Her Mountain Man (5 page)

“I don’t need to see the waterfall.”

He hurried after her, Indy at his heels. “Be careful,” he called. “If you take a wrong turn you might end up at the bottom of a mine shaft.”

She said nothing, but slowed down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he caught up with her.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just think we should get back to the Jeep and get on with our interview.”

“Wait a minute.” He stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop. “Something happened just now and I want to know what it was.”

“You’re imagining things.” She tried to move around him, but he refused to give way.

“We were getting along great, like friends. Now it’s almost like you’re angry with me.”

“I’m not angry with you. I don’t even know you.”

“The whole point of this outing was for the two of us to get to know each other better. And I thought we were making pretty good progress. Until we started talking about your dad.” As soon as he said the words, he felt sick to his stomach with guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been an idiot.”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve forgotten you’re in mourning,” he said. “Because of me, you have to relive the pain of your father’s death all over again, and here I am, asking you all these questions.”

“You don’t have anything to feel guilty about,” she said calmly. “I mourned my father a long time ago. Long before he died.”

She moved past him again, and this time he let her go. He wasn’t sure he believed her when she said she didn’t mourn Victor. When she’d told Paul about the hikes she and her father had taken when she was a child, he’d heard the sadness in her voice. Maybe she didn’t miss the father who’d been away climbing mountains, but some part of her grieved for the man who’d been with her on those childhood hikes.

Paul wished he could have known that man. To him, Victor Winston was the larger-than-life figure who’d inspired him and encouraged him. The movies Victor made of his expeditions had introduced Paul to the mountains and shown him the possibilities of a world far different from the one in which he lived every day. That was the figure whose footsteps he’d set out to trace when he climbed McKinley.

To come upon Victor’s body, so small and fragile, light enough to carry down on his back, had been a shock. It reduced Paul’s own accomplishments, made them less meaningful. Every time he climbed a mountain, he thought about staring down death, but finding Victor had been a different kind of confrontation with the end. He’d spent years comparing himself with his hero, inspired to live up to Victor’s achievements. Now, he had to wonder if he’d end up like the man he’d admired—dying slowly on a mountainside, all alone.

The idea shook him still. Would Victor say it had all been worth it? It was a question Paul had wanted to ask Sierra.

He remembered again the light in her eyes when she’d talked about hiking with her father, having him all to herself.

Maybe it was guilt, or some latent desire to connect with his hero, but Paul felt protective of Sierra. She might be a tough city girl, but he’d glimpsed a vulnerability in her that touched him. These past few hours had changed his feelings about her visit and this interview.

Now, instead of wanting to know Victor better, Paul wanted to know Victor’s daughter.

Being here, surrounded by snowcapped peaks with a man who had literally walked in her father’s footsteps, had obviously shaken her up more than she wanted to admit. Maybe Paul was right and grief was responsible for part of her emotional turmoil. Better that than to imagine Paul himself had breached her usual reserve. She still couldn’t believe she’d told him about those hikes with her dad. She’d never told anyone about them—she hadn’t even thought of them in years. And yet she’d poured out the story to him with only a little prompting. What was it about him that inspired such confidence?

Back at the Jeep, she settled into the passenger seat, once again determined to turn the conversation back to the interview. Indy took his place on the backseat and Paul started the engine, then turned to her. “Just to warn you, this next section of the road can be a little hairy in places, so hold on tight.”

“We aren’t going back the way we came?”

“This road goes into Telluride. There’s some terrific scenery you don’t want to miss. We’ll come back along the highway.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They set off with a lurch, and Sierra steeled herself for a harrowing drive. But after the first couple of miles proved to be not much different from the ground they’d covered so far, she began to relax. Maybe he’d been trying to frighten her—to shake up the city girl. She smiled. If he thought he could scare her off that easily, she’d show him he was sadly mistaken.

She was about to tell him as much when they rounded a sharp curve and she looked out over…nothing.

Or rather, a lot of empty space, below which was a valley painted in green and gold. The ground fell away sharply a scant foot from the side of the Jeep. She held on to her seat belt and bit back a gasp.

Paul seemed oblivious. He steered the Jeep over and around potholes and rocks, whistling under his breath. “What happens if we meet another car?” she asked.

“Uphill traffic has the right of way, so they’d have to back up.”

He inched the Jeep around a series of hairpin curves, tires spinning in the gravel. Sierra bit her lip to keep from crying out. No matter what, she refused to let Paul see she was frightened.

Suddenly he slammed on the brakes. The back end of the Jeep skidded sideways in the gravel. Indy let out an excited bark and Sierra yelped. “What’s wrong?”

“Look, up there on that rock.” Paul pointed to his side of the road, to a pile of rock at the base of the cliff walls. “It’s a marmot.”

She stared at the fat, furry animal, about the size of a small dog. “You sent us into a skid to point out a marmot?”

“Aww, that wasn’t much of a skid. Did you bring a camera with you?”

“Why? Do you want your picture taken with the marmot?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he laughed, “but there’s probably better scenery around than that.”

He grinned, flashing white teeth. In the sun, gold flecks sparkled in his eyes, and a two-day growth of beard gave him the ruggedly handsome look Hollywood stars worked hard to cultivate. Her girlfriends would no doubt agree with her that he qualified as better scenery.

“I didn’t bring a camera,” she said. “The magazine will be sending a photographer later.”

He started the Jeep forward again. They were above tree line now, and the air was considerably cooler. Sierra retrieved her jacket from the backseat and put it on. She decided to avoid looking to the side or down and focus on staring straight ahead. She normally wasn’t afraid of heights, but the sheer drop at her side was unnerving.

A carved wooden sign declared their arrival at the top of the pass. Paul parked the Jeep over to the side and they climbed out. “Check out this view,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Isn’t it incredible?”

The mountains rose around them, their snowcapped peaks startlingly white against a turquoise-blue sky. Brilliant sun illuminated a kaleidoscope of red rock, golden aspen, dark green fir and rich brown earth. The colors were almost too vivid, the sun too bright. She felt lost in such vastness, like Alice plunged down the rabbit hole—she was in a world where she didn’t quite fit, yet fascinated by her surroundings.

“That tallest peak—the one that comes to a sharp point—is Mount Sneffels,” Paul said. “You’ll see it in ads and on postcards all over the place around here. The wide peak next to it is Wilson Peak. The sort of rounded one is Teakettle Mountain, and that one over there is Gilpin Peak.”

“Have you climbed any of them?” she asked.

“I’ve climbed them all. Most of them aren’t technical.
You
could climb them.”

“Ha! Not me. If I want to be on top of something tall, I’ll ride the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building.”

“I know you went hiking with your dad, but did you ever climb with him? I mean, other than that training climb he carried you up when you were a baby.”

“I told you, I don’t remember that one. And no, I never climbed with him.” She stooped and picked up a handful of gravel and began tossing pellets out into the bottomless valley below.

“I figured he would have had you out there with him as soon as you could carry a pack.”

“I guess by the time I was old enough, he’d changed his mind.” She ignored the ache in her chest. If her father had ever asked her to climb with him, she had no memory of it—she remembered only her longing to be with him, and his silence on the subject. “My mother wouldn’t have let me go with him, anyway,” she said. “It was dangerous enough for a man, let alone a child.”

“These mountains aren’t dangerous. Schoolkids around here climb them all the time.”

“Next you’ll tell me they all know how to kill and skin an elk before their tenth birthday.”

“Hey, I’m telling you the truth. Just a few days ago the paper ran pictures of a bunch of fifth-graders on top of Matterhorn Peak. That’s that one right there, to the left of Wilson.”

She still couldn’t tell if he was putting her on or not. If he thought he could tease her, maybe it was time she turned the tables a little. “Is your secret swimming hole anywhere near here?” she asked.

To her amusement, the tips of his ears reddened. “Who told you about that?”

“Kelly said I should ask you about it—that it would make a great story for my article.”

“Just wait till I see her again.” He turned toward the Jeep. “Come on, let’s eat lunch.”

“You
have
to tell me the story,” she said, following him to the car. “Or I could just ask Kelly.”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to use it in your article.”

“Aww, come on. It can’t be that bad.”

“You have to swear,” he said.

She held up her right hand, palm out. “I swear. What’s the story?”

He leaned into the backseat and pulled out a plastic tote bag. “We’d better eat in the Jeep,” he said. “There’s really no place else to sit.”

Practicing patience, she slid into the passenger seat and accepted the sandwich he handed her.

“Hope you like turkey,” he said. “It’s on cranberry wheat, from the Timberline Deli. There’s chips, too.” He fed Indy a potato chip.

“Thanks. So what about the swimming hole?”

“I’ll get to that.” He unwrapped his own sandwich and arranged it on the console between them, then handed her a bottle of water.

He opened another bottle and took a long drink. “Okay, here’s the story. Which—I remind you—you promised to not reveal in your article.”

“I promised, I won’t. Get on with it.”

“A few years back, I went hiking above Red Mountain Pass. It was a hot day, even for the mountains. I was on a trail I’d found on an old map and it showed a spring alongside a creek up there, so I decided to try to find it.

“I passed a bunch of No Trespassing signs, but ignored them. I mean, this was way up, where there weren’t any roads. I didn’t think anyone possibly lived there.”

“So the spring is your private swimming hole?” What was so potentially incriminating about that?

“Not mine. I found it, all right. It wasn’t very big, but big enough for one person to soak. I stripped off and slipped in. After that long climb, it felt great. The next thing I know a bullet whizzes over my head and this old guy comes storming out of the trees, cussing and waving his hands around.”

“Who was it?”

“Some old guy who’d set up a mining claim. He had an old camper back in there that he’d pulled up with a four-wheel-drive truck.”

“And he was the one who’d put up the No Trespassing signs.”

“Exactly. He was really bent out of shape about me being there. I tried to apologize and explain, but he wouldn’t hear it. He grabbed up my clothes and ordered me out of there.”

“He took your clothes?”

“Yeah. I bargained with him to let me keep my boots and my pack, or I might not have made it down, but he wouldn’t give back anything else. He told me if I didn’t leave in a hurry, he’d shoot me and bury me in an old mine shaft. I didn’t know if he was bluffing or not, but I didn’t want to take a chance.”

“You had to hike out of there
naked?
”

“Yep.”

The fact that he was blushing made the story all the more real. She could only imagine the looks he must have gotten, strolling into town wearing only hiking boots and a backpack. “What did you do when you got back to town?” she asked.

“I had a bandanna in my pack and made a kind of loincloth, so I wasn’t completely indecent. But of course word got around.” He made a face. “Not my best moment.”

She tried to hold back the laughter, but it was no use. The image of him strolling into town in his bandanna loincloth was too priceless.

“Come on,” he said. “It isn’t that funny.”

“It’s just so…so not how I pictured you.”

“You mean you haven’t been fantasizing about me naked? I have to say I’m really disappointed.”

She fought down a blush of her own. Okay, so she was physically attracted to this guy. He was good-looking and funny and her hormones had decided to respond to him, but she was too much of a professional to let him know about it. “I had this idea that you’d be this macho he-man, really full of himself,” she said.

“Is that the kind of guy you usually hang out with?”

“No. But in my experience, anyone who’s fanatical about a sport or a hobby or a job has that kind of personality.”

“And you think I’m a fanatic?”

“I think anyone who regularly risks death for the sake of getting to the top of a mountain qualifies as a fanatic.”

He gestured out the window, at the panorama in front of them. “Take this view and multiply it to the tenth power,” he said. “It’s incredible, and once you’ve experienced it, you want to experience it again and again. Plus, there’s this tremendous sense of accomplishment, that you did this really difficult thing, and didn’t let the hardships defeat you.”

“Are you saying there’s nothing down below that compares?”

“Not that I’ve found yet.”

“What about love? People say that’s the ultimate high.”

“I’ve never been in love.” His eyes met hers. “What do you think? Do you think love is the ultimate high?”

She wanted to turn away, as if looking into his eyes too long would reveal all her secret hopes and fears. Of course, that was ridiculous, so she held his gaze and kept her voice even. “I’ve never been in love, either,” she admitted. “But I hope so. Why else would people go through so much for it? Why have so many songs and stories and works of art been created in homage to it?”

“You could say the same thing about mountains. Maybe that feeling I get when I’m up there is similar to being in love.”

“You can’t love an inanimate object that way.”

“For a woman who says she’s never been in love, you sound as if you know a lot about it.”

“Only because I know what it should be. What I want it to be.” Now it was her turn to try to read his feelings in his eyes. How could he compare the adrenaline rush of physical accomplishment with warm, emotional feelings? “Enjoying doing something, or even that feeling of accomplishment you talked about, isn’t the same as love,” she said.

“If you say so.” He looked away. “I want to make it into Telluride while there’s still plenty of time to look around.”

Coward,
she thought, and bit into her sandwich. Maybe mountain climbing attracted men who weren’t capable of sharing their feelings with others. Her father had certainly fallen into that category.

And yet—when he’d been telling her about his embarrassment at the hot springs, Paul hadn’t seemed at all arrogant or distant or incapable of love. She’d liked that Paul. The real man, the one she should portray in her article, probably lay somewhere between those two extremes. The mystery, as it had been from the first, was how to persuade that man to show himself, to her and to her readers.