Ladd Fortune (20 page)

“
Dodge number
two.”

She turned to him. “If you must know, I
don’t really have any reason to go back to Atlanta.”

“
How about a
job?”

“
The lounge?” She waved him
off. “Oh, poo. That’s not important.”

“
It puts money in your
pocket.”

Lacy expelled a sigh and thrust her
attention back out the window. “Money isn’t everything, you
know.”

“
True.” Malcolm considered
the woman beside him, the shift in mood. “You could always consider
my job offer for the hotel, though you’ll need something in the
interim. Maybe they’re hiring at Whiskey Joe’s.”

“
Oh,” she blew out her
breath, “I don’t want to be in the bar business anymore. I think
I’d like a day job.”

“
Well then we need to find
you a day position. Until the hotel’s built, that is. Because after
that, you’re mine.”

Lacy latched onto him with a grin—one
that stirred him more deeply than he expected. Malcolm realized he
was beginning to really like this woman. Beyond her looks, Lacy was
like no other woman he’d ever met. She was beautiful, yes, with a
body that could rock a man’s world, but she had spunk. She was
fresh and candid. She didn’t lie or hide things, she didn’t play
games—other than her affinity for flirting. She seemed utterly
transparent, as though her closet was bare, no secrets or skeletons
in sight.

But Malcolm wasn’t fooling himself. A
girl who ran away at age seventeen with an eighteen-year-old young
man certainly wasn’t an innocent. Landing on the sidewalks of
Atlanta, forced to fend for herself after the breakup, she had to
have been exposed to the sleazier side of life. How was it she
didn’t bear the scars?

“
We’re almost there,” Lacy
announced, and shifted in her seat.

Malcolm could tell she was excited.
“How long has it been since you last visited Zack’s
Falls?”

“
My word!” She flattened a
palm to her breast. “Since I was a kid, really.” Her blue eyes
turned fluid with memory as he watched her mentally calculate time
and distance and her life since then. The excitement of
recollection that had opened her expression slowly closed. “It’s
been a long time...”

Sounded to him like she missed the
place, a sentiment he could fully understand. This area was
beautiful. It was peaceful, homey, a great place to raise a
family—if one were so inclined. But kids were never part of his
plan. Not because he didn’t like them, but carting them from hotel
to hotel didn’t appeal to him. Kids needed stability, sameness.
Like his childhood in California, kids needed a community and a
world they could rely on to stay consistent, parents to be there
for them as they navigated their way through life. Malcolm’s
lifestyle was anything but.

Pulling onto the property, he rolled
over the wooden bridge and said, “Let’s make this afternoon
memorable.”

Lacy squeezed her hands
together and rewarded him with a delicious smile.
“
Yes
, let’s
do.”

Parking next to Nick’s sedan, Malcolm
jumped out and circled the hood to collect Lacy and their picnic
bag. Grabbing the blanket he’d snagged from his hotel, he slung it
over his arm and held out his free elbow. “May I?”

Lacy took his arm he closed the door
behind her. “You thought of everything, didn’t you?”

“
While I’m no sissy, sitting
in the dirt is not my idea of fun.”

She laughed gaily. “Are you sure you’re
going to make it through the woods? There are spiders and bugs, you
know.”

Malcolm liked her tease. Running his
gaze slowly down her legs, landing on her black boots, he
considered them next to the hiking boots he’d opted for and
retorted, “If you can make it, I can make it.”

“
Let’s do it!”

“
By all means,” he said,
“let’s do.”

Lacy led the way through the meadow
adjoining the Ladd homestead, pointing to the meadow, the river,
the mountains beyond as she explained to Malcolm that it was all
part of Ladd property, only this section was more gentle than where
they were headed. The falls were part of the property in the area
of forest that bordered the USFS. Public land, Malcolm had learned,
woven between private parcels throughout the Appalachian Mountains.
Ladd Springs had scores of trails and creeks, and if you didn’t
know where you were going, it was easy to get lost. Higher up the
river was her favorite spot—and according to Lacy, the biggest
waterfalls for a hundred miles—Zack’s Falls.

“
It’s definitely a beautiful
tract of land,” he said. “From what I’ve seen on my hikes with Nick
and Delaney, it’s a real treasure.”

“
Brings back so many
memories for me.” She stopped, crouching down to admire a pretty
purple flower, yellow lines running down the length of its narrow,
droopy petals. Cradling the orchid-like bloom in her fingers, she
said, “My momma used to grow these in her garden.”

“
Is that an
iris?”

Sporting a wide grin, she looked up at
him through squinted eyes. “Now how does a man know anything about
flowers?”

He’s given enough of them
away to know what he’s paying for
. But
Malcolm wasn’t about to introduce the image of him and other women
to Lacy. That was the furthest thing he wanted from her mind. “I’m
a man of education. In fact, that’s the Tennessee state flower,” he
told her, recalling the page from the airline magazine, an article
detailing facts about the state as his plane touched down in
Knoxville.

She stood. “You’re right.”

Hitting the trail, they wound through a
forest of trees and bushes, the temperature several degrees cooler
now that they were out of the sun. For the next half-hour, Lacy
entertained him with stories from her youth, memorable moments she
shared with Jeremiah and Delaney when they were kids—before the
trouble started—from horseback riding to jumping from the falls.
Once they hit high school, everything changed. Annie and Delaney
went to war, Jeremiah turned tomcat and began hanging with a bad
crowd, and running stir-crazy down the same old dusty country
roads, she’d been itching to break free of it all. Apart from the
forest, there’d been nothing for her here and thus, she
left.

Navigating the fairly level trails was
easy and Malcolm enjoyed the exercise. It wasn’t until they arrived
at the river that things became tricky. He heard the water before
he saw it. About fifty feet wide, the river was littered with rocks
and boulders. There were a few decaying trunks jutting over from
the sides, a few tangled in pools of water. After a slight drop
off, ripples of white water rode the surface as the river ran free
and fast.

Malcolm reveled in the sound of rushing
water. “It’s beautiful.”

“
Told you!” Lacy trotted
over to the water’s edge and tugged off her boots.

Whoa, did he miss a
sign?
Skinny dipping begins
here
.

She set the pair of boots aside, high
and dry on a large, flat surface of a boulder. Standing
bare-footed, she pointed at his feet. “You’ll need to take off your
shoes.”

“
Is that all?” he joked,
hoping it wasn’t.

She giggled. “For now.”

Desire zipped through his loins. Lacy
sounded serious.

Setting bag and blanket on a different
rock, he quickly removed his boots and socks and set them alongside
hers. The stone was uneven and grainy beneath his bare
feet.

“
You might want to roll up
your jeans,” she advised.

“
Am I going to be wading
through the river?”

“
Climbing,” she clarified.
“But many of the cliffs have pools of water within them.” She
shrugged. “It might easier, is all.”

“
You’re the boss,” he
said—much to her delight—and rolled up his pant legs.

“
Let’s go!”

In amazement, Malcolm watched as Lacy
hopped up the rocks, climbing from boulder to boulder agile as a
deer. Despite himself, his gaze searched for a glimpse up her
skirt, but none came. She was too quick and now too far away. “Wait
up!” he called after her.

Lacy traversed the rocky
terrain swiftly, while Malcolm managed the climb with no small
degree of effort. It wasn’t that he was out of shape, more like he
feared losing his grip as he scaled one rocky ledge to the next.
Add the bag and blanket in hand—the blanket now stuffed inside the
bag—and he had his work cut out for him. But if getting naked next
to Lacy in the waterfalls was his reward, then the trouble would be
worth it.
Worth every
second
.

Climbing for what seemed like an hour,
Malcolm seized hold of a triangular-shaped stone and hauled himself
up a narrow passageway between two massive boulders. Creating a
foothold in a jagged crevice—heart hammering—he coordinated his
movements and hoisted himself up, invigorated by the heavy pound of
water above.

Sweating, muscles pumped, he glanced up
to see Lacy staring down at him with a pert smirk. “You gonna make
it?” she asked loudly, her voice competing against the roar of
water.

Malcolm grunted. “I’ll tell you in a
minute,” he muttered, pushing up from his knees. Clearing the wet,
gray stones to reach her level, he surveyed the surroundings and
let out a low whistle. “This is some kind of beautiful.”

“
Isn’t it?” She spoke as a
proud momma would of her baby.

“
It is.” He turned to her,
captivated by her eyes. Sunlight lit up the intricate blue layers,
happiness took care of the rest. “The guests will love it, if
they’re able to manage the climb.”

Lacy giggled. “No problem.” She turned
and pointed. “The trail is right over there. They can walk up, if
they prefer.”

Malcolm seized upon an
exposed section of the trail. It paralleled the river bank.
Was she kidding
? He
turned. “And you made me climb up rocks? Carrying a bag of food and
blanket for your soft tush to sit on?”

She laughed and held up her hands, as
though warding off an oncoming beast. “Now wait a minute—you said
you wanted to explore my favorite picnic spot.”

“
I didn’t say I had to climb
myself to a near heart attack to get there!” He went for her, but
she darted away from him. Malcolm backed her to the edge of the
rock.

With no place left to run, she dished
out a quick pout. “Are you mad at me?”

“
No.” Malcolm pulled her
close. “But I will exact my revenge.”

She covered her mouth with both hands
and laughed.

Drawing her hands away, Malcolm leaned
down and kissed her smack on the lips. Nothing involved, he simply
wanted a taste of her incredibly fun spirit. “You owe
me.”

Lacy’s eyes shuttered. “I do?” she
asked breathlessly.

“
You do.” He gave her a
brief kiss but pulled himself away. Now was not the
time.

Malcolm scanned the
landscape. The crashing water reverberated inside him, energizing
every cell in his body. Unable to see upriver past the falls, he
turned and inhaled the view downstream. From this elevation, it was
a picturesque panorama. The river cut and turned as though carving
a swath through the forest. Rocks looked as if they had been
carelessly tossed in the river’s path and now lay stuck within its
hold. Beyond the wall of trees on either side, blue filled in the
sky above. Malcolm could spend some time in a place like this.
Quiet, peaceful, yet rugged and challenging. He turned and took in
the woman beside him, her expression wistful, dreamy. He could
spend that time with
her
.

“
Fond memories?” he
asked.

“
Yes,” she said quietly. “A
lot of them.”

“
You’d make a great hiking
guide.”

Lacy tilted her chin up to him. “You
think so?”

“
I do. You know the land,
you climb it well. And you love it. It’s the perfect combination in
a guide.” In a woman, as well, he mused, but kept that observation
to himself.

She cocked her head to the side and
said, “Maybe I’ll apply for the job of mountain guide instead of
guest-greeter.”

“
You do that.” Ready to
settle in for their visit, Malcolm checked his watch. It was almost
one-thirty.
Already
? Hot, sweaty, he was tempted to jump in and cool off right
here. “How much further?”

“
None. We’re here. This is
my spot.”

He grinned. “Best news I’ve heard all
day.”

Lacy chose an area off to the side,
close to the deepest pool of water but out of the direct spray from
the falls by several yards. Partially shaded by the trees, the
rocks were level, the spot semi-private and affording them a nice
view of both the gorge of waterfalls crashing through a V in the
boulders and the river below. Invigorating sound of water to his
right, calm and winding scenery of river flow to his left, he’d
have to remember this spot. It would make the perfect location to
make love to her.