Rocky Mountain Hero (To Love Again Book 3)
Read Rocky Mountain Hero (To Love Again Book 3) Online
Authors: Kate Fargo
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HERO
To Love Again - Book 3
Kate Fargo
Rocky Mountain Hero
Copyright
©
2015 by Kate Fargo
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or organizations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner, except as allowable under “fair use”, without the express written permission of the author.
You can follow the author and learn about future releases by visiting her on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/AuthorKateFargo
To receive notices of upcoming releases and early discounts for readers,
Click here to get the Newsletter
Cover design by
StunningBookCovers.com
~ ~ ~
This book is dedicated to all the Issy’s I have known,
Who were courageous enough to take a leap of faith,
And who - against all odds - were willing to love again.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER ONE
Isabel’s teeth chattered and she shifted her position again, stretching her leg to relieve the cramps. The lean-to sheltered her from the snow, but the temperature had dropped sharply. She’d found an extra scarf in the backpack and wrapped it around her face, but she was sitting in the snow and the chill was seeping up her spine.
Where could Tray be? If he was so skilled in the mountains, why wasn’t he back already? Her heart hurt. It had been a long time since she’d felt a connection with a man. And it had come so quickly with Tray. She often counseled clients that you couldn’t trust that kind of connection, but - heaven help her - she wanted to trust this. She closed her eyes, bringing up a vision of his sexy body in the bath last night. How his biceps had glistened with oil, his eyes shone in the candlelight, how he’d whispered her name …
Did she hear her name? Eyes wide, she leaned forward to the opening, pushing her hat away from her ears. Straining to hear through the wind, she yelled for Tray. Then yelled again, and again. She heard something over the howling snow and yelled again.
“Isabel.” Tray’s voice was faint and she couldn’t tell what direction he was calling from. She kept calling his name and soon he was calling back, sounding closer, until finally he emerged from the blowing snow only two feet from her face.
“Where have you been? I was so worried.” Isabel’s voice cracked with emotion as she crawled out of the shelter.
Tray was caked with snow, head to foot, and he peeked out at her through snow-covered lashes. “I found the cave. I walked right into the rock face, and I found it.”
She almost jumped into his arms. He wrapped strong arms around her, squeezing her tight.
“Hey, you did a good job with the lean-to.”
Isabel laughed and surveyed her handiwork. The snow had already covered the temporary roof.
Hoisting the pack over his shoulder, Tray reached for her hand. “Let’s get going.”
Slipping her hand into his, she bit her lower lip to stop the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She’d been so afraid that she might be out here all alone for the night, but Tray had come back for her. She couldn’t remember when she’d been so happy to see anyone.
He led her through the trees, the snow falling so heavily that she could barely see him at the end of his arm. He seemed to go by feel more than anything, because it was impossible to even see the ground. After about ten minutes, they came to the rock wall. She couldn’t stop shivering, the snow pelting them relentlessly and driving almost horizontally into the rock face.
“Almost there.” Tray kept a firm grasp on her hand and guided her along the rock face for another ten minutes until they reached an opening.
She stepped inside and stopped. It was like stepping into a vacuum. The wind no longer buffeted her and seemed to howl at a great distance. The snow had stopped. In front of her was pitch blackness. Turning slowly back toward the opening, all she could see was a wall of swirling snow. Tray brushed against her and was fumbling in the pack again. Suddenly she was happy he was such a boy scout.
“Flashlight,” he said triumphantly, switching it on as he yanked it out. He swept the beam into the cave, which seemed positively cozy.
It looked to be only a few feet deep and only four feet wide at the opening. She followed Tray as he moved toward the back of the cave, and then noticed that the cave kept going.
Tray swung the light around the second room of the cave. “It’s just as I remember.”
It was circular and Isabel judged it to be about twelve or fourteen feet wide. She stepped through the arch into the second room of the cave and the air immediately felt warmer. A musty acrid smell assaulted her nostrils. “What’s that smell?”
“Something might have died in here,” Tray said, sweeping the light slowly around the perimeter, throwing light into each corner. “What do we have here?” he cried, spot-lighting a large pile of wood.
“Where would the wood come from?” Smell or not, Isabel was warming up to the idea of spending the night in this cave.
“When we were kids, we used to have parties here sometimes. My guess is local kids still use it.” Passing the flashlight to Isabel, he started dragging wood to where the remnants of the last fire were still visible on the rock floor.
Isabel watched as he moved competently to start the fire. Within minutes, he had a strong fire going. He was in complete control and she found she liked him this way. It gave her a different outlook on this beautiful boy she’d found. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d been lost on the mountainside on her own. When she’d been hunkered down inside her pitiful lean-to, she’d been terrified that she might have to spend the night there alone.
She had very little experience in the outdoors. When she was younger, she and Chet had tried camping, but with two small children it had seemed like an awful lot of trouble. They’d gone car camping, pulling into a campground where they would park right beside their neighbors. Even worse was having to endure Chet’s curses and impatient mutterings while he struggled to put the tent trailer up. Meanwhile, she’d have her hands full with two tired and hungry little girls. She’d never understood the appeal.
Now, in this cozy cave, safe from the storm, with a man who looked like he just dropped in off the cover of “Rugged Outdoorsman”, she thought there might be something to the camping thing after all.
CHAPTER TWO
Tray had the fire roaring and arranged a small pile of wood close by to keep it going. From the pack, he’d pulled the blanket from the picnic and the left over food, water, and even a little wine.
Tray’s magical bag. She was certainly glad he knew what he was doing in the mountains – she would have come walking today with a couple of crackers in her pocket.
“How long will the storm will last?” she asked, settling in beside him on the blanket.
“Hard to say.” A smile tugged the corners of his lips upwards. “You have an appointment you don’t want to miss?”
“No,” she laughed, playfully punching his shoulder. “Just curious. Now that we’re snuggled away in here, I could stay all night.”
“Oh, there’s no question there; we’ll have to stay all night. It’s already dark and I don’t think the snow will stop for a while. We should be able to make it down in daylight.”
Isabel pulled closer to the fire as a shiver ran up her back. It wasn’t the cold, it was the excitement. She hadn’t felt this alive in years. Her day to day life of going to work, making dinner, doing laundry and then doing it all over again the next day didn’t include being stuck on mountainsides with handsome men in howling snowstorms.
She wondered if she could design a seduction scene here in the cave, realizing it would have to be a little primitive.
She studied Tray’s face as the shadows of the fire danced over it. The set of his jaw made her heart race and she was surprised at how secure she felt tucked in here beside him. If someone had told her a few days ago that she’d be spending the night in a cave, she would have laughed out loud. This was just what the doctor ordered, she thought, even if she was the doctor that had ordered it. Aside from great sex, just stepping outside of her normal routine was doing a world of good. And she was so far outside her comfort zone that she knew it would have long-lasting effects. She leaned into Tray and exhaled a deep sigh.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Just… decompressing, I guess. Were you scared coming down that mountain? I mean, when I was out there putting together that lean-to, thinking that we’d be sleeping out in the middle of the storm…” Isabel trailed off at the thought of what might have happened to them.
“I was scared, too.”
Isabel turned sharply to see his face as he spoke. He was admitting to being scared?
“Surprised?”
“Frankly, yes.”
“That I was scared?”
“That you would tell me that you were.”
He chuckled softly. “The days of Neanderthal men are gone, aren’t they? Anyway, mostly I was scared at the thought of keeping you out in the woods all night. Of putting you in danger. As for me, I’ve done it before.”
“You have?” Isabel couldn’t imagine anyone sleeping outside on purpose.
“Sure. When we were kids, we used to come to the mountains every fall. My parents would set up camp and we’d spend our days hiking, and later, when we were older, my dad would take us hunting.” Tray’s voice took on a sing-song quality as he reminisced about his childhood with his father.
“He made sure we were always well prepared. We could never go into the woods unless we had packed everything we might need.”
Isabel reached up to stroke the side of his face. “That worked well for us today.”
“Continues to work well for us tonight,” he smiled. “One year, he sent Jesse and I out to spend the night on our own. I was about twelve. I remember being terrified at first, but of course, I couldn’t let Jesse know. I’m sure he was just as frightened as I was, but to this day he won’t admit it.”
“You just had to go out into the woods, on your own?” Isabel couldn’t imagine a boy of twelve out wandering through the woods on his own. “Did you have a tent with you?”
“That spring, we’d learned survival skills at scouts …”
“You
were
a boy scout!”
“Hey, every kid in the country was a boy scout. It was a blessing to get off the farm for a few hours. Anyway, do you want to hear this story, or not?” Tray raised his eyebrows in a threatening, yet comic way.
Isabel snuggled into the crook of his arm and let his words wash over her. The intimacy of the cave was somewhat magical and she was starting to relax.
“We’d spent the spring learning survival skills and in the summer, our father taught us orienteering, using a compass but also using the stars for navigation. That weekend, he gave Jesse and I a map and sent us out for the night on our own. We had matches, water, a warm change of clothes, and a compass.”
Tray paused and Isabel shifted against him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him before continuing.