Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (51 page)

And you know something? It was.

I closed my eyes when we squished across the creeks, yelped when we scraped over and around the rocks of a dry gully, and prayed to all available gods when we twisted and slid around one final turn up a rocky slope. Then the ground leveled out, we forged bravely through a group of particularly surly-looking trees, and there was the cabin.

It rose like a tiny island fortress above a swirling, wind-driven sea of highland grass. When we rolled to a stop after escaping the clutches of the trees, we were still over half a mile away from the cabin’s front door, with the long, narrow valley of the Blackfoot River between us.

Several hundred yards upslope to the right, the grass was swallowed alive by the Ponderosa pines on the lower slopes of a towering mountain that laughed at city girls; down a gentle, sweeping slope to the left, the grass disappeared into more pine trees that cloaked the lower reaches of an even more forbidding spire of granite and snow. Trees to the right, trees to the left, trees crowded us from behind, and the cabin stood just in front of a line of vaguely threatening trees that marked off the far side of the valley.

I couldn’t make out a lot of details at that distance, just that the wood planks, the stovepipe chimney, and honest-to-god porch looked all small and brave in the middle of that wilderness – and holy shit, was that a teensy little satellite dish clinging to one edge of the roof? Yes! Screw you, trees and grass and bears – civilization lives here, big and bold and digital, and you can all just bite me.

Did I mention the river? Um, yeah.

As previously noted, a lonely stretch of the Blackfoot River sliced through the heart of this grassy little Eden, right between us and the cabin, between us and that tiny outpost of the modern world, between us and our blessed lifeline to the most holy internet and hundreds of HD channels. This river was wide, loud, turbulent, and aggressive, splashing and churning over rocks as it plunged down the length of the valley, and it did not appear to be the least bit impressed by the modern technological wonders of satellite reception and four-wheel-drive.

There was no bridge.

I turned to Devon, looking for support or enlightenment, answers, something – but there was that distant, lost, glassy-eyed look again. He aimed his face at the river, but was he seeing it? If I asked Mr. Almighty Master of the Wilderness and Frisky Cowgirls for suggestions on how to proceed here, would he even hear my voice?

I watched him staring out the windshield at the river, or at phantoms or whatever, and I reminded myself – baby steps. He came back a bit, he talked, he laughed, and now he’s just taking one small step back again – he’ll come around and walk on with you when he’s ready, all right?

In the meantime, I needed to get it in gear. We had to get to that cabin and rest the hell out of ourselves, and since it was over there and we were here and this vehicle did not appear to have a ‘teleport’ setting, that meant driving from point A to point B, river or no river.

So call on your pioneer genes and cross this bastard, Ashley.

I tapped the gas pedal again, and we bumped forward over the grass, the long stalks of god knows how many species of weeds and stuff brushing against the fenders as we eased our way into the meadow. The occasional hidden rock crunched under our tires now and again, stray bits of gravel spanged off the undercarriage, and once I honked like a serious nut case when some anonymous brown bundle of feathers startled me by shooting up out of the grass right in front of us.

Chill out, Ashley – Chicago has birds too, and any one of those tough street pigeons could kick the ass of whatever that was just now, so drive on, okay?

A minute or so in, I picked out the faint traces of tire tracks showing through the grass ahead. I followed them straight on for a few hundred yards until we pulled up onto a little rise, and bingo, river.

Devon had said earlier we’d be fording a river, and now I saw what he’d meant.

To the right, just as I’d seen it from the tree line, the torrent churned and roiled, maybe a hundred feet wide and all kinds of loud; to the left, it hurtled its way down the valley, tumbling and hissing as if it was chasing after somebody that had pissed it off.

Right in front of our tires, though, the water spread out over the rising ground, and it was much shallower. Some industrious backcountry traveler had helped matters along by lining the shallow section with more-or-less flat chunks of rock, and while it wasn’t a bridge or anything close to one, it did make this thing look crossable.

Summoning my inner pioneer, I rolled us into the shallow water. The slabs and chunks of rock shifted under the vehicle’s weight and my stomach did a nervous little flip, but we stayed pointed toward the far side, and we kept moving.

I glanced to the right, past Devon, to see the water coming straight on at us, running over and between the rocks and splashing past us in front and behind; I looked left, and saw that on that side, barely more than two feet away from my door, the rise dropped off at a sharp angle, sending the river tumbling over the edge in a miniature waterfall.

I snapped my eyes away, focused on the far side, and kept us crunching along over the rocks. We looked to be halfway to dry ground, and I wasn’t stopping for anything until grass was under our tires again.

“Stop.”

Devon tipped his head out his window and peered down at the river. Then he turned and looked past my staring, are-you-kidding face at the tumbling froth of the water shooting over the edge of the rise to our left.

“Yes, this looks just right. Stop here, please.”

My foot obeyed him, punching down on the brake and lurching us to a halt, but my brain was in rebellion. Stop in the middle of the River of Certain Doom? Why?

I got the only explanation I needed when Devon reached into an inner pocket of his coat and pulled out the small metal cylinder Lee Montvale had given him back at Graceland Cemetery. He turned it over and over in his fingers for a moment, just looking at it, and then he opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the rocks, as I put the SUV into park and shut off the engine.

After all, this was why we were here.

“Can I take a look first? I’ve never seen something like this before, other than from a distance back at the cemetery.”

“As it happens, neither have I – we shall look together.”

Devon removed the cap from the container as we stood side by side, our backs pressed against the left flank of the SUV. I could feel the icy water lapping at my insulated hiking boots that probably looked ridiculous on someone who’d never hiked, and I tried not to notice how close we stood to the edge. Only a few inches away, the water sheeted past our feet and over the brink of the rise, sending up a fine mist that beaded on our clothes and in our hair.

I leaned into Devon, my left arm slipped around his back as he pulled me close with his right arm, and together we looked at the contents of the small metal cylinder.

What we saw might have been fine particles of whitish-grey sand, powdery and light and threatening to lift into the breeze that stirred past us. Sand like that belonged on some distant tropical beach, soaking up the sun as warm ocean tides rose and fell nearby – if it had been sand, which of course it wasn’t.

Hi, Uncle Sheridan.

I stirred against Devon’s side. “Is there, I don’t know … some kind of protocol for this? Words we should say, a ceremony or something?”

I looked up at the big guy, I looked into those eerie and weird and beautiful blue-violet eyes of his, and after way too many days, I saw life there.

He shook his head. “I should think not – I imagine he would have been pleased enough simply by our being here with him. Besides, words are pale, meaningless creatures in moments like this, don’t you agree?”

I nodded. And just like that, Devon held his left arm straight out and upended the container over the rushing waters.

Uncle Sheridan’s ashes danced away from us in a cloud, billowing and spreading in the breeze until they were caught by the downdraft of the small waterfall at our feet. Some of the particles dove into the froth, while most swirled past and fell into the river beyond – but a few danced on, dipping and coasting over the foam-crested waves, skimming the ice-ringed boulders jutting above the turbulent water, spinning away from us, following the lead of the river as it rumbled and splashed down the slope and out of our lives.

I’m sure what happened at the last was random chance.

Just before the river disappeared downhill into the distant trees, just as I was telling myself that yes, I could still see a few of those fine, dusty remnants riding the air currents just above the waves, a trout leapt flailing from the water. It rose in a burst of spray and foam, the sunlight flashing off its wet skin as it struck at the ashes spinning by overhead. Then it plunged back into the heaving water with a fierce splash, and it was gone.

Bye, Uncle Sheridan.

33. Hiding in the Light

The cabin was a sweet, sweet deal.

I was prepped and ready to not like it one bit, seeing as how it was buried deep in the bear-infested wilds. I was expecting a hut, a hovel, a technical bit of almost-shelter with rocks to sleep on, grungy old berries to eat, and bark for toilet paper, if there even was a toilet.

Sure, I’d seen the satellite dish and the chimney and the porch from the far side of the river, but those could be faked, right? Some evil backcountry cloaking device luring in round city gals with the promise of civilization, only to leave them bereft and abandoned in a glorified shed as wolves and mountain lions closed in for the kill?

Nope.

After I parked the SUV in the weeds off to one side of the alleged cabin and left Devon to haul in our two suitcases because hey, big strong man, I mounted the steps, crossed the not-at-all-faked porch, opened the real-with-a-latch-and-a-knob-and-everything door, and went inside to find a comfortable island of the modern world.

Sure, it was small. It was microscopic compared to Devon’s office back home, or even just his bedroom – but that cabin packed a lot into the space.

Square, tight, and efficient, the whole thing was a single room, with a humongous bed drowning in quilted comforters in the far right corner, and a couch of leather and burled wood under the window just to the right of the door. A workspace occupied the corner to the left of the door; it featured a modest, don’t-mind-me plasma screen TV mounted on the wall, a desk underneath it, and on the desk – dear God, yes – a laptop with a functioning internet connection, can you say hallelujah?

The far left corner was home to a thumbnail-sized kitchen, with small cabinets and smaller counters. There was a single sink, a dorm-sized fridge, a tiny wood-fired stove that I didn’t entirely trust but that Devon must know how to work, and a nearby dining table flanked by four chairs.

Dominating the center of the cabin was another wood stove, this one big and brawny and designed to radiate heat to every corner of the place – once it was fired up and running, which was another thing I hoped Devon would take care of.

The walls were bare planks of pine and cedar – at least, the parts of the walls I could see between the floor-to-ceiling shelves that groaned under the weight of hundreds of books. Deep-piled throw rugs covered the floorboards, and a rustic handmade lighting fixture spliced together from deer antlers but featuring real, God-given light bulbs hung from the ceiling.

The only concession to other-roomness was a door in the back wall, midway between the kitchen corner and the dresser that stood next to the bed. Being a curious sort, I marched right over there, pulled it open, and found myself looking into a pocket-sized bathroom, occupying a small extension attached to the back of the cabin.

Another tiny but neatly designed space, it held a claw foot tub with a showerhead mounted above it, a porcelain sink below a mirror, a cabinet for towels and shampoo and girl stuff, and a toilet that any citified bathroom would have been proud to have. And thank the heavens, a roll of genuine toilet paper hung next to it, with more packages of the four-ply stuff stacked close at hand – no bark for this city girl, thank you very much.

“That’s a recent addition, as it happens.”

I jumped a little, and spun around to see Devon looming just behind me. “So people didn’t believe in civilized facilities, back in the days of cave bears and wooly mammoths?”

He shrugged. “When I first came here, the only ‘facilities’ available were an outhouse back among the trees, and a well that provided hand-drawn water for cooking and cleaning.”

“And you survived?”

And there was that beautiful grin, that grin I knew so well and had missed so much – it was back, this time for good.

I hoped.

“Lovely Ashley, you may pretend as much as you like to be discomfited by the terrors of the unknown wild, but I know better.”

“Um, you do?”

“You are less stricken than you let on by the woods and the valley and the river and all those potential bears lurking roundabouts – in fact, if you give this place time and even so much as half a chance, I’m quite sure you will come to love it. After all, I did.”