Not Really the Outdoor Type (7 page)

Kendall grabbed the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office.

“Deputy Martin.”

“This is Kendall Merriweather. Is the sheriff in?”

Back in LA, she probably wouldn’t have gotten higher than a desk sergeant if she called the police, but in a small town like Copper Canyon, talking directly to the sheriff wasn’t a big deal.

“This is Sheriff Atwater. How can I help you?”

“This is Kendall Merriweather over at Outdoor Outfitters,” she said. “Jason took a group of fishermen into the mountains this morning to do some fly-fishing. He said they’d be back before the store closed, but they haven’t come in yet, and I’m a little concerned.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, Ms. Merriweather,” the sheriff said. “The fish probably weren’t biting as good as the tourists would like, so they persuaded Jason to stay up there, figuring they’d have better luck tomorrow.”

Kendall chewed her lip as she considered Atwater’s words. “I don’t know. Jason assured me he’d be back this afternoon. He wouldn’t just agree to stay out there simply because some tourists complained the fish weren’t biting.”

On the other end of the line, Atwater sighed. “I’ll tell you what, Ms. Merriweather. If Jason isn’t back by tomorrow, give me a call and I’ll send some men up to check it out. How does that sound?”

Kendall would rather the sheriff send men up there now, but she supposed it was the best she was going to get from the man. At least right now.

“Okay. Thank you.”

She waited at the store for another hour. When Jason still didn’t show, she decided to go home, only to spend a restless night tossing and turning in bed worrying about him.

* * * * *

Kendall woke up before the clock went off the next morning. Taking a quick shower, she put coffee in a travel mug and grabbed a granola bar, then practically ran out the door. The store wasn’t due to open for another hour, but she raced over there hoping Jason would already be in. When she got there, thought, the store was empty. Praying he’d gotten in late the night before and was still at home, Kendall tried his cell phone, but there wasn’t any answer.

Trying to quell her rising panic, Kendall forced herself to wait until mid-morning before she called the sheriff again.

“Jason still isn’t back,” she said as soon as the man came on the line.

“Okay,” Atwater said. “I’ll send some men up to check it out.”

His tone of voice made Kendall think he was only doing it to humor her, but she didn’t care. She had to know if Jason was okay.

“It will take a few hours for them to get up there,” Atwater continued, “so I won’t know anything for a while.”

She could interpret that clearly enough. What he meant was, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Kendall tried hard to keep her mind on work the rest of the day, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Jason. What if something really had happened to him? What if he’d gotten injured and was unconscious, and the fishermen couldn’t find their way out of the mountains without his help? What if he’d been attacked by a bear or a mountain lion? Even worse, what if one of the fishermen was a psycho killer who’d only joined the group so he could murder everyone?

Stop it.
This wasn’t some horror movie, for heaven’s sake. There was probably a perfectly logical reason that Jason wasn’t back. She just couldn’t think of one right now.

On top of everything else, clouds had been steadily moving into the area since yesterday. By afternoon it started raining and she couldn’t see most of the mountains through the heavy overcast. Telling herself that fishermen didn’t fish in the rain, Kendall was convinced Jason would be back soon, but her heart plummeted when the door opened and a grim-looking Sheriff Atwater walked into the store half an hour later.

Kendall hurried around the counter and walked over to the tall, gray-haired man. “Did you find Jason?”

The man took off his hat, and regarded her with compassionate gray eyes. “You’re Kendall Merriweather, I take it?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle and nodded. “What about Jason?”

Atwater sighed. “We weren’t able to locate him yet. And with the bad weather moving in, my men had to turn back. I had to call off the search for tonight. As soon as it clears up, I’ll have my men back out there looking for him.”

Icy cold fingers wrapped around her.
Search
. The word echoed in her mind. They had upgraded it to a search already. But that meant…

“It’s only rain,” she protested. “Surely your men can go out in that.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “It may be raining here, but it’s snowing in the mountains, Ms. Merriweather.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Which was stupid, since she had grown up here. Weather on the mountain was completely different than what the town experienced.

“But Jason didn’t bring anything with him other than some fishing equipment. He and the others could freeze to death in a snowstorm.”

Atwater’s brow furrowed. “Jason grew up in those mountains. He knows how to take care of himself. When this storm clears, I promise I’ll get my men up there to look for him.”

Kendall wanted to plead with the man, beg him to send a search party back up into the mountains right then, but something told her it would do no good. Atwater wasn’t about to send his men out into a snowstorm, no matter how much she begged.

 Wanting to be there in case Jason came back, Kendall hung around the store after she’d closed up. Now that the weather had turned, she was even more worried about him than she’d been before. Regardless of what Sheriff Atwater said, Jason wouldn’t have stayed in the mountains with those tourists simply because the fish hadn’t been biting. Something must have happened. And the thought of what that something might have been worried the hell out of her.

She tried to keep herself occupied by straightening up and checking inventory, but after two hours, she gave up. Restless, and unable to think about anything but Jason, she wandered into his office.

Standing in the doorway, she surveyed the room and caught sight of the plaid shirt on the back of Jason’s chair. A small smile curved her lips as she realized it was the one he’d worn the day she’d come to the store looking for a job. 

She walked around the desk and ran her fingers lightly over the soft material. Taking the shirt off the back of the chair, she held it to her nose, inhaling deeply. Earthy and masculine, it smelled exactly like the man who wore it, and Kendall closed her eyes. On impulse, she slipped her arms into the sleeves, then went over to the couch against the wall and sat down. Hugging Jason’s shirt more tightly around her, she curled her feet beneath her and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Six

Kendall woke up the next morning to find herself still curled up on the couch in Jason’s office. Running her hand through her hair, she yawned and glanced at her watch. Just after seven-thirty. Since she’d spent the night on the couch, that meant Jason still wasn’t back.

Trying to ignore the worry nagging at the back of her mind, Kendall lay there for a long moment before finally pushing herself into a sitting position. With the store due to open in less than half an hour, she couldn’t just lie there.

She was halfway down the hallway before she realized she was still wearing Jason’s shirt. She hesitated, wanting to keep it on, but reluctantly took it off and put it back where she’d found it.

Desperately in need of caffeine, she quickly freshened up in the employee restroom, then ran over to the diner to grab a cup of coffee. Back at the store, she sat at the counter, sipping the hot beverage and nibbling half-heartedly on the muffin she’d bought while she stared out the front window. It had stopped raining at least, though that didn’t mean it wasn’t still snowing up in the mountains. She prayed it wasn’t. She couldn’t go another day not knowing if Jason was okay.

Business came in spurts throughout day. The store went from being totally empty one minute to packed with tourists the next, and Kendall was relieved when Nicole showed up to give her a hand. It was during one of the lulls that the door opened and Jason walked in, followed by more than a dozen exhausted fishermen.

Kendall stared at Jason for a moment, unable to believe he was really back. Before she could stop herself, she rushed out from behind the counter and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. He smelled of dirt and pine needles, and a little like fish, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was that he was alive and well.

“Jason, thank God you’re safe,” she breathed, pressing her face into the side of his neck. “I was so afraid something had happened to you.”

Jason held her close, his arms warm and strong around her, his cheek resting against the top of her head. If they weren’t in the middle of a store full of people, she would have stayed there the rest of the day. But they were in the middle of a store full of people. And she was being emotional. As much as she hated to do it, Kendall pushed away from Jason and took a step back.

To see that everyone in the store was staring at them. Great. Face coloring, Kendall tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” she said to Jason. “You said you’d be back that afternoon, and when you weren’t, I…I didn’t know what to think.”

The corner of his mouth edged up. “Yeah. Sorry about that. The storm moved in faster than I thought it would and we had to wait it out in a temporary shelter.”

She nodded. “That’s what Sheriff Atwater said must have happened.”

Jason lifted a brow. “You called the sheriff?”

Kendall’s face colored even more, but before she could reply, one of the fishermen came over to ask Jason to take a picture with their group. Jason hesitated, his gaze still on her.

She gave him a small smile. “Go ahead.”

The fishermen wanted to take the picture outside the store, and as soon as Jason disappeared through the front door, Kendall turned and hurried out the back. Right now, she didn’t trust herself to be near him.

Banishing her sexy employer from her mind was easier said than done. Two hours later, she was sitting in front of the television still thinking about him. Had she been too quick to break things off with him? If she’d been that worried about him when he was missing, that must mean she still had feelings for him. And if she had feelings for him, was she willing to throw everything away simply because he’d spanked her a couple times?

The fantasy she’d had the other day replayed itself in her head like some erotic movie. She hugged the fleece throw more tightly around her and squirmed on the couch. Okay, so maybe the thought of getting spanked did turn her on a little bit. Which still didn’t make sense. Or did it?

She’d been attracted to Jason in high school because he’d seemed so much more masculine than the other guys in her class, even at eighteen. For some reason, though, the men she’d dated since then were the complete opposite of Jason. Was that why none of those relationships had worked out? Because none of her boyfriends had been man enough to spank her?

She groaned. How could she be a modern, independent woman and submissive at the same time? The two should be mutually exclusive, shouldn’t they? The hell if she knew. The one thing she did know was that she couldn’t walk away from Jason. If she did, she’d regret it the rest of her life.

Switching off the television, she tossed the remote onto the coffee table and went into the bedroom. Pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals, then grabbed her purse and hurried out the door.

Jason lived in a log cabin home on the lake just outside of town. Pulling into the driveway, she parked beside his SUV and got out. But instead of knocking on the door, she stood on the porch. Now that she was here, her courage began to falter. Confronting Jason had seemed like a good idea back in her cozy cabin.

She took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

When he didn’t answer right away, Kendall was tempted to run back to the car and speed off before he ever knew she’d been there. But that would be cowardly. She reached for bell again when the porch light turned on and the door opened.

Jason was dressed in jeans, his feet bare, his shirt unbuttoned and his dark hair damp from the shower. Kendall didn’t think she’d ever seen a guy look sexier.

“Kendall.” He clearly sounded surprised to see her. “Come in.”

Wishing she could calm her pounding heart, Kendall stepped into the entryway. The house might look like a log cabin on the outside, but inside it wasn’t rustic at all. In fact, it was surprisingly contemporary.

“Can I get you something?” Jason asked, coming up behind her.

Kendall turned to see him buttoning up his shirt. She stared at his washboard abs and muscular chest as if transfixed by them. It was all she could do not to reach out and run her hands over him.

“No, thanks. I’m fine,” she said. “Actually, I came to…”
To find out if these crazy things I’m feeling for you are real.
“Get you up to speed on what’s been happening at the store the while you were gone.”

Not exactly how she’d planned to start the conversation, but it was better than staring at him like a lovesick schoolgirl. “I think you’re going to need to order some more of those meals in a bag. We sold a lot of those.”

Meals in a bag? God, that was lame.

Jason folded his arms to regard her curiously. “I was kind of surprised to see you at the store when I got back.”

Kendall shrugged. “I know you needed someone to watch the store, so…”

“I appreciate it. Thank you.”

She toyed with the shoulder strap of her purse, waiting for him to continue. Unfortunately, Jason made no further attempt at conversation. Which meant it was up to her.

Kendall took a deep breath and plunged in. “That wasn’t the only reason I came back to work. I…I was worried about you.”

“Sheriff Atwater told me.”

She blushed. Crap. What had the man told Jason? “He probably thinks I’m an alarmist.”

Jason’s mouth quirked. “An alarmist would have called in the National Guard.”

Kendall laughed. Why hadn’t she thought of that?