by B. J Daniels
Kirk showed up and decided to climb up the rocks along the edge of the falls and was only halfway up when Mick scrambled up, as well.
“Bad idea,” Lamar said under his breath, wondering what their insurance covered on an employee retreat.
“King of the world!” Mick announced when he reached the top, having found a faster way than Kirk.
Lamar groaned. Those two would be the death of him. Or each other. It was always a competition. He tried to remember ever being that young or that foolish. He motioned for his brother to come back down. Mick ignored him until Big Jack said it was time to go. They scuttled down, slipping and sliding and starting a small rockslide.
“Boys will be boys,” his father said beside him.
Lamar shook his head. Mick would always be a boy, he thought. Just like their father. But that was why his brother and father got along so well. Two peas in a pod.
After everyone had taken turns snapping photos, they were ready to make the hike back to the hay wagon. Lamar realized with a start that Lexi had never joined them.
“Has anyone seen Lexi?” he asked. There were shrugs and head shakes and a general disinterest. Apparently no one had. She should have reached the falls a long time ago. Unless she was still picking flowers.
“I’m sure she probably turned back,” said Dean, who’d been sitting on a rock drawing circles in the dirt with a stick. “Probably waiting for us with the other wrangler who stayed with the horses. Probably flirting with him.”
Lamar couldn’t imagine that. Fortunately, the hike down went much faster. Mick and Kirk of course had to race each other, busting through the trees, hooting and hollering. Ruby and his father held back, the line stringing out so when Lamar reached the hay wagon Mick and Kirk were lounging on bales of hay, laughing like old friends.
“Where’s Lexi?”
The two looked around, clearly having forgotten her. “Wasn’t she with you?” Mick asked, confirming his lack of interest earlier when Lamar had questioned everyone to see if anyone had seen her.
Lamar turned to Slim. “Slim, it seems we’ve lost one of the group. Have you seen Lexi?” He started to describe her but the wrangler seemed to remember her.
“Last I saw her, she was headed up the trail with you,” Slim said.
He looked back up the trail as Allison and Huck came out of the pines followed by Dean and finally his father and Ruby. “Did any of you see Lexi on your way down?” No one had. “We have to find her.”
“Let’s give her a few minutes,” Big Jack said as he helped Ruby up into the wagon. “I’m sure she couldn’t have gone far.”
Huck said he would run back up and see if they’d missed her on the way down. He took off up the mountain.
Twenty minutes later, he returned and got on his two-way radio to the lodge. “We have a missing guest.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
POPPY HAD JUST come out of the kitchen when the call came in. Dorothea had been straightening the magazines on the coffee table in the living room. She went to the radio as the alert came in full of static.
“I’ll let Will know.” The older woman turned to her and she put the headset back. “Seems they lost one of the guests.”
“Who?”
“Lexi. I knew something bad was going to happen. Even Lexi knew this was going to happen.”
“She knew she was going to get lost?” Poppy asked, confused.
“Never mind.”
“You think she got lost on purpose?”
Dorothea sighed. “I think she’s scared of someone on this retreat with her.” At Poppy’s still-perplexed expression, she said, “I’d seen her pinch a saltshaker from one of the dining room tables yesterday not long after they’d gotten here. When I dropped off the cookies in her cabin, I realized that Lexi had taken the salt to try to protect herself.” Poppy knew she looked even more confused. “She’d poured it along the threshold of the cabin’s front door to keep evil out. And now she’s missing.”
Poppy wasn’t about to ask what salt had to do with anything. Instead, she said, “What do we do now?”
“We find Will and tell him.” The older woman turned on her heel and started for the door. Poppy hurriedly took off her apron and went after her, catching up as Dorothea reached the barn. Will was just coming out when he saw them.
“What’s happened?” he asked, looking from Poppy to Dorothea.
“Lexi got lost on the hike up to the falls,” Dorothea said. “They can’t find her.”
He swore. “I knew I should have gone along but Big Jack had insisted. I figured they’d be fine since that’s a good trail to the waterfalls. The only way you can get lost is to—”
“Step off the trail?” Dorothea suggested.
He nodded at her sarcasm with a sigh before running up to the house and returned wearing a sidearm.
As he started for his pickup, Poppy asked, “Could you use some help?”
He turned, seeming surprised by her offer. “Sure, come on.”
Dorothea started to say something, but Will cut her off. “Hopefully we’ll find her long before Poppy has to worry about dinner.”
They climbed into his pickup, buckled up and went roaring down the road.
“Maybe they have already found her,” she said, seeing how upset and worried he was.
“Let’s hope so. There is always that one guest you have to worry about, but with this bunch...” He shook his head and glanced over at her for a moment. “You are the best thing about this. I really don’t know what I would have done without you. Your cooking has calmed the beasts. It’s amazing, truly. But your cheerfulness... We’ve really needed that.” He reached over, touched her hand and then seemed to think better of it, and quickly drew his fingers back. He stared straight ahead as if regretting both his words and his actions.
Poppy was surprised not just by his words, but his touch. The warmth of his fingers had her hand still tingling. Chemistry? She smiled and murmured, “Thank you,” all the while feeling giddy with pleasure. He’d felt it, too, she was sure of it.
She watched the pines flash past in a blur of green, her smile broadening. She could still feel the warmth where he’d touched her hand. Just friends? She didn’t think so. Will could say what he wanted, but there was a spark between them. He’d felt it and she could still feel it working its way to the tips of her toes. She breathed in the unique male scent of him mingling with the great outdoors, wanting to remember it.
With a start, she realized she was acting like that enamored twelve-year-old. She couldn’t let a touch of his hand or the scent of him make her light-headed. That she’d felt anything was enough to make her want to scream. This was not her plan. Not to mention Will had made it clear. Friends. Maybe.
She wiped the smile off her face.
And yet, she couldn’t help feeling pleased as they bumped along the road in the close confines of his warm pickup.
* * *
WILL HADN’T MEANT to say the things he had to Poppy. They’d just come out because they were all true. He told himself that he shouldn’t have brought her along. He especially should make a point of not touching her. He’d taken her hand on impulse and quickly let go as if he’d grabbed a frayed electrical cord.
He couldn’t tell if she’d felt it as well or noticed his reaction. It was getting harder and harder to hide how he felt around her. He couldn’t help being thankful she was here. He couldn’t imagine these four days without her. Buckshot’s cooking and his gruff disposition would have only added to the doom hanging over this retreat.
Glancing over at her, he felt that pull so sharply that it almost took his breath away. He felt a sliver of fear and rightly so. If he was right, this woman was determined to seduce him. He’d been so cocky at first, saying bring it on. But the more he was around her, the more he thought she just might be able to do it. She’d already sedu
ced him with her cooking. It wouldn’t take much more and he’d be falling for her only to have her break his heart.
He suddenly realized that the cab of the pickup had seemed a whole lot too intimate. He felt overheated, closed in. He rolled down his window to let in the warm afternoon air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Poppy staring out her side window. The sunlight fired her hair. Every time he looked into those sea-green eyes, he felt as if being invited to dive in. But once he did, he knew he would drown in them.
He swore under his breath. He’d prided himself on being strong and determined. But he’d never known a woman as strong and determined as Poppy. He felt defenseless against her, which he knew was ridiculous. But keeping her at arm’s length was getting harder and harder with each day, with each hour.
With each dish she served, he felt himself falling more deeply under her spell.
That thought brought him up short. It was one thing to fall in love with her food—they’d all done that in the past two days. But falling for her? Not that she wasn’t attractive to distraction. But it was more than that and he knew it. He liked her. He admired her. He thought way too much about kissing those amazing lips.
He swore silently, realizing the path his thoughts had taken and how much trouble he was in. Ahead he could see the horses and wagon. He pushed Poppy and the thought of kissing her out of his mind as he looked around for Lexi, hoping she’d already turned up. Unfortunately, he didn’t see the young woman. What he saw instead were a lot of worried faces waiting for him to solve the problem.
* * *
POPPY LISTENED AS Will questioned everyone and talked about getting a small search party together. She could tell he didn’t like the idea of turning the guests loose in the woods. What were the chances that he would lose more of them?
“Okay, who saw her last?” he asked the group.
“I did,” Lamar said and looked guilty. “She was stopping to pick flowers and I got impatient and passed her. That’s the last I saw her.”
“All right, can you take me to that spot? The rest of you stay here. No one leaves.” He motioned to one of the wranglers to go with him. She noticed that, like Will, Huck was wearing a sidearm.
“Mind if I come along?” Poppy asked. “I know the area.”
He studied her for just an instant. “Sure.” And they headed up the trail with Lamar leading.
Poppy could feel the air cooling around them as they walked through the shadows of the towering pines. The sun had warmed the day but was now about to disappear behind the mountain. She knew how quickly the temperature could drop—especially this time of year—in the mountains. She could feel Will’s anxiety. They had to find her. It wouldn’t be that long before it got dark. If they didn’t find her soon, he would have to call in search and rescue from down in the valley.
“This is the spot I last saw her,” Lamar said. Of the bunch, he seemed the most grounded, she thought. Unlike his brother, Mick.
“Lexi!” Will called. “Lexi!”
Poppy heard nothing but the echo of his voice. She couldn’t help thinking about what Dorothea had told her. The salt aside, it would seem that the young woman was afraid of something. Or someone. One of the other employees on the retreat?
“Okay,” Will said. “Let’s divide up and take each side of the trail and see if we can find her.” He glanced at his watch. “We meet in twenty minutes back here. Lamar go with Huck. Poppy, you come with me. Stay where you can see each other. I don’t want to lose anyone else. If you find her, fire one shot,” he said to Huck. “The other group will fire an answering shot. Three shots if you’re in trouble.”
With that Lamar and Huck dropped off the trail to the right. Poppy let Will lead as they headed to the left. They hadn’t gone far when she saw that Will had topped a small hill off to her right. Poppy remembered a spot on the creek where the water made a beautiful little pool. She thought about calling to him, but before she could he motioned to her where he was going and dropped over a rise. She knew he wasn’t worried about her getting lost so she angled toward the spot on the creek.
The terrain was fairly easy walking as it slanted downhill at an slight incline. But she knew it didn’t stay that way. Soon the hillside would drop straight down to the creek. If a person wasn’t ready for it...
She could hear the babble of the water and noticed all the flowers that had come up from the lush ground after the winter snow had melted. No wonder Lexi had been enticed off the trail.
Her hope was that once Lexi got turned around and realized she didn’t know her way back, she would follow her own tracks back up to the trail. At worst, that she would follow the creek down the mountain rather than strike out farther into the trees where she would only become more lost. The creek would eventually hit a road. But would Lexi realize that?
As she neared the ledge over the clear pool below it that she’d visited so many times as a girl, Poppy heard a sound that chilled her heart. Crying.
“Lexi?” she called.
She heard a whimper, then nothing. Ahead all she could see were pine trees. She remembered as a girl finding bear paw tracks in the wet mud near the pool. This time of year the bear were no longer hibernating, but out, hungry and searching for food. If Lexi stumbled across one...
Moving cautiously toward the whimpering sound, Poppy could hear the sound of the creek growing louder. A twig snapped off to her right. She held her breath for a moment. “Lexi?” she called. She could hear her crying quietly; why wasn’t Lexi answering? She was almost to the vertical drop of the creek. “Lexi? It’s Poppy. Where are you?”
“Poppy?” She began to sob loudly. “Down here.”
She stepped to the precipice of the steep bank that fell to the creek and looked down to where Lexi was lying on the ground near the edge of the water. The young woman tried to get up, but let out a gasp and began crying harder. Clearly she was scared—and injured.
“Stay there,” Poppy ordered. “I’m coming down to you.”
As she looked for a way off the steep ledge, she saw where the ground had given way and realized that Lexi had fallen down the slope to the creek. Frowning, she looked back up the mountain toward the trail. There were skid marks in the leaves and soft earth as if... Why would Lexi have been running?
Thinking again of the bear prints she’d seen by the creek that time, Poppy made her way carefully around the cliff to where the young woman had landed.
“What happened?” she asked as she looked around to make sure they were alone. She hadn’t seen bear tracks on her way down. Nor did she see any large dark shapes up or down the creek.
“I fell and twisted my ankle. I think it might be broken.”
She knelt down beside the young woman and thought about the tracks she’d seen on the hillside above them. “Were you running when you fell?”
Lexi looked away. “Why would I have been running?” she demanded through her tears.
“I thought I saw... Never mind.” Clearly the woman was lying. Poppy wanted to chide Lexi for getting off the trail to begin with and making everyone worry about her, especially Will, but just then she heard another twig break and looked up to see him coming through the trees.
Her heart did that familiar loop-de-do she remembered only too well, making her ache inside. She couldn’t help herself. The cowboy was something to see coming through the pines wearing his Stetson over his curly sun-tipped brown hair and wearing a gun on his slim hips.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said to Poppy. “This was always one of your favorite spots.”
She looked up at him in surprise. How had he known that? Let alone remembered? She felt that ache grow more intense. That Will knew about this spot and how she always came here all those years ago... Her heart seemed to beat harder in her chest. She’d thought that he had never really seen her when she was twelve. He’d pushed her away because all he saw w
as a silly little kid. But now she remembered that there had been times when he hadn’t pushed her away. Sometimes it felt as if they were...friends back then.
She groaned. Friends. That’s all he’d ever wanted to be. She was the one with all the fantasies about something more. She listened to him talking softly to Lexi, asking if this hurt, if that hurt. He was good with guests, she thought. He made a good friend.
“What happened, Lexi?” Will asked.
“I fell.” She began to sob again. “Is my ankle broken?”
“It’s not broken. Probably just sprained,” he said.
Poppy stepped over by the crystal-clear pool and tried to breathe. She was such a fool. Did she really think that her cooking and her cute tricks were going to get Will Sterling to fall to his knees in love with her?
Behind her, Will was saying, “You’re going to be just fine.” Lexi sniffled but quit crying. “Have you tried to stand?”
“I couldn’t.”
Poppy turned back then, telling herself she should be more worried about Lexi than about herself and Will. Clearly there was more to the woman’s story.
Will looked to her. “Okay, I’m going to fire a shot to let them know that we found her. Do you think between the two of us we can help her to her feet?”
Poppy nodded, wondering what Lexi was hiding. What would have possessed her to run down a mountainside? And why had she lied about it? She’d rather they think she just walked off that ledge?
As Will moved a few yards away, she thought about what Dorothea had told her about the salt Lexi had put at the door of her cabin. She crouched down beside her and whispered, “If you saw something that scared you, that made you run, you can tell me.”
