by Simply BWWM
“The mudroom that leads out the back door to the garage, and a laundry room. There’s also a staircase that leads directly to the master bedroom so I don’t have to traipse through the entire house to go to bed.”
“Can we see that room first?” she asked.
“We can, but once you see my room, you may not want to sleep in the guest room.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
He burst out laughing, scooping her into his arms and twirling her around, then kissing her soundly and setting her back on the floor.
“You’re a little firecracker,” he said.
“I’m glad someone finally gets me.”
She almost let herself fall into the darkness with the memories of George, but Lincoln’s hand took hers and whisked her away, up the back staircase and onto a large landing with several comfortable chairs, a bookcase, and an entire wall of windows with the view behind the cabin.
“Or maybe I could sleep right here,” she said.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Is that the lake in the distance?”
“It is.”
“This place is perfect. It’s going to be hard to leave when this is all over.” As soon as she said the words, she wished she’d kept that last thought to herself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know that this is just until we get through all this. I don’t expect anything after that.”
He smiled at her, his expression soft and a little wistful.
“I do,” he said. “In fact, I’m hoping that you’ll want to stick around when we get through this.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before she gazed into his again. “I mean, isn’t it normal for people put in an emergency situation to think that the adrenaline is attraction?”
“You watch too many movies,” he laughed.
“But, what if it’s true?”
He shrugged.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I know that you’re probably not ready to hear this, but I’m falling in love with you. So, if all the time I get is until this is over and the adrenaline wears off, I’ll take it.”
“Really?”
“Time with you is worth the possibility of a broken heart.”
Her throat caught and she could feel tears threatening.
“No one has ever said that to me before,” she said.
“Then they were fools.” He moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her so they were both looking out the window to the pristine wilderness beyond. “You’re a goddess, but more than those ferocious curves and the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, it’s your heart and your mind that I find myself wanting more of.”
“Go on,” she said, causing them both to laugh.
“I like a woman who likes to hear how wonderful she is.”
“And I like a man who wants to tell me those things,” she quipped, laughing again.
“You’re magical,” he said. “You would not believe the type of women I’ve met. I know you’re only twenty-six, but even women my age and older pale in comparison to your wit and your drive. I’ve spent most of my thirty-four years trying to find someone who is my equal. I never thought I’d find her, and then you dropped into my life.”
“Luckily, it wasn’t literally.”
“That’s another thing. I wasn’t going to go down that trail. I had all the footage I needed, and I was dead tired, but for some reason, I decided to keep going instead of heading back. I’ve never done that before. It was almost like fate was calling me to you. Dropping you off at the Metro and thinking that I would never see you again was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She leaned against him, and he bent down to kiss her neck.
“You’re special, Charity. And I’m not going to let you go without a fight.”
“It feels good to hear those words,” she said.
“Anytime,” he said. “Come on. I want to show you the master bedroom. You’re going to love it.”
He opened the door with a flourish and stepped back. She walked in slowly, taking it all in, shocked silent by the beauty of it all.
The room was huge, with several large windows on two walls, giving it an almost panoramic view of the wilderness beyond. The wall directly across from the bed also had a sliding glass door in the middle, leading to a large balcony. On one of the two solid walls, there was a door that led to a bathroom with a large jet tub and a shower that made the one at Hotel Andra look quaint.
“Hey, this shower has the same type of water fixture,” she said.
“I made a few calls this morning,” he said with a casual shrug. “There’s one in the guest bathroom, too.”
“Just like that?”
“The construction crew was already coming here with furniture to assemble, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Except you had major plumbing work done in the middle of nowhere within hours of requesting it.”
He smiled.
“It’s one of the many perks of being rich,” he said. “Just like this is.”
He touched the wall and a screen appeared.
“What the—” she said.
“There are control panels everywhere, but the lock screen is the same as the surrounding wall so they’re almost invisible unless you know they’re there.”
“That’s awesome.”
“Not as awesome as this is.”
There was a soft whoosh as the watertight seal separated, then the roof retracted, revealing a large, clear glass skylight above.
“The rest of the roof holds solar panels and the rainwater system, so this is the only roof that retracts. But at night, we can sleep under the stars without worrying about the weather.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s some perk. Are there other perks I should know about?”
“You’ll see them soon enough,” he said.
“I can’t believe this place,” she said. “And you’re right, I don’t think I want to stay in the guest room.”
“You haven’t even seen it yet.”
“I don’t have to. I want to be where you are.”
“Good,” he said, taking her hand. “Because I have a lot more I want to show you.”
Chapter11
Will rolled over in bed, looking out the window and groaning at the bright sunlight that streamed into the room. It took him a few seconds to put two and two together, and then he cursed, jumping out of the bed quick and fumbling for his phone.
“Noon? Shit!” he said to the empty room.
His bare feet slapped on the tile as he made his way into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Jumping in before it had a chance to warm up, he rushed through his morning routine, cursing himself the entire time.
He’d overslept, and not just a little. After sending the message to Lincoln the night before, he’d checked his phone every time it lit up with a notification. But each time, it was nothing more than an email or one of his many social media platforms letting him know that someone else had liked his latest video.
After hours of this, he’d finally fallen asleep. Exhausted, his body had let him sleep through three alarms, missing his five-a.m. wakeup by hours.
“I’ll be lucky to get to the campsite before sunset,” he muttered.
He swiped at the water on his skin, too hurried to take the time to dry off completely. His jeans stuck to his damp skin on the way up, causing him to hop around while he tried to put them on. When he fell to the ground, he yelled out in frustration, writhing around on the floor until he finally got his jeans up, then zipping them and putting on his shirt.
He was red-faced when he caught his angry reflection in the mirror. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to calm down. Wrestling with his clothes wasn’t saving him any time and neither would getting ready in a hurry. Forgetting something important could mean the difference between life and death.
Once he’d calmed down and slowe
d down, he went to the small kitchen to make himself lunch. He’d already skipped one meal, and the treacherous terrain wasn’t forgiving enough to skip two. Taking his sandwich to the bar, he sat down and pulled out his phone, forcing himself to slow down and think things through. He’d been running himself ragged since he first met with Mr. Wittman. He was ahead of schedule and hadn’t taken a single day to rest. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he headed out first thing the next morning, would it?
He almost had himself convinced, but he knew that he would head out that same day, choosing a different campsite if he didn’t get to the area he’d planned on before. He didn’t have it in him to fail, even if it wasn’t really failure.
He opened his Instagram, giving a cursory look to the direct message icon then doing a double take. He finally had a message. It might not be what he wanted to hear from Lincoln, but it was something.
Opening the messages, he was surprised to see a message from a screen name he didn’t recognize at the top of the list. He skipped it, opening up the unanswered message he’d sent to Lincoln the night before.
“So, you read it but you’re not responding,” he said, scowling. “Typical Lincoln. Why tell me you have nothing when you can ignore me instead?”
He was still shaking his head in anger when he opened the other message, expecting a bunch of pointless photos that wouldn’t help him one bit.
“What do we have here?” he said, reading the message.
I have information I think you’re looking for, the message began. I believe you’re looking for a man who was in the park on Labor Day. He was with a woman near the Hidden Falls Trail. I’ve included a picture of the place where I last saw him and the female companion. They both went over the edge, but only the woman came back up.
His mouth was agape when he scrolled down and saw the picture. The man in the picture was wearing the exact clothing of the one in the photograph Mr. Wittman had shown him, as was the woman. The photo was taken from far away, the faces obscured by the distance. But what he could see clearly was that George had his hands on the woman and her feet were off the ground.
He was absolutely certain that the anonymous photographer had captured the moment before George had pitched the woman over the edge of a nearby cliff. There was a vaguely familiar outcropping of large boulders near them, a picnic basket on the ground at their feet, and what looked like a quilt bunched up from the scuffle.
But none of those things were what had caught his attention. It was the blurry figure just coming into the picture from the right-hand side. It was nothing more than a hand, a wrist, and a knee, and the figure was blurrier than most Bigfoot shots, but Will was sure that the arm belonged to a man.
What happened? he typed back, noting that the message had come over just a few minutes before he’d woken up.
George attacked the woman and threw her over the cliff. He ended up going over as well.
What about the man in the picture? Will asked.
What man?
On the right-hand side halfway down, Will said.
Suddenly, the picture disappeared, then reappeared a few seconds later. Will cursed, taking a screenshot of the new picture, but it was too late.
Why did you unsend the original? Will demanded.
??
The original picture. It disappeared and now a new, cropped version is in its place. I know you unsent it.
I have given you more than enough information, they responded, but Will was fuming. He’d forgotten that Instagram allowed users to unsend photos and comments, and to his horror, the conversation was disappearing one dialog box at a time so quickly that he only managed to screenshot the first message before the conversation disappeared completely.
What the hell?! Will typed, angrier now. What kind of game are you playing?
Message undeliverable, Instagram responded as the screen name disappeared and was replaced with the word “Instagrammer”.
He slammed his fist on the bar, opening his photo gallery to make sure he’d gotten the pictured he’d saved. He had the original message and the cropped photo. That was it. Everything else was gone.
Quickly, while his memory was still fresh, he wrote down everything the mystery person had said to him. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was more than he’d had when he woke up.
“Maybe oversleeping wasn’t such a bad thing after all,” he said, posting the screenshot of the photo, cropping out the bits of conversation and the screen name of the informant.
First person with the GPS coordinates of this spot gets a shout out and one-week account takeover! Will posted, knowing that those two rewards would entice a hopeful influencer more than any amount of money could.
He set the phone down and went to his supply closet, getting his climbing gear, then changing his clothes. He’d expected to hike, but if that photo was where he thought it was, he was going to need climbing equipment to get over the edge and down to the bottom of the ravine. Though the trail up was treacherous, it was nothing compared to the grueling hike from below. He would cut days off his time, and if he could go over the edge in the exact spot that George had, he had a much better chance of finding him.
But the wilderness was filled with look-alike scenery, and the photographer had ghosted him pretty quickly when he’d pointed out the third person in the shot. He didn’t care about the reason why, because he wasn’t interested in a bystander, no matter who it was. He had what he needed.
By the time he was packed and ready to head out, it was just after one. He smiled when he checked his post, took down the GPS coordinates from each of the answers, and promised he would announce the winner once he confirmed that the coordinates led him to the actual picture. Then he dropped the phone in the side pocket of his cargo shorts and all but sprinted to his Jeep. He was excited, and the new information had energized him. He wouldn’t be wandering in the forest aimlessly. No, if this lead panned out, then he would finish his job, and he’d be more than a million dollars richer.
It didn’t compare to the budget he’d had to work with when he partnered with Lincoln, but it would go a long way toward taking his brand to the next level and ensuring that he didn’t have to get a “real job” ever again.
He made the trip to Mount Rainier in record time, unloading his gear and setting the coordinates into his handheld GPS. He dropped a pin at each location, then used the map to see which of the trails ended up in the parking lot where George’s car had been found.
“They all do,” he said with a laugh and a shake of his head.
It was going to be a long day.
He set out for the nearest location, his steps light and his spirits high. Today was going to be the day he found George Wittman. He just knew it.
Chapter12
“It’s only a little further,” Lincoln said, taking Charity’s hand to help her up the steep incline. “I promise when we get there, it will be totally worth it.”
“You said that three inclines ago.”
“I know. I didn’t want you to realize how far we still had to go.”
“Good plan. But this better be the last one. I’m exhausted. I don’t know how you do this every day.”
“If it’s difficult for an avid hiker, could you imagine how hard it would be if you weren’t a total badass?”
The reached a small plateau and Charity stopped for a moment, placing her hands on her hips as she dragged deep breaths into her lungs. She turned to look back the way they’d come and shook her head.
“Is that the cabin way off in the distance?”
“It is.”
“Man. Why can’t you be the kind of rich guy who travels everywhere by helicopter?”
A startled laugh escaped him, and he grabbed her in his arms, kissing her quickly.
“Because life is too short for that nonsense. Plus, my chopper is only a single-seater, so it wouldn’t matter if I had it here or not, unless you want to ride on one of the skids.”
“I’ll pass. I don’t
have a death wish.”
“Good to know. Now, come on. We’re almost there.”
“That’s what you keep saying,” she said, but she followed him anyway, carefully picking her way over the loose rocks on the trail.
When they finally got to the top, she threw her arms wide and embraced the scene in front of her.
“This was worth hiking all day for,” she said.
“That’s not even the best part,” he said, pushing aside the branch of a young sapling with a flourish.
“Is that?”
“Yep. It’s a warm spring.”
She looked at him, bit her lip playfully then took off.
“I’ll race ya,” she yelled over her shoulder.
She was already well ahead of him, running downhill on the smooth trail until she got to the edge of the spring. She bent down, dipping her hand in the water first, then throwing her clothes into a pile on the bank and jumping in.
Lincoln was right behind her, catching up to her easily and swimming beside her the rest of the way to the opposite edge of the water, which overlooked the valley below.
“Could this be any more perfect?” Lincoln said.
Charity turned to tell him that it couldn’t, but she quickly realized that he was looking at her.
“Oh,” she said with surprise. “I thought you were talking about the view, and the warm water.”
“The view looks perfect from right here,” he said.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her atop the water to the edge where large, smooth boulders made up the outside wall of the pool of warm water.
She grabbed the side and he slid in behind her, his naked body pressed up against hers.
“Have you ever seen such a sight?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t. Oh Lincoln. I wish this would never end.”
“So do I.”
“This place is enchanting. I don’t think I can ever go back to living in the city.”
She was pinned between him and the wall, his hands casually roaming over her sides as they talked.
“Then don’t,” he said.
“If only it was that simple.”
