She rushed to his side and fell to her knees beside him. “Paul, what’s wrong?” She stroked his forehead, which burned with fever.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.
“No!” she cried. She kissed his hot cheeks, and stroked his hair.
He wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.
“I won’t. I promise.”
He opened his eyes again, his gaze searing her. “Come up here beside me,” he said, and pulled her toward him.
She stretched out on the sofa next to him and he began to kiss the side of her neck, his tongue brushing lightly across the sensitive skin just below her ear, sending shivers down her spine. He feathered kisses along her jaw and across her cheek and eyes.
She took a sharp breath as his hand slipped beneath her shirt to fondle her breast. Whatever weakness had overtaken him before had fled, as if her presence had breathed life back into him…
Loud knocking on the door of her room jerked Sierra from sleep. She sat up, disoriented in the darkness, and clutched a pillow to her chest like a shield.
“It’s just me,” Paul said from the other side of the door.
Hearing his voice made her heart race harder; she’d been dreaming. He wasn’t sick, and he hadn’t been making love to her.
“Are you okay?” He sounded concerned now. “Say something.”
“I’m fine,” she called, and switched on the bedside lamp. The numbers 4:03 glowed in luminous red on the clock, like an angry brand. Did people really voluntarily get up at this insane hour? Apparently they did if they wanted to climb a mountain. “Just a minute.” She stumbled into the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and combed her hair.
When she emerged, the knocking had resumed. “You’re going to wake up everyone on this floor,” she said as she opened the door at last.
“The rooms around you are empty,” he said. “Kelly mentioned it the other night.” He moved past her. “Dress in layers. It’s liable to be cold and windy up top.”
“That’s not what you told me yesterday,” she said. “You went on about how beautiful it was.”
“It’s beautiful. But windy.”
What else had he left out of his rapturous descriptions of the climb? But she said nothing—this climb was her idea and she wasn’t about to back out because of a little wind.
She plaited her hair into a single braid, slathered on sunscreen and lip gloss and emerged from the bathroom once more.
Paul sat on the side of the unmade bed, bringing to mind once more her dream. She sat in the room’s only chair and began to put on her hiking boots.
“Let me see your socks,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t want to get blisters.” Before she could protest further, he was on his knees in front of her, cupping her heel in one hand. The gesture was surprisingly intimate. His long fingers traced the curve of her instep, his head bent over her. She imagined she could feel his breath on her and hot arousal curled through her. She clutched the arms of the chair to keep from combing her fingers through his hair and pulling him to her.
“These cotton socks will end up giving you blisters,” he said. His eyes met hers, dark with concern, but maybe with desire, too. Over his shoulder, the unmade bed beckoned.
Forget the hike,
she wanted to say.
Spend the day here with me, making love.
But she couldn’t make herself say the words. Professionalism or prudence—or that fear he’d accused her of earlier—kept her silent, and the moment passed.
He released her foot and stood. “I brought you some wool hiking socks.” He fished a package from his pack and tossed it to her. “Try these.”
“Thanks.” She would never have thought she needed special
socks
for hiking up a mountain.
“Do you have a warm jacket?” he asked. “You’ll need a pack, too. I have one in the Jeep you can borrow.”
“I have my own, thank you.” She proudly displayed the new hydration pack, which she’d filled with water the night before. “I have a fleece jacket, rain gear, a hat, energy bars and hiking poles, too.” She didn’t mention the first-aid kit, compass and emergency whistle the clerk at the outfitter’s had sold her, afraid Paul would accuse her of overkill.
“You look all set,” he said. “Do you have sunscreen?”
“Yes, Mother.”
He laughed. “Hey, if we were in Manhattan, you’d have to teach me how to get around on the subway and tell me the neighborhoods to avoid after dark.”
“I guess so.” Though Paul struck her as the kind of person who would educate himself about such things.
They gathered up her gear and she followed him downstairs and out to his Jeep. “Where’s Indy?” she asked, surveying the empty backseat.
“Sleeping in.” He started the vehicle and made a U-turn in the empty street. “He’s done this climb before, but the rocks can be hard on the pads of his paws, and he doesn’t like to wear booties.”
So this “easy” trail was too difficult for his dog? She fought down a new wave of apprehension.
He handed her an insulated mug and a paper bag. “Breakfast,” he said.
She started to tell him she wasn’t hungry, but the aroma of coffee and breakfast burritos woke up her appetite. “Thanks,” she said, and helped herself to the food. She began to feel more awake and more confident about the day ahead.
“Our timing is perfect,” Paul said. “We should be on the trail for a beautiful sunrise.”
His excitement was contagious; she began to feel the thrill of anticipation herself. “I can’t believe you’re this enthusiastic about a climb you told me you’ve done dozens of times,” she said.
“I’ve never done it with you before,” he said. “I can’t wait to show you how beautiful it is.”
She had to look away, afraid her emotions were written too clearly on her face. He’d think she was pathetic, letting herself get so worked up over such a simple statement.
But the men she knew didn’t share their lives this way. Their sports and hobbies and similar interests were kept behind a door labeled No Women Allowed. Not that Sierra wanted to care about basketball or sky-diving or new-wave punk bands, but it would have been nice to have the option.
But Paul wanted to share mountain climbing with her, and he was going to considerable trouble to do so.
After traversing a boulder-strewn four-wheel-drive road and crossing a shallow creek, he stopped the Jeep at a Forest Service trail head. “This is it,” he said, shutting off the engine. “This is going to be great.”
The flutter of excitement Sierra felt as she zipped up her jacket and shouldered her pack had little to do with the climb ahead. She was looking forward to a day spent with Paul in his element. For this one day, she’d try hard not to worry about the future or fret about the past.
He wasn’t entirely himself around her, but she made him want to be something even better—Paul 2.0, smarter, stronger, faster and more fun.
He moved up to walk alongside her where the trail widened. “This is Nelle Creek,” he said, indicating the rushing stream that ran alongside the trail.
“What—or who—was Nelle?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe she was a miner’s wife or daughter. But I do know Uncompahgre was the name of an Indian tribe that lived in this area.”
“I wonder if they climbed the mountain,” she said.
“I’m sure some of them climbed it,” Paul said. “They would have wanted to see what was up there.”
She glanced at him. “Is your motivation really that simple? To see what’s up there?”
“Sometimes when I get to the top of a peak it’s too foggy or snowy to see much of anything,” he admitted. “Other times I see a lot of rock and ice and markers and flags left behind by others who have been there before me. There are very few major peaks that haven’t been climbed by someone before.”
“Then why bother, if you aren’t the first?”
“Even if I’m not the first to climb a mountain, I’m still part of a pretty exclusive group. I like the physical challenge of doing something very few other people have done. There’s a great sense of accomplishment in reaching the top.”
“You could run marathons or enter long-distance bike races and say the same thing.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
“You wouldn’t be risking your life.”
He made no reply. She wouldn’t understand if he admitted that risking his life was an important part of what he did. He didn’t have a death wish, but knowing one mistake or bit of bad luck could lead to his death reaffirmed how precious life really was. He liked being reminded of that.
They emerged from the trees into an open meadow and Sierra stopped and gasped. In the distance, gleaming silver in the early morning light, rose Uncompahgre Peak. It jutted above the plain like a jagged mastodon tooth, patches of snow flecking its granite surface. Sierra dug her new camera from her pack and snapped off half a dozen photographs. “I still can’t believe we’re going to climb that,” she said.
“Wait until you see the view from the top.”
They walked on, serenaded by the whistling of a fat marmot, who sunned himself on a boulder just long enough for Sierra to take a picture before he dived into his den.
Their pace was leisurely, much slower than Paul would have hiked on his own, but he didn’t mind. Racing to the top was secondary to spending time with Sierra.
Two hours into the hike, as the grade increased, she began to breathe heavily. They stopped to allow her to catch her breath. “What elevation are we at?” she asked.
“About twelve thousand feet.”
“If it’s this hard to breathe here, how do people manage it at twenty thousand feet?”
“Stubbornness, I guess.” He shrugged. “I just struggle through. Focus on the goal, or even just the next step. It’s a mind game, believing you can succeed despite the physical struggle.”
Her expression said she thought he was crazy, but she didn’t waste her breath on the words. Instead she pulled out the camera again. “Let me take a picture of you and the mountain.”
He posed with Uncompahgre rising in the background, then they set out once more. “Talk to me,” she said as they trudged side by side. “Distract me.”
“What do you want me to talk about?” he asked.
“What was the first mountain you climbed?” she asked.
“Long’s Peak. You know that.”
“I mean the first big mountain. Out of state.”
“I did the tourist trip on Everest, but my first actual big summit was McKinley. Though its proper name is Denali now.”
A shadow passed across her face, though she quickly composed herself, moving into journalist mode. “So your climb this spring wasn’t your first time on McKinley?”
“No. I intended to retrace your father’s route on my first trip.” Ever since he’d sat as a teenager, glued to the television throughout the ordeal of Victor Winston’s death, he had vowed to follow his idol’s footsteps one day. “But the weather didn’t cooperate that time, so I had to take a different approach,” he continued. “This spring, I decided to try again.”
And found his body.
The words hung between them, unsaid. They’d both avoided the subject so far, and he was reluctant to bring up the unpleasant topic unless she asked.
“When I first heard you’d found him, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “When he died, it was really more like he’d just…vanished. Disappeared. I remember going to the memorial service and thinking that any moment he’d walk through the doors and explain there’d been a terrible mistake—that after the batteries in his radio died, he’d climbed down on his own, but had been too busy to tell anyone before. Not having a body in a coffin made it easier to believe those fantasies.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never would have brought him down if I’d known it would hurt you.”
“No, don’t apologize. It’s good to know for certain. Though of course I did know. No one could have survived that storm.”
“Still, we never want to lose people we love. I think it’s normal to hang on to any shred of hope as long as possible.”
“I guess that’s it. As long as he was still alive, I could hope that one day he’d want to be my dad again.”
He opened his mouth to offer some trite bit of comfort—that he was sure her father had loved her, that of course she was special to him—then he shut it without saying a word. What did he really know about Victor Winston beyond the idealized image he’d built up in his mind? The man was a hero to him for all he’d overcome, but in climbing mountains and conquering new peaks, he’d left a bereft family behind.
Sierra turned away. “Are those clouds up ahead?”
He followed her gaze to a distant smudge of gray. “They’re a long way off. Thunderstorms roll in a lot of afternoons, though, which is why it’s a good idea to start early and be off the peak by noon.”
They’d been hiking over three hours now. Sierra walked on with her head down, silent. He could hear the steady pant of her breathing. The grade increased, and he slowed their pace. He watched her closely. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Let me just…stop and…catch my breath again.” She walked a little off the trail and leaned against a boulder.
“Are you dizzy?” he asked. “Sick to your stomach? Do you have a headache?” He ticked off the symptoms of altitude sickness.
“A little bit of a headache maybe. But mainly it’s just hard to breathe.” She held up her hands. “My fingers are swollen.”
“That’s from walking with your hands gripping the trekking poles. They’ll return to normal by tomorrow at the latest. Drink more water. That’ll help your headache, too.”
“My knees hurt, too. And my ankles.”
“All normal.” He took her hand and pulled her upright once more. “You’ll feel better if you keep walking.”
“What if I said I wanted to quit?”
Was she serious? “You’re more than halfway there. You’ll regret it if you don’t go all the way to the top.”
“Maybe you would, but I don’t think I will.”
“Don’t quit,” he said. It surprised him how much he wanted to get her to the top. He wanted her to experience just a little of what it was like to reach a summit—to know a little more about what he did, and about what her father had done. “You’ll feel better at the top, I promise.”
Still, she didn’t move. “Haven’t you ever wanted to quit?” she asked.
“Never.”
“Not even when every part of you ached and you couldn’t breathe and it was freezing cold and snowing?”
“I’ve aborted a climb because conditions made it unsafe,” he said. “Unstable weather or avalanche danger or something like that. But I’ve never given up because of the physical discomfort.”
“Why not?” Her eyes locked to his, trying to make sense of his stubbornness. “Why put yourself through all that?”
“To prove that I could,” he said. “To prove I’m not a quitter.”
“Prove to whom? Is someone keeping score?”
“To prove to myself, I guess.” He looked away, frustrated that he couldn’t make her understand. “That’s part of what climbing is all about—pitting yourself against the environment. Testing yourself. Every time you suffer through hardship and make your goal, you come away a little bit stronger.”
“How many times have you summited?” she asked.
“I’ve done all the seven summits—the highest peaks on each continent—at least once, some twice. There are fourteen peaks in the world over eight thousand meters in height, and I’ve climbed ten of them. I’ve done all fifty-four Colorado fourteeners, most multiple times, and I’ve climbed the fifteen California fourteeners and a bunch of lesser peaks. Why?”
“If you’ve done all that,” she said. “Why not stop now, while you’re still ahead?”
“Stopping means getting stagnant. Would you write one article, then quit?”
“That’s different.”
“I don’t think so. Everyone likes new challenges. It keeps life from getting boring.”
“It’s also a good way to avoid other kinds of challenges.” She shoved away from the rock and started hiking again.
He fell into step beside her. “What other challenges do you think I’m avoiding?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “How about relationships? Responsibilities. Obligations. You know—real life. Whenever something like that pops up, you can run away and climb another mountain.”
“You’re not talking about me now, are you?” he asked. “You’re talking about your father.”
“Maybe. I guess I’m trying to figure out how you’re different from him.”
“I don’t have a wife or child or any other responsibilities that I’m running away from,” he said.
“If you did, would you retire from mountaineering?”
“Why should I? There are plenty of climbers who have wives and families. They come with them on expeditions.”
“Somehow I don’t think being at base camp makes the waiting any easier,” she said.
No, Sierra would not be one to wait at base camp, he thought. She wouldn’t wait at all. His chest constricted, making breathing even more difficult. “I guess some women see supporting their spouse in his avocation as part of the commitment,” he said.
“And some men obviously don’t see how wrong it is to throw their lives away when they have a family,” she said.
“There’s a difference between taking calculated risks and being suicidal,” he said.
“The end results aren’t that different. And most women don’t want to sit around waiting for those results.”
“That’s certainly true, but they might be missing out.”
“Missing out on a lot of heartache.”
This wasn’t the woman who’d lost her father to a high-altitude blizzard talking, but the girl who’d seen her dad choose work over family. Victor might have done the same if he had been a pilot or a mechanic or a merchant seaman, but because he was a mountain climber, Sierra could never look on the profession as anything but destructive. Her view of Paul would always be colored by her distrust of his profession, no matter what other emotions he might stir in her.
He put a comforting hand on her back. “I can understand how you’ve had enough of that.” He felt powerless to change that about her—after all, he couldn’t go back and change her past.