by Inara Scott
Ross was withholding judgment on that count, but realized Kelsey probably wouldn’t appreciate his saying so. “Is that why you let him talk to you that way?” He half expected her to change the subject then, or protest, but she didn’t. She just paused, running her hands back and forth around the base of her mug.
“I’m all he has left,” she said. “He was never much of a social person to begin with, and after my mother died, he sort of…” She held her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “Well, he changed. Became more moody. Stopped trying to talk to other people. I became his connection with the rest of the world.”
“And it’s been this way since you were thirteen?”
“Basically. It isn’t as if I don’t have my own life,” she added hastily. “I do. We just do the big climbs together.”
“But he doesn’t like to see you dating,” Ross concluded.
“It doesn’t come up very often,” she said, a smile not quite reaching her eyes. “I don’t usually entertain in the middle of the afternoon.”
He didn’t laugh in response.
“Look, you’ve got responsibilities to your kids, right? Well, I’ve got my father. He’s challenging, but what can you do? I love him. And it isn’t as if it’s some kind of terrible burden. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have accomplished half as much as I have, or seen half as much of the world. We get along much better than it seems. I just have to keep him from flying off the handle sometimes.”
Ross breathed in the cool air. Pieces were falling into place. He imagined a girl of thirteen, her mother dying on the way back to see her, and he thought about her father, stuck in some kind of self-destructive need to go back to the mountain that had claimed his wife. For the first time, he thought he might be starting to understand her. “When did you start climbing the big mountains?” he asked.
She flashed a smile. “When I was born. My mom had this crazy wrap thing that she used to tie me onto her back.”
“Did it ever occur to you not to do it? I mean, I understand that it’s something you’ve always done, but why keep it up?” He struggled to find a way to word the question so that it wouldn’t upset her or set off her alarms. “You don’t seem…suited for it, somehow.”
She paused, and he could feel the muscles of her leg tighten where they leaned against his. “I love being outside. I love hiking and seeing things no one else has ever seen. I love using my body and challenging myself to go beyond my limits.”
“But you don’t have to climb Annapurna to do that,” he pointed out, knowing he was wandering into dangerous territory.
“He’ll die if I don’t go.”
She spoke so softly, he wasn’t sure if he had heard her correctly. “What? You mean your father? Why?”
“Normal people have a voice in their head that tells them when to turn around. When it’s not safe. My father doesn’t have that—at least, not anymore. He won’t believe anyone who tries to tell him to turn around or go back. Anyone but me.”
Ross had to take in a breath and wait for a moment to let the magnitude of those words wash over him. All this time he’d been thinking Kelsey had a death wish. But she didn’t. It was her father who did.
“That’s crazy.”
As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them. She turned her head quickly away from him, sending a wave of hair tumbling over one shoulder. “Right. I’m crazy. And you’d let your father walk off a cliff, even if you could steer him away from the edge.”
He put a hand on her leg. “Kelsey, that’s not what I meant. It just doesn’t seem fair to me. That you’re living this life because of your father. What if you’re the one who dies? The mountain doesn’t care why you’re up there, does she?”
“People make all sorts of sacrifices for their families. Marie gives up half of what she earns to her mother, who promptly throws it away on whoever she’s infatuated with at the time. Hope is buried under thousands of dollars of debt thanks to her mother’s cancer. We’re all just doing the best we can.”
“But you could die,” he said, unable to shake the possibility from his head.
She stood up and walked over to the tiny stove that was still set up on a patch of bare earth. Methodically, with motions he was sure she had made thousands of times, she took the pot off the top and set it to the side, then began to dismantle the stove. “You’re making it sound like I hate climbing. That’s not the case. The thought of a desk job and a nine-to-five life leaves me cold. I didn’t climb the fourteeners because I had to. I did it because I wanted to. Because I love it.”
He couldn’t seem to stop pressing. “But Annapurna?”
“He’s determined to summit it, and I’m not letting him go back there alone.”
Ross shivered. “Kelsey—”
She cut him off with a firm voice. “I’ve known for a long time that I might die on the mountain, and I won’t say it doesn’t scare me. But I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve gotten to travel all over the world and spend most of my life doing exactly what I want.” She laughed, quiet and self-deprecating. “I’m not good for anything else at this point.”
“What about a family?” Ross asked, struggling to take in all that he was hearing. “What about kids of your own?”
She put the pieces of the stove into a small bag and zipped it closed. “That’s not in my future. I’m going to attempt to summit a mountain that is a climber’s dream. It’s breathtakingly beautiful up there. I can’t possibly describe it but it’s stark and haunting and gets inside of you like nothing else. My mother is up there. I’m not ready to walk away from it. Especially knowing that my dad can’t.”
There was nothing he could say to that. A fire had begun, deep in his belly, as he thought about Kelsey’s father and what he had done to his daughter. He supposed he should feel sympathy for the other man, for the loss of his wife and the way it had changed him. But he couldn’t. All he could think of was Kelsey. The life she had lived. The sacrifices she was willing to make.
It was all he could do not to curse Mick Hanson out loud.
For a long time they were silent. Kelsey bustled around the campsite, leaving everything organized and tidy for the morning. He had expected her to say good-night then, and head into her tent when she paused to look at him, her face a ghostly shadow in the light of the stars.
“What if you can’t do it?”
The question caught him by surprise, interrupting the thread of his thoughts. “What do you mean?”
“What if this land crawls into your heart the way it has Mr. Stagefeather’s, and mine, and you can’t bear the thought of asking him to sell it?”
He blinked, trying to bring his mind back to the present. “I don’t have a choice.” Cold fingers tickled the edges of his spine as the question slowly sank in. He struggled to shake them off, defensive anger surging in their place. “You know that. I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“But that’s not really true, is it?” she pushed. “I get the feeling you’re a pretty well-off guy. Are you sure you couldn’t survive a few lean years while you rebuild your business here in Denver? You could just fly under the radar. Start small and build your reputation bit by bit. Herriot doesn’t control everything.”
“My job doesn’t work that way,” he said, the words feeling too easy, too blasé, even to his own ears. He had enjoyed this conversation much more when it had been about Kelsey, not him. “You can’t just go from developing huge housing complexes to building a few houses.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
The question stopped him cold. “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me.” She gestured toward the pine trees. “To them.”
For the first time, he wondered if she might have had an ulterior motive to bringing him out here. The land was more personal to her than he had realized, and it occurred to him—a little too late, perhaps—that she might have her own feelings about the success of his efforts.
He groped for an explanation, s
ome way to put into words his driving need to make this move a success. “My family doesn’t do things small. My brother Brit—well, you have to meet him to understand. He practically raised my brother and sister and I, turned around my dad’s company, made millions of dollars before he turned thirty. My sister Melissa is a damn genius. She practically speaks computer. And my brother Joe is being recognized this year as the New York Architect of the Year.”
“So this is all a competition?”
“No, it’s not like that.” He struggled to put words to the fear in his gut, the uneasy sense that failure was just around the corner, waiting for him at every turn. “I came out here to get a fresh start, and then when I talked to Herriot it was like seeing Jenna’s pregnancy test all over again. Like nothing mattered but that little pink line. One of my mom’s friends gave me my first construction job. I started my company with my share of the money from my dad’s company—money that Brit made when he took it public. If I get this contract it will be something I’ve done all on my own.”
Kelsey regarded him silently. A gust of wind blew through the pine trees and rustled the tents. He shivered. Before now, he’d never realized quite how deeply he wanted this success. How much he needed it.
“I understand.” She turned to unzip the flap of her tent.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Bed,” she replied. “I’m going to try to get in a few hours on the trail in the morning before the kids are up.”
He pushed to his feet. They had said too much, both of them, and he felt awkward and unsure. But at the same time, he knew he couldn’t let her turn away.
“Stay with me.” He caught her elbow and tugged gently, spinning her around. After only a second of protest she melted into him, her arms draping around his neck like a delicate chain holding him fast.
They were different tonight. When they slid inside the tent their bodies moved languidly, taking pleasure in a way that felt soft, unhurried, and effortless. The nylon of her sleeping bag swished under her back. He covered her with his body and they made love under the stars. Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say.
Afterward, Ross got his clothes and went back to his own tent in silence. But he lay awake for a long time, staring up into the darkness and listening to the wind caress the trees. At that moment, the differences between them couldn’t have been starker. Kelsey’s determination to protect her father—whatever the cost—had resulted in her utter refusal to get close to other people. His life was precisely the opposite: a series of attachments he couldn’t seem to break. An ex-wife he still counted as one of his best friends. Kids for whom he’d do just about anything. Siblings back home who—for better or worse—would always be part of his life.
But if they were so damn different, why did it feel as though losing her would mean losing a piece of his heart?
Chapter Sixteen
Harvey Stagefeather lived at the end of a long gravel road, the turnoff for which was three miles down another gravel road. Haphazard wires hung from a series of poles that Ross was fairly certain were not electric industry standard, and when they reached the house he was unsurprised to see an enormous satellite dish in the front yard, and an antenna big enough to contact Mars on the roof.
The man himself was a bit of a surprise. Ross had envisioned everything from a hermit, complete with bushy gray beard and suspenders, to a Native American elder, with long gray hair and a piercing gaze. Harvey, it turned out, was a small, well-groomed man in his sixties, with a large nose and close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Despite his surroundings he wore a pair of neat khaki pants, a white button-down shirt, and a wool suit-vest.
And he carried a shotgun.
Upside down.
Before Ross could react, Kelsey had grabbed the handle of her door. “You stay in the car,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”
Even as he began to protest, she was opening the door, holding her hands high over her head. “Mr. Stagefeather?” she called.
Ross threw the car into park, silently uttering every swear word he could think of in his mind. “Kids,” he snapped, “stay in the car.” He opened his door slowly, mimicking Kelsey’s posture with his hands above his head. Despite the absurdity of the situation, adrenaline began coursing through him, sending his heart beating in a crazy, staccato pattern. All he could see was the gun, still clutched in the old man’s hands.
“Who are you?” the incongruous figure demanded. “What do you want?” Stagefeather stared balefully at Kelsey. Ross wondered if he realized that he had the barrel of the gun pointed directly at his own foot.
Keeping her hands high above her head, Kelsey called back. “My name is Kelsey Hanson. I’m here with my friend Ross Bencher. He talked to you about coming by this weekend.”
“Kelsey?” He squinted at the car. “Ross Bencher? From New York?” He brightened. “I wouldn’t have recognized you. You look like a native.”
With obvious relief, the older man set the gun against the front porch railing, the muzzle pointing down. The heavy stock of the gun made it unstable, and Harvey had to lurch to keep it from falling down. With a sigh, he flipped it around and set it with the butt on the ground.
Ross peered down at himself, realizing that after two nights on the trail, he did have a nice thick shadow on his chin—he’d always been able to grow a beard in a weekend—and a small collection of stains on his shorts. His hair likely tufted from his head the way hair did when it hadn’t been washed for a couple of days, and his hiking boots, which had once been miserable and stiff, were now scuffed and covered with a layer of dirt.
“Mr. Stagefeather, you remember that we talked about my coming by this weekend, don’t you?” Though he suspected that the old man was unlikely to use it, he kept a watchful eye on the weapon even as he edged closer to the porch.
Stagefeather nodded. “Of course. Did you bring your children?”
“I did, but they’re in the car. Hiding from your gun.” Ross fixed him with a dark gaze.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.” Stagefeather lifted a hand to his face in shame. “I get a lot of crazy folk this way. Can’t be too careful.”
“Of course not,” Kelsey said, her voice soothing. “Any chance you could put that gun somewhere inside, though?”
He paused to consider it, then gave a nod. “Good idea. You don’t have to worry, though. I’ve never really liked guns. I just keep it around for the effect. It’s not loaded.”
With a quick turn, he had grabbed the gun and headed inside. Ross shot a look at Kelsey, not entirely comforted by Stagefeather’s confession. “What the hell were you thinking, jumping out of the car like that?” he hissed. “You could have been killed.”
“I had a feeling it was a bluff when I noticed him holding the gun upside down,” she whispered back.
Not yet ready to laugh about the situation, Ross jogged back to the car and poked his head inside the window. “Nothing to worry about, kids,” he said.
Julia’s eyes were wide and round. “Was that a gun? I’ve never seen a real gun before.”
“Dad, I think maybe we should leave,” Luke said. He pushed up his glasses with an unsteady hand. Ross had a vision of punching Stagefeather in the gut for scaring his kids.
Matt was grinning from ear to ear. “Did you see that? Kelsey totally jumped out of the car—while it was moving. Did you see that?”
“Yeah, I saw it,” Ross replied, now ready to add strangling Kelsey to his to-do list. “Kelsey, get back in the car. I can call him later.”
“Don’t be silly,” Kelsey said. “He’s not going to hurt anyone.”
“I can come back another time, by myself,” Ross said, not yet ready to walk away from his kids. “Or meet him somewhere. Somewhere he can’t carry a gun.”
“He’s a harmless old man,” Kelsey said. “Just have him keep his hands on the table at all times and you’ll be fine.”
She had a tiny twinkle in her eyes, and Ross was suddenly furious all over aga
in at her nonchalance. “I can’t believe you jumped out of a moving car to face a man with a gun.”
“He was never going to shoot me.”
The logic of her words was utterly uncompelling. “You didn’t know that.”
“I had a pretty good guess.” Her expression softened at the horrified look on his face. “Ross, I travel alone all the time. I’ve dealt with people far crazier than our Mr. Stagefeather.”
He knew that was true, and perhaps that was why he was so furious. The thought of her heading out alone suddenly took on a stark new meaning.
She held up a hand to forestall the lecture he was obviously poised to deliver and angled her head toward the children, calling his attention to their rapt audience. “Don’t. Not now. Just go talk to him. I’ll stay out here with the kids.” She opened the back door and wedged herself into the seat next to Julia. “That guy is more scared of us than we are of him,” she told them.
Julia grabbed her around the neck and squeezed hard, hoisting herself into Kelsey’s lap. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m pretty scared of him.”
Kelsey looked up at Ross and motioned with one hand. “Go talk to him,” she said.
He stared at them for a long moment, unable to convince himself to move.
“Go,” Kelsey repeated. We’ll be fine.”
“Don’t get out of the car. I’ll just be a few minutes.” He turned to walk back toward the house, the tableau of Kelsey and the kids etched into his brain.
A sick feeling lingered in his gut. He wasn’t scared of Stagefeather. Not really. He’d just realized that in two weeks, Kelsey would be leaving on a dangerous journey halfway across the world, and he’d have to watch her go. He’d have to watch her leave knowing that she would throw herself out of a moving car, or across an avalanche, or down a mountainside, to protect someone she loved.
And there was nothing he could do to stop her.
…
