She was left feeling wrung-out and confused. Paul was the most amazing man she’d ever met: smart and sexy with a great sense of humor, kind and gentle yet strong. He had her thinking about things she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate before—love and commitment and happily ever after.
Yet he obviously wasn’t considering anything like that. All he wanted to do was climb mountains for the rest of his life. What were the small satisfactions of everyday life on solid ground when he could ascend to great heights and look down on that life from above?
For all the ways he didn’t resemble her father, the two men had one thing in common—that need to distance themselves from the people who loved them.
“You’ll feel better once you’re warm and dry,” he repeated. She didn’t really think he was reading her thoughts. Her misery was probably easy enough to diagnose from the way she was huddled in the seat, her expression glum.
“I’ll feel better when I’m back in my apartment in Manhattan, with an order of Thai take-out, a good bottle of wine and decent shoes.” When she was miles away from this man who had the ability to wound her without even realizing it.
Yes, he was a sensitive guy. That was one of the things that drew her to him. If Paul didn’t exactly understand her, at least he tried. But she couldn’t let her feelings about her father or Paul get in the way of writing this story.
Indy greeted them at the door with the enthusiasm of a dog who had been abandoned for days, overjoyed at this long-awaited reunion. Paul rubbed the dog behind the ears and fed him a biscuit, then went to work building a fire in the woodstove while Sierra pulled off her wet, muddy boots. “If you want, you can jump in the shower,” he said over his shoulder to Sierra. “There’s a robe on the hook on the door and I’ll put some dry clothes in the bedroom for you.”
She locked the bathroom door behind her, then left her soggy socks, jeans, shirt and underwear in a heap in the corner and stepped into the shower. As the hot blast hit her, she sighed and closed her eyes, letting the warmth seep into her.
With thawing came thoughts of how differently this day might have turned out. She and Paul might be sharing this shower now, the way they’d shared the experience of summiting the mountain. But the weather and her old fears had conspired against them.
She still wanted Paul’s kisses, but they wouldn’t come with a guarantee he wouldn’t hurt her. The uncertainty paralyzed her.
She dried herself with a thick, fluffy towel, then slipped into the plush dark blue robe she found hanging on the bathroom door. The robe smelled like Paul, and she couldn’t resist burying her nose in the sleeve and inhaling deeply. She stroked the soft fabric and wondered if the deprivations of his climbing expeditions had fostered an appreciation of luxury when he was home.
She found the clothes he’d promised, in a neat stack on the end of his bed: sweatpants and a fleece shirt, and a pair of thick wool socks. The pants and shirt were too big, but she rolled up the legs and sleeves and snuggled into their soft warmth. She returned the robe to the bathroom and contemplated the pile of dirty clothes.
“I’ll throw those in the washer,” Paul said, and slipped past her to scoop them up. He’d changed out of his wet clothes into a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt advertising a local brewpub.
“Make yourself comfortable by the fire,” he said as he juggled the wet clothes. “I’ll be with you in a minute with that drink.”
The fire crackled in the woodstove, filling the room with warmth. Sierra sank onto the soft leather sofa and stared into the flames. She should insist on going back to her hotel room soon, but the warmth and comfort of the room combined with the exertion of the day had produced a pleasant lethargy she was loathe to relinquish.
“This should thaw you out.” Paul came into the room, carrying two steaming mugs. He handed her one. It smelled of cinnamon and apples and something potent.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Apple cider, cranberry juice, cinnamon and rum.”
She took a cautious sip. Sweet fire burned all the way to her stomach. “It’s delicious.”
“Do you want something to eat?” he asked. “I can’t offer Thai take-out, but I can make sandwiches, or scramble some eggs.”
“No, I’m fine.” She sipped her drink and watched the flames dance in the woodstove, content despite all her earlier misgivings. This moment, right now, was perfect.
Paul sat on the opposite end of the sofa, his feet propped on the coffee table. “I never think these climbs tire me out until I stop,” he said.
“Mmm,” was all she could manage.
“How are your feet?” he asked.
“My feet?” Did he have some kind of fetish, always concerned about her feet?
“Did you get any blisters?”
“A couple,” she admitted. They’d bothered her a little on the way up; on the way down she’d been too focused on getting out of the cold and wet to pay attention to a little pain in her feet.
“Let me see.” He patted the sofa beside him and she swung her feet up to fill the empty space. With tantalizing delicacy, he pulled off one sock and then the other. Her skin tingled where he touched her, a sensation that traveled up her legs to settle at the juncture of her thighs.
He began to massage her foot, kneading the ball with his thumb, stroking firmly down her instep. It felt so amazing she wanted to moan. Then she realized she
had
moaned. She checked to see if he’d noticed. He was still focused on her feet. Gently he touched a blister. “I have some salve we can put on that later,” he said.
Who cared about the blister? The man was driving her crazy with a foot massage. Her fatigue had vanished. She told herself she should pull her foot away, but she couldn’t.
He transferred his attention to the other foot, then began to stroke her calf. If this was a clever way of getting into her pants, she had to admit it was working.
Having sex with Paul would be unprofessional and foolish and irresponsible.
It would also likely be wonderful, and no one would ever know but the two of them. She nudged Paul with her free foot. “You’ve started something now,” she said.
His eyes met hers, the desire in them searing her. “What’s that?”
“Now you’re going to have to massage my whole body.”
“I think I can manage that.” He slid closer and leaned over her, his hand trailing up her leg, coming to rest between her thighs. She arched to his touch, another moan escaping her parted lips.
He cut off the sound by pressing his mouth to hers. He tasted of rum and apples, the sweep of his tongue in her mouth more intoxicating than any alcohol. He kissed her long and hard, while his hand continued to press her into the sofa.
She slid her hands beneath his shirt, over the ridged muscles of his abdomen and the sculpted contours of his chest. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the room, then returned to kissing her, his hands exploring beneath her shirt now, cupping her breasts in his palms, his thumbs flicking over her erect nipples. She was aware of his erection resting against her thigh, heavy and hot, blatant evidence of his need for her. She slid her hands beneath the elastic of his pants and grasped his buttocks, smiling at the firm perfection of him, pressing him down into her.
He paused once more to shed his pants, then helped her sit up and pulled her clothes off, as well. “Let’s go into the bedroom,” he said.
“I don’t want to leave the fire.”
“Then we’ll bring the bedroom here.” He climbed off of her and strode from the room. She turned to watch him, a giddy smile refusing to budge from her face as she contemplated his retreating backside and muscular thighs.
She took another sip of her still-warm drink and tried to banish the last flutter of apprehension as she contemplated sex with Paul. Her feelings for him were such a mix of fondness and fear, want and worry. The safest course would be to leave now, before things went any further. But if she didn’t stay with him now, she knew she’d always regret it.
He returned with an armload of pillows and blankets and placed them by the fire. Indy trotted over to investigate. “Go to your bed,” Paul ordered, and pointed toward the bedroom.
With a slow wag of his tail, the dog turned and left the room.
Paul stoked the fire, then Sierra joined him in arranging the bedding on the floor. “Mmm, comfortable,” she said, reclining against a pile of pillows.
“Mmm is right,” he said, angling himself over her. “Did you say something about a whole body massage?” He began stroking and kissing his way down her body, his hands and mouth caressing her breasts, stomach and thighs. Every nerve awakened to his touch, and she writhed beneath him, kneading his shoulders with her hands, crying out as his tongue flicked across her sex, almost bringing her to climax then and there.
Grinning, he raised his head, and groped in the tangled blankets until he found a square foil packet. She watched as he rolled on the condom, then she grabbed his arms and dragged him toward her. “I want you in me,” she said. “Now.”
“I like a woman who knows what she wants,” he said, and pushed himself into her.
She wrapped her legs around his thighs and began to move. He matched the rhythm she set and soon they were both lost to the need building within them. She clung to him tightly, the way she’d grasped him at the top of the mountain. This time, when she hurtled over the edge, she intended to take him with her.
Of course, there was no pain or fear in this fall, just thrilling release and a warm, floating feeling. He tensed, then let out a long, low groan as he thrust hard into her.
She cradled his head on her shoulder and held him tightly when they were both spent, neither saying anything. There was no need for words now, not here in this warm sanctuary where, for this moment at least, neither the past nor the present could intrude.
Careful not to disturb Paul, she eased out from under the covers and over to the woodstove, where she attempted to rekindle the fire. The ashes were cold, and a brief search around the dimly lit confines of the hearth produced no matches.
She glanced back at their makeshift bed, but Paul slept blissfully on. She was
not
going to be the helpless female and wake him for something as simple as starting a fire. Shrugging into the robe, she went in search of matches.
The kitchen yielded nothing, though a curious Indy showed up to beg a dog treat. Sierra rewarded the dog for his efforts, and turned her attention to the hall closet. No matches here, either, though she did find a flashlight, which she used to search the rest of the shelves.
On the top shelf, the light illuminated a cardboard box, the kind used to ship reams of copy paper. Paul’s name was scrawled on the side in a feminine hand.
“What are you doing?” Paul’s voice sounded in the darkness. He moved over beside her. He was naked, his hair tousled, eyes drowsy-lidded. He looked sleepy and sexy and altogether tempting.
“I was cold so I was looking for matches to relight the fire,” she said.
“Come back to bed,” he said. “I’ll take care of the fire.” He started to close the closet door, but she put out a hand to stop him.
“Wait,” she said. “What’s in there?”
“In where?”
“In that box. The one with your name on it.” She played the beam of light across the carton once more.
He frowned. “It’s just a bunch of stuff my mom saved from when I was a kid.”
“I want to see,” she said.
He hesitated, and she couldn’t help think of the irony—they’d just had sex, but looking at childhood mementos was too intimate?
“Okay.” He lifted the box off the shelf and carried it into the living room, where he set it on the coffee table/trunk. “Let me get the fire going and we’ll take a look.”
She returned to the relative warmth of the blankets while he switched on a lamp by the sofa, found his pajama pants on the floor and pulled them on. Within minutes he had a blaze roaring in the stove. He turned to Sierra. “I’m starved.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen and we’ll eat before we open the box.”
While he was gone, she pulled on the shirt he’d loaned her, raked a hand through her hair and arranged the pillows so that she could lean back against the sofa. Paul returned with a tray. “I didn’t feel like taking the time to cook,” he said. He handed her a bottle of water and a pile of napkins and set the tray on the floor between them. Sandwiches, chips, a bunch of grapes and a bakery bag of cookies made for an impromptu picnic.
Everything tasted delicious. Sierra didn’t know if it was the sex or the climb that had given her such an appetite, but it didn’t really matter.
As they ate, she studied Paul out of the corner of her eye. His hair was mussed and the dark shadow of beard showed along his jaw. He hadn’t bothered to put on his shirt, and the lamplight glowed golden on his skin, burnishing the taut muscle of his chest and arms.
She noticed a puckered scar on one side of his chest, just above his left nipple, and remembered Kelly mentioning it. “What’s the scar from?” she asked.
He glanced down at his chest. “Hickman catheter,” he said. At her puzzled look, he explained. “It’s a port they put in my chest to make it easier to draw blood and administer treatments. After I’d been sick for a while all my veins started collapsing and this made it easier. When I got well I had surgery to remove it, but it left a scar.”
She felt a great tenderness for the boy he had been, and looked away, lest he mistake her feelings for sentimentality or pity. Maybe those things were part of the whirl of emotions he kindled in her. Whatever journalistic objectivity she’d had for him had long since vanished, replaced by a host of conflicting emotions. She desired him and yet wanted to distance herself from him. She hated what he did for a living, but was also fascinated by it. She admired his courage and strength while loathing his irresponsible attitude toward his future. She knew she was falling in love with him, and hated that he had made her so vulnerable.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” he asked.
“What way is that?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. You look almost…angry.”
“I’m not angry.” Or if she was, it was with herself and her inability to make up her mind about him. She finished the last of her sandwich and reached for a cookie. “I want to see what’s in the box.”
“All right.” He picked up the box and set it between them on the blankets, then lifted the lid. “My mom sent this to me after I moved into this house. I haven’t looked through it in years.”
She scooted closer. “This should be interesting.”
“Either that, or really embarrassing.” He took out the first item: a file folder of newspaper clippings. “Not too incriminating,” he said, flipping through the yellowing newsprint. “It’s a bunch of stories about my early climbs.”
“She’s obviously very proud of you,” Sierra said, noting how each article was labeled in neat block printing with the date and the name of the mountain he had climbed.
He set the folder aside and reached for a scroll of paper fastened with a rubber band. Unrolling it, he grinned at the drawing of what looked like… “Mountains?” she asked.
“The Seven Summits,” he said. “The highest peaks on each of the seven continents that a lot of professional mountaineers aspire to climb.” He pointed to each peak in turn and named them: “Everest, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Elbrus, Vinson Massif and Kosciuszko.”
The mountains were each outlined in markers and decorated with the flags of their native country. A tiny Sherpa scaled the heights of Everest, while llamas grazed on the lower slopes of Aconcagua. “You must have spent hours on this,” she said. “How old were you when you made it?”
“Fourteen.”
“When you were sick.”
He nodded. “I was going through chemo at the time and I started this as a kind of distraction.”
“Did it help?”
“Some. Though I was only able to work in short spurts in between vomiting or sleeping.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly, almost as if that horrible experience had happened to another person. “So even when you were in the hospital, you wanted to climb these peaks?” she asked.
“Wanted isn’t really the right word. I was so sick, even going on a normal vacation or attending school, or simple things like that, seemed out of reach. The mountains were a fantasy, one that helped me forget about the real world for a while.”
“But you didn’t forget about them when you were well. You went and climbed all these mountains.”
“I did.” He rolled up the poster once more and lifted out a hiking-boot box. “Here’s something you’ll want to see,” he said. “The Victor Winston archives.” He handed her the box. “Go ahead. Open it.”
She flipped back the lid and stared at the collection of newspaper clippings, books and videos—all about her father. She unfolded a yellowed newspaper clipping that told of Victor’s solo ascent of K2. “My mother used to have a box of things like this,” she said. “But I haven’t seen it in years.”
“You’re welcome to take it back to the hotel and look through it.”
“Thanks.” She wasn’t ready to read through a recap of her father’s life with Paul watching. She set the box aside and he delved into the carton once more.
He pulled out a sheaf of hospital bracelets, bundled together with a rubber band and fanned out like a crazy white-and-gray pom-pom. “Oh my gosh.” She fingered the end of one bracelet. “Are all these yours?”
“Yeah. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
She reached past him and snagged a red-and-black bandanna. “Did you wear this?” she asked.
“After I lost my hair, yeah.”
She studied his thick brown hair. “I can’t imagine you bald.”
“Hopefully it’s something you’ll never see.” He tugged the bandanna from her grasp and tossed it back into the box, then replaced the lid. “I should throw this out,” he said.
“No!” She put her hand on his.
“Why not? It’s just a bunch of junk.”
“You should keep it to remind you of what you’ve been through. Of how far you’ve come.”
“It’s not something I’m likely to forget.” He shoved the box out of the way. “Mainly, I don’t like to think about my cancer. It’s something I went through, but it’s not important to me now.” He nodded to the boot box and file folder. “You’re welcome to keep those as long as you like. Maybe you’ll learn something interesting.”
She frowned at the yellowed clippings slipping from the folder. “I don’t want to read old articles about you, or about my father.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I want you to tell me about him. About finding his body.”
He looked at her, eyes filled with concern. “Are you sure?”
No.
She could never be sure. But she’d come all this way to learn the truth. She didn’t want to put it off any longer. “I want you to tell me everything,” she said. “I want to know what it was like up there where he died.”