.”

  She didn’t see that she had much choice. The snow seemed to be falling harder. They needed to get help and couldn’t do that here with no cell service.

  Anyway, he had a sweet dog and a beautiful horse.

  After a moment, she grabbed her backpack, found the bear spray and quite pointedly put it in her jacket pocket.

  “How are we to get to your house?”

  He gestured to his horse. “Ollie can carry both of us. He’s a strong guy.”

  She looked at the horse and felt a fierce tug of longing. “I...haven’t been on horseback in a long time. I’m not sure I can mount up, with my...my bad leg.”

  It was a humiliating confession that earned her a compassionate look.

  “Sorry. I should have realized. I can help you. Can you raise your leg enough to put it in the stirrup?” he asked. The kindness of the question made her throat ache.

  “Of course,” she snapped. She hated feeling so weak. She put the foot of her mangled leg into the stirrup and grabbed hold of the pommel on the saddle.

  “Sorry if I have to get a little, er, personal here,” Josh said. Next thing she knew, he had boosted her up by her rump and helped her swing her leg over.

  “I’m sorry to ask but can you scoot behind the saddle? I could walk you and Ollie home but we’d get out of the storm faster if we both rode.”

  She nodded, feeling ungainly and stupid, and managed to shimmy her body back, pulling her leg out of the stirrup so he could use it.

  Her poor abused leg, already sore from the exertions of the hike and that stumble, throbbed at the long-unaccustomed position. She ground her teeth and held on to the back of the saddle, doing her best to ignore the pain.

  Whenever she found herself wallowing in self-pity about the limitations from the accident, she reminded herself it could have been much worse. For her brother, it had been.

  The saddle shifted a little as Josh climbed onto the hors
e but she managed to keep her balance.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Ollie is the greatest horse in Lake Haven County but even he might slip in these icy conditions.”

  She didn’t have anything to hold on to but Josh. Gemma frowned, reminding herself she had no choice, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He urged the horse forward and the big bay obediently started trotting through the falling snow, the dog following close behind, a dark blur in the snow.

  Her rescuer’s body blocked most of the wind but temperatures had plunged and her clothes were still wet. She couldn’t help shivering and buried her forehead against his back to keep her face out of the cold.

  “We’ll be there in a minute.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. “I’ve got a fire already going inside and we can get you warmed up in no time.”

  She held on to the idea of warmth as they trudged through the storm, taking a turnoff she barely saw and heading up a long, twisting driveway until they reached a sprawl of outbuildings and a sleek glass-and-cedar house.

  He rode to the front door, swung off the horse and reached to help her down.

  Gemma managed to swing her good leg over the saddle but hesitated to dismount, not at all sure her bad leg would be able to support her.

  “I’ve got you,” Josh assured her. His words comforted her in a way she couldn’t have explained. She hopped down and he did indeed catch her, his muscles strong and capable as he helped her to the ground.

  Was it her imagination or did he hold her just a smidge longer than necessary? She tried to ignore the little burst of heat that flared inside her.

  He led the way up the porch and opened the door for her. A blast of warmth enveloped her and she wanted to cry, suddenly feeling as if she had been cold forever.

  “I need to go take care of Ollie. Make yourself at home. Toby can keep you company. The fire should still be going and there are warm towels in the dryer. You need to get out of those wet clothes first. There are clean clothes in the laundry room. Feel free to change into anything dry you can find.”

  Her teeth were chattering too hard for her to do anything but nod.