Authors: Christa Maurice
“Hold on,” she said.
Starting up the lane, she watched for the first switchback, which at this time of year would only be visible by the presence of trees seeming to grow in the middle of the road. Jason ignored her advice and sat with one arm across the back of the seat, his long legs crossed at the ankles. By the third switchback, he’d shifted to a more cautious position, gripping the door with one hand, feet braced against the floor. She straightened the wheel as they turned out of the woods, and the truck slid sideways. The rear wheel dropped into a rut, halting the truck. Jason gasped as they jerked to a stop, but she couldn’t be sure if it was because of the slide or the view.
The pasture opened in an oblong bowl shape between the sheltering arms of two ridges. It spanned the length of a football field at its widest and half again as long. In the center the wind had uncovered a long shallow pond reflecting the black sky and the stars overhead. By his expression, he’d been gasping at the view. His eyes were fixed on the waterfall.
The high ridge on the west side of the valley rose at a steep angle. The frozen waterfall spilled down the wall in lace ruffles of ice. A rocky pool caught the fall before allowing it to trail across the valley floor to the pond and then through a gap in the ridge.
“My God,” Jason breathed. He fumbled with his door, popped it open and tumbled out of the truck. “It’s beautiful.”
Cass stepped out, enjoying his open-mouthed wonder. It was a nice valley. Sheltered and cool. Utterly peaceful. The full moon reflected off the snow, gleaming across the black ice in the center. “I’ll have to take out the fence.” She motioned toward the low fence Bill had installed to keep his sheep under control. “And I think I’ll cut a road through from my end instead of using his right of way. Too many of my campers have trouble with my entrance. No trailers back here though. Even if they got them in, they’d be impossible to get out again.”
“Would you build cabins here?” Jason tore his wide-eyed gaze from the scene before him and glanced at her.
“Sure. I could fit fifteen cabins here. The cabins up front are too close together. I’d like to spread these out a little more. And there’s another little plateau below the eastern ridge where I could offer tent camping.”
He sat on the front bumper with his hands between his knees, looking around the valley. “I’d love to build a house here.”
Cass blinked. “A house?”
He turned to her with sparkling eyes. “Yeah. A nice two-story place right over there, facing the pool, but angled toward the waterfall. And the master bedroom, too. That would be right upstairs over the living room. You’d have to be able to see the waterfall from the master bedroom. The driveway would angle around that way so it wouldn’t interrupt the view. I’d put your painting studio on the second story over the garage so you could still see into the valley, and my music room would be across the hall.”
Cass’s chest tightened. “So you’re building this house for us?” she asked as evenly as she could manage.
Jason stood up and gathered her into his arms. “Do you want me to build a house for you?”
She tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob. He was playing with her. There was no way he would ever stay in Potterville, West Virginia. This was not the kind of place people like him lived. He was building castles in the air. Maybe he was the kind of person who talked about these kinds of things without ever doing them. “Yes. I do. Maybe you could start construction tomorrow. There’s plenty of snow to work with.”
Laughing, he released her. He’d turned away, so he didn’t see her stumble and catch herself on the hood of the truck. “I can see it now. Just like your bungalow, but bigger. A big living room with a fieldstone fireplace and floor to ceiling windows and a big warm kitchen with hardwood floors the color of honey.”
And huge heating bills. Jason didn’t think about things like heating bills. People who built castles in the air never worried about practicalities. She closed her eyes, holding in tears. She didn’t need a house, she needed him. “So you approve then?”
“Approve? This is fantastic. I can’t believe you’d waste it on cabins.” He turned to her, grinning. “I’d keep it for myself.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the weather had settled on her, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s getting cold. Let’s head back.” She climbed in the truck without waiting for him. As she turned the truck around to leave, he was plastered to the window, soaking in the view. He’d be overjoyed in the summer when honeysuckle and mountain thyme hung on the air like a balm and wild flowers grew everywhere. It would be a popular campsite, she thought, jerking the wheel too hard and making the rear end slide. She hit the gas to pull the vehicle out of the slide, but the wheels spun. Cursing, she slammed the truck into reverse and stomped on the gas. Nothing but noise.
“We’re stuck?” Jason asked.
Dropping it back in first, she stomped on the gas again. The tires whined in protest, but the truck didn’t move. She opened the door and looked back. In her haste to leave, she’d swung wider than she thought and sunk the truck into a trough up to its axle. She pulled the door closed and rubbed her face with her gloved hands. “We’re stuck.”
“Should I get out and push?” Jason offered.
“Only if you’re about to turn into the Hulk.” Cass patted her pockets, searching for the phone. Donny would come up and get her. She’d tell him Jason had been curious about the property because he’d heard them talking about it over lunch and he’d been a little cabin-fevered after the storm.
She patted her pockets again. If she could find her phone.
Damn. Before they’d left, she’d seen the phone charging on the sideboard and reminded herself to grab it, but apparently hadn’t done so. She’d been too dazed by the idea that Jason wanted to do something with her. He’d been outside all day, and she’d had plenty of time to worry that he’d changed his mind. Not that her distraction was an excuse for forgetting. “You didn’t happen to bring a cellphone with you, did you?”
“No.”
Cass leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. She’d never done anything so careless and stupid in her life. Her phone went with her when she walked around the cabins during the off-season in case she got hurt and couldn’t get inside. If the weather was heavy, she didn’t even set foot out the door unless she had to. Her cabin was stocked with enough food to survive for months, if need be. She had spares, backups, and extras of everything she used at the cabin. She even had a shotgun in case of bears and wolves, but when she saw those, she stayed inside and shot pictures instead.
“It’s not that bad. Is it?” Jason sounded uncertain, which reminded her that, in addition to all her other failings, she wasn’t doing her campground director job and handling the situation.
“No, it’s not.” She sat up. “I forgot the phone so I can’t call anyone to pull us out. The truck is stuck good so we’re not going to get out on our own. I’ll walk down to Bill’s—”
“No.”
Cass looked at him. “No?”
“You’re not leaving me here while you walk for help by yourself. I’ll go with you.”
“You’re wearing tennis shoes.”
Jason shrugged. “It can’t be more than a mile.”
“Yes, it can. A bit more, in fact.”
“I can manage.” He reached over and put his arm around her. “It’ll be fun.”
“It’s half a mile to my house through the grounds.”
“Really?” His expression brightened.
“See that gap there on the far end of the valley? My farthest tent site is right on the other side.”
“Good. We can be home in time for the news.” He jumped out of the truck.
Scowling, she climbed out her side. The temperature had dropped earlier today when the snow stopped falling. The snow had a crisp crust she would have admired on a pie, but not on the ground. Snow masked the true edges of the pond and right now she couldn’t remember how far it came out. This whole adventure already felt too much like Jack London’s
To Build a Fire
for her to want to get her feet wet. Jason stamped his feet for warmth. The snow came to his knees and well over hers. What had she been thinking, coming out here today?
She hadn’t been.
Since Jason had showed up on her doorstep and made that comment about the long two years, she hadn’t been using logic at all. Sexy rock star, she could have handled. Even sexy flirtatious rock star. But sexy flirtatious wounded rock star had been too much to withstand. A quiet little tryst, leaving the emotions to deal with later, had seemed simple enough.
It had been like setting a devil’s food cake and a gallon of milk in front of a chocoholic and walking out of the room.
And now she’d arranged a romantic double suicide for them. How sweet. Someone might find them next week if the wolves didn’t get to them first.
“Jason, watch out,” she snapped. He hadn’t stuck by her side, but had set off in a straight path down the middle of the valley, heading right for the pond.
He froze in his tracks.
“Stay with me. I don’t know where the edge of the water is, and if you get your feet wet you could get frostbite.” She scowled as he backed up three steps and then walked toward her still grinning from ear to ear. “This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to you, isn’t it?” she accused.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied, and put his arm over her shoulders. “It’s not even the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this week, but it’s pretty darn cool.”
“I’m not sure what’s so darn cool about being stranded on the mountain in the middle of the winter,” Cass grumbled.
“I’ve never been out in the woods like this. It’s amazing.” He looked up at the sky, his face bright in the moonlight, and squeezed her shoulders. “I never went camping when I was a kid, and the only snow I had was pretty dirty after the plows went past.”
“So has building snowmen been a lifelong dream?” Cass fought a smile, but the smile won.
“I didn’t know what I was missing.”
The wonder in his voice made her heart ache.
It was a pretty magical scene. The ski lodge was even hidden around the curve of the mountain. Almost a shame to put cabins here.
They stepped under the canopy of trees. The clearing of the last tent camping site was visible through the trunks. In the summer, she could hardly see it through the bushes. “You grew up in Indianapolis, didn’t you?” she asked.
“In the projects. After my dad walked out, Mom didn’t have much money, with five kids to feed.”
That stopped her in her tracks. Walked out? “I thought your father—”
Halted two strides ahead of her, he turned back, his face still and pale, as if he waited for her response. “We tell everyone he died. He walked out when I was four. My mother told us he went looking for work. Then one day she got a letter, and she started saying he was dead.”
“Are you sure?” Cass gasped. She felt stunted and weird, as if she’d been personally attacked by this piece of trivia and left bleeding in the snow.
“When I was twelve, I found the letter and it said he wasn’t coming back. He had a new family he liked better.” His face could have been made of marble, and he stood with his feet planted wide, as if the mountain might start moving under him like the deck of a ship.
Her knees gave way. She grabbed a slender birch for support, snapping off a small branch with her glove. She could envision him finding that letter at twelve, all long legs and squeaky voice, being told he wasn’t a good enough for his father to want him. Her father had been such a constant in her life, she couldn’t imagine living without him. He’d held her hand when she’d learned to ice skate, and when she got divorced.
A shadow fell across him, leaving him faceless as he straightened his shoulders.
“Jason,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
No words could bridge the distance that had grown between them. She reached out, releasing her hold on the birch, but her arms weren’t long enough either, so she floundered forward to put her arms around him. His arms came around her, but he held her stiffly, as if he’d prefer to shove her away. Or he expected her to push him away. Squeezing her eyes closed, she pressed her cheek against his chest. His heart pounded. She longed to cradle him in her arms and tell him everything would be all right. That she could make it better.
But she couldn’t. How could she fix his father walking out on him at four and rejecting him again at twelve, when she couldn’t do anything about Stella dumping him in the national press? She couldn’t even fix the fact that he was standing in the woods in the middle of January wearing shoes that probably still weren’t dry. “I am so sorry, Jason,” she whispered.
“I don’t know why I told you,” he muttered. “Nobody outside my family knows. Not even Brian.”
She brushed a shaking hand through his hair. Why hadn’t she made him wear a hat? She wasn’t taking very good care of him at all. “I won’t tell a soul. I promise.”
On tiptoes, she kissed him. For a moment he resisted the pressure of her lips, then he relented slightly. She shivered so hard that she thought he must be, too. Clutching his shoulders, she tried to draw him to her embrace. She wanted to drag him bodily from his pain, but he wouldn’t move. It hurt to hold him.
She broke the kiss, rested her forehead on his chest. Her breath came in long deep clouds that rose up around them, mingling with his over their heads. “It’s getting colder by the minute out here,” she told him. “We should get moving before we freeze to death.”
Jason nodded, and for a heartbeat, didn’t release her, clenched her against his stiff body instead. Then he dropped his arms. Cass swayed back, staying within reach, hoping he would pull her back against him. He didn’t. Aching with a loss she didn’t even understand, she moved away, but she reached back and took his hand, squeezing it until his fingers closed around hers.
“Do your sisters know?” she asked as they reached the mouth of the second RV campsite.
“Probably. We never talked about it.”
She nodded, watching the ground. “Does your mother know you know?”
“I don’t know. I happened to be hitting those awkward teenage years when I found the letter, so she probably thought the wearing black and not talking was part of growing up.” Jason pulled his hand away and jammed it in his pockets. She let him go, and he walked behind her, almost in her footsteps.