Tempting Fate: A Colorado High Country Novel

by Pamela Clare

  He closed his eyes, images of her filling his head, his cock already hard. Her sweet face. Her dark hair in tangles. Her nightgown slipping to reveal the graceful line of her collar bone, the soft curve of her shoulder, the valley between her breasts. The silky skin and feminine shape of her legs. He’d wanted to hold her and kiss her, to bury his face in her hair, to inhale her sweet scent.

  It was nothing more than biology, simple neurochemistry, the attraction of male to female, but knowing that didn’t make the urge easier to ignore.

  He wanted her.

  Oh, no. No. Bad idea.

  She was vulnerable right now, a guest in his home. He had promised her safety, a place to rest and recover. No, he wasn’t a gentleman in any sense of the word. Even the concept was foreign to him. But he had been taught to respect women and honor visitors. That rarely included trying to get between their legs.

  Unless, of course, she felt the same attraction…

  Would you listen to yourself, kola?

  Naomi was a guest. She would be heading back to Rapid City soon anyway, so what was the point?

  He reached inside his boxers, took hold of himself, and gave his body the release it wanted.

  Naomi woke to find sunlight streaming through her window, Chaska and Winona already gone. There was a note from Winona on the kitchen counter.

  Call me when you’re up.

  Naomi typed in the number Winona had left, adding Winona to her contacts.

  No answer.

  She left a message, then made herself a bowl of cornflakes. She’d just stuck the empty bowl into the dishwasher when her phone rang.

  It was Winona. “How are you feeling? Chaska said you fell last night. He thought you might want to call your doctor.”

  Her leg felt better today than it had last night. “I’m fine.”

  “I thought you might want to visit the clinic, get a tour. We’ve got lots of baby fawns, a little burrowing owl, a pair of fox kits, some mountain lion cubs—”

  “I would love that.” Winona thought she had to ask?

  “I’ll come get you. I don’t want you to try to walk here by yourself. It’s not far, but it’s kind of rocky.”

  Naomi hurried to get ready for the day and had just finished dressing when Winona arrived, wearing a white lab coat over her green scrubs. They walked together out the back door, Winona staying close beside Naomi as Naomi hobbled along on her crutches. The backyard seemed surprisingly small for the size of the house—just a small patio with a gas grill, two reclining patio chairs, a raised vegetable bed, a few rose bushes, and a large shed. Then Naomi remembered that they’d set aside part of the property for Shota’s enclosure.

  Winona pointed to the shed. “That’s Chaska’s workshop. That’s where he does his machining, his mad-scientist work.”

  “I would love to see the kind of tools he uses.”

  For some reason, this made Winona laugh. “I’m sure he’d be happy to show you.”

  Naomi could sense the affection Winona felt for her brother. “The two of you are really close, aren’t you?”

  Winona looked confused by the question. “He’s my brother.”

  Naomi had never been close to Peter and Ruth’s sons. To them, she’d always been an outsider and a female.

  Winona led her out the back gate and called to the wolf. “Hey, Shota.”

  How could Naomi have mistaken him for a dog?

  The big animal stood behind two heavy chain-link fences—an outer one that was about five feet tall and an inner one that must have been fifteen feet high. The enclosure ran up the side of the mountain and included a den and lots of toys—balls, a wading pool filled with water, and …

  Was that white thing a bone? Yes, it was.

  Signs in red and white warned people away.

  BEWARE OF WOLF

  This wolf is a wild animal and

  will bite or attack if provoked.

  Do not try to enter pen or

  stick anything through the fence

  you don’t wish to see ripped apart.

  Okay. That was direct.

  For all of his fierceness—and Naomi was certain Shota could be fierce—he whined like a puppy when he saw Winona.

  “I try to get outside to play with him a few times a day. He gets lonely.” She stopped for a few minutes to talk with him, reaching inside to pet him.

  “Have you thought about getting him a friend?”

  “We’ve talked about it—a wolf-hybrid or a big dog—but we’ve found a kind of balance with Shota. It’s hard for a captive adult wolf to accept new pack members. It might work out, or it might end with Shota or one of us getting hurt.”

  The back entrance of the clinic stood not thirty feet from Shota’s enclosure. Winona scanned her ID and held the door open for Naomi. “Tell me if you need to sit or if you’re too tired to go on. I don’t want to wear you out.”

  Winona showed Naomi the intake area where she examined new arrivals, then led her past two small operating rooms to bigger treatment rooms on the other side of the hallway, telling her how the clinic operated. “Spring and summer are our busiest seasons because that’s when animals have their young. We get a lot of orphaned babies—fawns whose mothers were hit by cars, baby raccoons that got washed downstream, that sort of thing. Our goal is always rehabilitation and release, though sometimes that’s impossible.”

  “If you can’t release them, are you forced to put them down?”

  Winona put a hand over her heart, a horrified expression on her face. “Oh, no. We only euthanize animals that can’t be saved. If we can’t release them, we keep them here until we find a safe home for them.”

  A woman with long red hair walked toward them, a sleeping red-haired baby in a carrier on her chest, a basket full of baby bottles in one hand. She smiled at Winona before her gaze came to rest on Naomi. “I’m Lexi Taylor. You must be Naomi.”

  It was both strange and kind of nice that people knew who she was. “I would ask how you know that, but …”

  Lexi laughed. “Scarlet is a really small town. Also, my husband, Austin, was part of the Team that brought you in.”

  “Oh, yes. The paramedic. I remember. Please thank him.”

  “Lexi is one of my volunteers,” Winona explained. “She and little Emily help out a few times a week.”

  “I bribed my way in, but Win has been nice enough to let me stay.”

  “I let Lexi stay because she’s good with the animals.” The two women shared the kind of smile that marked them as good friends.

  The baby, Emily, stirred against her mother’s chest, looking like a strawberry in her little red dress.

  “She’s adorable.” Naomi felt an overwhelming impulse to touch her. “May I?”

  Lexi nodded.

  Naomi balanced herself on her good leg and ran a hand over the baby’s silky hair. “She’s so tiny—and she looks just like you. How old is she?”

  “Emily just turned four months last week.”

  “Let me take those.” Winona took the basket of bottles from Lexi.

  “The milk is for the fawns,” Lexi explained. “It’s feeding time.”

  “Fawns? Oh, God, can I watch?”

  “You bet.” Winona turned and walked down a side hallway.

  Lexi leaned in as if to share a secret. “Be careful. The levels of cute around this place are almost lethal.”

  Chapter 8

  “I got to feed the fawns. God, they were cute. Their little tails flicked back and forth the whole time they were feeding, and the little sounds they made…”

  Chaska ate his spaghetti and listened while Naomi described her day at the wildlife clinic, unable to take his gaze off her. Her face was alive with excitement, and there was a light in her blue eyes he hadn’t seen before. Spending time with the animals had been good for her.

  “The little burrowing owl looks like a potato with legs. I would love to take photos of him or try to sketch him. I’ve never seen one before.”

&n
bsp; Winona reached for another piece of garlic bread. “You’re welcome to come back and bring your camera or your sketchpad anytime.”

  “I think they’re with all the stuff in my SUV.”

  Chaska had a surprise for her, but that could wait. He didn’t want to interrupt her. “What was your favorite part?”

  “Oh, that’s hard. I loved all of it. The bald eagle. She was huge. Or maybe the mountain lion cubs. I had no idea that mountain lions purr.”

  “They are cats.” Winona was clearly enjoying Naomi’s excitement as much as he was. She turned to Chaska. “Bear brought in a fish today. He came in carrying it in a bucket. It had a hook and fishing line caught in its gill, and he was afraid he’d hurt it. I managed to get the hook out, and he left, carrying it in that bucket, planning to dump it back where he’d found it.”

  “You met Bear?” Chaska watched Naomi’s response.

  One could tell a lot about a person by how they treated those who were different.

  Naomi dabbed her lips with her napkin, nodded. “He’s so sweet—like a little boy. He was beside himself with worry about that fish. It touched me to see how much he cared. Does anyone know where he came from?”

  Okay, so she passed that test.

  Chaska shook his head. “He’s been here as long as anyone can remember. No one is sure how old he is, how he got here, or how he became the way he is. We all try to watch out for him, but he knows more about living off the land and surviving in these mountains than anyone I’ve met.”

  Naomi seemed to consider that. “Do you think he knows where he came from?”

  “I asked him once,” Win said. “He told me that he was born in the mountains and that his family is waiting for him in Heaven. That’s all he knows.”

  “That must be hard for him.” The light in Naomi’s eyes dimmed.

  “He seems to take it in stride.”

  Naomi’s gaze dropped to her plate, her fingers tightening around her paper napkin. “I don’t know anything about my parents—who they were, where they came from, whether they’re still alive. My mother left me in an alley next to a dumpster in Martin right after I was born.”

  She spoke the words without self-pity, simply stating a fact, but the weight of what she said came down on Chaska—hard. No wonder she’d reacted the way she had to Winona’s question about blood. Like an arrow striking bone, that question must have pierced the heart of a grief she’d carried her entire life.

  Chaska met his sister’s gaze, saw her shock and regret, unanswered questions rushing through his mind. What kind of woman could abandon her newborn? Who had raised Naomi? Given that she’d been found in Martin, which sat roughly halfway between Pine Ridge and Rosebud, had the authorities even bothered to check the two reservations when they’d searched for her mother?

  Naomi looked up at the two of them, defiance on her face. “You asked about my blood. I have no idea what I am. All I know is that my mother left me with this. It was tucked inside my blanket.”

  She took the leather cord that hung around her neck, drew the medicine wheel from inside her tank top.

  What would Old Man say at a moment like this? If only Chaska had one-tenth of his wisdom…

  He nodded to show that he’d understood her, waiting to speak until he was certain he could do so without emotion. “What you are, Naomi, is a survivor. Who you are is entirely up to you.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Yeah. Right.”

  What did that mean?

  Winona reached over, touched her hand to Naomi’s arm. “We don’t care where your blood comes from.”

  Naomi’s chin came up. “Then why did you ask?”

  Naomi sat in the rocking chair in her room and checked her online sales with her smartphone, trying not to notice the hole she’d punched in her own heart, her eyes not really seeing the data on her screen.

  Why had she told them? What had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t told anyone where she’d come from in a very long time. She didn’t like talking about it, and she didn’t want anyone’s pity. If Chaska and Winona were like the Native people she’d met at art shows, they would lose all interest in spending time with her. If they were like the young women she’d waited tables with, they would pity her or ask lots of questions that opened up dark places inside her. They were good people, and they had already done so much for her. But even good people could be disappointing.

  You ought to have stayed in a hotel.

  She could still do that. She could pack up and take a taxi to the inn that Lexi’s family owned. She’d feel better if she were paying her way. She hated being dependent on anyone for anything. It made her feel vulnerable, weak. She had learned long ago that the only way not to get hurt was to have no expectations of others.

  What you are, Naomi, is a survivor. Who you are is entirely up to you.

  That wasn’t true.

  What a person became depended in part on what others allowed them to be.

  She’d been told who she was her entire life. Men at the restaurants where she’d waited tables thought of her as a set of breasts and a vagina, while those at Peter’s church saw her as a womb and submissive helpmeet. White people saw her as Native or Latina. Native people learned that she wasn’t a registered member of any Indian nation and told her she wasn’t one of them.

  The only person Naomi had ever been able to rely on was herself.

  A knock came at the door. “Naomi?”

  Naomi closed the browser on her phone and drew a breath, steeling herself against what was bound to be an awkward conversation. “Yes?”

  The door opened, and Winona stepped inside. “Are you okay?”

  Naomi couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “Chaska has a surprise for you.”

  A surprise?

  Chaska appeared in the doorway, carrying her tool box in one hand, her camera bag and tripod in the other. “I think these belong to you.”

  She gaped up at him. “You brought my stuff.”

  She hadn’t been expecting this.

  “I stopped by the police impound yard on the way home.” He set the camera down on the bed and the tool box on the floor near her feet. “They’re done with your vehicle, so I took your stuff and had it towed to Frank’s garage. It’s the only repair shop in town, but he does good work.”

  “Thank you. Do you have his number? I’d like to get an estimate.”

  “There’s no need. The town has got you covered. Some folks from Scarlet are paying for parts, and Frank and his crew are donating the labor.”

  Naomi shook her head. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why not?” Winona looked genuinely confused. “People want to help.”

  Naomi tried to explain, her emotions at an edge. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but it’s not their problem. I’m not their problem.”

  A thoughtful frown came over Chaska’s face, and he dropped onto one knee so that he was eye-level with her. “What you told us today proves that no one can know what another person has lived through. We don’t know you well, and you don’t know us. But we do know what happened to you at the campground, and people want to make it better for you. No one expects anything from you. We all just want to help.”

  Then his lips quirked in a grin. “This is Scarlet Springs. It’s how we roll.”

  Could it really be that simple?

  Winona took Naomi’s hand, her fingers warm. “If you really don’t want our help, no one will force you to accept it.”

  “Except Frank.” Chaska stood, crossed his arms over his chest. “I doubt he’ll take your money.”

  “Really?”

  The warmth in his eyes made her breath catch. “Really.”

  Something beeped—Chaska’s pager.

  He drew it out of his pocket, scanned the display. “Megs is calling a meeting—a debriefing for last night’s rescue. She’s going to bite my head off.”

  “What did you do?” Winona asked.

 
; “Told off the victim.”

  “Uh-oh.” Winona shook her head. “Megs is going to kick your butt.”

  “You want to come along?” Chaska asked. “You can see The Cave—the Team’s headquarters—and meet some of the people who helped with your rescue.”

  “I don’t know. If you’re really in trouble …” Naomi didn’t want to find herself in the middle of a shouting match.

  Chaska chuckled. “She won’t really kick my butt. Megs is just … She’s Megs—climbing legend and hard-ass.”

  Naomi told herself that this would be a great chance to thank the entire Team for saving her life, but some part of her knew the truth. She’d told Chaska and Winona about her roots—or lack thereof —and they still wanted to spend time with her.

  How could she say no to that?

  The Cave was only a block away, but they drove for Naomi’s sake, taking Winona’s Subaru, which had more passenger room. Chaska steadied Naomi while she climbed down, then followed her inside the open bay doors.

  Team members milled around, talking and joking with one another, their voices filling the cavernous space. Taylor and Hawke left the rope they’d been inspecting when they saw Naomi and came over to say hello.

  Naomi remembered both of them. “Thanks for all you did for me.”

  She held out her hand, but Hawke gave her a hug instead. “I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

  Taylor did the same. “Lexi told me you were up and about. It’s good to see you.”

  The two men went back to inspecting ropes.

  Naomi glanced around her, her gaze moving over the gear that hung from racks on the walls—skis and snowshoes, litters, ice tools, rock climbing equipment, orange medical kits. “This place is huge.”

  “It’s the old fire station.” Megs stepped out from behind Rescue Two, clipboard in hand, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Belcourt, I see you brought backup. Good to see you, Win. Naomi, I’m Megs Hill.”

  Naomi’s lips made a little “o,” her eyes going wide for a moment in a way that Megs couldn’t miss. “You’re the Team’s director.”