by Inara Scott
“Are you still there?” he asked, tentative.
“Yes,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Meet me tomorrow at Mile High Trekkers in Boulder. Ten o’clock. Don’t be late. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Sure, sure.” He stumbled over his words in an effort to get them out quickly. “Whatever you say. And Kelsey?”
“What?” She scowled at the phone, feeling like an idiot in a hundred different ways.
His voice dropped. “It will be good to see you.”
She clutched the edge of the counter and swallowed. “Good-bye, Ross.” She ended the call before she said something she regretted. Though at this point, she had the feeling she was far beyond regret.
Chapter Thirteen
Ross watched Kelsey from the corner of his eye as she joked with the long-haired clerk from Mile High Trekkers. The man—Ross thought it was a man, though he wasn’t entirely sure—had some annoying name like Cedar or Aspen, and was trying to act as if he and Kelsey were best friends. Kelsey knew the girl at the register, too. She knew everyone here, even some random customer who walked in off the street.
No, it went beyond knowing. She was a damn legend here, as far as he could tell.
“…never been camping?”
He heard bits and pieces of their conversation, a hint of disbelief-slash-amusement in Cedar-Aspen’s voice. Stupid kid. When was the last time he’d negotiated a $200 million development contract? Ross knew he was being immature, but something about seeing Kelsey in her element left him feeling even more outside of his than he had before.
He walked up and down the tiny ramp they had set up in the store for people to use when trying on new hiking boots, and tried not to feel like an idiot as he smashed his toes against the front of the boot, as he’d been told. The boots felt fine, but Kelsey kept saying they needed to be better than fine if they were going to carry him up and down trails, loaded down with a backpack full of gear.
She was painfully cute when she was being serious. Today, she wore her own hiking boots with a pair of thick wool socks peeping over the edges. Her hair had been caught in a high ponytail, a pair of mirrored sunglasses perched on top of the sunshiny mass. She said after they were done she was going to do ten miles today while wearing a fifty-pound pack, and he didn’t doubt it, just like he didn’t doubt that she could run circles around him, even though he’d always prided himself on staying in shape.
He’d promised to bring the kids back tomorrow for their own boot fitting, but he wanted to get as much done as he could today, while he was on his own. A pile of gear sat beside the cash register: tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, stove, cookware, backpacks, and of course, several of the first aid kits of which Kelsey was so fond. He’d really need to get this contract with Herriot once he got the bill from this shopping expedition.
“What do you think? Are your toes too cramped? Imagine walking down a trail for three hours with your toes pushing up against the front of your shoe like that.”
She was studious, solemn. He smiled. “I’m just going out for the weekend with the kids, Kelsey, not climbing one of the fourteeners with you.”
The kids had told him what that term meant on Monday, when they filled him in on the day at the climbing gym. Luke, for the first time since they’d come to Denver, had been beaming. Not just smiling, but beaming. Matt was less enthusiastic about climbing himself, but seemed to appreciate the importance of what had happened for his brother’s sake. Julia had jumped up and down, clapping and squealing when she said that Luke was a natural, and he was already doing adult climbs, and Tank—God only knew who that was—said he had to come back and join their team because he was amazing, and Kelsey had climbed all the fourteeners and was famous.
Only Julia could deliver this much information in a single breath.
“I know that. I’m just trying to make sure you get fitted right.”
Kelsey’s face had turned red, and he regretted the joke. It obviously made her uncomfortable when people called attention to her exploits. When Cedar-Aspen had asked her about the details of her upcoming trip, she’d brushed off his questions as if she was hiking around the block instead of up a mountain in Nepal. When the girl at the counter asked if it was true that she was going to be on the cover of some catalog for sporting gear, she’d flushed and admitted yes, but then immediately turned the conversation to the relative merits of down versus synthetic sleeping bags.
“I know. I appreciate the help.” Ross sat down on the bench next to the ramp and began to unlace the boots.
“So what’s the verdict?” Kelsey bit her lip as she studied his feet. “Maybe you should leave one of these on one foot while you try the last pair on the other foot.”
He shook his head. “Maybe we should just load this stuff into my car and get a cup of coffee.”
He didn’t really want a cup of coffee. He really wanted to go somewhere—anywhere—that he could wrap those long legs around his body and dive into her like she was breath and he was air. But coffee was the next best thing.
She took the boots from his hand and arranged them back in the box. “I need to get on the road.”
“Then take me with you,” he said, horrified by the words escaping his lips. After talking to Stagefeather, he’d known he had no choice but to call Kelsey and beg for her help. But he hadn’t expected the sense of relief he’d felt when she’d agreed to help him. Or the way his body had reacted when he saw her again.
She laughed. “I don’t think so.”
He sat up straighter, annoyed by her easy dismissal of his suggestion. “Why not? You keep saying I need to break in my boots, right? And learn how to use a compass? Why not start teaching me now, without the kids around?”
She stacked up the three other boxes of boots he’d tried on and offered them to Cedar-Aspen, who had appeared to collect the unwanted items. “I need to go hard today, Ross.”
He bristled. “I can go hard.”
Was it his imagination, or did her cheeks pink at his words? “I’m doing three thousand feet of climbing. You’re barely adjusted to the elevation.”
“I ran five miles yesterday,” he protested. “I think I’m adjusted.”
“Where are you headed?” Aspen-Cedar asked. “I just listened to the weather and they said that the storm they thought was avoiding us had turned. Could be some lightning. You might want to stay below tree line this afternoon.”
“Shoot.” Kelsey scowled. “I really needed this afternoon.”
“Tell you what,” Ross suggested. “You take me on some god-awful but short hike up a mountain. You wear lead weights and jog up and down the trail while I walk. If I get tired enough, you can carry me. We check out the view, then come back down and have lunch somewhere with a lightning rod on the roof. Then later tonight you can go to the gym and put in another three or four hours while I sit on my ass and drink a beer.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “You have a way with words.”
“I know.”
She looked down at her hands, made a fist, and then slowly released it. “I’m a junkie,” she said, under her breath.
He cocked his head in confusion. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “You’re on.”
…
Kelsey had done a lot of stupid things in her life, but going hiking with Ross was one of the stupidest. Hiking with him meant driving together in her car, because it was absurd to take two cars to the trailhead, and she knew where she was going and he didn’t. It meant spending hours on the trail talking about everything…and nothing. Admitting that she liked rom-coms and bad reality TV and hated cooking. Laughing when he said he did, too.
It meant sharing a water bottle and forcing herself to look away from his lips, pursed around the edges of the rim. It meant leaning against a rock to catch her breath at the summit and finding him staring at her, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
It meant feeling her heart race when he was doing nothing at al
l.
She hadn’t realized just how unaccustomed she was to hiking with a companion until he stopped to admire a particularly stunning view of the Flatirons. She paused, looked, and then started walking again, not even realizing he hadn’t followed. She got a few hundred yards down the trail before she heard him clear his throat and turned to find him watching her, arms crossed over his chest, a smile on his face.
“You’re a piece of work,” he said, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, walking back down the trail to the spot where he stood waiting.
“When’s the last time you hiked with a mere mortal?” he said in response. “I mean, someone who doesn’t go for jogs wearing fifty-pound backpacks?”
She stiffened. “I told you I needed to go hard today.”
His gaze assessed and probed. “Seriously, I’m curious. Do you ever go hiking with Marie? Or anyone else who doesn’t do this for a living?”
“Marie isn’t much of a hiker,” Kelsey admitted. She didn’t want to say that she didn’t really have many other friends. At least, not the kind of friends you went for a casual hike with on the weekends. She’d always been a bit of a loner, but things had gotten worse since she graduated from college and started working on her own. Now, if it weren’t for Marie, she wouldn’t get out much at all.
“You like being alone, then?”
“I never really thought about it. It’s just the way things have always been. But I guess it’s nice to have someone with me.” The words were a surprise, even to her. She didn’t like to imagine that she’d been lonely all this time, but she couldn’t pretend she didn’t like having someone by her side.
Especially someone who gave her the shivers when his eyes lingered on the swell of her breasts.
He took a few steps closer, her words seeming to confirm something for him. “You moved around a lot when you were a kid?”
She adjusted her pack, forcing herself to answer and not simply retreat from the question as she usually did when someone asked her about her childhood.
“My parents were always piecing something together. Sometimes we stayed with friends, sometimes my dad or my mom would get a job for a few months, just so they could save up some money to travel again. Or they’d take turns guiding treks. I think we lived in six different states and three countries before I turned ten.”
“Did they homeschool you? How did you get your education?”
“It varied. If we were planning to be one place for a while, I’d start school. If not, my mom taught me. I started regular school when we moved to Boulder. My dad never wanted to settle down, but my mom thought it was important for me. They were going to do one last climb and then stay put for good.”
“And then she passed away?”
Kelsey nodded. She looked over Ross’s shoulder to the sparkle of sun reflecting off the smooth granite rock faces beyond. A line of darker clouds were massing in the distance and she didn’t like the look of them. “We should probably keep going,” she said. “Before the weather changes.”
…
They resumed hiking, this time at a slower but steady pace. Ross drew out Kelsey with endless questions until she realized she could deflect some of his probing by asking him about construction and real estate. She discovered that he genuinely loved the challenge of creating something out of nothing, and the joy of seeing someone fall in love with one of his buildings.
Then, sitting in the parking lot at the end of the hike, he removed his brand-new boots to reveal enormous raw blisters on his heels. He grimaced as he studied the damage. “Wow. I guess that’s why my feet were starting to hurt.”
Kelsey shook her head in disgust. “You’re a mess. You see why I told you not to wear those cotton athletic socks? You need wool or synthetic, something that reduces friction.”
“Are you really saying ‘I told you so’ to a guy with bloody heels? That hardly seems fair.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let me grab my first aid kit and I’ll bandage those up.”
To her horror, Kelsey discovered that she’d used up all of the large bandages and gauze in the first aid kit in her car when she’d slid down the end of Green Mountain on her butt the week before.
“I can take care of it myself,” Ross said. The first few raindrops pelted their heads. “We can head back.”
“Are you kidding? There’s no way I’m letting you off without cleaning those things. You’d probably stick a Band-Aid on it and call it good.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Only if you don’t want gangrene.”
Ross snorted. “Seriously? Aren’t you taking your worst-case-scenario planning a little too far?”
“Infections are nothing to fool around with.” Kelsey shook a finger at him in stern warning.
“And clearly, neither are you.”
Kelsey flashed a grin and yanked on his arm, pulling him to standing. “Come on, tough guy.” He made a show of hobbling to the car, having her laughing by the time he landed in an unceremonious heap in the passenger seat.
She couldn’t muster much of a laugh when they parked in front of her house, and she watched Ross examine her tiny, two-bedroom cottage, with the weeds growing up through the driveway, and the front yard mottled brown and beige from too much sun and not enough water. Things weren’t much better inside, where the wooden floors were stained and scratched, and the kitchen counters always looked dirty, even after they’d been scrubbed.
So it’s not a McMansion with a three-car garage. My life is about being mobile, avoiding commitments. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.
In the past, she’d considered the state of her home a badge of honor. She had a chin-up bar in the doorway to the kitchen and boxes of supplies pushed against one wall of the living room. The only person she ever had over was Marie, so she didn’t bother owning more than a basic set of dishes. The lone possession she really cared about was a Tibetan rug she had purchased in Kathmandu that covered most of the floor in the living room. The sparseness of the house’s interior usually felt calm and Buddha-like, a testament to her status as nomad. But now, with Ross inside, it just felt empty.
While she got her supplies to doctor his injured feet Kelsey reminded herself of all the reasons she wasn’t going to sleep with him again.
He’s got a family.
I’m leaving in three weeks.
He has no interest in a girl who can’t whip up a loaf of fresh-baked bread with one hand tied behind her back.
“Holy crap, that stings.” Ross flinched and tried to pull his foot away.
Kelsey held tightly to his foot. She had him lying facedown on her moth-eaten sofa so she could attend to the injured area, and was studiously avoiding staring at his butt. Only a few broken rays of sunlight peeked in through the large window in front of the sofa, which was blocked from the view of the street by the overgrown pine that dominated the front yard.
“Stop that, you baby. This is the ‘no sting’ antiseptic. See?” She handed him the bottle.
He made a sound of disgust as he examined the label. “No wonder the kids always cry when I use this on them. Someone needs to sue this company for false advertising.”
A tiny giggle escaped her. “Do you want me to get you a piece of rawhide to bite?”
He took the sock that had been balled up next to the couch and threw it over his shoulder, at her head. She held up her hands to block it. “That’s the thanks I get for playing doctor? Dirty socks thrown at me?”
“Are we playing doctor?”
The timbre of his voice changed, and she felt her cheeks grow hot, even as the lower half of her body went cold.
“Erm…no. Remember? I’m an EMT. So I’m not really playing anything.”
Ross twitched again when she rubbed loose the final piece of gravel that had become embedded in the raw flesh beneath the blister. She squirted a bit of antibiotic cream onto a huge Band-Aid and covered the delicate—but at least now clean—inj
ury.
“Of course. Funny how at one time I hardly believed that,” he mused, his voice only slightly strained as she turned her attention to the other heel. “Now I see that it fits with the whole, first aid kit in the bathroom and the front seat of my car thing.”
She winced. “Was that a bit much? I’m sorry. I just figured that now that you were in Colorado, you’d be driving more, and it’s always a good idea to carry the basics out here, in case you run out of gas or get in an accident some distance from a hospital.”
“Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.” The hint of teasing in his voice wasn’t mean, and she smiled. “Then again,” he continued, “you drive so slowly, I can’t imagine you would ever get into an accident. Except maybe if you got rear-ended.”
“I do not drive slowly,” she protested. “I drive carefully. There is a difference.”
His other foot hadn’t gotten as dirty, so she was able to patch it up fairly quickly. Just as she finished slipping on the bandage, Ross rolled onto his back. He moved unexpectedly, and she lost her balance and ended up in his lap. His eyes were the deepest blue she’d ever seen, and when she tried to push away, he grabbed her wrists and held her in place.
“Ross, what are you—” She broke off, the searching in his gaze leaving her light-headed and scared. Why did she feel as if he’d been poised on the edge of discovering something about her all day long? Something she didn’t want to share?
“Every time I think I am starting to understand you, you surprise me all over again,” he said. One of his large, warm hands rose to cup the side of her face, and she closed her eyes to let the sensation wash over her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, voice husky with the sudden throb of blood rushing through her veins.
“You make no sense,” he replied. “I watched you at that store today and you don’t want the attention. You aren’t in it for some kind of glory. You are more worried about my blisters getting infected than you are about climbing a mountain where people regularly die through no fault of their own. I read an article about you yesterday in Outdoor magazine. You and your dad. I didn’t know you climbed with him. Or that your mother died climbing Annapurna. You didn’t tell me that.”
