Yellowstone Romance Series - Bundle (# 2-5) (94 page)

“Would you have done it?” he asked suddenly.

Jana’s forehead wrinkled. She took the bottle from him, careful to avoid touching him. “Done what?”

“Stayed in the past.”  Dan placed his hand on her knee, and Jana took a hasty drink from the bottle.

“I . . . I don’t know,” she stammered.
If I had met a man like you, I might have.

“Jana, I have to find that time travel device.” His grip on her knee intensified. His facial features took on a surreal intensity. For a split second, it was Daniel who knelt beside her.

In the valley below, the collective oohs and aahs of the crowd pulled Jana’s gaze away from him. Old Faithful was putting on its timeless show. The enormous fountain of water shot high up in the air, enveloped in a veil-like cloud of steam in the cool evening breeze. From their high vantage point, it seemed even grander than watching the spectacle from ground level.  Dan removed his hand from Jana’s knee, and stood to his feet.

Although her eyes focused on one of nature’s most amazing displays, her awareness remained fully on the man beside her. He was asking the impossible, but how could she not try and help him?

Chapter 4

“It’s right around here somewhere. It’s been well concealed for two hundred years.” Dan swept a large stick through some dense brush and foliage from the overgrown vegetation, pushing aside the tall grasses with his foot. Jana stood right behind him. She’d been looking around with wide eyes when he’d suddenly left the trail just before they reached the top of the mountain.

They’d made good time coming up the steep Purple Mountain Trail. Dan continued to be impressed with Jana. He’d been pleasantly surprised yesterday when he found out that she was not only a hiker, but had backpacked in the park extensively. After watching Old Faithful go off last night, they’d strolled the back geyser basin until the sun finally dropped behind the mountains. He still couldn’t put his finger on the reason why she seemed so edgy around him.

Jana had relaxed somewhat when she began to tell him about his ancestor, how Aimee had loved Yellowstone, and found her destiny when she went back in time. The way Jana talked about her gave Dan a deeper understanding of his own love for this park.

Your gut was telling you something that first time you saw her
. He still couldn’t explain what had drawn him to Jana that afternoon at the Inn. Fate. Karma. Whatever it was, the more time he spent with Jana Evans, the more he liked her, and not just because she was a pretty girl and looked good in tight jeans. She was different from other girls he’d dated. Quiet. Reserved. Serious. Maybe a bit too serious. Over the years, he’d gotten so tired of women acting flirty and pretentious, painting their faces with makeup and changing the color of their hair more frequently than the clothes they wore, it seemed.

Jana was down-to-earth. Natural. With the sun shining on her auburn hair just right, some strands shimmered almost copper, like the coat of a sleek chestnut horse. Her amber eyes were as soft and expressive as a doe’s, and he got the impression that there was a lot behind those eyes that she kept hidden.  That she was an experienced backpacker was like icing on the cake.

Dan cursed silently. He had his future to think about. He couldn’t allow his hormones or romantic notions interfere with what he had to do. Memories of the most pleasant evening he’d spent in the company of a girl in a long time sent heat creeping through him now. On their walk the night before, they’d passed several couples – both young and old - holding hands, and some openly showing their affection for each other. Twilight in Yellowstone seemed to bring out the romantic in a lot of people. Dan had firmly kept his arms at his sides and his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. The urge to hold Jana’s hand while they talked and took in the scenery, to pretend he was on a real date, had hit him with such force, he finally cut their stroll short and headed back in the direction of the lodge.

How many times over the past two months had he dialed her number, only to lose his nerve and hang up after the first ring? Visions of her had tormented him late into the night for weeks after their one meeting, visions of her sitting alone and sad amongst a sea of people at the Inn’s lobby. He simply hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, and not because they shared a common link. He’d found the perfect excuse to finally bring her back here, and guilt nagged him to no end. After spending a nice evening in her company, his initial feelings for her from their first encounter had only intensified.

He couldn’t allow himself to act on his attraction to her. At least not at the moment. Once he knew his future was secure, then perhaps . . .

“How did you ever find this spot?” Jana asked from behind him. “I mean, we’re off trail, and there’s overgrown brambles everywhere.”

Dan turned to look over his shoulder at her. Shrugging, he said, “Luck? Something just drew me here.”

He straightened, and gazed out at the vast valley far below them. In this location, they stood higher than National Park Mountain on the other side of the valley, and could easily see the smoke plumes from the lower geyser basins ten miles to the south. The green-carpeted Madison Valley appeared below them to the west. Dan’s gaze followed the Gibbon River, as it swept in a large U-shape arch into the valley. The Firehole roared out of the canyon to the south. The two rivers looked like tiny ribbons of shimmering blue, then met up to converge into the slightly wider Madison.

“This looks like a spot where I’d want to be buried,” Dan said, grinning at Jana. Somehow she didn’t seem convinced that he had found Aimee’s final resting place here. She glanced around, doubt etched on her face.

“You don’t think Aimee would have wanted to be buried somewhere where she could oversee this entire valley?” he prodded.

Jana slowly shook her head. “I can’t believe Aimee wanted to be buried anywhere,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?” He frowned. An alarming jolt of adrenaline shot through his system at her words. What if he couldn’t convince her?

Jana shrugged. She looked at him, but only briefly, before her focus returned to the dense shrubbery behind him. “She always talked about having her ashes scattered over the Lower Falls. That’s what she would have wanted. I think Daniel would have known that.”

“Maybe it’s not something they discussed,” he suggested quickly. “Two young people, recently married, wouldn’t have their minds on death and dying so soon into their relationship, would they?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I don’t know,” she muttered.

In an effort to divert her attention away from her thoughts of doubt, Dan resumed his scouring of the underbrush.

“There,” he called suddenly. He pried apart the heavy undergrowth, to give Jana a better view. She scrambled up next to him to stare into the shaded area he’d uncovered. Dan drew in a deep breath. The air was infused with the pungent, rich smell of earth mixed with the soft scent of lavender from Jana’s hair. He knelt to the ground, and swept his hand over some rocks that had obviously been placed there. They were not random, as one would find them in nature, but placed in a neat cluster butted up against the trunk of a lodgepole pine. Decades of decaying vegetation had left behind a rich soil, which now covered up most of the area, but he managed to clear away enough dirt for Jana to see the carved inscription in one of the rocks. Natural weathering had obscured the writing, but the name
Aimee
, and the number
1811
was clearly legible. There appeared to be more carving, but age had weathered the rock to the point that it was illegible. Jana gasped.

“I left it as undisturbed as I found it the first time,” Dan said. “I didn’t want someone else to stumble onto this spot.”

Jana held her hand over her mouth, and her eyes pooled with tears. Quickly, she stepped away from the spot, and turned her back. Dan rose to his feet. Hesitating, he placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said softly. Jana stiffened. She took a step forward, away from him, and his grip tightened in an effort to make her stay. She froze. What would she do if he pulled her into his arms? Turning in his direction, her large amber eyes stared up at him. Dan swallowed, and he dropped his arm. Involuntarily, he took a step closer. He breathed in the lavender scent of her hair, the clean smell of freshly laundered clothes, and a subtle hint of a flowery fragrance he couldn’t name.

“You still miss her, don’t you?” he whispered. His hands clenched into fists at his side. God, he wanted to pull her to him, wipe away the pain in her eyes, kiss her full lips. He couldn’t risk it. Not now.
Get your mind on straight, Osborne. You can’t lose your focus
.

Jana nodded almost imperceptibly, and inhaled a shuddering breath. Abruptly, she moved around him, and scrambled up the slight incline back to the trail. He stood, rooted to the spot, and simply watched her. What was going through her mind? Did she believe that this could be Aimee’s final resting place? He’d been quite surprised himself when he stumbled onto this spot a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t know whether to believe if this was a grave, but it was the perfect story to lure Jana back to Yellowstone.  She seemed quite skeptical.
Is your future worth deceiving her?

He heaved a sigh, and followed Jana up the hill, his mind wracked with guilt.

“How do you know that’s even a grave?” she asked, her voice raspy, when he’d barely caught up with her. She swiped a hasty hand over her eyes. “It could be something else entirely. Maybe Daniel simply carved her name in a rock, and dated it.”

“You’re right,” he conceded. “But what if it is a grave? I don’t want to gamble with my life like that. If I have the means to secure my own future, I want the chance to do that, Jana.” At least that last part wasn’t a lie. He stepped in front of her, and gripped her upper arms for emphasis. “Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” she said, after a prolonged silence. He reluctantly released her arms. She glanced down the incline, toward the now-trampled brambles. Finally, she looked up at him, and said,  “I’ll help you find that device. I just don’t have a clue where to even begin to look.”

Dan closed his eyes for a split second, and drew in a breath of relief. He smiled down at her, and silently formed the words
thank you
on his lips.

“Why did you leave so quickly?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Leave?”

“Two months ago. Why didn’t you stay another day?” He almost reached for her hand, but stopped himself just in time by shoving his own hand in the back pocket of his jeans instead.
This isn’t the time, Osborne.

“I needed to get back home. I only took a few days off from work,” she said quickly, and avoided looking at him. He didn’t believe her for a second, but decided to let it go for now. He stepped away from her and peeled his backpack off his shoulders.

“Let’s put our heads together and see what we can figure out,” he suggested casually, hoping to hide the turmoil inside him, and motioned for her to sit on a downed log to the side of the trail.

He handed her a water bottle from his pack, and a bag of trail mix. When she shot him a surprised look, he couldn’t help but grin.

“You suggested trail mix last night, remember?” His grin widened.

For the first time since he met her, Jana’s face lit up in a bright smile. The breath left his lungs. She was radiant when she smiled. The sun high above them reflected in her amber eyes, making them appear almost golden. Dan sat several feet away from her on the log, and placed his backpack on his lap. It wouldn’t do for her to see the effect she had on him. He took a long drink from his own water bottle.

“I didn’t tell you this last night, but I hate nuts,” Jana said, obviously trying to suppress a giggle.

Dan frowned. “Excuse me?” He nearly choked on his water. He kicked himself mentally.
She’s referring to the food, you idiot
. Dan groaned silently. Jana was playing havoc with his mind, and this was only the second day spent in her company.

“Well, ah. . .” He cleared his throat. “You can always pick out the raisins and other bits of dried fruit.” Not even as an awkward teenager had he felt like such a bumbling fool. He ventured a glance at the girl sitting a few mere feet from him. She cradled the plastic bag between her hands in her lap, and stared out at the distant mountains. Although the smile had left her face, Dan sensed she was more relaxed than she had been the night before.

His eyes followed her line of vision, and minutes passed in silence. The swooshing sounds of ravens flapping their wings as they flew from tree top to tree top, their deep clucking sounds amplified by the peaceful tranquility of the mountain, mixed with the rush of the wind through the tops of the tallest lodgepoles. In a nearby tree, a couple of squirrels chattered loudly. They seemed to be engaged in a heated argument, probably over territory rights.

Dan stuck his hand in Jana’s trail mix bag, and pulled out a handful of peanuts and almonds. “Maybe Aimee left the device somewhere along Hellroaring Creek, just like the journal,” he finally ventured a guess, breaking the silence.

“No,” Jana said immediately. “She wouldn’t leave it somewhere that obvious.” The plastic bag rustled as Jana dug through the nuts and seeds to find some morsels of dried fruit. She stopped abruptly, and looked at him. “Do you realize this is more impossible than trying to find a needle in a haystack?”