Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One) Read online

  “I really didn’t need to know that, Nick. But thanks, I hadn’t thought about that one. I’ll keep it in mind.” She was only half-joking and she blushed, glad Pat couldn’t hear Nick’s side of the conversation. “Actually, I was trying to talk myself off the back of a horse.”

  “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun.”

  “You forget that I don’t like horses much.”

  “I didn’t forget. You can’t be any greener than Pat. He’s from Seattle, isn’t he? How many horses do they have there?”

  Aelissm glanced at Pat. “I suppose. Let me ask him. Pat, Nick wants to know if you’re up to sitting on a horse for the afternoon.”

  “You didn’t have to say it like that,” Nick remarked.

  “Nick Hammond? Sure. Sounds like fun,” Pat replied.

  “Yeah, we’ll do it,” she told Nick with a sigh of resignation. “We’ll be down in a bit.”

  When she turned to Pat after hanging up the phone, she found him smiling and shaking his head at her. “What?”

  “You can tell the weather’s going to change just by the feel of the air, but you didn’t hear your phone.”

  “Oh, shush.”

  Pat’s smile softened and the amusement in his eyes shifted to a disarming tenderness. “It’s good to see you smile again,” he said. “You haven’t since the letter came.”

  “I’ve smiled,” she retorted.

  “Not really. Not like that.”

  She wasn’t about to tell him what had made her smile like that.

  Aelissm bowed her head for a moment. He’d noticed her distraction, but how could he not, when he’d been sent here by her overprotective uncle to keep watch over her? He’d need to be aware of how Adam’s oppression was affecting her. But that wasn’t all of it. Pat’s concern for her was deeper than his promise to her uncle to keep her safe. She’d really noticed it on their walk, but she’d been collecting hints of it since he’d arrived.

  Pat slid his hand under her chin and lifted her face. She met his eyes without fear or hesitation. There was nothing to be afraid of in Pat. But she’d thought that about Bryce, too, at first. No, she thought, don’t liken him to Bryce. He’s not like Bryce.

  “Don’t leave me, Aelissm. Don’t lock yourself away again.”

  “I won’t.” Her voice wavered and her eyes burned with tears. She blinked to clear them. Why did he have to be so sensitive and caring? And why, when she needed it, did he have to be so strong? It was too perfect. Why couldn’t he just not give a damn? If he didn’t care about her, it wouldn’t hurt so bad when he left. She was already too attached.

  He brushed his thumb across her cheek. There was something decidedly… intimate… about the situation. Aelissm’s gaze drifted from Pat’s keenly beautiful eyes to his lips and she noticed how close he was standing. The warmth of him penetrated her clothing and skin, igniting her soul. She yearned to lean into him, to feel that comfort she had in his arms the night Adam’s letter had come.

  She didn’t know who the kiss, but Aelissm found her lips pressed to Pat’s. She opened her mouth in invitation and surprise at her own forwardness. Pat took command, but he was gentle and affection flooded through Aelissm, washing away all her troubles and doubts, leaving only the pure and single-minded pleasure of the moment. She was drawn into him, the length of her body pressed firmly against his as he clasped her face in his hands. All she knew was the tenderness of Pat’s kiss and the firmness of his body and all she wanted at the moment was him. All of him.

  Abruptly, Aelissm pulled away. For a brief second, confusion hazed Pat’s eyes, but it was gone quickly as realization struck.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “No,” Aelissm replied. But it did. And I enjoyed it. And neither of them moved any farther away. “We’re not….”

  “I….” he started. “It won’t happen again.”

  “You’re right. Let’s not complicate things. Neither of us needs any more pain.”

  Aelissm turned away and grabbed her helmet from the coat rack behind the door and tossed her father’s helmet to Pat. “We’d better head down to Nick’s. And you’d better be a greenhorn.”

  “I am, don’t worry. Unless you’re talking about dirt bikes. I’ve been on a few of those before.”

  “I was talking about horses.” She started out the door, then turned around again to face him. “Oh, and Pat?”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought I knew who Adam was. I thought I could trust him.”

  “What?”

  “You asked what it was about him that scared me the most.”

  Pat tilted his head and studied her, then nodded. Through an unspoken agreement, the kiss and Adam were dropped from their conversation.

  Aelissm watched Pat for a moment as he kick-started the dirt bike she and her grandfather had gotten running again yesterday. The lingering touch of his lips against hers brought another genuine smile to her face. The kiss might have been a mistake, but she didn’t regret it.

  * * *

  He shouldn’t have done it. Even as he chastised himself, Pat couldn’t seem to make himself believe that it was wrong. At least, not in the sense that his bruised and tattered heart thought it should be wrong. He shouldn’t have kissed Aelissm for the simple reason that it was dishonorable. When he’d given in to the moment—and to clarify, the other side of his brain argued, she’d been just as much a participant—he hadn’t thought of what it might do to her. She’d nearly been raped by a man she’d thought loved her and was being stalked by his best friend… who, it could be argued, had killed Bryce to save her. It was amazing she was still able to function at all, Pat thought. Kissing her certainly wasn’t going to help her, especially not if he couldn’t give her all of him. She deserved nothing less than a man who could devote every ounce of himself to her and Pat couldn’t. Not after Sara. At this point, he wasn’t sure he’d ever completely heal from that disaster. So, he shouldn’t have kissed Aelissm.

  “Does he do this often?” he heard Nick Hammond ask.

  “Yup,” Aelissm replied. “He’s got the attention span of a gnat some days.”

  Pat glanced at them and offered a playful scowl. “I’m just so overwhelmed by all this scenery.”

  Nick laughed and Aelissm grinned. Despite her grumbling, she looked quite at home on the back of the bay gelding with strands of her strawberry blond hair pulling loose from her braid. And she looked disconcertingly attractive in the straw cowboy hat she’d borrowed from Nick’s wife. Pat certainly wasn’t as comfortable sitting astride his roan, though Nick had informed him he was a decent rider. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed the man, but he took the compliment gracefully. As to the borrowed hat, he was fairly certain he didn’t pull it off nearly as well as Nick Hammond. The man looked every bit the born-and-bred rancher’s son, completely at home in the saddle, surveying his family’s expansive ranch from beneath the brim of his Stetson.

  Pat couldn’t have asked for a more incredible day. It was a downright balmy afternoon and they’d spent the last four hours riding across the northern stretch of the Lazy H beneath a brilliant cobalt sky. As Aelissm had pointed out, the cirrus clouds were thicker and longer and they made the sky seem so high and blue. Pat couldn’t recall ever seeing such a deep, pure sky before. It was absolutely gorgeous. The quaking aspen were blooming and the willows down along the creek were opening their peach-fuzz flower buds. After the wet winter and the past couple weeks of intermittent warm weather, the hay fields were already vibrantly green.

  “How often do you have to rotate fields?” Pat asked Nick.

  “The soil’s a lot richer up here than it is down in Devyn and we get more moisture, but we like to rotate every three years anyhow. Most of what you see is just pasture land.”

  “What about the winter?”

  “We get about three cuts a year from the hayfields… enough to feed the herds through the winter and then some. We sell a lot of hay, too. See those stacks
? That’s what we keep. The rest we bail and sell.”

  “I’ll bet that’s a lot of work.”

  “Well, we have tractors and bailers, but yeah. Maybe, if you’re still here when we cut, you can give it a try.”

  “You’re on.”

  “I’ll bet you can’t last an entire day at it,” Aelissm remarked playfully.

  “Are you sure you want to keep betting me, Aeli? You’re already going to owe me a hundred bucks when Luke reaches six two… and he will. Besides, I’m not a stranger to work.”

  “We’ll just see how you feel when you get off that horse,” she replied. “And if you’re sore then, just imagine what you’ll feel like after a full day of bucking hay bales or working the beaver slide.”

  Pat chuckled. She certainly was a feisty little thing. After Sara’s cool reserve, Pat appreciated Aelissm’s honesty and openness. There were other things about her he appreciated, too, like her eyes, which were so close in color to the lush hay fields. The beauty of her body was not lost on him, either. From the silken gold mane that tumbled nearly halfway down her back when it was loose to her firm, perfectly shaped breasts, trim waist and smooth hips all the way down her long, toned legs, Aelissm Davis was a pure, real and beautiful woman.

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Pat shifted his attention to the countryside below him. From where they sat, higher on the slopes of the East Northstars, they could see down to where Nick’s father and brothers were plowing the highest field, which sat at the apex of two ridges below the mountain Aelissm called Alturis.

  The sun was still high, but it was beginning to slide westward and Pat shifted in the saddle. Four plus hours was a long time to be on a horse for someone who wasn’t accustomed to it. Nick must have noticed because he chuckled.

  “What d’you say, folks? Shall we call it a day?” he asked.

  “I hate to admit it, but yes,” Aelissm replied. “It’s been fun, Nick. Even being on a horse for so long.”

  “Did you honestly think I’d lie to you, Aeli?”

  “No, but I’m done. Besides, I know it’s killing you to be away from your wife and son.”

  Pat thought he heard a hitch in her voice. Was she jealous?

  Nick beamed. “He’ll be a week old tomorrow, you know.”

  “You’ve only told us twenty times today, as if we didn’t already know that,” Aeli remarked, rolling her eyes. “C’mon, Nick, this is Northstar. Of course I know how old Will is. And now, I even know where he was conceived. However, I will spare everyone else that bit of Hammond trivia.”

  Pat wanted to laugh. She was envious, though she was trying to hide it. So there was a girl beneath that tough exterior that still wanted the more domestic things in life, as he’d expected. The first he’d seen of it had been this morning. She may have said kids didn’t seem a part of her future anymore, but she didn’t seem opposed to the idea, either.

  Pat wasn’t sure how he felt about her indecision, or his own, for that matter, not after the kiss that shouldn’t have happened. She made him feel things he wasn’t sure he wanted to feel again. Most of all, she made him feel again. He hadn’t realized just how hard and cold and lifeless he’d become over the past three years—five, counting the two he’d wasted with Sara.

  Nick started toward his house. The ride back was silent, and Pat tried to stay above the surface of his memories, refusing to be pulled under by them. The day was too incredible to throw away to the darkness of his past. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to take in the sounds and sensations of the valley. The sun beat down at him as if trying to warm away his unpleasant reveries and it was hard to remain entrenched as the sounds of cattle and horses and birds and the light breeze drifted to his ears. He took a deep, calming breath and shed his darker thoughts.

  “I can unsaddle the horses,” Nick offered when they arrived back.

  “That’s all right. We can help,” Pat told him.

  After the horses were unsaddled and brushed down, Nick released them back into the corral behind his home.

  “Nick, thank you for the wonderful afternoon,” Pat said, extending his hand.

  Nick shook it. “You’re welcome back anytime, Pat. Aelissm, you too, but you should already know that.”

  “I do. Thanks, Nick. But we need to scoot. We’re supposed to meet June and Luke at the Ramshorn for dinner and swimming at six, when she gets off work. And it’s already almost five.”

  “All right. Tell them hi from us.”

  “Will do.”

  Aelissm climbed on her dirt bike and kick-started it. Pat followed her example and waved farewell to Nick. He wasn’t feeling the effects of an afternoon of riding just yet, other than his bruised backside and tenderness where the stirrups had rubbed, but he was sure he would come morning. Maybe the hot springs would help take some of it away, he thought, anxious for that swim.

  The wind on his face was pleasant as he sped up the mountain after Aelissm on the dirt bike. There was no better way to enjoy a place like this and still get to your destination quickly than on a motorcycle. It combined the elements of open air and speed and before he knew it, they’d arrived at the cabin, hurriedly stuffed their swimming gear in back packs, and were racing down the rock-pocked road called Wellman Creek. Aelissm, by far the more experienced rider, beat him to Ma Burns’, where they stopped for only a brief moment to say hello to Betty as she closed up shop for the afternoon. Pat had met her at the potluck and a few times since and found her, like everyone else he’d met in Northstar, to be a very pleasant, big-hearted person.

  God, what a great place, he thought as he and Aelissm rode the rest of the way to the Ramshorn at a more sedate pace. How could he turn his back and walk away from Northstar without regret when it called to him, promising to embrace him as his home? Saying good-bye, he already knew, was going to be very difficult.

  June must have heard them coming because she was on the porch of the Ramshorn Lodge when they pulled up. After parking behind her truck across the packed-dirt drive, Pat and Aelissm made their way up the steep steps to the lodge. It was rustic with hand-peeled logs, a red metal roof, and a very welcoming demeanor. Unlike some vacation lodges he’d seen, with their glossy, milled logs and high-end adornments, the Ramshorn was practical and much closer to what he considered to be a proper high-mountain escape. It felt genuine.

  “How was your ride down?” June asked when they reached her.

  “Good,” Aeli replied. “Pat almost caught me on the flat stretch by Betty’s store. Been busy today?”

  “Steady. So, what did you lazy bums do with your afternoon off?”

  “We went for a four-hour ride on horseback across the Lazy H with Nick Hammond,” Pat supplied. “That’s a beautiful spread his family has.”

  “Isn’t it? And how did the two of you manage to get Aeli on a horse?”

  “I’m surprised, actually. It didn’t take much.”

  “Oh, don’t even start,” Aeli retorted.

  June grinned. “Fine, we won’t. Come on in.”

  Aelissm frowned. “Where’s Luke?”

  “Inside, doing homework.”

  Pat followed Aelissm and June into the lodge. Trophy heads lined the walls, ranging from whitetail and mule deer to a moose, a couple of pronghorns, elk and even a grizzly, a black bear, a wolf and a cougar. The bar stood to the left of the door and, like the tabletops, was constructed from a planed and thickly lacquered log that must have been at least four feet wide. The long side of it was all one piece, he noticed.

  Luke glanced up from his schoolwork, smiled at Pat and Aeli and resumed his occupation. Pat genuinely liked the kid, though he was a bit curious about the boy’s last name. Something about it had been nagging him ever since he’d first met the boy. It was a puzzle he had yet to figure out, so he’d probably have to ask June about it.

  “So, what will you be eating?” June asked.

  “Cheeseburger, of course,” Aeli replied.

  “That sounds good,” Pat said. “It
’s all local beef, isn’t it? Or was Aelissm lying to me?”

  “You’re damned right it’s local beef,” June replied. “We all serve local beef… the Ramshorn, the Bedspread and the Northstar Ski Hill’s restaurant, too. Why wouldn’t we when we have such tasty cows right down the road?”

  Pat chuckled. “That’s what I figured. And they are quite tasty.”

  “That’s because they’re fed on good old fashioned, Montana-grown hay and grain, not hormones and steroids,” Aelissm added. “And you can’t get it much fresher. No freezer-burn on this beef, no siree.”

  While June cooked their dinner, Pat and Aeli sat at the table with Luke. Aelissm teased him, ruffled his golden hair and though he squirmed away, he was grinning. There was something about the kid that made Pat wonder what hell he’d been through. He was quick enough to smile and laugh, but often—usually with people he didn’t know as well as June and Aelissm—it lacked genuine emotion. Luke was cautiously reserved, Pat decided, as if he tested every situation to see if it was safe to open up and take a step forward. It was much the same way Pat had spent the past three years of his life. When he wasn’t working, of course. Even going out to dinner with Bill and his wife, though he knew they both meant well, could be dangerous. He never knew when either of them would try to coax him out of the shell he’d constructed around himself.

  “Luke, sweetheart, dinner’s on it’s way,” June called from the kitchen doorway. “We can finish your homework later tonight.”

  “Okay,” the boy replied. He closed his books, gathered his pens and pencils and settled it all in his backpack.

  June brought their food out—four cheeseburgers—and sat down with them to eat. Luke ate with an appetite that seemed astonishing for his small size, which made Pat all the more sure he’d win his bet with Aelissm. He’d been just like that at Luke’s age and his mother still saw fit to tease him about it from time to time. He felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t talked to her since two nights before he’d left for Northstar, though he’d called and talked to his sister Shannon twice.