Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One) Read online

  Things had started out wonderfully with Sara. She’d been funny and loving. She’d even talked about starting a family and all the fancy schools she wanted to send her kids to. Half of Pat’s waking hours were spent wondering how he’d gotten so lucky and what a woman like her could possibly find desirable in him. He’d nervously proposed a year after they met and was astonished when she said yes. Pat had been mesmerized to the point that, after the two years of bliss, he had hadn’t noticed the gradual change in Sara until the day he realized it had been nearly a month since she’d said anything about those kids she’d had so many plans for. That day, he’d realized that several of his friends had stopped calling to ask when he’d have a free night to go out and even those he considered to be good friends didn’t want to be around because of Sara. At first, he’d equated it to jealousy, but then he began noticing things about her that made him wonder if his friends didn’t see something that he couldn’t.

  And his family. He’d even pushed them away for her. He’d nearly broken his father’s and little sister’s hearts when he’d missed first Thanksgiving dinner and then Christmas that year. He’d shattered his mother’s. It was almost a year later, right after he’d ended it with Sara, that his mother forgave him. The memory of her, standing at his bedside in the recovery room sobbing was still brutally clear. His relationship with his family was still strained because he couldn’t stand what he’d done to them.

  “I should have known better,” Pat whispered. “For God’s sake, I’ve seen it a hundred times and it’s always the same.”

  He didn’t have the excuse of innocence like Aelissm did. It was the ruthless truth but he’d been swallowed by a fantasy. Sara was—at least on the surface—the kind of woman most men dreamed about. She had a body that belonged to a swimsuit model, a gorgeous smile that, combined with her self-assuredness and a quick mind that had been honed by an expensive education, was deadly to any man’s reserve. Even Pat’s.

  He’d gained some perspective of the situation. At the time, he’d been ignorant of the mind games people like Sara played, so perhaps he had been somewhat innocent––though he should have seen the change, should have seen the signs. How many times had he told himself that? Yes, he should have known, but coulda-shoulda-woulda wasn’t going to happen and Aelissm was very right. It was time he started believing that the past couldn’t be changed and get back to the business of living. No, business was the wrong word. He’d been working too hard to get past Sara and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere. He needed to learn how to enjoy life again.

  Of course, that meant starting almost completely over. The majority of the friends he’d had before Sara were long gone. All that he really had left was his career, Bill and Mary, and his family. He’d told Aeli he was going to start living and, damn it, he would.

  So, really, had the kiss this morning been so damaging? Aelissm hadn’t seemed in the least bothered. As long as that’s as far as it went, he wouldn’t hurt her. Just because he’d decided to walk away from his past, he doubted he could ever let anyone get as close to him as Sara had. It wasn’t that he thought Aelissm would turn into something just as cruel—he knew it wasn’t in her and he’d had girlfriends and lovers before Sara that had been sweet and gentle. No, he didn’t want to get so deeply involved again because it was easier and safer to be alone, and he didn’t have enough left to love again. Although, if he could allow himself to love someone new, he could certainly see himself with Aelissm. She was intelligent in a way that Sara never could have been. Despite the sarcasm that often rippled off her tongue, she was a caring, compassionate woman.

  “Bill would love that,” he murmured.

  Nick Hammond had it right. A woman like Aelissm would keep him on his toes and make life one grand adventure after another. But he couldn’t.

  Aelissm sighed in her sleep and shifted into a more comfortable position. She certainly wasn’t inclined to move away and he didn’t want her to. This felt so right, curled with his boss’s niece in a mountainside cabin. Life was so miraculously uncomplicated that his chest tightened. There were no expectations of permanence or perfection, just the pure and simple element of mutual comfort.

  Time slipped past in a haze of warmth and sleeping woman. Pat dozed lightly, but he didn’t really sleep. No more visions of Sara tormented him and his half-conscious mind savored these moments of chaste closeness with Aelissm. If only every moment in life could be like this, so peaceful and healing.

  Dawn slowly lightened the room with cool blue. Pat narrowed his eyes, studying the clarity of the light. It looked to be another exquisite day. Slowly, the stars to faded from the softening sky and Pat found serenity more complete than he could have dreamed. Was there a more romantic place to be than wrapped up with a beautiful woman in a rustic cabin surrounded by enchanting wilds? He chuckled softly.

  “Mmm…” Aelissm purred. “This is nice.”

  Her words were slurred with sleep and Pat stroked her fine hair.

  “It is,” he replied.

  “Have you been awake all night?”

  “Mostly.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you up.”

  Pat smiled and rested his chin on the top of her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I think I needed this as much as you did.”

  * * *

  A contented smile lifted Aelissm’s lips. Day was dawning far too quickly and she closed her eyes to more deeply enjoy the weight of Pat’s arms as they encircled her with tender protection. Idly, she wondered if this shouldn’t feel wrong or naughty. She had just spent a handful of hours with a man in her bed, wrapped around her as comfortably as a lover, so perhaps it should feel a little devious. But, as nothing more than emotional reassurance had come of it, she couldn’t see where it was wrong. Even the gentleness in Pat’s voice as he told her he’d needed this as much as she did hadn’t warranted a warning. They both needed to know that they could still find comfort in another who hadn’t been privy to all the gory details of their pasts. They needed to know they could still let someone new in. After all, they’d both made rather disastrous decisions in the past.

  Don’t ruin it, she scolded herself. Just enjoy the moment. It might never come again.

  “You missed the stars last night,” Pat murmured. His voice was an entrancing rumble beneath her ear and she smiled. “But then, you’re used to seeing so many, every night.”

  Aelissm pictured the night sky over the valley and her smile deepened. So far away from a city of any real size, there were plenty to see and though she often took the stars for granted, she could still be awestruck from time to time when she paused to look up at them. It was a stunning sight she’d cherished as a child.

  “I’ll have to take you camping up to Sawtooth,” she said. “There’s a meadow at the east end of the lake that is just perfect for stargazing.”

  “Sounds very appealing. So does a blue-sky day, which it appears we’ll have.”

  Grudgingly, she lifted her head just enough to peek out the window. The sky was definitely clear and her eyes, tired of the snow-choked Montana winter, found the sight alluring. Since she and Pat didn’t have to be down to the Bedspread until four…. She could think of all kinds of things to do with Pat up here on the mountainside and many places where she’d like to do them. Several of those ideas were spawned by rather questionable impulses.

  “Is it me, or does it feel a little cold outside the blankets?” Pat asked. “I thought you said it would be hot.”

  “It will be, but even in the hottest weeks of summer, the nights are still chilly. The fire’s probably out,” Aeli replied. “But I don’t want to get up to go start another one. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm. One of us should get a fire going.”

  “Yep.”

  “Rock, paper, scissors?”

  Pat laughed. Instead of moving her, he readied his hands in front of her and Aelissm closed her eyes to fully savor having his arms around her. Grinning, she poked
her hands out from the blankets.

  “Ready?” he asked. “One… two… three!”

  Their fists were curled into rocks.

  “Again?” she asked.

  Tied again with scissors. The third time they tied with paper, then with rocks again. Laughing, they agreed to go down together, but when it came to leaving the blankets and each other, Pat seemed no more inclined than she was to step into the embrace of chilled air. It must have been a half hour before he finally flipped the covers back and then only after an offer of breakfast.

  Shivering, Aelissm all but jumped from her bed into her soft fleece robe. Glancing over her shoulder, she found Pat still half-buried in the blankets—though she was rewarded with a nice view of his naked upper body—and shook her head.

  “I hope you don’t expect breakfast in bed,” she remarked.

  “No, just give me a minute.”

  “Is big old Pat O’Neil afwaid of the cold?” Aeli stuck out her bottom lip.

  “Old?”

  “Well… you are almost thirty.”

  “Hey. Quit picking on me. And I’m not even twenty-nine.”

  “Then get out of bed, lazy bones.”

  “So now I’m lazy, too? I can live with the ‘old’ remark, but I don’t know about this ‘lazy’ business.” He groaned and reached to rub his lower back. “Gimme a minute. I’m a little stiff.”

  Aelissm’s brows rose at his choice of phrase. Her eyes, with a will of their own, dipped toward his nether regions, but his lower half was hidden by the mass of blankets. When she met his eyes again, she saw that he’d noticed the momentary detour of her gaze.

  “Stiff, huh?” she asked, smirking.

  She thought his face pinkened a bit… just a tiny bit. Her face warmed more than she would have liked, too, and she cursed her fair complexion.

  “Yeah. This old city boy isn’t used to sitting on a horse for four hours.”

  “And I’m sure leaning against a headboard all night didn’t help much.”

  “Oh, that wouldn’t have made much of a difference.”

  Aelissm nodded and turned away. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

  He came down just moments after her, wrapped in a dark green robe. She glanced down at her own of nearly the same color. Why did everything have to be so damned perfect? For god’s sake, even their robes matched. Shaking herself free of her habitual rejection of anything pleasant, she stepped out the back door to grab a couple smaller logs and a handful of wood chips to start a fire. Pat took the kindling from her and got a fire going while she started breakfast.

  It didn’t take long for the kitchen to warm up and the rest of the cabin was bearable again shortly thereafter. While her father’s handiwork may not have been the most aesthetically beautiful, it was far more functional and practical than those massive vacation cabins some people built in Montana. Those huge windows made it much more difficult to hold the heat than the smaller, more economical windows Aelissm’s parents had installed. But then, she supposed the people who owned those so-called cabins could afford to heat them. The thought to money that had gone into the design and construction of this cabin was evident and reminded Aelissm unpleasantly of where she’d been. The poorer side of middle class she could handle. She’d grown up knowing the value of money and, to this day, still didn’t understand the carelessness with which Bryce had spent his money—and his parents’. Adam had always been much more cautious and his thriftiness was the one giveaway to his roots. He knew what it was to count every penny and stretch it as far as possible just like she did.

  Bryce had never understood that about either of them. Once, he’d even joked that she should be with Adam. She grimaced.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Pat asked as he stood from adding another log to the fire. He spanned his hands above the stove to warm them, but watched her quizzically over his shoulder.

  “Bryce and Adam. You’ve dealt with all kinds of people, so maybe you can explain something to me.”

  He shrugged doubtfully. “I can try.”

  “How could Bryce and his family and friends look down on me because I actually have to work for my money?” Her voice quivered with anger. “How can they think they’re better than me when they’ve had everything handed to them?”

  “Did Bryce look down on you?”

  “A little. I think he saw something good enough for him in me… but I always knew I wasn’t good enough for his parents and sister. I mean, how dare I pay my own way through college and have to take out loans to do it.”

  Pat stepped over and wrapped his arms around her. She balled her hands into fists against his chest and yelled out her anger, her voice muffled by his robe. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized she’d been so furious about the way Bryce’s parents and sister had treated her. Had she been aware of it then? To some extent, yes. She’d always felt like an outcast among them, but then it hadn’t really mattered. Why the hell did it matter now? If a man like Pat could find her appealing enough to kiss, there must be something worthwhile about her. Besides, she’d like to see Bryce’s prissy little sister chop a chord of firewood or turn a hunk of metal into something useful and beautiful. Hell, she’d like to see Bryce’s snob-nosed mother spend two weeks here in Montana in the middle of winter. She’d go nuts or freeze.

  “Are you all right?” Pat asked after a moment.

  She wiped her eyes and smiled. “I think I am now. It just… caught me by surprise.” Stepping over to flip the pancakes, she said, “I guess I didn’t realize how much it bothered me until now.”

  “Then now’s as good a time as any to talk about it.” Pat took eggs out of the fridge and cracked them into a bowl to scramble them. “I can tell you from my own experience with certain kinds of people that it’s the other way around as often as not.”

  “Your own experience? Work-related or personal?”

  “Some work-related, but mostly personal. Sara was the only daughter of an old-money family and I guess, looking back, I was always more of a pet to them, something that amused them. I certainly wasn’t ever part of the family.”

  Aelissm stared at him. That was the first thing he’d ever said about his ex to her. “Sounds like were both a rags-meets-riches story. We were the rags, they were the riches. Supposedly.”

  “Supposedly. As it turns out, we were the riches. Though habit still makes that hard to believe,” Pat replied. He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I know you want to know what happened, Aelissm, but I can’t talk about it just yet. I’m getting closer, thanks in large part to you. Can you make do with a promise that I’ll tell you someday?”

  “I guess I’ll have to. It’s really none of my business.”

  “Perhaps not, but I feel I owe you something in return for telling me about things I’m sure you’d rather not.”

  But I do want to tell you, Pat. I need to tell someone, she wanted to say. Instead, she asked, “So, where should I start?”

  “Where ever you want. Take your time.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “All right. Adam Winters. You said it scared you that he wasn’t who you thought. How so?”

  It was a relief to have a point to start on. And it was a valid one, because Pat would need to know Adam’s character if Adam found her again. Aelissm suppressed the shiver.

  “To answer that, I have to go back a ways.” She took a deep breath. “Adam came from the same kind of background I did, in a way, only his family wasn’t as close as mine. His dad left when he was four and he and his mom struggled a lot.”

  “Bill told me Adam and Bryce were best friends. How did they meet?”

  “After his dad left, Adam’s mom got a job teaching at the private school Bryce went to, so Adam was allowed to attend, tuition waved.” Aelissm shook her head. “They didn’t start off so well. Bryce and his little buddies taunted Adam in gym, but Adam wouldn’t fight back because if he did, he’d get kicked out of school. Until the gym teacher told him to beat the piss outa Bryce
if he pantsed him one more time. Bryce did, of course, so Adam beat the piss out of him. From then on, they became best friends. Sort of a rite of passage, I guess. Adam had to prove himself to the other boys.”

  She paused to pour more pancakes. “When I think about that, I remember him as the man I knew before that night when everything fell completely apart. He was always so friendly and he was as much a social underdog as I was. We only differed in that he wanted to be a part of Bryce’s ring. I didn’t. I accepted that, though, because when he and I used to hang out, he was cool. Then Bryce tried to prove I was his possession. Adam really did lose it, I think, when Bryce hurt me that night. He ceased to be my loveable friend.”

  “That really is the worst part, isn’t it? He betrayed you because he changed.”

  Aelissm cocked her head to the side and studied him. In the past year, she hadn’t slowed down enough to take a step back and analyze her situation. Pat’s words, which sounded more like he was thinking out loud than asking her opinion, were the absolute and painful truth. Why hadn’t she ever realized it before? She smacked her palm against her forehead.

  “I’m such an idiot. All this time, I could have been living a normal life,” she said, her voice saturated with sarcasm.

  “First off, don’t call yourself an idiot. There’s nothing farther from the truth.”

  “Coulda fooled me.”

  “Okay, there may be a few things less true, but you aren’t stupid. I don’t think you were wrong about the kind of person Adam was… he became something you couldn’t have anticipated. Even if you had misjudged him, that doesn’t mean you could have avoided this predicament.” Pat leaned against the sink and watched her for a few moments before he continued. “I can see why Adam is obsessed with you.”

  Aelissm lifted a brow in question.

  “You’re beautiful, intelligent, and strong. You’ve made your own place in the world and to hell with what everyone thinks about it. From what you’ve told me about Adam and from what I’ve read about him in Bill’s file, he couldn’t hold a candle to you. He came from a poor family and grew up in Bryce’s shadow. I imagine it killed him that his best friend had everything he didn’t and I’m not just talking about money, Aelissm. By social standing, you should have been with Adam, not Bryce.”