Riding the Pause (4 page)

“He is a great dog,” she said.

He heard her shifting around and imagined her curling her body against Apollo’s. He’d never been jealous of his dog before. The feeling was weird and a little unsettling, especially considering there was no reason for him to be thinking about her as anything other than a temporary fellow traveler.

“He knows it,” said Ian, blowing out a breath and watching it cloud in the cold night air.

He couldn’t believe how much the temperature had dropped over the past couple of hours, and the air felt wet and heavy. It looked like they were going to get the late winter storm the weather forecasters predicted. Hopefully they were right and it wouldn’t bring more than a couple of inches of snow. He’d debated before making the trip up the AT but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been out in more difficult conditions. Worst case scenario, he could hunker down in the shelter for an extra night. Not entirely an unattractive option, he thought looking over his dog to the gentle curve of the sleeping bag covered form of the woman lying next to him.

“I’m Ian,” he said into the quiet dark, realizing he’d been too much of an ass earlier to even introduce himself.

“Rachel,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He could hear the grin in her voice and imagined she was tacking on a silent
in spite of the princess crap
to the comment.

“Yeah, you, too. Have you hiked the trail before?” Oh God, it was the hiking shelter equivalent of
Come here often
. What was he thinking? “I mean it’s just the new stove and all. Your gear looks new. I just wondered.” He tripped over his tongue to get the words out making it worse with everything he said.

It was quiet for so long before she spoke he thought he’d either put her to sleep with his chatter or pissed her off too badly to respond.

“I did the section of trail from Cornelius Creek to Taylor Mountain a couple of times with my family. My Girl Scout troop stayed here.” She paused as if wrestling with what to say next. “My work situation changed recently and I needed some perspective. The trail seemed like a good place to find it, but I’d gotten rid of most of my gear years ago, hence the disaster of a stove. Who would design something to work like that? I thought I was going to burn the place down.”

Ian smiled in the dark. He could hear the undercurrents of more beneath her words, but he didn’t know her well enough to pry.

“Did you find it? The perspective?” he clarified.

He heard her take a deep breath, exhaling slowly. The dog shifted between them, snoring softly.

“Maybe. Some.” She paused and he held his breath for a moment hoping she’d say more and wondering why he cared. “Thanks again for the help with the mouse. Night Ian.”

“Goodnight, Rachel. Sweet dreams.”

Rachel woke up to Apollo’s cold wet nose pressed against her neck and snow. She shifted the almost hundred pounds of sprawled dog off her sleeping bag and sat up, keeping the bag wrapped around her against the cold. The ground was covered and the snow was coming down in white swirling clouds making it hard to see even as far as the edge of the creek near the shelter.

Clambering to his feet beside her, the dog gave her one more good morning kiss before climbing off the raised sleeping area and heading outside the shelter. In moments he was nothing more than a hazy gray blur obscured by the falling snow. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and watched as Ian set a pot on a small stove he’d placed on the picnic table bench to protect it from the wind blowing snow into the shelter.

She thought about her ruined stove and groaned, camouflaging the sound with a stretch and a yawn. Eating a cold pathetic dinner was one thing, but with the way the temperature had fallen she really needed something warm to drink. She also needed to use the facilities, but that meant climbing out of her sleeping bag and scrambling up the ladder for her clothes. It was one thing to dance around in her long underwear in the pitch dark. It was an entirely different thing in the bright snow-reflected light of the morning.

And it was damn cold, she thought watching her breath cloud the air.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” said Ian, looking like he’d slept nine hours in a feather bed instead of six on thin foam pad. Seemed he was going with a variation on the princess theme.

She managed to grumble good morning but refused to poke her head out of the sleeping bag until he turned back to the stove. Although she’d gotten up before six for almost every morning of her adult life, she’d never liked it, and she wasn’t eager to share her bedhead and purple long underwear with someone who looked as good in the mornings as Ian did. With his beard, soft heather gray fleece and the knit cap covering his dark curls, he looked like the visual definition of lumber sexual, but Rachel suspected he was the real thing. She watched as he tended the stove, his strong masculine hands covered in fingerless gloves, and she had a hard time imagining anything he couldn’t do.

Her pressing need to get up forced her to suck in a deep breath of cold morning air, shuck off the warmth of her sleeping bag and scurry up the ladder to the loft. Dancing in place, she slipped on her jeans and her heaviest fleece. She started to cram her feet into her boots and thought better of it, turning them upside down and giving them a couple of raps to make sure her feet would be the only things in them. Lacing the cold boots on her already chilly feet, she debated taking her pack down to the main level, but decided against it. Bathroom first and then she could eat her protein bar, drink her cold water and plot her strategy while she packed her gear.

There was an access road off the Blue Ridge Parkway a couple of miles from the shelter. It’s where the vans had parked to drop her scout troop off. It wasn’t what she’d planned on but it would be a lot safer to hike the at least slightly familiar trail through the woods than to continue on to the place she’d left her car. As soon as she got far enough out to get cell service, she could call Taylor and have her sister come pick her up.

She glanced at the snow swirling through the gaps in the pickets closing off the upper level from the outside and grabbed her wind parka and gloves. Pulling her own knit cap down far enough to cover her ears, she snagged her small bag of toiletries and climbed down the ladder. Apollo was back, lying at Ian’s feet, the snowflakes on his silky black coat melting into drops of water. Ian nodded when he saw her.

“Do you want me to go with you so you don’t get lost?” he asked, motioning toward the bag in her hands.

Did she want a strange man to follow her to the bathroom and then wait outside in the snow while she did her business on the other side of the knee wall? Um no.

“I’ll be okay,” she said shaking her head. “Thanks anyway.”

“At least take Apollo.”

She opened her mouth to refuse, but the dog was already on his feet, eager to go with her. Steeling herself, she put up her hood, zipped her parka to her chin and stepped off the deck from the shelter into the snow.

By the time she got back to the shelter both she and the dog were freezing and it was pretty clear she wouldn’t be hiking anywhere, at least not until the snow stopped. Not if she didn’t want to end up lost in the woods. She’d barely been able to see the trail to the bathroom and she knew exactly where it was.

Banging the snow off her boots before she stepped into the shelter, she mentally catalogued the food she had in her bag that didn’t need to be cooked. And then she realized her bag was still out in the snow, hanging in the tree. Blowing out a breath cold enough to see, she turned back to the snow.

“Wait, Rachel, I grabbed yours when I got mine.” Ian held up the nylon bag holding her food supplies. “If that’s what you were going back out for?”

“It was. Thanks.” She reached for the bag, and he handed her a steaming cup instead.

She barely concealed her groan of pleasure when she breathed in the scent of good black tea. Pausing for a moment, she let the warmth from the cup seep through her thin gloves before taking a sip of the strong sweet tea, maybe a little too sweet for her taste but she didn’t care. It was hot and so much better than anything she’d expected that morning. She took another swallow, letting her eyes drift closed in pleasure as the tea warmed her from the inside and the cup thawed her frozen fingers.

“I wasn’t sure how you took yours so I made it like mine,” Ian said, pulling her back to the present, and she realized she hadn’t even bothered to thank him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking against the reflected light from the snow. “Thank you so much. This is perfect.” He was looking at her with a strange expression on his face and she worried that he thought she’d been rude by not thanking him right away. “Thank you, really. I appreciate it,” she added.

“My pleasure.” He grinned at her, the tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes only adding to his rugged appeal. “It was more than worth it to put that expression on your face.”

Rachel felt her cheeks heat, turning away to reach for the bag with her food and wondering why she cared so much what this stranger thought of her. It wasn’t like she’d ever see him again.

“I made breakfast,” he said. “There’s more than enough for both of us.”

Not waiting for her response, he started to ladle steaming spoonfuls of oatmeal into his bowl and hers. In addition to rescuing her food bag from the tree, he’d obviously looked inside it to get her bowl and spork. Which meant he knew how meager her provisions were and was taking pity on her.

“That’s kind of you,” she said, hoping she sounded gracious and not pissed. “But you didn’t need to do that.”

“Yeah I did.”

She expected him to say
because you obviously can’t manage better than an apple and protein bar by yourself
, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked a little sheepish and the expression reminded her of the ones her brothers used to make when they’d gotten caught doing something they shouldn’t have.

“I was an ass about the stove thing last night,” he said, scooping a bowl of food out of what must have been Apollo’s pack and setting it on the floor for the dog before taking his bowl of oatmeal and tea to the more enclosed place where they’d slept. Normally it made sense to eat at the picnic table and look out over the creek, but with the wind and snow it was too cold and exposed. She followed, climbing back onto the sleeping platform with her breakfast.

“You were,” she said, teasing.

He looked down into his cup, and she lost her train of thought following the angles of his beard covered jaw and the curve of his smooth lips as he sipped his tea.

“It was my fault anyway,” she said, shaking herself lose from daydreams she had no business having. “Who sets out on the AT with a stove they don’t know how to work? I know better than that.”

“Hopefully it’s not ruined.”

“I’m not going to use it again. It scared the crap out of me.”

This time he laughed out loud and the deep rich sound warmed her almost as much as the tea. Hiding her grin, she spooned up some oatmeal. He’d put brown sugar and dried fruit in it. It was sweet and tart and a perfect way to fight the cold. She felt her body warming as her belly filled.

“You cooked; I’ll clean up,” she said when they’d both scraped their bowls.

“Thanks,” he said, handing her his bowl. “We’ll come looking for you if you aren’t back in ten minutes.”

He smiled at her and when she met his gaze something tightened low in her belly and she had to remind herself to breathe. Something about the strong capable man made her feel delicate. Not helpless exactly. Rachel never felt helpless. It was more an exercise in contrasts. If he was a rugged outdoorsman, it made her feel somehow more refined.

Deciding there was nothing to be gained by looking too closely at her feelings, she grabbed the pot Ian had used to cook breakfast, put up her hood and stepped out into the snow.

When she came back with cold hands and clean gear, Ian was sitting in his sleeping bag, his back against the wall and Apollo stretched out beside him. He handed her a fresh cup of tea and started shuffling a decks of cards, letting them spill from one hand to the other in a move that would have done a casino boss proud. She arched an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged.

“I thought I’d let you beat me at gin.”

“Generous,” she said, reluctantly setting down her mug of tea so she could unlace her boots. “But unnecessary. Do your best.” His eyes darkened and part of her felt like she’d poked the big bad wolf, but she wasn’t about to back down. “I assure you; I won’t have any trouble wiping the deck with you.”

“Awfully big talk,” he said, pausing for a moment to catch her gaze before adding “Princess.”

“Oh, it’s on mountain man.” She slipped off her parka and unzipped her sleeping bag but before she climbed in he cleared his throat, and she froze.

“Sure you’re alone in there?” Ian asked, grinning.

“Shut up,” she said, but she gave the bag a little extra shake before she climbed inside, settling herself against the other wall with enough space between them to lay out the cards. “I appreciate the help last night. I do, but even a lumberjack like you has to admit you’d be a little freaked if a mouse climbed into bed with you.”

“They wouldn’t dare try,” he said with a grin. “The beard and beast keep them away.”

She laughed and he joined her as the beast in question got up to come to her side, sprawling over her legs in a warm heavy heap before falling back asleep.

            
 
“You and the dog combined aren’t as hairy as the guy I shared a shelter with the night before last.” She shifted Apollo enough to let the circulation back in her legs, and he let out a sigh, snuggling into her and snoring softly.

              “You must have met Cash,” said Ian.

“Man turned yeti?”

“That’s him,” he said with a smile. “He’s traveled the trail more times than anyone else I know, but he’s tricky. He moves the rock marking the halfway spot every time he goes past it. At least that’s what he told me over some bourbon one night at the Thunder Hill shelter. Cash knows the AT better than anyone, and he’s kind to a fault.”

What he said matched up with the generous man who’d given her water and then stayed up half the night talking to a homesick thru-hiker. She could picture him lugging the heavy halfway rock miles in either direction to trick other hikers. And although it messed with her sense of order, she couldn’t help but smile at the idea of all the slackpackers taking their pictures at a halfway rock that was nowhere near the halfway point.

“He doesn’t talk about it but he’s a war hero,” said Ian. “He saved most of his platoon and earned a chest full of medals before he got injured and discharged. But he had a challenging time going back to his old life when he got home so he started walking the trail. He keeps going back and forth to either end. I imagine the trail knows him as well as he knows the trail.”

She’d gone completely still, and he looked at her, concern evident in his hazel eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said, misreading what she was thinking. “Most people think he’s just a crusty old hillbilly. It’s okay if you did, too.”

She had. A nice one, but with the beard and scraggly hair, she’d bought into the stereotype. That wasn’t why she’d gotten quiet. She couldn’t think about Cash walking away the horrors of war one step at a time without picturing Travis and what might have happened to him if he and Summer hadn’t found each other. As it was, it had taken months and lot of love, including the love of Abby, his stepdaughter, to bring him all the way home.

“My little brother’s a vet. He was injured in Afghanistan.”

“Aw Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I seem to have a habit of doing that with you.”

“It’s okay. He’s okay. Better than okay. He has a new wife and a little girl he adores. He’s happy now. I was just thinking about what might have happened if he hadn’t found them. As much as we love him, I don’t know if we would have been enough to help him find his peace.” She shook her head. She’d never intended to share that much of herself with the handsome stranger, because that’s what he was. A stranger. And Rachel rarely made herself vulnerable even with people she knew.