Best of Desire. Оливия Гейтс
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not just you, but this place. The mountain itself. Did you know that grizzly bears used to live here?” Just saying that aloud had her checking the tree line warily even though she knew the animal was mostly extinct in California now.
“Yep,” he said, “I knew.”
“And,” she added, “did you know that King Mountain is the largest piece of acreage bordered on wilderness area that’s still in private hands?”
“Knew that, too.”
She frowned and chewed at her bottom lip. Of course he knew, it was his land after all, but he could at least pretend to be polite about listening. “I saw a waterfall, too, on one of the maps I looked at. Are we going to see that on this trip?”
“Might.”
Aggravating man, she thought as her temper began to simmer. He was deliberately not talking to her. Probably trying to make her be quiet by his lack of response. Clearly, he didn’t know her very well. Her mother used to say that Daisy could talk to a stump. Which, she mused, she actually was doing.
“I still can’t believe you own your own mountain,” she said, shaking her head, as if trying to wrap her mind around it. “I mean, did you know your name is on actual maps? King Mountain.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, “I know. Did you know that you shouldn’t talk so much on the trail?”
“Really? Why?”
He turned and glared at her over his shoulder. “There are wild animals out here. You might want to pay attention to your surroundings.”
“But you’re here.”
“Yeah, I am…”
“What kind of wild animals?” she asked after a moment’s pause in which she thoroughly scanned the surrounding tree line for any sign of slavering beasts hidden in the shrubbery. “There aren’t grizzlies, I know, but…”
“There are still black bears. And brown bears,” he said. “Not to mention coyotes, the occasional wolf and oh, yeah, mountain lions.”
“Seriously?”
“Thought you researched the mountain.”
“I did but—” Nowhere had she read about mountain lions. How had she not considered that?
“Still glad you brought that dog?” he asked.
Visions of Nikki being carried off by God knew what flew through Daisy’s mind and she reined in the dog’s leash as she hurried her steps to close the distance between her and Jericho. He might be surly, but he knew what he was doing out here and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t let her or Nikki get eaten.
“More glad now than before,” she told him when she was no more than an arm’s reach from him. “She’s better off with me. Where I can make sure she stays safe.”
“And who’s making sure you’re safe?” he asked, shooting her a sidelong glance.
“That would be you,” she told him, giving him a bright smile.
“I’m not here to help, you know,” he said. “It’s my job to be with you on this trail. But I’m here to see how you handle yourself out here. I’m the observer. The taskmaster.”
“I know that, but—” They came around a sharp bend in the trail and Daisy stopped dead, conversation forgotten. “That’s just gorgeous,” she whispered, the words sliding from her on a breathy sigh.
She felt him come up right beside her. Felt the heat of him reaching out for her, felt the sizzle of awareness that ricocheted through her in response. But she didn’t take her gaze off the picture in front of her.
A clearing. Knee-high grasses, spotted with deep-red wildflowers. And moving through it with a sort of balletic grace was a deer. As if it weren’t quite real, the animal stepped through splotches of sunshine and dipped its great head to nibble at the grass. Caught in the moment, Daisy reached out, took Jericho’s hand in hers and squeezed it, almost reassuring herself that she was really there. Really seeing something so beautiful and wild and perfect.
His long fingers wrapped around hers and he held on for a breathless moment and the two of them were linked—suspended in time.
Then Nikki barked and the deer lifted its massive head, looked directly at them, then bolted in the opposite direction.
As if the dog had spooked more than just the deer, Jericho dropped Daisy’s hand and said brusquely, “We should get moving.”
Her heart was pounding, thundering in her chest until she felt as if every breath was a battle. Her skin was still humming, as though his skin was still pressed to hers. The heat of his touch slipped inside her and Daisy folded her fingers into a fist, futilely trying to hold on to the sensation. When she could trust her voice, she asked, “Are we really going ten more miles?”
“No. Just a couple more before we make camp.”
Though she was grateful, the thought of even two more miles made Daisy really want to whimper, but she controlled herself. She couldn’t afford to look weak. Couldn’t let him see that her legs were already aching and her shoulders hurt from the weight of the stupid backpack. She was going to prove to him that she could fit into his world, then she would be that much closer to what she wanted.
“Only a couple?” she forced herself to say. “What’re we waiting for?”
One of his black eyebrows lifted into a high arch and he gave her a speculative look that hid as much as it said. But after another moment or two, he simply said, “Keep the dog quiet. Some animals won’t be startled by it barking. They’ll be curious. Maybe hungry.”
She gasped. “You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you? Trying to scare me.”
“You should be scared, Daisy. This isn’t a city park. This is the wilderness and the animals you’ll meet out here aren’t the kind you’re used to seeing on TV or in the movies. They don’t laugh and dance and they don’t like people.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she told him. “I know that wild animals are just that. Wild. I also know I’m a little out of my element—”
He choked out a laugh at that one.
“But,” she continued doggedly, “I’m going to do this.”
He shrugged and walked off with long, lazy strides. “If you’re bound and determined, then get a move on.”
She tamped down the exasperation bubbling inside her and swallowed back a sea of retorts she wanted to hurl at his back. Then she realized that he was getting way too far ahead of her. So Daisy held Nikki a little closer and hurried to catch up to the man who was, at the moment, the very center of her world.
* * *
Why wasn’t she making him crazy? Jericho asked himself for at least the tenth time in the past couple of hours. When he was out on the mountain, he liked silence. Sure, some of his clients were incapable of being quiet for very long at a stretch, but Daisy Saxon was in a class all by herself. The woman hadn’t stopped her rambling conversations since they’d left the house.
She talked about the forest, about her former job, her late brother and the boyfriend who had not only left her for her friend, but also had stolen her credit card on the way out the door. That story had just amazed him, though he hadn’t commented. The man had to have been an idiot to walk out on Daisy, in Jericho’s opinion, and she was better off without him.
And when she wasn’t talking about her own life, she was pestering him with questions about his. She talked about the sky, what kind of music she liked best and how she planned to make him that fudge mountain cake of hers as soon as they got back to the lodge.
His ears had been ringing for hours and damned if he hadn’t half enjoyed listening to her. She was interested in everything. Had an opinion