Instant Attraction

Chapter 26

The next morning, Cam was spared from too much thinking by having to gear up mentally for a tough few days on the mountain. He was stuffing supplies into his pack, but his mind kept wandering from the trip to the tight smile Katie had given him when he’d left her.

He hated knowing he’d hurt her. The worst part was that he hurt, too, more than he’d imagined possible.

Annie came into the kitchen and he glanced over, then did a double take at the unmistakable look of bliss on her face. Nick was right on her heels, practically in her back pocket. “Coffee, baby?” she purred to her husband.

Purred.

Nick grinned dopily and nodded.

Cam shook his head. “Aw man. Why don’t you two just wear a sign?”

“Because I’ve got an apron.” Annie slipped one on and turned to face him: I’M MAGICALLY DELICIOUS.

Cam winced and closed his eyes. “Overshare.”

Nick kept grinning.

Annie patted Cam on the shoulder as she pushed him aside to start her coffee. “Hey, you’re not the only Wilder who likes hot sex, big guy.”

“Seriously.” He put his hands over his ears. “Stop it.”

Annie laughed.

Laughed.

And then leaned in and kissed Nick.

Nick, not a stupid man, grabbed her close, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her back.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Now Cam had to slam his eyes shut too. “Get a room!” But they kept going at it. “I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone, right? I’m on some alternate plane, the disgustingly happy plane.”

“It’s a new era.” Annie disengaged her lips from Nick’s to say, “You ought to try it, you might like it.”

“Try what, exactly?”

Annie reached for Cam’s hand, her eyes shining with love-for Nick, but also for Cam. “Being happy. Falling in love.” She paused. “Letting yourself be loved back.” She squeezed his hand gently. “It’s okay to let yourself be loved, Cam.”

She was speaking softly, earnestly, with an utter lack of sarcasm, and her words unexpectedly sneaked in past his defenses and leveled him flat. He’d heard these words before, from Katie. “Stop it,” he said again.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. “You deserve it, Cam. So much.”

“Okay, look.” He pulled free and picked up his gear. “I’m happy for you, happy for both of you, but Nick and I have to go.”

Nick grabbed his own pack, gave Annie one more disgustingly long kiss, and then they were off for their four-day trek directly into the storm from hell. Which pretty much matched the one in Cam’s heart.

For two days, Cam climbed mountains and slept in snow caves, his mind way too far from what he was doing, which was a bad, bad idea with his life and other lives on the line. Still, he managed to get them all safely to Desolation Peak by late afternoon on the second day, and ten minutes later, the storm that was still raging doubled in intensity, complete with 120-mile-an-hour winds, sideways snow, and utter whiteout conditions.

“We aren’t going anywhere until this baby is over,” Nick grumbled.

Cam looked out into the growing night, and for the first time ever on a trek, felt claustrophobic. Katie had one day left, and he was here, on a mountain, miles away.

Snowed in.

Helluva time to realize he wanted to do what Annie had said, and let himself be loved by the sweet, brave, amazing Katie Kramer.

She didn’t need him, she straight up didn’t need him. She wanted him just fine, but she didn’t need him, and Christ if he didn’t totally understand now-that’s what had always been missing for him. “No,” he agreed with Nick on a tight breath, disgusted with himself for not seeing it sooner. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Nick sighed, looking like maybe he was thinking of Annie.

And Cam got it. He really got what it was like to miss someone with all his heart, with his soul, with a yearning that defied description.

Katie woke up on the day she was supposed to leave, knowing that since she’d already had her good-bye with Cam, there was nothing good about the day at all.

Not one single redeeming quality.

Getting out of bed, she realized she had no power in her cabin, which was far too cold for a pansy ass like her, so she dressed to go to the lodge. “And if there’s a God,” she told Chuck, who’d slept in front of her fireplace for three nights running, “Annie will be there with hot coffee and possibly, hopefully, food.”

She opened her door and found four feet of fresh powder on the ground, and it was still coming down like Mother Nature on a tirade. Big, thick, dinner-plate-sized flakes floated through the air with an almost eerie silence, layering on top of each other as they hit the trees, the ground, coating everything.

White.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t going home after all, at least not yet. T.J. was at the end of the path with a snowblower, clearing her a walkway to the lodge.

She stood on the step with Chuck sitting at her feet, both of them staring out into the winter wonderland with matching dazed expressions on their faces. Holy crap…

T.J. shut off the snowblower, and though he looked tense, he nodded up at her. Like Stone, he was bigger than Cam, broader, tougher, but that edgy expression and sharp green eyes were all Wilder. “You’re made of some stern stuff if you’ve survived out here all month.”

“I am,” she agreed. “Though I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“It’s a good one,” he admitted, still not smiling. “Power’s out up at the lodge, too, but maybe you could keep Annie company. She’s losing it.”

Some of his seriousness began to sink in. “Why? What’s the matter?”

T.J. looked down at the snowblower, then back into her face, and somehow she knew. “Oh, God. Is Nick hurt?” she breathed. They’d been gone two days. They’d left the heli at the base of Desolation, at the ranger station there, and when she’d closed up yesterday afternoon, walking away from her desk for the last time, they’d been only a few miles below the peak.

“No, not hurt,” T.J. said. “Not that we know of. We lost radio contact.”

She turned toward the direction of Desolation Wilderness, but the storm had visibility at zero and she couldn’t even see the mountains. “What does that mean exactly, you lost radio contact? They lost their radio?”

“Or they’re out of range.”

“Has that ever happened?”

“No.”

She’d thought her days of panic were over. She’d thought wrong.

“It’s okay,” he said, reading her mind. “We’re going out after them as soon as the storm lets up.”

She whirled back inside to grab her boots and jacket and Cam’s scarf, and then went running up to the lodge, where she found Annie pacing the kitchen with her cell phone in one hand, a Nextel radio in the other. “Damn fool idiot men,” she was muttering, whipping around when Katie walked in the door, a look of such hope on her face that it hurt to look at her.

“Just me,” Katie said in apology.

Annie nodded curtly. “Coffee?”

“You don’t have to be polite, Annie. Not today.”

“Thank God.” She sagged. “Because I blew my wad with that one question. I don’t have any more polite in me, I really don’t. Not this morning. T.J. told you?”

“Yes. Any news?”

She shook her head and sank to a chair. “Nothing.”

“When did you last hear from them?”

“Yesterday afternoon, when you were here. They were closing in on where they planned to camp for the night and then…nothing.”

“And you expected to hear from them again last night?”

“Yeah.” Annie rubbed her temples. “I think. I’d think Nick would have checked in…” She shook her head. “But even if he didn’t, Cam would have, at least with Stone or T.J. Stone didn’t worry until this morning, when neither Cam nor Nick could be reached by radio or cell.”

Katie looked out the window. The snow was coming down even harder, if that was possible. Visibility was nil. She couldn’t imagine being out in it. Surviving in it.

“Stone rode into Wishful to put Search and Rescue on alert, and also the new doc,” Annie said.

“They’ll all go out?”

“Not until the storm clears. Stone and T.J. would go out right now with Search and Rescue if they could, but the weather is deteriorating and the heli’s grounded.” She rubbed her face. “Dammit. I don’t know whether to contact the families of the clients or not.”

Katie sat next to her and put her hand on her arm. “Isn’t it possible that they just don’t have reception?”

“Yes.” Annie stared at the cell phone and radio. “Yes, it is. In which case, I’ll kill kick their asses for all my new gray hair.”

Without power there was little to do. Katie made her way outside, where the wind almost blew her away. T.J. was still trying to keep the snow from taking over the front of the lodge. She grabbed a shovel and tried to help, but it was a losing battle, and T.J. motioned her back inside.

“I want to help,” she yelled over the roar of the storm.

“There’s nothing that can be done.”

So she huddled near the fire with Annie. They had sandwiches, and as the last of the dubious daylight faded into early evening, lit candles.

And stared at their cell phones.

At eight o’clock, the Nextel radio squawked.

All three of them lunged for it, but T.J.’s arms were the longest.

“We’re socked in,” came Nick’s voice over the radio. “We started back down. We’re in a cell hole halfway up Desolation. We have a big problem-”

His voice broke up.

“Repeat that,” T.J. said. “Nick, repeat.”

Nick tried, but whatever he said was unintelligible. T.J. let out a breath, then pushed the Talk button again. “Nick.”

Nothing but static. T.J. looked at Annie. “You know where halfway up Desolation leaves them.”

“Forty-five miles from here,” Annie said grimly. “What do you suppose the ‘big problem’ is?”

Katie prayed it wasn’t Cam. Annie gripped her hand tight, but before she could say anything more, Nick was suddenly back.

“T.J., can you hear me?” T.J. grabbed the Nextel again. “Yes, go ahead. Your problem?”

“We have a missing guest. Two went out for a leak and only one came back. I think he slid down the west side. Cam went after him, but neither have come back.”

Katie’s heart jerked to a painful stop.

“Fuck.” T.J. pushed the Talk button again. “Stone and I are coming. We’ll get S and R-”

“No one will fly you here until morning,” Nick responded. He said other things, too, but he faded out and never came back into range.

T.J. stood up and headed to the door. Annie leaped up and just barely caught him. “No, T.J. No.”

“I’m going to find a pilot who will fly me there.”

Annie was shaking her head, her eyes wet. “You can’t even get Stone back from town. You’d never make it there in this.” She gripped him tight. “I’m not risking two more of you. No way, no how. You’re not going anywhere until the morning, at least.” She threw her arms around him. “Promise me.”

T.J. hugged her back, then moved to the window alone, his back to them, stiff and tense as he stared helplessly out at the storm. “I should have gone instead. He didn’t need this.”

“Cam is stronger than you think,” Katie told him quietly. T.J. turned and looked at her.

“He is. He’s strong enough for this.” Her voice broke, but she nodded with resolve. “He really is.”

“Because of you.”

“No, I-”

“It’s true,” Annie said. “You gave him something we couldn’t. You gave him himself back.”

Maybe. But as far as Katie was concerned, she’d gotten a whole hell of a lot more than she’d given.

She slept with Annie in front of the big fireplace in the living room, and when dawn came, the sky was clear as a bell, making it hard to believe that a storm had been raging for days.

Except for the eight feet of snow blanketing absolutely everything. T.J. took the Sno-Cat into town, met up with Stone and Search and Rescue, and took off for Desolation. They arrived at the base of the peak by mid-afternoon and literally ran smack into Cam just as he climbed back up from where he’d slid down the night before. Uninjured but frustrated, he was happy to have the additional help because there was still no sign of Scott Winston, their missing client.

At the news about Cam, Annie and Katie hugged and cried in relief and went into the kitchen to eat an entire batch of fudge. Then Annie went to check on the fire in the living room and the radio squawked. Katie jumped on it. “Go ahead,” she said, heart in her throat.

“Where’s Annie?” came Cam’s unbearably familiar voice.

Emotion flooded her. She wanted to say how very glad she was that he was okay, that she hoped he was warm and dry. That she’d discovered one last thing-he was right about her being willing to take risks on adventures but not with her heart.

Never with her heart.

She wanted to tell him all that, and she wanted to hand her heart over to him and risk it all.

Right now.

But most of all, she wanted to tell him that she loved him. “She’ll be right back. Cam-”

“I don’t know how long you’ll be able to hear me. Tell Annie to call the clients’ families. The contact info is in the files.”

Nothing else. Nothing personal. No “Hey, you’re still there,” or “I miss you.” Much as that hurt, she understood. A man was still missing, his life in jeopardy. A life Cam was responsible for. He couldn’t let down his guard or be weak, not now. Probably not ever again, at least with her. It broke her heart, but she got it. She was gone, or would have been except for the storm.

And in truth, this had all been a fluke, a fantasy. A really great fantasy, but a fantasy none the less.

And it was time to move on.

Word came in at ten o’clock that night that Scott Winston had been found. He’d slipped down a snowy ravine on the opposite side of where Cam had done the same thing. Unable to climb back up, and equally unable to make himself heard over the wind, he’d decided to walk around and try to climb up another way.

And then had gotten himself lost.

He’d been picked up three quarters of a mile from where Cam had ended his search. He had frostbitten toes and fingers, but other than that was uninjured.

In her cabin, Katie was alone with Chuck, who’d shown up for the last of the cheese in her refrigerator. They sat together looking out the window at the stars.

And then, one fell. Katie looked at Chuck. “Did you see that?”

He blinked.

“A falling star.” She slammed her eyes shut, but she didn’t have to think, she knew what her wish was-Cam’s safe trip home. She also knew something else, that she wasn’t quite finished here. “I have one last thing to do, Chuck.”

“Mew.”

She reached out to scratch him behind the ears, certain he’d hiss, but he went very still and let her touch him. “I have to do this,” she whispered. “I have to try with him too.” She threw on her jacket and boots, and raced back up to the lodge, to the kitchen where she found Annie making more fudge. The Nextel was on the table.

“Hey there,” Annie said in surprise. “What are you-”

“I need to tell Cam something.” She picked up the radio. “Who has the radio out there?”

“Cam. But-”

Katie pushed the Talk button. “Cameron Wilder, are you there?”

She got a return squawk but couldn’t hear anything but static. But somehow, she knew he could hear her. It was in her gut, in her heart. And so was a bunch of other stuff she had to get out. She took a deep breath and pressed the Talk button again. “Cam? Goldilocks here. I know, I’m gone, or almost, but I have to tell you this first.”

“Katie,” Annie said. “I don’t think-”

“It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.” Or so she hoped. She pressed the Talk button again. “You once accused me of holding back. Not risking my heart. You were right.”

“Katie-”

She held up a hand to Annie to hold her off a minute. “As you pointed out to me, I risked everything but my heart, and I can’t leave here until I fix that. So here I am, risking it all.” She paused, breathed, and let it out. “I love you, Cameron Wilder.”

There.

She’d done it. She set the radio down on the table and sent a shaky smile in Annie’s direction. “Sorry. I had to do that before I left. Besides, you already knew anyway.”

“I knew,” Annie agreed. “But I’m not sure the rest of the guys knew. Or the entire Search and Rescue crew. Or the clients.”

Katie stared at her. “I thought you said Cam had the radio.”

“Uh-huh, but they’re all together in the snow cave.”

“So I just told everyone in the free world that I love Cam?”

“No, just everyone within sixty miles or so.”