Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One)

by Suzie O'Connell

  “It’s about time you got here. I hope you brought your pie plates, Aeli,” the woman said. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and extended a hand to Pat in greeting. “I’m June Montana.”

  “Montana? Really?”

  She laughed. “Really. I get that a lot.”

  Pat took the offered hand and shook it. “Patrick O’Neil. Pat. And yes, we brought Aelissm’s pie plates.”

  “Good.” She wrapped an arm around the boy’s slender shoulders. “This is Luke McKindel, my foster son.”

  “Hi,” the boy said shyly. He also offered a hand and Pat shook it.

  “Glad to meet you both. So, we’re making pies.”

  “Yep. Apple, as I’m sure you guessed. I thought we’d make ten pies, not that they’ll last long tonight. We’ve already finished two and I have another two almost ready to go in the oven.”

  “I take it the Northstar Potluck is a well-attended event.”

  “Just about everyone in the valley comes.” June thrust a bowl of washed apples and a peeler at Aelissm. When Pat asked how he could help, she told him he could mix the sugar, cinnamon and flour for the apple filling and when he finished that, he could help Aeli peel and slice the apples. She turned her attention to making the dough for Luke to roll out.

  “So, Pat, how are you liking Northstar so far?” June asked.

  “It’s great.”

  “Pat thought I was lying last night when I told him it’d snow,” Aelissm remarked. “Just wait until the trails clear enough and we drag him four miles up a mountain. Then he can have his first snowball fight in May.”

  “If he’s here that long.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pat asked. “Four miles up a mountain?”

  “Sawtooth. There’s a trailhead a couple miles down the hill from here. The trail goes up to Sawtooth Lake. We hike it several times a year, about every third week or so. There are other lakes around to that we hike to, some with trails, some without, like the Hall and Hopkins Lakes.”

  “That’s a fun hike,” Aelissm muttered. “Remember the first time we hiked up there? Grandpa said, ‘at the bottom of the third rockslide, there’s a trail that’ll take you up to the lakes.’ Ha!”

  Pat glanced at June, who smiled.

  “There’s no trail,” she explained. “We followed the creek up. There were game trails, though, that appeared and disappeared at random. It’s three miles up and three miles down, but it’s a harder hike than Sawtooth and it’s higher, too.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Fun?” Aelissm remarked. “If I recall correctly, you barely made it here. You should have heard him huffing and puffing, June.”

  “Like we used to?”

  Pat was entranced. The friendship between Aelissm and June was borne of a lifetime spent together and it spiced the air as warmly as the fragrance of fresh apple pie. Even with the threat of Adam Winters hanging over them, Pat felt more relaxed than he had in a long time and was glad Bill had asked him to come. A place like this was just what he needed. He hoped Bill was right, that this vacation might finally help him get past Sara, because existing was tiresome.

  Pat didn’t realize the passage of time until all ten pies were cooling on the snack bar. When he glanced at his watch, he saw that it was already three o’clock in the afternoon, which meant they’d finished just in time to allow the last pies two hours to cool before the potluck.

  “Thanks so much for coming to help, Pat,” June said. “You didn’t have to.”

  “I know, but I’m glad I did. It was really nice to meet the two of you.”

  Aelissm reached over to ruffle Luke’s hair. The boy ducked away, but she grabbed him and rubbed until his shining gold hair was a mop. He squirmed away, his face twisted in chagrin, and hid behind June.

  “We’ll see you in a couple of hours,” she said.

  Pat discovered that the hike back to Aeli’s seemed somewhat less strenuous, but just as he was about to congratulate himself, he realized that Aelissm’s cabin, though it was farther up the road, was slightly lower in elevation. Even as his lungs burned with the lack of oxygen, he found the breath to laugh.

  “Don’t worry,” Aelissm remarked. “You’ll get used to it. Luke’s from Seattle originally, and he can bounce all over these woods now like he was raised here.”

  “Yeah, but I’m pushing twenty-nine. Luke’s only twelve.” Pat’s lips twisted thoughtfully. “He looks more like eight.”

  “He’s tiny,” she agreed.

  “I doubt he’ll stay that way for long. He’s real lean and long-limbed, like I was at his age.”

  “That could be from malnourishment. I don’t think he had a very good life before he came here.” Aelissm’s pretty face darkened with a frown, as if she wanted to add something, but she remained quiet.

  “That may be, but I’ll bet he’ll be tall. Mark my words.”

  “How much would you bet?”

  Pat’s breath caught in his throat. He wouldn’t be here long enough to see how the wager turned out and it might be a decade before the kid stopped growing, by which time this whole trip would be little more than a pleasant—he hoped—memory. Aelissm’s challenging grin made his face lift in reply. “A hundred bucks. And I say he’ll be at least six-two.”

  “You’re on. If he makes it to six-foot-two, I’ll give you a hundred bucks, but if he doesn’t, you owe me a hundred bucks, Mr. O’Neil.”

  “No matter where we are?”

  “No matter where we are,” she affirmed.

  Pat could only smile as he shook her hand to seal the deal.

  * * *

  An hour later, Aelissm was standing in the spare bedroom of her cabin, straightening things and helping Pat unpack. When they finished, she started to head into her bedroom to change clothes, but Pat’s voice stopped her. She turned around to find him standing beside the stairwell. Beside her gun.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask about this, Aelissm,” Pat said, his long fingers toying with the barrel of her rifle. “And don’t tell me it’s for bears, because even this city boy knows it wouldn’t do more than piss a bear off.”

  Aelissm eyed the gun and cursed herself for not putting it away. Supposedly, she didn’t need it now anyway, since Pat was here to protect her. And a well-trained cop had to be better than her nervous, shaking fingers. “It’s for gophers and badgers. Varmints.”

  The lie was sour in the back of her mouth and her neck warmed uncomfortably. From the stern shadow in Pat’s eyes, she knew he didn’t believe it any more than she did. “Look, Pat. If I was really worried about someone… I’d reach for a pistol first. It’s easier to maneuver than a rifle.”

  Pat lifted an eyebrow in inquiry. The intensity of his gaze made her look away, but when he cupped her chin and lifted her face toward him, the sincere concern that softened his eyes snatched her breath away. Never before had she been read so intimately by a man, and it was as enticing as it was startling. For a moment, she couldn’t look away and as he searched her gaze, she felt like an open book. It was the disgustingly girlish wobble of her knees that finally gave her the strength to turn away.

  “Aelissm…. I need to know.”

  “You need to know what?” she asked, bracing her hand on the doorjamb. She stared blindly into her bedroom, her senses a little too in tune to subliminal signs of another being in her home. She could feel Pat’s eyes on her back, worried and curious.

  “I need to know everything I can about Adam Winters. Up to and including how you feel about the whole situation.”

  She snorted. “I thought that was obvious. I came here to get away from him.”

  A trail of shivers coursed down her spine when Pat gently touched her shoulder. She turned back to him again, guarded this time, ready to face him. Before her lips could form words, he pressed a finger to them.

  “Not right now. But soon. When you’re ready.” He paused, then added, “When you can trust me.”

  I already trust you, she thought. Her heart
fluttered. It had taken weeks before she’d been able to trust Bryce enough to let him kiss her, but she’d felt the temptation to find out what Pat’s lips tasted like in front of the fire last night. If she was willing to be completely honest with herself, she wanted to do more than kiss him. It would be so easy to cross the distance between them in a step, stand on her toes and drag his mouth down to hers…. She didn’t, though neither did she move away. What was he doing to her? Yes, he was attractive, there was no doubt in her mind about that, and yes, he was single. What harm was there in a kiss?

  Before she lost the shaky control of her desire, she glanced at the gun. “We should probably head down. I need to be there early to set up,” she murmured.

  “Of course. It is your inn, after all.”

  “Well, it’s not mine yet.”

  “But it will be, if you stay here.”

  If you stay here. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine going anywhere else. She’d come to Northstar to escape and regroup. She hadn’t stopped to consider what she would do if this mess with Adam was resolved. But Northstar was home and now that she’d come back, she didn’t want to leave.

  “I hadn’t thought about staying here… or leaving, for that matter,” she said. “I’ve been living in the here and now lately. Tomorrow just hasn’t seemed important.”

  When she glanced at him, she saw Pat frowning.

  “You talk as if you aren’t sure there will be a tomorrow. Do you really think Adam would kill you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just saying that since Seattle, I haven’t been concerned with much else than staying one step ahead of him. There isn’t a lot of time left over for thinking about anything else.”

  Pat nodded. “You’re not living. You’re existing. Surviving.”

  “Barely.”

  Aelissm watched his face for some clue as to what it was in his past that allowed him to empathize with her plight, but his expression was impossible to decipher. “Uncle Bill said you’d had a bad break up and that you’ve been losing yourself in work ever since.”

  “It’s been three years, but I’m still not ready to talk about it.”

  His voice wasn’t harsh. He was stating a fact, not snapping at her for prying and Aelissm was all the more curious. What kind of rocks-for-brains woman would turn a man like Pat away? What if there was a darker side to him she hadn’t seen? What if the compassionate smile and the kind eyes with their shadows of heartache hid something sinister? She’d been wrong about Bryce. What if she was wrong about Pat as well?

  No, she thought. Uncle Bill trusted Pat. He hadn’t trusted Bryce.

  “You said you needed to head down early to set up,” Pat remarked.

  She winced at the thread of cold distance in his voice. Then he smiled and the shadows passed from his eyes. With them went her apprehension.

  “Probably ought to change into something that isn’t covered in flour.”

  Pat glanced down at his flour-dusted clothing. “Good idea.”

  Aeli stepped into her bedroom and closed the door, then stripped down to her undergarments. She pulled on a soft, black v-neck sweater and jeans before studying her reflection in the mirror. The outfit showed off her shape nicely, she noted with feminine pride. After a few moments of indecision, she decided to leave her hair down and brushed it until it shone like a sun-gilded afternoon.

  “Are you decent?” she asked Pat.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Decent as I’ll ever be, anyhow.”

  She smiled and opened the door between the rooms. I could watch him for hours, she thought, taking in every line of his six-foot-four-inch frame. He too wore a black sweater and jeans.

  “You know, the tongues of Northstar will be wagging tonight,” Aeli remarked playfully. “I can hear them now. ‘Who’s that handsome man Aeli has with her? There must be something going on, because they dressed to match….’ Joy.”

  “As long as you don’t mind, I don’t.”

  “You say that now. Just wait.”

  They headed out to her truck and Pat climbed in the passenger side. When she passed her grandparents’ cabin, she noticed that neither their truck nor their old navy-blue and white Bronco were in the drive. Concern flickered, but she decided they were probably taking it slow. It had snowed, after all, and in Montana, there was no knowing which areas had gotten how much of the white stuff. She told Pat he’d have to wait a little longer to meet them. Grandpa wouldn’t miss putting in an appearance at the potluck, no matter how tired he was from traveling.

  The ride down the mountain was quiet, though occasionally Pat asked where a trail led. When they reached the intersection with Clark Creek Road, Aelissm turned left instead of right. A quarter mile up the road was a gravel loop with places to park.

  “This is the Sawtooth Trailhead,” she said. She glanced at Pat to find him staring around at the steep hillsides.

  “How long until we can hike up?” he asked.

  “A month and a half, maybe longer.”

  “I hope I won’t need to be here that long.”

  Aelissm’s heart dropped like a rock, hard and fast. When she looked at him again, his face was unreadable. There was a light smile on his lips, but there was a tiredness in his eyes, the same exhaustion she’d noticed last night by the fire. Curiosity sliced her, but she couldn’t find her voice to ask what he meant. Hadn’t they just made a bet little more than an hour ago that was years away from fruition? She wanted to slap herself for letting a man she barely knew jerk her emotions around like this. What was wrong with her?

  Pat’s gaze settled on her and his eyes widened. When she glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror, she saw what had startled him. Her expression was one of wounded pride.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Aelissm. I just meant that I hope your problems with Adam will be taken care of by the time the trail is clear to hike. That’s all.”

  Oh, for crying out loud! It had taken less than a tenth of a second for her heart to do a one-eighty from hurt to overjoyed. Pat hadn’t been here a full twenty-four hours yet. She didn’t want to contemplate how she would feel if he were here for weeks.

  “Ah,” she said at last.

  Aelissm was glad when she finally pulled in to the parking area in front of the Bedspread. For a moment after she turned off the ignition, she stared out the windshield. Then she turned to Pat. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually this emotional, but my nerves are a little raw.”

  “I understand, Aelissm. It’s perfectly reasonable, considering what you’ve been through in the past year. If you were as steady and unmovable as one of those boulders along the road back there, I’d be worried.”

  “Well, I have been called as stubborn as one before,” she replied.

  They walked into the inn together. There were already a few people inside, holding dishes, and Aelissm made a mental list of who was there. The Struthers brothers and their wives were accounted for, and she also spotted the Hammond twins at the bar. Craning her neck a little to the side, she saw Nick and Beth sitting beside Nick’s brothers. Though she normally hated social gatherings, the Northstar potlucks and get-togethers were an exception. The people of this valley were her friends and neighbors and she genuinely adored their open, honest company. If Pat was as smart as Uncle Bill had led her to believe, he’d let them help soothe and repair his bruised heart.

  “I know we’re early,” said the younger Mrs. Struthers. Aeli smiled at her and nodded a greeting to her husband. “So, Aelissm, who is this handsome young man?”

  “Patrick O’Neil. He works under Uncle Bill. Pat, I’d like you to meet Mary Struthers and her husband Marvin. They own the Ramshorn, where June works when she’s not teaching. This other gentleman here is Steven Struthers, Marvin’s older brother, and this is his wife Caroline. They own the Circle S Ranch.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Pat said, shaking each of their hands. “I apologize in advance if I can’t remember everyone. From what Aeli tells
me, the majority of Northstar will be here.”

  “You can count on it,” Marvin remarked.

  “Say, Aeli, you and June baked pies, didn’t you?”

  “Of course, Steven. June’s bringing them down.”

  “Good.” Steven clapped Pat good-naturedly on the arm. “Great to meet you, Pat.”

  “That’s all he cares about,” Aelissm grumbled fondly. “Damned pies.”

  “If they taste half as good as June’s kitchen smelled, I can understand why.”

  Aeli dragged Pat over and introduced him to the Hammond twins, who regarded her new guardian with unveiled cynicism and envy. Her lips twitched with amusement. Aaron, at least, was professional, and told Pat he was on the lookout for Adam Winters and offered to sit down to discuss the matter at Pat’s earliest convenience. Before Pat could suggest they do it right then, Aelissm pointedly reminded them that it was supposed to be a fun evening. She wasn’t about to let thoughts of Adam intrude, so she distracted Pat by introducing him to the eldest Hammond brother and his wife. Nick and Beth were much more welcoming. They warmed to Pat instantly and Nick even invited him to come down to the Hammond spread for a ride.

  “Horses, I assume?” Pat asked. His tone was playfully self-mocking.

  Nick laughed. “Or four-wheelers, if you’d rather.”

  “I haven’t been on a horse in years. I’ll have to take you up on the offer.” Pat inclined his head to Beth. “So, boy or girl? Or are you going to be surprised?”

  “Boy,” Beth replied, beaming. “I swear it’s the Hammond curse. Nick’s grandfather had three brothers, his father is one of four boys and Nick has only his twin brothers.”

  Aelissm’s fingers tapped a rapid rhythm against her arm in irritation. It wasn’t the way Pat was fawned over the parents-to-be that disturbed her; it was something entirely more unsettling. If he was so kind and attentive to Beth and Nick, she could well imagine how devoted he’d be to the woman who carried his child. Pat’s future wife would be a lucky woman. The rush of envy curled Aelissm’s lip, though none of her companions seemed to notice.