Enjoy the View

by Sarah Morgenthaler

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “And it’ll take so long, you won’t have time to get up and get back down before the windchill gets to you. River, I don’t have the right to tell you what to do. But if you go up there alone, years of experience tells me you’re putting yourself at far too much risk.” Taking her face in his hands, Easton drew her dark protective goggles away so he could see into those blue eyes. Then he kissed her. “I don’t want to lose you, River. Give me a reason why I can let you do this.”

  “Do you remember that day when we were riding? When you said that up here, you could be yourself? With no one watching?”

  Easton nodded.

  “I don’t know who I am, Easton. I know who I want to be and who I’ve tried to be. I know who I’m going to be if I head down right now. Going back is the right thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do, because I know how dangerous it is to keep going alone.” River turned her face to the mountain range and to the clouds clinging to the frozen peaks around them. “But what if this is it? What if this is my only chance? I’ve spent all these years trying to find myself, always feeling like the real person under my skin wanted out. What if I go back down, back to my life, and I never really know who I could have become? I don’t want to be…”

  “Trapped.”

  He understood. At the top of Mount Veil was where he’d found himself too. And as hard as it was, as much as this went against his better judgment, Easton knew he’d fight for her to have the same life-changing experience.

  River wiped at her eyes quickly, voice choked. “Yeah. I’m being selfish, but I can’t help thinking if I don’t do this, it’ll never happen.”

  Closing his eyes, Easton inhaled a deep breath. Then he nodded. “Okay, we’ll do this.”

  “We? Easton, they need you—”

  “I know. And when I’m done helping evacuate Bree and Jessie, I’m coming back to you. Stay here in camp so I know you’re safe. I’ll get them down and come back up again.”

  The worry in her eyes warmed him, but the sheer relief he felt when she nodded in agreement took his breath away. “Is that too much elevation change for you?” River asked. “This isn’t worth it if you get hurt.”

  “I’ll be okay. I’m used to this mountain.” Which might have been an overestimation of his abilities, but she didn’t need to know that. “I’ll radio Ash to come get us below the Veil. It’s the highest her helicopter can safely fly.”

  “Hey, Easton?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You look really good with your hair down. Definitely keep walking around with your locks flowing in the breeze like this.”

  Rolling his eyes at her, Easton still exhaled a breath. “You’re exhausting,” he decided. “I like it.”

  “I know. It’s part of my charm.”

  Decision made, Easton made short work of breaking down the rest of the camp they were taking with them while Ben finished taping Bree’s ribs to stabilize them. River hugged Jessie goodbye.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, but River shook her head.

  “Don’t be. Just get down safe, okay?” Adding a limping Bree into the group hug, River held them both for a long moment. “I’ll get the best footage ever. I promise.”

  “Of course you will.” Bree’s faith in River was impossible to deny. “I’m glad SH is going with you. I still think he should stay, but I’m glad he’s not totally bailing on you.”

  River nodded. “Me too. I don’t think Easton would know how to bail on someone if his life depended on it.”

  The compliment would have meant a lot more if that wasn’t exactly what Easton was doing. Easton strode over to her, and in front of the rest of the group, he took River’s face in his hands.

  “Keep that radio on you,” he said in a rough, low voice. “I’ll call when I get to the pickup site and start back up. You can’t leave, River. Promise me. Don’t go anywhere you can’t keep your hand on the tent. The weather isn’t calling for a storm, but the wind is picking up. If visibility goes down too far, you could get lost. Promise me, or I can’t leave you here.”

  “I promise.” River wrapped her hand behind his neck, going up on her tiptoes as much as her crampons would allow. “You can trust me, Easton.”

  Resting his forehead to hers, Easton inhaled another deep breath. Then he kissed her, a quick, hard kiss. “I’m coming back, River. I’m not leaving you up here.”

  Her smile was the breath in his lungs. “It never once occurred to me you would.”

  • • •

  Grown women weren’t scared of the dark. Or the not quite dark of being on a mountaintop near the North Pole.

  But like a tree falling in the woods, if no one was there to witness River being a scaredy cat, it wasn’t actually happening, right?

  “People make vampire movies out of situations like this,” River decided as she sat in her tent, staring out a tiny hole she’d unzipped in the flap.

  Opening the flap fully wasn’t happening. With night came the cold, and this cold was beyond any she’d experienced so far.

  “I’d rather have a nice warm werewolf if something was going to show up. Or an abominable snowperson. Those can be sexy. I’m sure somewhere out there is a ripped snowperson, waiting to find true love.”

  Talking to oneself wasn’t a bad sign. River had told herself that every conversation she’d had since her team had disappeared out of sight.

  Being alone on the mountain was…surreal. Even though it was technically day, the wind picked up, like Easton had predicted. As she stayed in camp, super-duper alone, River tried to decide what was scarier: being in the wilderness and not knowing what was out there or being in the wilderness and knowing nothing was out there.

  Nothing at all.

  “Maybe one vampire would be okay,” she murmured to herself.

  Zipping up the opening in the tent, River bundled up as best she could, keeping the radio tucked close to her. Taking out the handheld camera, she settled into as comfortable a position as she could find.

  “This is River. I’m on my handheld because, well, things didn’t go as planned up here. A small accident happened.”

  River made a face into the camera. “Small is a relative term, because it scared the crap out of all of us. Even Easton looked strained around the eyes. Bree and Jessie were filming outside camp, and she got hurt. I really love Bree. We’re friends, you know? We’ve worked on three movies together, and when you spend that much time with someone…”

  River drifted off, gathering her thoughts. “Anyway, I’m really glad Easton and Ben were here. I can’t imagine being up here with anyone else. Except, well, I’m not up here with Easton anymore. I’m by myself. Bree and I decided that I should summit and finish the film. Easton needed to help Ben get everyone back down, so we agreed I’d stay here. It’s quiet. It’s so quiet.”

  Holding the camera steady was difficult, especially when her hands shook from the cold. So River set it between her knees, pointing at her face. The angle was terrible, but she didn’t care.

  “You know what I keep thinking up here? I don’t miss back home in LA. I miss my home back in Wyoming. I miss the sound of my father’s voice. I miss my mother’s arms hugging me. I miss the smell of the ranch in the mornings, the dew on the grass, and the breeze coming across the pastures. I miss my grandmother’s hands. I even miss my sisters.”

  River made a face at the camera. “I bet my sisters never thought I’d say that, but I do. I miss you. I miss having people who matter within arm’s reach. It used to be suffocating, but now…now I just want to be suffocated.”

  Closing her eyes, River tried to gather herself.

  “Okay, enough of that. Easton said he’d be back tomorrow. I don’t know if sleep will actually happen, but I’m going to close my eyes and think about what it’s going to feel like making it to the top of this mountai
n. People have done it before. I will too.”

  Setting down the camera, River curled up on her mat, holding the radio tucked tightly to her chest, whispering to herself.

  “I will too.”

  • • •

  As trips down the mountain went, this one couldn’t have gone fast enough.

  After putting in a call to Ash—and hearing several times that she told him so—Ash had agreed to pick them up. Twelve thousand feet of elevation was about as high as she could safely land, and they knew of a spot to touch down there.

  Easton had never been so glad he’d trusted his gut on anything as he was about calling the climb on these two. Jessie was done, both physically and mentally. The oxygen had helped Bree, and she was faring relatively well, but her pace was so slow, Easton was having trouble staying patient with her shuffling steps.

  River needed him up there, not going the other way at a crawl.

  Ben and Bree had bonded as they descended—now that Bree wasn’t focused on her filming. He spent the better part of his time helping her traverse the terrain, making jokes and telling wild stories to make Bree laugh. The pair’s spirits were high, but some of that might have been the painkillers they kept feeding her. High as a kite, she kept mentioning the stories she’d have to tell once she got back home.

  Getting them both through the Veil was a challenge. The only positive was there wasn’t a client unclipping from the line and going off course on him.

  “Are you okay?” Ben asked on their two-thousandth break to catch a breath. A break Easton knew was necessary but drove him crazy.

  “Not really,” Easton told his friend. “I hate that I left her up there.”

  “River’s tough, man. She can handle it.”

  Yes, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t be up there too so they could handle it together. Easton had forced himself to accept they couldn’t set a tougher pace, but his skin crawled with the need to get moving, to get back up and get to River. She’d never soloed a climb before, and the mountain did strange things to someone when they weren’t used to being alone.

  Knowing her, something would happen that would give her a perfectly logical reason to leave the safety of the tent, or worse, the camp. He’d mentally berated himself the entire descent, switching off with Ben as they kept a helping arm around Bree’s waist. As they descended, Easton found himself missing the furball. Bad breakup or not, at least the marmot understood him. It would have been chafing at the pace too.

  The weather was good, so they pushed past their previous campsite and kept going to the spot Easton had prearranged for Ash to meet them. As soon as they reached the flat outcropping—flat enough to safely land a helicopter—Easton and Ben worked to set up a temporary camp.

  As he did, Easton watched the cloud cover get thicker around the mountainside.

  When the call came in, Ash sounded worried. “Easton, your people are going to have to hang tight. At these temps, I can’t fly through all that soup without icing up.”

  “Call the park department to come get us.”

  “I already did,” Ashtyn told him. “They’re up to their eyeballs in a mess. You’re lucky. Denali’s been taking the brunt of the bad weather. Give me a few hours for this to clear out, and I’ll be there. It’s time to get you all off this mountain.”

  When Easton didn’t answer, Ash’s answering silence spoke volumes. Finally, she groaned. “Seriously? It’s the actress, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get home. River’s still up there. We’re summiting, then coming back.”

  Ash had a few less than complimentary things to say about Easton’s judgment where River was concerned, then she hung up on him, leaving Easton with no one on the other line to argue with. Instead, he turned on Ben, who made the mistake of approaching him right then.

  “I’m surrounded by stubborn women,” Easton decided.

  Ben scratched the back of his neck. “Umm…yeah. Sure, boss. Is one of them coming to get us?”

  “Ash’s rotors will ice up. We have to wait.” At the expression on Ben’s face, Easton pointed a finger at him. “Make a rotor joke about my sister, and I will literally throw you off this mountain.”

  Clearly amused, Ben stepped back to give Easton room. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Hey, relax. We’re good here. Bree’s passed out in a painkiller coma, and Jessie’s getting some sleep.”

  Finally, something that might help. Easton turned to Ben. “Do you have this handled?”

  “Good as gold.”

  Heartened at the positive news, Easton shouldered his pack.

  “Wait. You’re not headed back up there right now, are you?” Ben shouldn’t have asked, because it was clear that was exactly what Easton was doing. “Are you sure that’s smart?”

  “I left a client alone.” At the most dangerous place on the mountain besides the summit.

  “Yeah, and she’ll stay there, safe and sound, while you get some rest. East, you’re not thinking clearly.”

  Easton frowned. “I feel fine.”

  A slight smile touched Ben’s lips. “No, man. About River. You’re rushing back up there like she needs you to save her or something. She doesn’t. That woman is tough as nails, or you never would have trusted her to stay alone. What she can’t do is carry you down if you get yourself hurt going back up when you’re too tired to make the climb.”

  A low growl pulled from Easton’s throat. As much as he hated to admit it, Ben was right.

  The other guide held his hands up, because Easton maybe growled a second time with a few choice words added in the mix.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t make the climb,” Ben clarified. “Just that you shouldn’t. I don’t doubt your capability any more than I doubt River’s ability to handle herself up there.”

  “You’re a pain in my ass, Ben.”

  Clapping him on the back, the other guide barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I know. But you love me. Give me the radio. I’ll break it to her and save you some face.”

  No way that was going to happen. When Easton called her, it took a moment for River to answer. He experienced a moment of gut-wrenching nervousness in that pause, his brain going to the very worst things he could imagine. Her injured in the snow…or bopping about without a care in the world, climbing the mountain like a Dall sheep.

  “Hello?”

  The elephant crushing his chest finally allowed Easton to breathe. “River, it’s me.”

  “It’s about time. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me.”

  The sleepy sound of her voice caused a tension Easton didn’t realize he was holding to release. He knew that tone, even though he’d only been lucky enough to be present when her eyes were opening from slumber a couple of times.

  “Did I wake you?” he asked quietly.

  “Yeah, but it’s good you called.” He could almost see her turn over onto her side, pulling the sleeping bag around her shoulders. “I’ve been worried about you. How is everyone?”

  “We made it down safe.” At a snail’s pace. “And Bree’s doing better.” Mostly. “Are you okay if I stay down here for a couple of hours and rest up for the trip back?”

  She hummed, as if considering it. “As long as you all aren’t having a party without me.”

  Chuckling, Easton cradled the radio in the crook of his arm. “I’d never do that to you.”

  “Over.”

  “What?”

  “You’d never do that, over.”

  Damn, he liked this woman. “Get some rest. Stay warm and eat something. I’ll see you soon. Over and out.”

  “Bye, Easton.”

  The softness in her tone dragged at him, like slender fingers gripping at his heart. He didn’t want to be down here when she was up there. It was wrong, and not because she couldn’t handle it. Because he couldn’t handle it.

>   “So, River, huh?” Ben gave him a knowing look.

  Easton sat and stared at the ground between his feet, saying nothing. Apparently so.

  • • •

  He never slept. There was no question that he wouldn’t sleep, but Easton did lie still and silent on his side of the tent. And the exact minute four hours had passed—the amount of time Easton had decided he would have forced another guide to wait before ascending—Easton rolled to his feet.

  “Radio her that I’m starting up there. And radio me when Ash picks you up.”

  Bumping a fist to Easton’s, Ben yawned and nodded. “Will do, boss.”

  For the first time all season, Easton was alone. Nothing stood in his way, nothing affected his decisions, no one slowed him down. By the time he passed through the Veil, Easton was still going strong.

  He should have timed it, because he might have made it back up there in record time. All Easton could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and getting back to her.

  River was waiting for him outside her tent, watching the path she knew he’d take to get there. And because she was who she was, River was standing one extra step away from the tent, just to tease him. A stunningly beautiful smile spread on her face as she flapped her hand, showing him the dramatic dangerousness of being a couple of inches away from where he’d asked her to stay.

  “Don’t worry,” River joked as Easton strode over to her. “I didn’t pee once when you were gone. Safety first.”

  It took every bit of self-control he had to not crush her painfully tight against his chest.

  “I’m never leaving you again.”

  She wrapped her arm around his neck, drawing his face down to hers, giggling as she said, “You are so much better than a vampire.”

  Yeah, he’d never understand her. That was fine. She was in his arms, which was all that mattered. When he kissed her, the fiery redhead who’d carved her way into his heart, Easton knew summiting with River would be worth every ounce of effort it had taken them to get that far.