Climbing High (5 page)

“What now?” She croaked, wiping sweat from her forehead with trembling fingers. “We’ll lose the light before we’re a quarter of the way down.” She stopped to still the quiver in her voice. “Do we bivvy here or get back to one of the cabins used by those summiting the glacier?” She shivered.

He took in the streak of dust she’d left on her ghost white skin, her sweat damp clothes. She’d gotten back on the horse, done what she needed to do. No way did he want her on the mountain one minute longer than necessary.

“Neither. The big plus of being on top of a mountain is you can almost always get satellite coverage. I booked a helicopter for the day. I’m going to call it to come up and get us.” He dropped his pack, rummaged through it and came up with his mobile phone and a flask. He handed her the cognac. “Drink some.” He tapped a number onto his keypad.

She stood frozen, her eyes blank with aftershock, seemingly unable to absorb his words or drink from the flask. “I’m calling through to my head of security.” He kept his tone matter-of-fact, kept her in the loop, anything to pull her back from the state of shock she slipped toward. “By now he will be spitting out pitons. I gave him a climb time three hours short of this.” He turned away and spoke into the phone. “Gribbs, have the copter pick us off this little hill. Two souls boarding. Good. What’s your ETA?” He listened. “Right, see you in twenty.” He ended the call and turned back to find her gulping great breaths of air. Her arms wrapped her torso like she’d shake to pieces if she didn’t hold herself together.

He limped toward her, the pulled muscle in his groin shrieking at him to stay still. His foot felt like he’d broken a dozen bones. While he wondered if she’d take comfort from him, hesitant to reach out, she slammed her quivering body against his. Her arms snugged around his waist, her face burrowed into his chest. He held her while she trembled like a broken mare, all the fight replaced by fear.

“Shh, you’re safe now. I have you. Siree, you’re safe.” He eased her pack off her back and rubbed up and down the slender length in slow glides, trying to press the quivers from her body with his.

“I almost got you killed,” she whispered between deep gulps of air.

Would she ever stop surprising him? His throat tightened, choking off his next breath. He caught her hands and brought them up between them, easing her backward so he could meet her eyes. “Sure, the possibility existed, but we knew that going in. And it didn’t happen.”

He looked down at the small hands spread over his chest. Blood stained her fingertips; abrasions marked the surface of her palms. Two of her nails were broken to the quick. “We took the risk and we made it.” He tucked his hand under her chin and lifted her wet face to him. “Just look what we got for our trouble.” He smiled, sweeping his arm in a wide arc. She turned her head, then went quiet, but for a soft hiccup every few seconds.

“Isn’t that worth it?” Jake encouraged her, settling her with her back against his chest so they both could enjoy the panorama of the great valleys spread below, the rocky peaks around them, and the sun flashing gold on their tips as it began its own descent. “If I read my map correctly, this summit is the watershed between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and Montjoie Valley and Arve Valley in France, and Switzerland is right over there.”

She made a soft sound of assent and pressed her head harder into his chest. Her body quivered.

He rubbed his cheek across the top of her head. He needed to attend to the practical, like warmer clothing, more brandy, but life had taught him some moments were just too precious to lose. “And here comes the sunset,” he breathed into her ear. “Beautiful. It couldn’t be better if we planned it. We’ll have to thank old Ernst for slowing us up.”

She looked up and smiled at him. Her eyes reflected the last of the golden rays. Her soft mouth still trembled, but her chin was back in fighting position.

“Have you ever felt more alive than this?” He wanted to share the high with her. The buzz came from the load of endorphins and adrenaline shooting into their bloodstreams, yet no moment in his life to date had hit the sweet spot quite so perfectly.

“I’ve never wanted to be more alive,” she murmured, resting her arms over his where they crossed below her breasts. She turned her face up to him. “Thank you, Jake. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

He looked at her keenly. “I think you would have. I’ve never seen such determination in my life and the way you handled yourself impressed the hell out of me. But I’m glad I could give you a hand.” He moved his hand a little closer to the soft curve of her breast and gave her a wolfish smile. Some moments had to be lightened.

In the distance he heard the whir of the helicopter blades. “How do they know where to find you?” She asked. “Are they tracking your mobile phone?”

“Possibly, but I imagine Gribbs has them using the GPS locator inserted under my skin.” He lifted her finger and rubbed it across his forearm. “Feel it?”

“Someone knows where you are 24/7?” She sounded horrified. She stiffened and pulled free of his arms. She turned to dig in her pack, pulling out her pants and hoodie and dressing with jerky movements.

He couldn’t see her face, but it sounded like she had privacy issues.
Back to my mystery woman
. Some women got turned on by the idea he lived with the danger of kidnapping, death threats from competitors who wanted him out of the way, and, at this particular time, a whacked out woman obsessed with winning him for herself.

The thought of the woman going after Siree firmed his mouth.
Damn it
. Why did his life have to be like a bloody soap opera? He wanted to keep Siree in it, yet he’d be selfish to put her at risk.
Possibly a moot point. It looks like she sees my security as a major deterrent for spending time with me.
He had so many questions. Once they reached the lodge and cleaned up he’d take her to dinner and ask them. He zipped on the bottoms of his converts and shouldered into his hoodie, while he watched her.

She stood on the edge of the summit, her hand shielding her eyes. The approaching helicopter looked like a great black bird swooping on a sacrificial maiden. The sun backlit a body so beautifully proportioned and toned it sent his imagination reeling. He lifted his mobile phone and took her photo. She swiveled, tracking the helicopter’s approach. Her raised hand pulled the waistband of her hoodie up, exposing a few inches of golden skin across her taut stomach. Her cargo pants hung on her hips, giving him a tantalizing few of her tiny waist and inny belly button. Something glinted there, and, squinting, he just made out a small diamond hoop piercing her navel.

He couldn’t ignore the volatile chemistry between them, didn’t think she could, either. Like a heat seeking missile he locked on her slender form. He saw again her fierce determination to hang on with those slender, bleeding fingers till he could reach her and a part of him, buried deep for years, yearned for a woman who would hang on to him just as fiercely.

His dream of her lasted only till the helicopter set down on the back lawn of the chateau. She looked out of the copter, spied the small group of paparazzi on the ground and slammed the door of their budding relationship in his face. By the time they’d landed, she pulled her hood up to cover her hair and crouched low in the far seat. When the skid hit the grass she struggled with the door.

“What’s the hurry?” His grasp on her arm seemed to infuriate her. “They’re nothing to worry about. They’ll take a few photos, yell a few questions that I won’t answer, then Gribbs and Thomas will get us past them.” He smiled to reassure her.

“No, that’s not how it’s going to be. You and Gribbs will do your thing, and I will slip out the other side. My privacy is important to me, and I won’t give it up. I expect you to protect it with the same commitment you put into saving my life.” She pulled her arm free. “It’s just as important to me.” Her breath warmed his ear as she leaned closer.

He pressed his lips together, trying to understand the source of her anxiety. “All right then, I’ll distract them while Thomas takes you back to the chateau.” He nodded toward a second bodyguard. “But I want to see you again. Lunch tomorrow?” He waited for her answer with a churning gut. He’d brokered multinational deals without this much tension.

She hesitated. His heart rate accelerated. She shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t work between us. I loathe the press. You love them. We both know this can’t go anywhere.”

“I don’t know that,” he ground out. “Jesus, Siree, I felt closer to you than anyone in my life with the exception of my mother up on that summit. What the hell happened?” He tried to keep his voice light, but fear at the idea of losing her, and fury that she could make him feel fear, roughened it.

A series of flashes caught her attention. The restless journalists moved closer. Her hand tightened on the handle, she sucked in a deep breath and turned back to him. “Look, Jake, I haven’t been entirely open with you. For your ears only, promise?” She waited till he nodded, measuring the integrity in his level look. “My full name is Desiree Lorain McConnell. My mother served as a Canadian ambassador for twenty-two years. The paparazzi took an avid interest in all my doings and exploded my life into a living hell. They killed my father.”

Thoughts tumbled together through his mind, pleasure in her trust, shock at her words, recognition of her mother’s position. Before he could respond, Gribbs opened the door and muffled shouts, intruding. “Who’s the woman with you this time? Why the delay on the mountain, Jake?”

She pushed herself back into the shadows on the far side and turned her face away. The journalists spat out questions like bullets from an assault rifle.

Jake reached for her, but she avoided his grip and wrenched open the door, half falling onto the grass.

She grabbed her backpack and fled through the darkness. “You promised, Jake,” she yelled over her shoulder.

Chapter Three

The Gulfstream 5 nosed its way across the Atlantic, bucking a headwind. The cabin of the plane held grey shadows and finally quiet. Jake swirled the ice in his Scotch, somber. Gribbs sat up with the pilots. The two security guards, now off duty, slept on bunks in the tail of the customized jet. Jake swiveled his plush leather chair to look out the window. Dark sky over dark seas matched his dark thoughts. He couldn’t get Siree out of his mind. His promise to protect her anonymity reverberated in his head for the thousandth time. It meant he had to let go of the special something he’d found with her. He took another swallow of Scotch, pulled out his mobile phone and flicked on the photo he’d taken of her on the mountain. Backlit by the sun, she’d never looked more like a Botticceli angel, her hair a golden cloud around the delicate structure of her face. He stroked his thumb down her small nose and across the plush lower lip. The shallow dimple in her chin should’ve warned him. It made her one stubborn female. His lips twitched. God, she attracted him. With her fine bone structure she’d still be beautiful in her eighties. Photos of Ambassador McConnell had shown him that same look of ageless elegance.

His face grew stern as he thought of the other photos he’d found, numerous ones of her father before his death. He’d been a truly handsome man, exceptionally tall with the same golden hair and eyes as his daughter. Jake guessed with her mother’s schedule as ambassador, Siree had been a daddy’s girl.

He could see why any kind of media attention would be abhorrent to her. His research led him to a collage of the press at its sordid best. Miles McConnell had been killed in a car accident in Amsterdam when he tried to outrun the paparazzi in a vain effort to protect his daughter. Sifting through conjecture to find fact, Jake deduced at sixteen Desiree had been trapped in a motel room with a group of over-rambunctious drunken teens. She had called her dad to come get her. He’d arrived only to find a slavering media waiting for the door to open. Hidden beneath her father’s sheltering arm, she’d run the gauntlet to the waiting car, only to have them give chase.

The car went out of control when her father swerved to avoid some cyclists. It jumped the guardrail and hit a houseboat before sinking into a dyke. Miles McConnell had died on impact. Siree had been rescued by the courageous owner of the houseboat, who dived into the canal and pulled her out through the broken windshield of the car. There had been numerous photos of her crying, her sheer dress clinging to every curve of her slight body, others of her wrapped in a blanket, her face a portrait of grief. His hands fisted. He wanted to slug the reporter who’d taken a photo of Siree draped over her father’s body and published it along with another of her dressed in black at the funeral in Vancouver. With callous disregard for her loss and fragility, the journalists had circled like sharks ripping off pieces of her life and grief to titillate strangers.

She had dealt with enormous loss, while he made his first big gains selling his first patent and starting JDI Inc.

Jake refused to look into the eyes of that broken girl in the photos after a quick assessment. He figured she was entitled to her grief. But he saw a small part of that girl in the eyes of the woman on his screen now. She’d learned to guard herself. Siree, the woman with the bright smile and carefree manner, would protect her emotions fiercely.

But she’d let me in for a while
, he thought, tenderness creating a hunger to hold her again. She’d allowed him see her clearly on the mountain, her courage, her fear and finally her vulnerability. But, the bad news for him, the trust she’d given in his arms, and later by offering her name, came at a high price. The ache in his chest cried
too high
. He bracketed his mouth with thumb and forefinger, stroking his lower lip, while he sorted his thoughts. Siree knew with her legal name he’d find out every detail of her life. She counted on him to make the choice to respect her wishes and stay away, so the press wouldn’t find her again.
Just file it as an August in Paris moment
. Jake sighed, feeling something uniquely precious slip away. He gave his attention to his warm Scotch and the work waiting on his laptop. Finchley had scanned in the latest batch of letters from his stalker. As his finger slid the demented words of love and possessiveness across his screen, he could see why Siree would want no part of his life.