Rule Breaker. Joanne Rock
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all over again to notice how little space still separated them. During the night, at least, it had been dark enough that she couldn’t see his perceptive hazel gaze on her.
“You probably did that in your sleep.” He was a kind man to give her a face-saving excuse for why she was attached to him like a barnacle this morning. “I woke up a couple of hours into the storm and realized I was burning up, so I unzipped my sleeping bag and used it like a blanket.”
“Hmm.” She was all too aware of how hot things had gotten during the coldest night she’d ever spent outdoors.
Talking about it wasn’t going to make her any less flustered.
If anything, her body still tingled with awareness everywhere she’d touched him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alive, like every nerve ending had been awakened at the hands of this man. Why did he have to be someone so important to her investigation? For a moment, she wondered what might have happened between them if she didn’t have that professional duty holding her back.
Well, that and the fact that Weston was anxious for her to take her questions and leave Mesa Falls Ranch. She couldn’t do that until she’d tracked down answers, and she’d do well to remember that barrier between them since she’d been so quick to tear down the physical ones. Her subconscious obviously wanted him, even if the rest of her knew that was a very bad idea. She needed this job. The order, the respectability had saved her in so many ways. Without it? Hell, she couldn’t even consider risking her job for anyone.
“How do you feel this morning, April?” he asked, jarring her from her worries. “Are you ready to try the descent now that the snow has stopped?”
Sunlight beckoned.
And so did the chance to resurrect boundaries with the compelling man next to her.
She nodded, already mentally ticking through today’s to-do list to keep herself from thinking about Weston. “I can have my gear packed in five minutes.”
Her five-minute prediction turned out to be optimistic. April hadn’t counted on how much the deep snow would hamper her efforts, or how much her mother’s phone calls would distract her.
She’d ignored the first two times the notifications chimed as she laced up her boots and loaded her backpack. But by the third time the chime sounded as they began the descent, she was too worried not to pick up.
Weston had insisted on walking in front of her to check the soundness of the snow. He’d given himself the much harder job in the process, since his powerful stride cleared a path for her. Even so, the deep, fluffy powder was exhausting to wade through.
“Mom?” she answered once she fished the device from her pocket, knowing she needed to make this brief. For her own safety, she had to focus on what she was doing. “Is anything wrong? I’m on the mountain, so it’s not the best time—”
“I just wanted you to know that I’ve fired the cleaning service.” Breathing heavily, her mother sounded tearful.
Anxiety spiked, but April tried not to let it explode into full-blown panic. The cleaners were expensive because they specialized in helping people like Holly Stephens. April had hired them, not her mom, so she didn’t think they could be fired so easily.
“I’m sorry they’ve upset you.” She dragged in a long breath of the cleansing cold, preparing to smooth things over with the company. “Can I speak to Emily and maybe I can get things sorted out?”
“It’s too late for that!” Her mother’s voice rose an octave. “I tried calling you before it came to that, but you were too busy to help.”
April swallowed convulsively. She loved her mom, but she hated this stress. It was difficult enough when she was in the same town as her mother, but now, many miles from her Denver home, there was nothing she could do to fix things.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She kept her voice low, hoping Weston couldn’t hear all of this. Even though he wore a fleece headband around his ears today instead of a balaclava, she wasn’t banking on it. “I’m in Montana right now, hiking through snow and hazardous conditions or I would come over—”
“It’s no problem.” Her mother cut her off, a new curtness in her voice. “I just wanted you to know so you didn’t harass me about the cleaning company anymore. Emily wanted me to throw out one of the brand-new bolts of fabric. Have you ever heard of such waste?”
With some murmured words of sympathy, April was able to extricate herself from the call a few moments later, but the worry remained. Keeping her mother safe required more time and money every year, sacrifices April would gladly make if it truly helped. But when her mom resisted more and more frequently, it made her efforts feel futile.
“Everything okay?” Weston called back over his broad shoulder, lifting his goggles to look at her.
For a moment, as she saw the concern in his expression and heard it in his voice, she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to have someone like that in her life. Someone who cared about her daily trials. Someone to share the burden with.
It was a crazy, foolish thought for someone like Weston to inspire, since he was decidedly off-limits as a key to her investigation. Besides, the life of a wealthy and influential rancher was a world apart from the one she lived.
“Everything’s fine,” she lied, needing to resurrect some mental and emotional boundaries with the man she’d spent a memorable night with.
“Didn’t sound fine.” He slowed his pace so she could catch up with him, his hazel gaze tracking her, sliding right past those boundaries she needed. But perhaps he read her reticence in her eyes, because he changed topics as she neared him. “Are you warm enough? Am I going too fast?”
Grateful for the reprieve from talking about her mom and even more grateful to seize on the topic of climbing, which had always been her favorite escape from her home life, she launched into questions about the terrain. How he read the snow, how he could tell what kind of surface was beneath it, what to look for when gauging avalanche conditions.
All things she was interested in. All much safer topics than her mom. If only she could distract herself from her attraction to him as easily.
It didn’t take an expert in body language to read April’s cues.
Weston had seen the guardedness in her expression after her tense phone call, so he’d given her an out and she’d grabbed it like a lifeline. At first, he’d thought she was just trying to distract him from asking questions, but her curiosity about the Bitterroot Mountains and his rescue work revealed a dedicated climber’s knowledge. He found himself enjoying the long trudge down to his truck, a trip that took far longer than it should have given the depth of the snow. Besides, he knew she’d been exhausted the night before. He didn’t want her to deplete her energy completely.
Plus, he was glad to forge a connection on another level after the awkward way she’d awoken in his arms that morning. He didn’t know who’d made the first move to initiate the contact, but he’d never forget the feel of her soft and warm in his arms. She didn’t know that he’d emerged from sleep before her, or that he’d found his hand tantalizingly affixed to her breast. Thank goodness she didn’t know. Breaking that contact had been what had awoken her. Those sensory memories had tormented him all day long.
Now, as they paused for a water break and a shared protein bar, he found himself wanting to know more about her. About what caused those shadows in her eyes after the call from her mother. He understood something about painful family relationships. And while he wasn’t in the habit of revealing details of his personal life, he couldn’t help but think that a shared experience might help her, if only to remind this strong, capable woman that she wasn’t alone.
After