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He and his mother had never had a very traditional relationship. She’d raised him on her own, and Eli hadn’t known who his father was until he was fifteen. Even then, he’d never been able to talk to the man. Maxwell Quinn, a noted mountain climber and adventure guide, had died on Everest when Eli was eight. But it hardly mattered. To Eli, he was nothing more than a name on the back of a faded photo.
After Eli’s birth, Annalise had stayed home for a few years, attempting to accept a traditional role as the mother of a toddler. But the moment he was toilet trained, Annalise continued her adventuring, leaving Eli in the care of his grandmother, Trudie Montgomery, or his grandfather, Buck Garrison.
His grandparents’ lives were just as nontraditional as his mother’s. Buck had never married Trudie, and after the brief affair that produced Eli’s mother, they each took up with an odd assortment of lovers. His grandparents tried to give him a normal life—high school, sports, hearty meals and a lot of time spent outdoors.
Eli knew at an early age that his family was different. Trudie had disregarded societal norms and raised her daughter on her own, working any odd job she could find to put food on the table. Annalise had left home at sixteen, dropping out of school to take off with a climber she’d met at a local roadhouse. A few years later, Trudie wandered into the wilderness of the Rockies, built a rustic cabin on the edge of a mountain meadow and never returned to civilization.
She spent the rest of her life writing books about feminist empowerment and a woman’s connection to the natural world, turning herself and her little mountain home into a symbol for independent women throughout the world.
Most of the people around town, however, thought Trudie and Annalise were a bit crazy. There were times when Eli had to agree, although he preferred to think of them both as unconventional. After all, they were family—his only family—and he’d learned to accept them for who they were: two very confident, powerful women who didn’t need a man in their lives to be happy or fulfilled.
Trudie had passed away seven years ago after a valiant battle with breast cancer. After a brief stint in the hospital, she’d returned to her cabin to die. Annalise and Eli had buried her in the meadow, in a coffin Trudie had built herself. After her death, her cabin became a destination for hikers trekking into the Arapaho National Forest and a pilgrimage for women who had admired Trudie’s tenacity and her talent as a writer.
When Eli was home, he often spent time at the cabin, making sure the roof was still sound and the cupboards were stocked in case someone wanted to stay there, or it was needed as an emergency shelter by a lost or injured hiker. Though many other empty cabins had fallen prey to squatters or vandals, Trudie’s cabin, like her memory, had been revered by those who visited, and left untouched.
“Annalise is on her way,” Vanessa called from the far end of the store.
“Thanks,” Eli replied.
He found a pair of cotton cargo pants and a T-shirt on the sale rack. His mother’s shop was a popular stop for tourists, but she still went on climbing expeditions all over the world and led treks for breast cancer survivors, in honor of her mother’s battle for both equality and survival.
Annalise had also founded one of the country’s most successful breast cancer charities. She still served as the face of the group, though she’d never been interested in the day-to-day business workings.
Eli walked to the back of the store, then past his mother’s office to a narrow stairway. When he got upstairs, he wove a path through the boxes that littered the hallway, stripping off his travel-worn clothes along the way.
He found a pair of scissors in the kitchen, then made his way to the bathroom. Eli stared at his reflection in the mirror for a long moment. This was the first time he’d been home without an exit strategy already planned. Usually, his visits had an expiration date, a day when he was required to leave so he could make his next adventure. Over the past few years, he’d trekked the Andes, worked a fishing boat in Alaska, hopped a freighter for Taiwan, taught a series of workshops for Outward Bound and helped film a documentary about surfing in Hawaii.
Maybe it was time to reassess his choices in life, Eli mused. Though he’d never wanted a traditional career, he felt as if he ought to be contributing in a more profound way. Both his grandmother and his mother had carved out legacies for themselves. What would his legacy be?
Some guys built powerful careers, and their lives were all about money and accumulating wealth. Others, like politicians, preferred to build their power. Others married and found their legacies in their children. And then there were those that set themselves apart by accomplishing impossible things, like climbing the highest mountain or finding a cure for a fatal disease or pitching a no-hitter.
When would he figure out his place in the world? And when would he be perfectly happy with his life? These questions always seemed to plague him at the end of one of his adventures, when he was left with just the memories and nothing more. Usually he was able to push them to the back of his mind by finding another adventure, but this time, he had nowhere to go and nothing to take his mind off of his murky future.
Eli carefully clipped off the beard, but left his hair a little long. He’d make a quick visit to the barber tomorrow. Rubbing his face, he turned on the shower and when the water was nice and warm, stepped beneath the spray and sighed.
He hadn’t had a real shower, or bath, in almost two months. The luxury of hot, fresh water was almost more than he could bear and he groaned softly as he let the spray pound his back.
By the time he’d scrubbed his skin and lathered his hair, he was starting to feel almost human. The lather dripped off his body and gathered around his feet as he rinsed, then he reached for the faucet and shut off the shower. Wiping the water from his face, he yanked the curtain back and reached for a towel. He wrapped the soft fabric around his waist and strode into the bedroom to grab the T-shirt and pants.
“Look at you!”
His mother was perched on the edge of his bed, her legs crossed in front of her, her wavy gray-streaked hair falling around her face.
“Jesus, Annalise!” He clutched the towel and made sure it was tightly knotted.
“Oh, please. I’ve seen you naked before. Many times.”
“Get out,” he said, nodding toward the bedroom door.
She jumped off the bed, then threw her arms around his neck. “You’re home!” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, then rubbed it in as she’d done when he was a child. “So it will last,” she murmured, as she always did.
He waited for her to close the bedroom door behind her, then cursed softly. Was it any wonder that he’d never figured out the female mind? Maybe if he’d had a normal mother and grandmother, he’d be married with two or three kids by now. Instead, he survived on a series of short-lived affairs with women who seemed perfectly normal at first, but who strangely always ended up unsuitable or unstable.
When Eli finally emerged from the bathroom, dressed in the cargo pants and T-shirt, Annalise was waiting in the hallway with a hot cup of tea. She pulled him along to the kitchen table and shoved a stack of shoe boxes off a chair and onto the floor. “Sit, sit. When Vanessa called, I was so surprised. I wasn’t expecting you. Usually you call.”
“I didn’t really have a chance,” he said, picking up a pair of climbing shoes that she’d pushed aside. “Do these come in my size?”
She smiled. Though she’d reached the half-century mark last year, Annalise Montgomery still had a girlish exuberance that belied her true age. Her slender body, kept healthy by yoga and a vegan diet, moved with a grace and athleticism that made her hard to ignore.
“Richard Baskill?” he said.
“Oh, stop. I don’t need you to tell me who I can and cannot screw.” She sat down across from him and tucked her feet up under her. “It’s just a thing. An undeniable sexual attraction. I’m going through menopause and they say sometimes women just freak out and try to do it with any man who walks by.” She shrugged, a coy grin twitching at the corners of her lips. “So I did. And I’ll have you know, he’s quite an accomplished lover. Besides, there’s nothing left to do about the resort. He managed to buy every politician that could have stopped it. I just figured it was time to go with the flow.”
“So the next best thing was to hop into bed with him?”
She giggled. “We actually haven’t done it in a bed yet. He likes it when I get...creative. I couldn’t beat him with the resort, but I do hold all the power in the bedroom.”
Eli covered his ears. “Too much information,” he shouted, shaking his head.
“All right, all right,” she said, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers through his. “No more talk about my love life. Let’s talk about yours.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Eli said.
She gave him a sad look and sighed.
“Is there some kind of sexual dysfunction that keeps you from—”
“Stop!” Eli said. “I’m not going to talk to you about my sex life.”
A silence descended and she busied herself braiding a strand of her hair. As much as he loved his mother’s rather mercurial personality, it often made simple conversation nearly impossible. She usually blurted out exactly what was on her mind, without the benefit of a filter. Though, truth be told, Eli had come to the conclusion that she enjoyed shocking people.
“Is there some other topic we might discuss?” Eli asked.
“I suppose your inability to settle down and find a purpose for your life is off-limits as well?”
“The commitment gene is missing in the Montgomery family,” he muttered. “I take after you and Trudie. I make enough money to live my life. That’s all I need for now.”
“Well, in the interest of making money to live your life, I just happen to have a job for you, a good-paying job. They hired me to do it, but now that you’re home, I think you’d be perfect for it.”
“What kind of job?”
“I got a call from a production company in Los Angeles. They’re doing a reality show, a girl-in-the-wild thing where they drop this woman into the wilderness and she has to fend for herself for a year. They wanted to rent Trudie’s cabin because they’re basing the concept on her life on the mountain.”
“You rented out my grandmother’s cabin?”
“You won’t believe what they paid,” Annalise said. “It’s all very professional. This woman they got to host the show, Lucy Parker, she’s read all your grandmother’s books. She’s a huge fan.”
“How old is she?”
“What difference does that make? I was twenty-four when I first climbed Everest. Your grandmother was fifty when she wrote her first book. Age is just another metric that men use to put women down.”
Eli cursed softly. “All right, never mind her age. How long is she going to live there all alone? Two, three months?”
“A year. And she isn’t alone. She has a dog with her.”
“A year? How is a TV personality from Los Angeles going to feed herself? Does she hunt? What about chopping wood? There must be a production crew that’s going to stay with her. They wouldn’t leave her up there all alone.” He stared at Annalise. “Well? Did you ask these questions?”
“Well...no. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
“Does she have a radio or a sat phone to call if she needs help?”
His mother shrugged. “I have no idea. You can find out yourself when you hike up there the day after tomorrow. That’s the job. Check up on her once a month. Bring a few supplies to her.” She stood up. “In the meantime, I think we should go out and stuff ourselves with pizza and beer.”
“You don’t eat cheese,” he said. “You’re a vegan.”
“I’ve realized that cheese is quite possibly the most sublime food on the planet. And I only eat organic cheese from grass-fed, humanely pastured milk cows.”
“Next thing you’ll be telling me that you’re eating meat.”
“Bacon,” she said. “I mean, it’s really not meat. It’s fat. And it smells like sex feels. At my age, I just don’t think I should deny any of my urges. Life is short. We have to enjoy every single moment. That’s what Richard says.”
Eli rubbed his forehead, wondering at the sudden knot of tension beneath his fingertips. Maybe a beer—or five—was exactly what he needed right now. It appeared that a lot of things had changed since he’d last been home.
Leave it to his mother to involve them both in some silly reality show. The reality was that life in Trudie’s cabin was hard and lonely and it wasn’t a place for make-believe adventurers. He intended to let Lucy Parker know exactly what she was in for. And once she found out what a winter in the Rockies would be like, she’d want to run right back down the mountain.
* * *
LUCY PARKER ROLLED over on her bunk and winced at the ache in her shoulder. She’d spent the previous day stripping the bark from a tree she’d felled last week. It was backbreaking work, but all part of the process—the process of building her own shelter that would withstand the harsh winter.
She sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. This was the life she’d signed on for. A year in the wilderness, a year living life as Trudie Montgomery had. And the first task was to construct a small log cabin. She’d been on the mountain for exactly a month and had managed to gather enough logs for one wall of the ten-by-ten foot shelter she’d planned to build.
Her plans had undergone some revisions once she realized how heavy a twelve-foot tree could be. So she’d reduced the diameter of the trees she harvested to only those she could drag through the woods herself.
Though she was behind schedule, Lucy was certain that once her body got used to the specific labors involved, she’d pick up speed.
Her only companion in this adventure, her dog, Riley, was stretched out beside her on the old iron bed. When she sat up, he lifted his head. “I’d sleep much better if you’d stay on your side,” she muttered. He gave her a soft woof then leaped over her and scurried to the door.
She crawled out of bed, wrapping the old quilt around her to ward off the chill, then opened the front door of the cabin. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the amazing landscape around her. To the west were mountains—high, craggy, snow-covered peaks. To the east, thick forest and the foothills. The closest town was Stone Creek, twenty miles away by air, but hours by vehicle and foot. She’d come to the cabin via a helicopter that had landed in the wide green meadow to the south, a meadow now painted in the watercolor hues of the first wildflowers of the season.
Riley scratched at the screen door and she opened it. He ran out and she followed at a more leisurely pace. She’d put her watch away and sealed it in an old baking-powder tin, allowing her body to dictate the hours of the day. When she was hungry, she ate. When she was tired, she slept. And when it was time to work, she focused all her energy to push herself harder than she’d ever been pushed. She loved it.
Lucy drew a deep breath of the crisp morning air. Her year in the wild promised to be both a personal and a professional challenge, and she relished the chance to prove herself. She’d bounced around from job to job in television production for years, picking up jobs where she could and making enough to put herself through college. She’d read Trudie’s books when she was a teenager and had dreamed of a life spent alone, with nothing but her strength and wits to sustain her.
An offhand conversation with another producer had resulted in a proposal for a new reality show. She’d spend a year in the wilderness, following in the footsteps of famous feminist Trudie Montgomery. Amazingly, her proposal had been accepted, a production budget had been secured and on April first, Lucy had been left in the meadow with Riley and twenty crates of supplies to get her through the next twelve months.
All she had to do was provide at least fifteen hours of video footage per week, chronicling her efforts to survive in the wilderness, recording her thoughts on Trudie, her feminist ideals and the challenges she’d faced. Meanwhile, the producers were working to sell the series to a network.
Lucy had been given a battery-operated two-way radio to call for help in case of an emergency, a laptop computer with a satellite uplink to upload her video footage each week and a generator to charge both the video camera and laptop.
Figuring it should be charged now, she walked back inside and grabbed the video camera, then sat down on the top porch step and turned it toward herself. Pushing the record button, she smiled. “Hooray, hooray, it’s the third of May. I’ve been on the mountain for exactly one month and today, I’m going to have a visitor. Annalise Montgomery, Trudie’s daughter, has agreed to stop by once a month to check up on me and bring me a few supplies. And to chat with us. Those of you who’ve read Trudie’s books know that Trudie’s friend and lover, Buck Garrison, used to stop by every month with necessities, but there will be no men visiting me.”
Rachel McFarlane and Anna Conners, her two producers, had decided that the entire project, from production on down, should be run by women. The pair had produced an award-winning PBS special on the all-women’s America’s Cup racing crew several years before and were certain that it would be a positive message to send to the public and a good way to market the show to the networks when it came time to sell it.
“What do I need?” Lucy continued. “A few extra lanterns for the very dark mountain nights. Another pair of long underwear. Some heavier socks. And a new washboard to do laundry. I could also use some chocolate, but I didn’t put that on my list as I’ve decided to go cold turkey.” She paused. “Turkey. I’d also love a turkey sandwich. Canned meat has already lost its appeal.”
Riley’s bark caught her attention and Lucy trained the lens on the meadow, hoping to catch Annalise as she approached. In the distance, she made out a lone figure moving toward her. She tried to make out the details of Annalise’s face, then sucked in a sharp breath.
It wasn’t the slender figure of Annalise, but a tall, lanky man who approached. She noticed the rifle slung over his shoulder. He also carried a large frame pack, yet moved as if it weighed nothing.
Lucy had been in the wilderness for an entire month and this was the first visitor she’d had. Though she felt a small measure of excitement, this wasn’t the person she’d expected. Calling for Riley, she motioned the dog to her side and he sat down, his attention now fixed on the stranger. As the man approached the cabin, Lucy observed him more closely.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing hiking shorts and boots, a faded T-shirt, sunglasses and a cap that shaded his eyes. Thick, dark hair curled out from under the cap and the shadow of a beard darkened his face.
A tiny tremor raced through her. There was a reason why the production company had hired Annalise Montgomery to make the monthly visits, beyond the show’s premise. After a month of solitude, a single man—hell, any man—caused a riot of unsettling feelings inside of her, even if he might be a backwoods ax murderer.
Lucy suddenly realized how vulnerable she was, out here all alone. She set the camera down and grabbed the rifle from its spot just inside the door. Nestling the butt into her shoulder, she got the man in her sights. “Stop right there,” she shouted across the twenty yards that separated them. Riley growled softly.
Startled, he did as he was ordered, slowly raising his hands and watching her suspiciously. “Are you really planning to use that?” he shouted.
“I will if I have to.”
“Then nestle the stock into your shoulder and raise the muzzle up. Unless your intended target is the dirt five feet in front of me. Don’t tell me they didn’t even teach you to shoot properly.”
“What are you doing here?”
“The more appropriate question,” he muttered, starting toward her again, “would be what are you doing here?” He dropped his hands to the straps on his pack and hooked his thumbs beneath them.
She narrowed her gaze. “Who are you?”
“Annalise sent me,” he said. “I’ve brought some supplies. And I guess I’m supposed to make sure you haven’t done anything stupid, like starve to death or get eaten by a bear. You look healthy and I don’t see any teeth marks, so I assume you’re all right so far?”
Lucy stifled a smile as she set the gun down beside her. She stepped off the porch, suddenly curious about the man who’d wandered into her orbit. He slipped the pack off his back, then stretched his arms above his head. Then, in one smooth movement, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and used it to wipe the perspiration from his face.
Lucy bit back a moan as she took in his finely muscled chest and impossibly sculpted abdomen. Her fingers twitched as she imagined running her hands over the tanned skin, pressing her lips to the smooth expanse of naked skin.
This was crazy. She’d gone far longer than a month without a man in her life before. Why was she reacting so strongly to this guy now? Yes, he was gorgeous. And she hadn’t had any human contact for a month. But she should be able to control her reactions much better than this.
He cleared his throat and when she met his gaze, Lucy realized she’d been caught staring. “You shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “Annalise agreed to come.”
“She thought I’d enjoy the fresh air and a good, long hike.”
“We had an agreement,” Lucy said.
“Well, if you knew anything about Annalise you’d understand that she’s rather flexible when it comes to promises and agreements.”
“We have a contract. This entire project is supposed to be run by women. Women producers, women editors. We want to make a statement. Exactly how Trudie would have wanted it.”
“How do you know what Trudie wanted?” he asked. “You never even met her.”
