Jake repositioned the burning logs with the poker and closed the door to the stove with a clang. “About ready to head out? If it’s just made a kill, it should be easy to find.” He’d never hunted a wildcat before and had been excited when Riker texted him last night about the prints. It was illegal to kill it, but they could make enough noise to scare it off and convince it to move farther into the forest.
Maybe the girl’s scream already accomplished that goal. His ears were still ringing.
“In a minute.” Riker wanted to sort this out first. “So is everything going okay with you and Amy?”
“Yup. She’s amazing.” Jake’s eyes immediately took on the dreamy look of love and Riker groaned softly, regretting bringing it up. “I’m counting down the days until the wedding,” Jake continued. “I never thought I could be so in love.”
And yet she’s setting a tail on you because she’s afraid you’re cheating?
Riker cleared his throat, about to tell Jake about the girl in the woods, but his thoughts scattered at the sound of a timid knock on the door. He jumped up and answered it.
It was the girl. She didn’t look like an angry little puffed up bird now, she looked cold and miserable and like she’d rather be facing down a pack of angry wolves than standing on his porch.
“Mariah?” Jake asked incredulously from over his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
At the name, things started clicking into place. Mariah Lacoste, Amy’s cousin, had recently moved to Snow Valley and would be Amy’s maid of honor. Riker vaguely remembered Amy telling him Mariah was from Florida and suddenly the way she was dressed for major snow made sense. No one who lived in cold country very long went without heavy boots and a thick parka.
Mariah’s arms were folded tightly around her ribs and her lips were actually starting to turn blue. “My car is stuck,” she said in a very small, very sheepish voice.
Riker snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m not talking to you,” she said, glancing quickly at him before turning her blue eyes back to Jake. “I’m wondering if Jake can help me.”
“Sure,” Jake agreed. “But—”
“Come in and get warm,” Riker ordered, stepping back from the doorway and motioning for her to enter.
She stamped the snow off her boots and when she stepped hesitantly over the threshold, he got a whiff of vanilla, mixed with another, spicier scent. His pulse picked up and suddenly he wished his cabin was furnished with more than the leather sofa and recliner in front of the wood-burning stove. Maybe a more comfortable rug on the floor and some art on the walls to go with his hunting trophies. And maybe he should have washed the breakfast dishes, which were plainly visible in the kitchen at the far end of the open layout.
“Go to the fire,” he said as Mariah shivered again.
She looked like she was about to object, but then she pressed her lips together and went near the stove, sighing in relief as she caught the heat.
“Do you want something warm to drink?” Riker did a quick mental inventory of his pantry. “Hot cocoa, coffee?”
“No thank you. I just really need Jake’s help with my car.”
“Of course … but what are you doing here?” Jake asked.
Mariah took a deep breath and her cheeks flushed pink, but she met Jake’s eyes. “Following you,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“Amy felt like there’s been distance between you lately and wanted to know where you were going so early in the morning.”
“She doesn’t trust me?” Jake’s face fell.
Mariah spread her hands. “That’s something you should probably work out with her.”
Jake’s hand flew toward his pocket for his phone.
“Let’s get the car out first,” Riker cut in, already envisioning the long, probably emotional conversation Jake would have with Amy. Looked like it was the wildcat’s lucky day; they weren’t going to be hunting it any time soon.
He crammed his baseball cap back on his head, his mind running through the gear they’d need to pull a car from a snowbank. Most of it should already be in his truck.
“I’ll show you.” Mariah turned from the stove. Her lips were still blue.
“You stay here,” Riker growled as he pulled on his coat. “We can find it.”
“But—”
“You mostly followed the road up the canyon, right?” Riker said and when she nodded, he continued. “Then it shouldn’t be too hard to find. Give me your keys.”
Her eyes flashed indignantly, but she pulled the keys from the pocket of her coat and dropped them into his waiting palm.
Riker grunted and turned to Jake. “Let’s go.”
They found the car without much trouble and Riker groaned when he saw how deeply buried the wheels were in the snowbank. “What’d she do, drive straight at it?” he muttered.
“I can’t believe Amy doesn’t trust me,” Jake said in a dazed voice.
Riker sighed. “You’re going to have to ask her about that. Right now, help me.”
In the end, he had to practically crawl underneath the front of the car, lying flat on his stomach to loop the chain around the axle. Jake backed the truck up and Riker connected the hook, then climbed into the little blue car.
Little was right. He had to move the seat back several inches before he could even fit behind the wheel. He half expected there to be a phone book on the seat for Mariah to sit on. The thought of her barely being able to see over the dashboard brought a sudden smile to his face.
It felt strangely intimate to be sitting in Mariah’s car by himself. There was the same hint of vanilla mixed with something spicier he’d smelled earlier at the cabin. Her dark green leather purse rested on the passenger seat, and her cell phone sat in the center console next to a half empty bottle of water. A crystal shaped like a teardrop dangled from the rearview mirror, rocking this way and that as he put the car into gear. How did she drive with that thing swinging through her line of vision? It would drive him nuts.
“You ready?” Jake called from the cab of Riker’s truck.
Riker forced his attention back to the job and, at his signal, Jake threw the truck into gear and pulled. The car resisted for a moment, but finally came out of the snowbank. Jake continued down the road, slowly pulling the car toward the cabin.
Mariah sat on the edge of the couch, her boots planted on the floor, hands clasped in her lap. Riker would be willing to bet she hadn’t moved a muscle the whole time they’d been gone. Her face was composed, but as he crossed the room to give her the keys, she looked up and there was something in her eyes—a hint of vulnerability, like the look of a newborn fawn struggling to its feet. An urge to wrap his arms around her and pull her close shot through him and for one wild moment, he almost reached for her.
Then she stood up and the irritated little bird was back. “Thank you very much,” she said briskly. “I’m sorry for causing such trouble. I can pay you, let me get my wallet from the car.”
He took a step back, aware that he’d come too close and was in her personal space. “I don’t want your money,” he snorted. “Come on, I’ll follow you down the canyon in my truck in case you get stuck again.” He didn’t like what this woman was doing to him; the sooner she left, the better.
“That’s not necessary,” Mariah said quickly. “I can follow the road.”
“Yeah, that’s what you did earlier and you can see how well it worked out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I can do it.”
Riker shrugged and held out her keys. “Okay. Have fun hiking back here when you get stuck again.”
She snatched the keys from his hand and stomped to the door. “Thank you very much for your help,” she said stiffly. “Goodbye.” She shut the door firmly and a moment later they heard her motor start.
Riker and Jake exchanged a look. “Do you really think she’ll get stuck again?” Jake said.
Riker shrugged. “How should I know? She’s got a phone; sh
e can call you if she does.”
At the mention of a phone, Jake’s hand went to his pocket. “I really should call Amy,” he said.
Riker slumped into the leather recliner to wait for what was sure to be a long phone call. He chewed on the side of his thumbnail, thinking over the exchange with Mariah. He should have given her his number. If she got stuck again, she’d call Jake and he probably wouldn’t break into his call with Amy to answer.
Maybe he should go catch up to her in his truck to make sure she made it. She would hate that. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It would be worth the trouble to see her puff up in indignation again.
Chapter 3
Mariah’s heart was in her throat the whole way down the canyon, but she managed to reach the main road without getting stuck again. She breathed a sigh of relief as she turned toward town. How embarrassing would it have been if she’d had to go back to Riker’s cabin again?
Nope. She would never have gone back there to let Riker laugh at her. She’d have hiked to this road instead and tried to flag down a passing car. She was grateful for his help, and okay, she’d been trespassing on his property, but did he have to be such a jerk about it?
A cute jerk, there was no question of that. She didn’t usually go for scruffy guys, but the not-quite-beard was sexy in a mountain man kind of way. It suited him, like the camo. He totally looked the type to live in a remote cabin and go stomping around the woods carrying a rifle.
But why did he have the rifle anyway? She realized with a jolt that, despite everything, she still didn’t know what Jake had been up to.
Mission failure.
Failure in a big way. Because not only did she still not know what Jake was doing, she’d also managed to tick off his best friend/best man and that would definitely make the wedding more awkward.
She stopped at Tina’s Bakery for bagels and a few minutes later, pulled up in front of the little boutique on Main Street.
There was no doubt Artisan’s Knack had seen better days, but as the new owners, Mariah and Amy were determined to turn things around. They’d bought the boutique from Laverne Snow a week ago. Starting a new business at the same time you were planning a wedding was a bit much, but they were determined and besides, if they’d waited, Laverne would probably have sold the boutique to someone else and Mariah wasn’t about to let someone else snag their dream. She and Amy had talked about running their own store for as long as she could remember. Okay, she’d never pictured their dream starting in Snow Valley, Montana—Naples, Florida was more to her taste—but the boutique was too good to pass up.
Amy saw her through the front windows and hurried to unlock the door, her phone pressed to her ear. “It’s Jake,” she mouthed to Mariah.
Yeah, no kidding. Mariah collapsed onto the ratty-looking red sofa that had come with the boutique and dug into the bakery bag for a cranberry bagel. While she chewed, she shrugged out of her wool coat and examined her leather boots mournfully. Her commitment to vintage fashion did not extend to nylons and heels in the winter, so the boots were an expensive compromise. She’d searched long and hard to find something with a vintage look without actually being period specific. And now they were ruined.
“I’m sorry too,” Amy cooed into the phone. “I love you too, so much.” She flashed Mariah a huge smile and moved to the back of the boutique, where Mariah could no longer hear the conversation.
Mariah finished her bagel and was sorting a rack of shawls by the time Amy came back. “Hunting wildcats,” she announced, relief written across her face. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in Casperson Canyon? I’d have known he was going to Riker’s if you’d told me that.”
“Because I didn’t know it was Casperson Canyon. I’m new here, remember?” Mariah shoved several orange-colored shawls farther down the rack to make room for a group of greens.
Amy plucked the bag from the couch and pulled out a whole wheat bagel. “I’m sorry. I should have thought it through instead of panicking and sending you off on a wild goose chase. But at least you got to meet Riker, huh?”
Yeah, in exactly the way she’d want to meet a hot guy. Floundering around like an idiot in the snow.
“Why were you so worried anyway? It’s obvious Jake’s totally in love with you,” Mariah said, pulling her thoughts away from Riker.
Amy squirmed. “I don’t know … pre-wedding jitters? Or maybe I’ve been watching too much reality TV. And then there’s Andy.”
Mariah’s fist clenched around a red shawl embroidered with black sequins. Amy had broken up with Andy more than three years ago, after she caught the dirt-bag cheating. Mariah had never even met the guy—and a good thing too—but just thinking about it made her blood boil.
“Well, if you have any doubts, it’s never too late to call it off,” she said.
“Sure,” Amy gave her a small smile. “After we’ve already paid for everything.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mariah said, shaking her head firmly. “You can call it off at the altar right before you say ‘I do.’ The important thing is that you’re sure.”
“Mariah, I’m sure,” Amy said gently. “I just got a little crazy, but I know Jake’s the one for me. He’d never hurt me. And I think you’ve succeeded in strangling that scarf, you can let it go now.”
Mariah looked down at her hand clamped tightly around the red fabric and managed a light laugh. “Well, remember this the next time you get an attack of nerves, will you? I can’t afford to ruin any more boots.”
“I’ll buy you another pair, promise” Amy said. “As soon as we start turning a profit, I’ll buy you the boots of your dreams.”
“Oh great. That’ll be when I’m eighty!”
“No, come on. We have to stay positive,” Amy insisted.
But their enthusiasm dipped as they looked around the boutique. It had a lot of potential with its high ceilings and large windows, but the store was in much worse shape than they’d first thought. The carpets were stained beyond repair, and while the paint color gave off an old-fashioned vibe Mariah liked, it leaned a little too much toward toothpaste instead of aqua. The best part of the room was the ornate tin ceiling, but at some point in the boutique’s past, it had been painted an unwholesome beige color that was yellowed and peeling.
Even the inventory had been a disappointment. The store was filled to the brim with scarves, shawls, flowy peasant clothes, and ample amounts of folksy jewelry and kitschy knickknacks. There were mass produced snow globes, wood plaques with cheesy sayings, and even a few singing bass; not to mention the shelf of blown glass figurines and a bin of novelty rocks. With all that, it was hard to know exactly what the store was supposed to be, and Mariah was beginning to worry they’d bitten off more than they could chew.
Amy wiped her hands on her jeans. “What’s the plan today?”
“How about we organize the inventory and decide what’s staying and what’s going?” Mariah suggested.
Amy nodded. “That’s a good idea. We definitely need to clear out some space.”
“And we have to find out about the historical site thing,” Mariah said, adding it to her mental to-do list. Laverne Snow told them the building was a local historical landmark, but there was no plaque or sign to designate it as such. It was a nagging worry in the back of Mariah’s mind. If it was a historical site, could they make the changes they wanted? The storage room in the back was far too small and the main room too large. Mariah wanted to wall off the back third of the store to create a more organized storage space and a dedicated office, plus have less display space to fill.
Though, if they weren’t allowed to change the structure of the building, maybe they should consider a section where they could sell hunting gear. The Rodeo Drive Boutique had a handle on cowboy hats and other western wear for Snow Valley, but from the look of Jake and Riker this morning, hunting could be big business. And having Riker as a regular customer might not be such a bad thing.
Almost immediately, her brain
pulled up the image of him, scowling at her in the woods, ordering her to stand by the stove, stomping across the room to give her back her keys. He was way too bossy. But a small smile hovered at the corner of her mouth all the same.
Chapter 4
Riker finished his preflight checks and stuffed the clipboard into the pocket on the helicopter’s door panel. He adjusted his headset and keyed the mike. “Let’s do it,” he said over the ICS.
He pulled the collective lever with his left hand and the engine on the AStar helicopter whined louder as the bird lifted smoothly into the air. “Yellowstone County airstrip, helicopter 4-6 Mike Tango departing northeast,” Riker told the ground operator.
“Roger,” came the reply over the COM2.
Riker banked the helicopter and turned toward Snow Valley.
As they soared over the mountain peaks, his passenger, Henry Marchant, studied the ridges through a set of binoculars. He was the county’s avalanche control supervisor and responsible for monitoring danger zones in the snowpack.
Henry relayed conditions back to the ground team, but Riker tuned out the conversation, focusing on keeping the bird steady in the winds gusting from both sides of the mountain range.
“Can you get me a little closer to Leavitt?” Henry asked.
“Yup.” Riker nodded and lowered the collective, pulling into a hover at seventy-five feet. The wind was not as brisk at this altitude and he eased up slightly, hovering for several minutes while Henry got a better look at the ridges and rock faces that made up Leavitt Peak.
This was Riker’s first winter in Snow Valley and it was certainly living up to its name. He let his gaze wander over the wrinkled peaks of the mountains to where the town was visible on the horizon. It sat in a large valley, a dark spot in the middle of the blinding whiteness of snow-covered fields and pastures. The dense grid of buildings in town tapered off to become larger and larger patches of land with only the occasional house or barn. Long, dark roads cut through the snow toward the various canyons that rimmed the valley, the widest road leading to Billings.
Winter in Snow Valley (Snow Valley Romance) Page 46
