Falling for Mr. Wrong (15 page)

“Can’t, or won’t?”

The question stopped him cold. “You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.” She gestured toward the pine trees. “To them.”

For the first time, he wondered if she might have had an ulterior motive to bringing him out here. The land was more personal to her than he had realized, and it occurred to him—a little too late, perhaps—that she might have her own feelings about the success of his efforts.

He groped for an explanation, some way to put into words his driving need to make this move a success. “My family doesn’t do things small. My brother Brit—well, you have to meet him to understand. He practically raised my brother and sister and I, turned around my dad’s company, made millions of dollars before he turned thirty. My sister Melissa is a damn genius. She practically speaks computer. And my brother Joe is being recognized this year as the New York Architect of the Year.”

“So this is all a competition?”

“No, it’s not like that.” He struggled to put words to the fear in his gut, the uneasy sense that failure was just around the corner, waiting for him at every turn. “I came out here to get a fresh start, and then when I talked to Herriot it was like seeing Jenna’s pregnancy test all over again. Like nothing mattered but that little pink line. One of my mom’s friends gave me my first construction job. I started my company with my share of the money from my dad’s company—money that Brit made when he took it public. If I get this contract it will be something I’ve done all on my own.”

Kelsey regarded him silently. A gust of wind blew through the pine trees and rustled the tents. He shivered. Before now, he’d never realized quite how deeply he wanted this success. How much he needed it.

“I understand.” She turned to unzip the flap of her tent.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Bed,” she replied. “I’m going to try to get in a few hours on the trail in the morning before the kids are up.”

He pushed to his feet. They had said too much, both of them, and he felt awkward and unsure. But at the same time, he knew he couldn’t let her turn away.

“Stay with me.” He caught her elbow and tugged gently, spinning her around. After only a second of protest she melted into him, her arms draping around his neck like a delicate chain holding him fast.

They were different tonight. When they slid inside the tent their bodies moved languidly, taking pleasure in a way that felt soft, unhurried, and effortless. The nylon of her sleeping bag swished under her back. He covered her with his body and they made love under the stars. Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say.

Afterward, Ross got his clothes and went back to his own tent in silence. But he lay awake for a long time, staring up into the darkness and listening to the wind caress the trees. At that moment, the differences between them couldn’t have been starker. Kelsey’s determination to protect her father—whatever the cost—had resulted in her utter refusal to get close to other people. His life was precisely the opposite: a series of attachments he couldn’t seem to break. An ex-wife he still counted as one of his best friends. Kids for whom he’d do just about anything. Siblings back home who—for better or worse—would always be part of his life.

But if they were so damn different, why did it feel as though losing her would mean losing a piece of his heart?

Chapter Sixteen

Harvey Stagefeather lived at the end of a long gravel road, the turnoff for which was three miles down another gravel road. Haphazard wires hung from a series of poles that Ross was fairly certain were not electric industry standard, and when they reached the house he was unsurprised to see an enormous satellite dish in the front yard, and an antenna big enough to contact Mars on the roof.

The man himself was a bit of a surprise. Ross had envisioned everything from a hermit, complete with bushy gray beard and suspenders, to a Native American elder, with long gray hair and a piercing gaze. Harvey, it turned out, was a small, well-groomed man in his sixties, with a large nose and close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Despite his surroundings he wore a pair of neat khaki pants, a white button-down shirt, and a wool suit-vest.

And he carried a shotgun.

Upside down.

Before Ross could react, Kelsey had grabbed the handle of her door. “You stay in the car,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Even as he began to protest, she was opening the door, holding her hands high over her head. “Mr. Stagefeather?” she called.

Ross threw the car into park, silently uttering every swear word he could think of in his mind. “Kids,” he snapped, “stay in the car.” He opened his door slowly, mimicking Kelsey’s posture with his hands above his head. Despite the absurdity of the situation, adrenaline began coursing through him, sending his heart beating in a crazy, staccato pattern. All he could see was the gun, still clutched in the old man’s hands.

“Who are you?” the incongruous figure demanded. “What do you want?” Stagefeather stared balefully at Kelsey. Ross wondered if he realized that he had the barrel of the gun pointed directly at his own foot.

Keeping her hands high above her head, Kelsey called back. “My name is Kelsey Hanson. I’m here with my friend Ross Bencher. He talked to you about coming by this weekend.”

“Kelsey?” He squinted at the car. “Ross Bencher? From New York?” He brightened. “I wouldn’t have recognized you. You look like a native.”

With obvious relief, the older man set the gun against the front porch railing, the muzzle pointing down. The heavy stock of the gun made it unstable, and Harvey had to lurch to keep it from falling down. With a sigh, he flipped it around and set it with the butt on the ground.

Ross peered down at himself, realizing that after two nights on the trail, he did have a nice thick shadow on his chin—he’d always been able to grow a beard in a weekend—and a small collection of stains on his shorts. His hair likely tufted from his head the way hair did when it hadn’t been washed for a couple of days, and his hiking boots, which had once been miserable and stiff, were now scuffed and covered with a layer of dirt.

“Mr. Stagefeather, you remember that we talked about my coming by this weekend, don’t you?” Though he suspected that the old man was unlikely to use it, he kept a watchful eye on the weapon even as he edged closer to the porch.

Stagefeather nodded. “Of course. Did you bring your children?”

“I did, but they’re in the car. Hiding from your gun.” Ross fixed him with a dark gaze.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that.” Stagefeather lifted a hand to his face in shame. “I get a lot of crazy folk this way. Can’t be too careful.”

“Of course not,” Kelsey said, her voice soothing. “Any chance you could put that gun somewhere inside, though?”

He paused to consider it, then gave a nod. “Good idea. You don’t have to worry, though. I’ve never really liked guns. I just keep it around for the effect. It’s not loaded.”

With a quick turn, he had grabbed the gun and headed inside. Ross shot a look at Kelsey, not entirely comforted by Stagefeather’s confession. “What the hell were you thinking, jumping out of the car like that?” he hissed. “You could have been killed.”

“I had a feeling it was a bluff when I noticed him holding the gun upside down,” she whispered back.

Not yet ready to laugh about the situation, Ross jogged back to the car and poked his head inside the window. “Nothing to worry about, kids,” he said.

Julia’s eyes were wide and round. “Was that a gun? I’ve never seen a real gun before.”

“Dad, I think maybe we should leave,” Luke said. He pushed up his glasses with an unsteady hand. Ross had a vision of punching Stagefeather in the gut for scaring his kids.

Matt was grinning from ear to ear. “Did you see that? Kelsey totally jumped out of the car—while it was
moving
. Did you see that?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Ross replied, now ready to add strangling Kelsey to his to-do list. “Kelsey, get back in the car. I can call him later.”

“Don’t be silly,” Kelsey said. “He’s not going to hurt anyone.”

“I can come back another time, by myself,” Ross said, not yet ready to walk away from his kids. “Or meet him somewhere. Somewhere he can’t carry a gun.”

“He’s a harmless old man,” Kelsey said. “Just have him keep his hands on the table at all times and you’ll be fine.”

She had a tiny twinkle in her eyes, and Ross was suddenly furious all over again at her nonchalance. “I can’t believe you jumped out of a moving car to face a man with a gun.”

“He was never going to shoot me.”

The logic of her words was utterly uncompelling. “You didn’t know that.”

“I had a pretty good guess.” Her expression softened at the horrified look on his face. “Ross, I travel alone all the time. I’ve dealt with people far crazier than our Mr. Stagefeather.”

He knew that was true, and perhaps that was why he was so furious. The thought of her heading out alone suddenly took on a stark new meaning.

She held up a hand to forestall the lecture he was obviously poised to deliver and angled her head toward the children, calling his attention to their rapt audience. “Don’t. Not now. Just go talk to him. I’ll stay out here with the kids.” She opened the back door and wedged herself into the seat next to Julia. “That guy is more scared of us than we are of him,” she told them.

Julia grabbed her around the neck and squeezed hard, hoisting herself into Kelsey’s lap. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m pretty scared of him.”

Kelsey looked up at Ross and motioned with one hand. “Go talk to him,” she said.

He stared at them for a long moment, unable to convince himself to move.

“Go,” Kelsey repeated. We’ll be fine.”

“Don’t get out of the car. I’ll just be a few minutes.” He turned to walk back toward the house, the tableau of Kelsey and the kids etched into his brain.

A sick feeling lingered in his gut. He wasn’t scared of Stagefeather. Not really. He’d just realized that in two weeks, Kelsey would be leaving on a dangerous journey halfway across the world, and he’d have to watch her go. He’d have to watch her leave knowing that she would throw herself out of a moving car, or across an avalanche, or down a mountainside, to protect someone she loved.

And there was nothing he could do to stop her.

…

Harvey turned out to be a gentle soul who had moved into the cabin about eight years before, when his father died and left him the land. He had worked as a pharmacist in Fort Collins before taking early retirement so he could move to the land his father had loved. Though he had developed his own attachment to the area, he still wasn’t quite sure about being so far away from civilization.

They talked for about twenty minutes. Ross told him about their camping trip, and Harvey described all the different species of birds and animals he’d seen on the land. They never mentioned the resort, but Harvey spoke briefly about his financial troubles—the tax bills he couldn’t pay, and the retirement savings he was already spending down—and when they said good-bye, Harvey shook his hand firmly and suggested they talk business next time they met. He admitted to doing a little research into Ross’s background and said he was impressed—as Herriot had suspected he might be—by the stories he’d read about Hollyhock.

It was all falling into place, and Ross couldn’t have felt worse about it.

They hit cell phone coverage about an hour down the road, and Ross listened to his voice mail through his Bluetooth while he drove. The kids had fallen asleep within a few minutes of turning off the gravel road onto the blacktop. He suspected they’d sleep hard for a few nights to come. Kelsey stared out the window at the pine forests and brown hills that raced beside the road. The two of them had reached an impasse. He didn’t know what to say to her and she didn’t appear to want him to say anything at all.

The first message was from Herriot. The very sound of his voice made Ross shudder.

The second was a shock. It was his brother Brit.

“Hey Ross, calling to see if you’ll be around next week. Tori and I are flying in for a meeting about a potential business opportunity. All very last-minute. Wondered if we could bring Paddy and stay at your place. Would be good to see you and the kids.” A baby began to wail in the background, and then Ross heard Tori yell, “Say hi for me.”

“Right,” Brit’s voice continued, a mix of exasperation and amusement. “So that’s basically my life now. Talk to you soon.”

The message ended. Ross stared at the phone and shook his head. Brit and Tori, here? Why had it never occurred to him that his family might travel to Denver to see him?

Out of the corner of his eye, Ross watched as Kelsey relaxed her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes. He wondered what they would think of her. He wondered what Jenna would think of her.

God, he was really starting to lose his mind. He couldn’t introduce her to any of them. He couldn’t see her again. This weekend had to be the last.

People do this,
she’d said, that day at her house.

Not him. Not a divorced father of three. He didn’t have crazy affairs. He didn’t make love to women who were headed up the deadliest mountain in the world.

“When do you leave?” he asked.

She did not open her eyes. “Two weeks.”

“Will we see you again?”

“Probably not. Things are going to be busy.”

“We can find the time.”

“I don’t want to see the kids. It will only make it harder.”

He wasn’t sure if she meant it would make it harder for her to leave, or it would make it harder for them if she didn’t come back. Either way, he didn’t like it.

“Is there any chance—” He cut himself off, knowing the answer.

She reached over, and for a second, her hand brushed against his leg. Then it was back in her lap, and he could barely tell if she had ever touched him at all. “If you really want, you can call me,” she said. “I’ll be around.”