“Do you want to dance?” Paul asked Sierra.
She shook her head. “Let’s just talk.”
“All right. What would you like to talk about?”
“You said you’d climbed mountains near here—some of the ones we saw the other day.”
“Yeah. I’ve climbed most of them a few times.”
“Do you think I could climb any of them?”
“There are a few pretty easy ones. Sure.”
“Will you climb one of them with me? This week?”
He couldn’t hold back a grin at this surprising turn of events. “We could do that. But why the change of heart? I had to practically beg to get you to go above tree line in a Jeep.”
“I’ve changed my mind. It will be good research for my article.”
Was that the only reason she wanted to do this? Research? “That’s what I call dedication. But you know, even an easy climb isn’t like a walk across town.”
“I want to know what it’s like.” She spread one hand flat on the tabletop, fingers splayed. She had long, delicate fingers, the nails polished a pearly pink—not the hands of a climber. “Maybe if I make it to the top, I’ll understand what the attraction is for you—what it was for my dad,” she said.
That old hurt was in her voice, the one he wanted to take away. He smoothed his hand down her arm. “I’d be honored to take you.” He’d never climbed with a woman before, not even one of the nontechnical fourteeners nearby. It seemed appropriate that Sierra would be the first, and not only because she was Victor Winston’s daughter. He felt close to Sierra, even though he’d known her only a few days. He’d shared his past with her, and now he wanted to share this experience, too.
“We can do Uncompahgre Peak. You won’t need any special equipment for that one. You can walk right up to the top.”
“When?”
“How about Friday?”
“All right. Thanks.” Her smile was faint. “I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. You’ll have a great time. And I won’t let anything happen to you.” He took her hand and squeezed it, then kept holding it. He didn’t want to let Sierra go.
Paul left Sierra on her own Thursday. She’d planned to use the time to work on her article, but she was too nervous and excited to sit at a desk for eight hours.
Mark had urged her to relax and treat the time in Ouray as a vacation. The area had its share of tourist activities, if one was into visiting old mines or photographing ghost-town ruins. These held little appeal for her, which left one other activity she always enjoyed—shopping.
While Paul was doing whatever he needed to prepare for their climb, Sierra would make some preparations of her own. She hadn’t missed the edge of doubt in his voice last night when he’d asked if she was sure she wanted to make the climb.
He thought she was a city girl in over her head. She’d prove him wrong by showing up tomorrow properly equipped for their climb. Ouray might not have a mall, but she was pretty sure she could find everything she needed for any kind of outdoor activity in one of the shops on Main Street.
An hour later, Sierra was the proud owner of something called a hydration pack—a backpack with a water bladder and a flexible tube to sip from—a pair of adjustable trekking poles, a fleece jacket and a fetching broad-brimmed hat. The clerk had assured her she’d look like a pro when she set out in the morning.
She was definitely no amateur when it came to scoping out the offerings at Ouray’s other shops. Though the town was small, she was delighted to find some first-class offerings. By early afternoon she had scored a hand-blown Christmas ornament, a tooled leather belt and Belgian chocolate truffles. At an old-fashioned variety store that was stuffed to the rafters with everything from canning jars to casting reels, she bought a disposable camera with which to record tomorrow’s accomplishments, as well as a goofy-faced ceramic bear paperweight for Mark. He would love it.
Laden with packages and feeling more relaxed than she had since leaving New York, she stopped for lunch at O’Brien’s Pub. The hostess showed her to a table on the patio and she settled back with a sigh. She wondered how Paul had spent his day so far. Some time apart from him had seemed like a sensible idea this morning, but she’d missed his lanky figure at her side and his goofy jokes. She missed his intense brown eyes studying her and his hand reaching out to steady her at an uneven place on the sidewalk. Such little gestures made her feel cared for—an unfamiliar, yet not unwelcome, sensation.
“Hey! Looks like you’ve been doing your part to stimulate the local economy.” Paul’s climbing buddy, Josh, stopped by her table. He wore what she’d come to think of as the uniform of the Ouray male—hiking shorts, T-shirt advertising some local attraction, band or beer, and boots. But Josh wore his clothes with a little extra flair—the T-shirt newer, the shorts crisper. Sierra decided he knew he was good-looking and played that to his advantage.
“I’m having fun exploring the local stores,” she said.
“Mind if I join you for lunch?” He indicated the empty chair across from her.
“Not at all.”
They ordered burgers and soft drinks. Josh flirted with the waitress, who returned his banter with equanimity. Sierra gathered they had known each other a long time—though maybe the smallness of the town and its relative isolation from the rest of the world accelerated the pace of relationships.
“What do you do?” she asked him when they were alone once more. “I mean, for a living?” Why did he have so much free time on an August afternoon?
“I teach history and geography at the local high school.”
“Ah.” She nodded. Such a normal, adult profession. She’d assumed Josh, like Paul, had some unconventional job as a fishing guide or a climbing instructor—work that didn’t interfere with climbing, hiking or other outdoor pursuits.
“Have you seen Paul this morning?” Josh asked.
“No. Have you?”
“Not since last night. I figured he was busy with you. How are the interviews going?”
“All right.” She still had questions to ask Paul, but her sense of urgency was gone. Instead of leaving town early, as she had planned, she found herself contemplating ways of drawing out her visit, to spend a little more time with Paul. “Did I interrupt anything yesterday?” she asked. “Did the two of you have plans to do more climbing?”
“Nah. Paul was just helping me set a course for some kids from Children’s Hospital that are coming to town.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s an adventure trip for critically ill children. They’re going to raft a river, have a cookout and take a Jeep tour. Here in Ouray they’ll climb the pool wall if they want to, then play in the hot-springs pool.”
“And you and Paul are helping with this?” A dangerous surge of sentimentality filled her.
“I’m helping. Paul declined to volunteer—I don’t think he’s comfortable around kids.”
Or maybe it was only sick children he wanted to avoid. Did Josh know about Paul’s cancer? “How long have you two known each other?” she asked.
“Six years? We met at the Ice Park before he moved to Ouray. I broke an ice axe and he let me borrow one of his.”
“So you’d say he was a generous guy.”
“Oh, yeah—he’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s not much into material possessions.” Josh shook ketchup onto his plate. “He takes care of his equipment, because that’s his livelihood, but he doesn’t care about clothes or cars or anything like that.”
“Does he not care, or is it just that he likes to travel light? No ties, no possessions, he can pick up and move whenever he wants.”
Josh considered the question. “Maybe. I never thought about it one way or another.” He shrugged. “One thing about trekking—when you have to carry everything you need in a pack on your back or pulled behind you on a sled, you learn pretty quick what you can do without. It’s one reason why I gave it up. I like my comforts.”
“I’m with you there. I’m not into suffering.” Paul clearly enjoyed a nice home, beautiful surroundings and good meals. So what drove him to leave all that for the deprivations of a high-altitude climb? It was one of the puzzles about climbing she was still no closer to understanding.
“Paul and I are hoping to climb Uncompahgre Peak tomorrow,” she said.
“It’s a nice hike,” Josh said. “You’ll like it.”
For Sierra, a nice hike was a stroll through Central Park. Uncompahgre Peak was over fourteen thousand feet above sea level, up where the air was thin and no trees grew. “I’m a little nervous,” she said. “I’ve never climbed a mountain before.”
“You’ll be fine. Remember to drink lots of water, and take it slow. And you’ll be with an expert. You’ll have a good time.”
Mountains and a good time were not words that went together in her mind, but she wanted to do this. She wanted to experience a little of what her father had known. What Paul knew. “You don’t think I’m being overly ambitious for my first time?” she asked.
“No. You’ll do great. Hey, I have a climbing joke for you.”
“All right.”
“Two guys are climbing and one admires the other’s new ice axe. ‘What’d you pay for that?’ he asks.
“‘Nothing,’ the first guy says. ‘I was climbing the other day and this beautiful woman walked up, threw down her tools, stripped off her climbing suit and said I could have anything I wanted.’
“‘Good choice,’ the second guy said. ‘Her climbing suit would have never fit you.’”
She laughed, but her mirth had a bitter edge. If given the opportunity, would Paul choose climbing over everything else? She knew what her father had answered. So far, Paul had certainly put climbing first in his life, but would he ever allow something else—some
one
else—to take precedence?
She thought of Kelly, for whom love wasn’t enough to sway her from her ambition, and of her own single-mindedness as she’d climbed the ladder of her career. In Sierra’s case, ambition hadn’t been the only thing driving her. Work had been a way to fight loneliness, a way to make a place for herself in a new and unfamiliar city.
Even before she came west she’d been restless. She wanted to make a change, but didn’t know what that change might be. Her father’s reemergence in the news and in her life, combined with her talks with Paul, had made her think about the importance of family and connections with other people.
Maybe she was ready to find someone and make a life with him. But it would have to be the right man, one who wouldn’t leave, the way her father had. She wouldn’t make her mother’s mistake and try to hold on to a man for whom she could only ever be a second love.
After dropping her off at her hotel on Wednesday night, he’d tossed and turned for hours before drifting into a fitful sleep. He woke late Thursday morning, roused from sleep by Indy’s whines, and stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and feed the dog. As he sipped his coffee and his head cleared, he stared out the window at the rocky slope rising behind the house and thought, not of climbing, but of Sierra. What was she doing this morning? Should he seek her out and ask her to go hiking with him? They could do something easy this time, like the Perimeter Trail around town. She’d enjoy the views, and afterward they could visit the hot springs, and talk about tomorrow’s climb of Uncompahgre Peak.
He turned his back to the window, wishing he could turn away as easily from his thoughts. He’d expected to like Sierra because she was Victor’s daughter, but he hadn’t expected to fall in love with her. Maybe love was too strong a word for feelings toward someone he’d known only three days, but he definitely felt a connection with Sierra that was stronger than anything he’d felt for another woman before. His sudden, strong attraction to her was both exhilarating and unnerving.
And pointless, he reminded himself. Sierra was leaving soon, and despite the heat he sometimes imagined between them, she certainly hadn’t shown much interest in him beyond that of a reporter in her subject. Maybe asking him to take her climbing had been an overture of friendship, or maybe it was simply more fodder for her story.
In any case, he wouldn’t make a fool of himself by making the moves on a woman who wasn’t interested. He’d take his cues from Sierra. She’d made no mention of wanting to see him today, so he’d stay away.
He laced on his hiking boots and pulled a day pack from the closet, then whistled for Indy. With the dog running ahead, Paul climbed the steep trail behind his house and set out on the route that encircled the town. He set a fast pace, the rhythm of his strides and enginelike huff of his breath acting like a tranquilizer on his stressed nerves.
He pushed himself into a rough trot. The pack bounced uncomfortably on his back, but he didn’t stop to adjust the straps. He wanted the discomfort, to take his mind off Sierra and the crazy emotions he wanted to outrun.
He alternately jogged and walked halfway around the trail, stopping only once to eat an energy bar. Three hours later, he descended and walked down into town. He’d have a beer at O’Brien’s, then go home and take a shower, his head clear at last.
Indy drank from the dog bowl by the entrance to the pub, then found a shady spot to nap while Paul walked back to the patio. He froze in the doorway when he saw Sierra, sitting with Josh. It was as if he’d developed a homing instinct that always brought him back to her.
She laughed at something Josh said, the expression transforming her face, little lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes and dimples popping up on either side of her mouth. She looked so young and carefree when she laughed. He felt a sharp stab of jealousy that Josh was the one who’d made her look this way.
Then she looked up and saw him. Something bright and joyous flashed in her eyes and his heart responded with a leap. She quickly masked the expression, and he might have told himself he’d imagined it, if not for the pink flush on her cheeks. Legs moving without conscious direction, he approached her table.
“Paul!” Josh looked up. “Where have you been hiding?”
“I took a run on the Perimeter Trail.” Without waiting to be invited, he pulled out a chair and sat. Mandy, the waitress, came over and he ordered a beer. “What have you been doing?” he asked Sierra.
“Shopping,” she said.
He glanced at the bags piled around her chair. The largest was from Ouray Mountain Sports. “What did you buy?”
“That’s a secret,” she said. The word itself, or maybe the sexy tone of voice in which she said it, made him feel too hot.
He took a long drink of the cold beer. “Sierra tells me the two of you are going to climb Uncompahgre Peak tomorrow,” Josh said.
Paul nodded. “Are you ready?” he asked Sierra.
“I think I am,” she said. “I hope so.”
“The flowers should be spectacular this time of year,” Josh said. “Just watch for signs of altitude sickness.”
“I’ve felt fine since I got here,” she said. “A little out of breath sometimes, but never sick. Should I be worried about tomorrow?”
“I doubt it.” Paul shot Josh a look.
Thanks a lot for planting that worry in her head.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Josh amended. “You’ll be fine. People have the most trouble when they make a sudden ascent, like folks who fly in from sea level one day and go climbing the next.”
“That’s why mountaineers summit in stages, right?” she asked. “To give their bodies time to acclimate?”
“That’s right,” Paul said. “Though it’s still a real strain to breathe, much less move, above twenty-two thousand feet. Your body feels like lead, and it’s as if you’re moving through quicksand. Every breath hurts and it’s hard to think clearly.”
“Your body is starving for oxygen,” Josh said.
In this death zone, as it was known, there really wasn’t enough oxygen to sustain life. Traveling there required extreme determination. The experience was always surreal, the mind clouded, the body slow to respond to the most basic commands. Mountaineers tried to spend as little time as possible in the death zone, but it was always one of the most challenging aspects of a climb.
“We won’t be nearly that high tomorrow,” Paul said. “We’ll take it slow and you’ll be fine.”
She looked a little less confident, but nodded.
“Get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “We have to head out early in the morning.”
“All right.”
He was tempted to offer to come tuck her in—just to see her reaction. He might have done so, if Josh hadn’t been there.
Sometimes he was sure she was every bit as attracted to him as he was to her. He wondered how far she would take things if he gave her the opportunity. Would she think it a lark to sleep with him, then leave at the end of the week, no more questions asked?
The problem was that he wanted more than sex from Sierra. She was a danger to his equilibrium because she made him think too much about the future—a future with her in it.