скачать книгу бесплатно
“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 on everything as well and wasn’t afraid to voice it.
But in all the ranting, he acknowledged silently, she hadn’t complained once. And that surprised him. It wasn’t often Jericho was surprised by anything. So the fact that Daisy could make him rethink his original opinion of her was astonishing.
The last bunch of clients he’d had out on the mountain included a bank manager, who had prided himself on his rugged individuality, had wept like a baby after a few hours on the trail. He’d bagged the wilderness trip and called it quits as quickly as he could.
Yet Daisy, not a peep.
He knew she was tired. Her steps were less brisk and even her attempts at conversation were beginning to slow to a trickle. But she hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t asked to rest. Hadn’t whined about a damn thing, and Jericho had to admit he admired her for it. She was more than he’d thought. But in the long run, did that mean anything?
She stumbled and, instinctively, he reached out and grabbed her elbow to steady her. Just touching her sent another zing of heat shooting through him, so he let go of her fast and when he spoke he was harsher than he should have been.
“Watch your damn step or you’re going to break a leg or something and I’ll have to hump you out.”
“Hump?”
“Carry,” he explained curtly.
She nodded. “Right. Sorry. I was watching Nikki.”
“Let me watch the damn dog,” he told her in little more than a growl. “You watch where you put your feet.”
“Wow, King Crabby.” She didn’t wait for his response. “You really don’t want me out here, do you?”
“I just think it’s a mistake.”
“Yes, so you’ve told me, but it’s not.” She turned her face up to him and a brilliant smile curved her luscious mouth. “And admit it, I’m doing better than you thought I would. Go ahead,” she urged, “say I’m doing well.”
He blew out a breath. “The fall notwithstanding, yeah, you’ve done all right so far.”
“Thank you! What a nice thing to say.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. She was still smiling and her eyes shone with humor and pleasure in the moment. She had to be exhausted and irritated with his behavior, but damned if she didn’t keep her own spirits up.
“You’re an odd one, aren’t you?”
“Not odd,” she corrected, “just different. For example, when someone else is crabby, I don’t get crabby back. I try not to let their mood affect mine.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, picking up on her not-so-subtle jab. “That was a nice shot. You’ve got good aim.”
“I know,” she said, glancing at her dog to make sure the tiny thing was still in sight. “So how much farther?”
One dark eyebrow winged up. “Tired?”
“Nope.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I could go for hours yet. Just curious.”
“Sure,” he said with a shake of his head. “All right. Listen.”
“To what?”
He sighed. “You have to be quiet to listen.”
“Right.” She snapped her mouth closed and frowned in concentration. After a moment or two her eyes slowly widened. “What is that? It sounds like hundreds of people talking in whispers.”
“It’s the river,” he told her. “Just around that bend there, by the crooked pine. We’ll set up camp there tonight.”
She sighed heavily and he heard the unspoken relief in the sound.
Still, he had to give her points, if only internally. As close to the edge of collapse as she might feel, she wasn’t letting him know it. The woman was running on sheer grit and determination. And that was something Jericho approved of. He even thought that maybe he’d dismissed her too easily, judging her by her looks and her clothes and telling himself that no one that pretty, that dainty, was made of stern enough stuff to make it in his world.
The problem was, he didn’t want to be wrong about her. His life would be much easier if she just failed this little test and took herself back to where she came from.
By the time they made camp, Daisy was clearly exhausted, but worked right through it. She helped him lay out sleeping bags, then watched as Jericho set up a campfire ring. He set large rocks in a small circle, while clearing away any nearby brush that might catch with a stray spark.
When he was finished, he laid a couple more flat-sided rocks inside the ring and built a campfire. Once the flames were going, Daisy took over, surprising him again. She carried the battered tin coffeepot down to the nearby stream, filled it with water and set it on one of the rocks to boil.
“You almost seem to know what you’re doing,” he commented.
“Well, I was a Girl Scout like a hundred years ago,” she said quietly. “I went on a couple of overnight trips and I can still remember watching our troop leader setting up camp.” She flashed him a smile and in the firelight, her features were soft, ethereal and downright beautiful.
Darkness surrounded their campsite and stars were glittering like jewels flung carelessly across the sky. Nikki was curled up on a sleeping bag and he and Daisy sat across the fire from each other.
While she waited for the water to boil, she reached into her backpack and drew out a couple of large, covered plastic dishes.
“What’s that?”
“Dinner!” She grinned at him. “I made more beef pasties late last night to bring along. And I’ve got some great corn chowder here, too. All we need to do is heat it up.”
Surprised again, he shook his head. “You realize this isn’t supposed to be a picnic.”
“We have to eat and I just thought it would be easier this way. Don’t worry,” she told him with a tender touch of sarcasm. “Tomorrow we can chew on bark if you insist. But tonight, dinner’s on me.”
A short laugh shot from his throat. “Chew on bark?”
She tipped her head to one side and looked at him with a bemused expression on her face. “You should do that more often.”
“Eat bark?”
“No,” she said. “Smile.”
Jericho watched her then as she expertly scooped coffee into the pot, then sat back to let it boil on the edge of the fire. “You keep surprising me,” he said after another moment of shared silence. “I expected you to fold early today.”
“I know.”
“That why you hung in?”
“Partially, I suppose,” she admitted, drawing her knees up and wrapping both arms around them. “And partially to prove to myself I could do it.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m not saying my legs aren’t screaming at me, or that I’m not so tired I couldn’t flop backward over a boulder and fall right asleep, but I did it.”
He nodded, willing to give her that much at least. “You did.”
“So, does that mean I’ve proved myself?”
“Not yet,” he said, reluctantly thinking about what she had to face on the coming day. She’d be a lot more exhausted tomorrow night than she was at this moment, he thought and realized that he didn’t like thinking about that. “You’ve got to make it through the full two days and nights.”
“I will, you know.”
Her voice was steel covered in velvet. Soft but strong, and the purpose in her eyes flashed at him in the firelight. “I’m convinced you’ll give it a good shot,” Jericho said.
“That’s something, anyway,” she mused.
Just beyond their campsite, the river rushed through the darkness, swiftly moving water sounding like hundreds of sighs rising together. A cold wind swept through the trees and had Daisy tugging the edges of her borrowed coat closer together.
“I can’t believe it’s so cold up here. In L.A., it’s still warm at night.”
“We’ll probably have first snow by the end of the month.”
“Can’t wait to see it,” she said, her eyes still glittering at him.
“We’ll see.” Jericho reached out, tapped the coffeepot carefully with his fingertips and, satisfied, picked up a cloth to grab the pot by its curved handle. He poured each of them a cup of the steaming black brew, then watched as Daisy pulled a cook pan closer and dumped her corn chowder into it to heat.
“It’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she said, picking up her coffee cup for a sip. “So while we wait, tell me about Brant.”
That caught him off guard and Jericho’s gaze snapped to hers. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what was it like over there? Was Brant happy where he was—before he died?”
Five
Frowning, Jericho said, “Happy? Nobody’s happy on a battlefield.”
“You know what I mean,” she persisted.
He stared into his coffee as if looking for answers. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I do. The thing is, people always ask that question, but they don’t really want to know what a war zone is like.”
“I do. I want to know what my brother’s life was like before it ended.”
Lifting his gaze to hers, he kept his face deliberately blank. “Brant did his job. He was good at it. He was well-liked.”
When she opened her mouth to ask another question, he cut her off. “Daisy, let it go.”
“I can’t,” she told him, regret shining in her whiskey-brown eyes. “I have to know.”
Jericho sighed a little, took a drink of his coffee and told her what he could, with some judicious editing. Civilians would never understand what it was like in a combat zone. Would never know the moments of pure adrenaline rush, followed by the searing hours of boredom. They wouldn’t understand what it was to put your life in someone else’s hands and to trust them with yours, or the fierce loyalty that the military experienced on a daily basis.
And how could they?
So he kept it simple and as vague as he could possibly get away with. “The days were blistering hot and the nights were so cold,” he said, “you half expected to wake up with icicles on your nose.”
“Brant complained about the cold in an e-mail once. I sent blankets,” she told him. “To everyone in his unit.”
“I know,” he said, giving her a real smile now as his memory raced back in time. “There was a lot of celebrating that day. After that, every mail call, Brant’s friends huddled close, wanting to get in on one of your packages from home.”
“I’m glad,” she said, though her features were wreathed in sadness.
