mine buildings and a waterfall. Let’s check it out.” He collected his pack from the back of the Jeep, whistled to Indy and led the way up a narrow trail through the trees.
“How long have you lived in Ouray?” she asked, walking close behind him while the dog bounded ahead.
“About five years. I’d been coming here for a few years to climb the ice in the winters. I decided I wanted to live at altitude, near good climbing to help me stay in condition.”
“So Ouray was a practical choice.”
“That, and I really like it here.” He held a low branch up out of her way until she’d passed. “It’s beautiful. Not too big. The weather’s nice—what’s not to like?”
“Maybe the fact that it’s three hundred miles from a major city? Almost a hundred miles to a mall?”
He laughed. “If I want to buy anything, I order it off the Internet.”
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand the allure of shopping.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The trail began to climb and they fell silent as they scrambled up the incline. Indy took off in halfhearted pursuit of a squirrel, then circled back to Paul’s side. Sierra fell farther and farther behind, until Paul stopped to wait for her. “Want me to get behind and push?” he called.
She glared at him. “Some of us … are used to … breathing air … that contains … oxygen.”
“More like smog for you. Stick around a few weeks and you’ll get used to the thin air up here.”
She caught up with him and stopped to catch her breath. “I’ve got it figured out now,” she said after a moment.
“Got what figured out?”
“Why you’re crazy enough to climb mountains. Lack of oxygen has obviously left you brain damaged.”
“I never said I wasn’t crazy.” Their eyes met and he felt the heat of attraction. She had the most amazing eyes, so full of emotions he couldn’t read. He’d like to know her well enough to interpret those emotions.
She looked away. “We’d better get going,” she said, and moved past him up the trail.
He shrugged. Not that he minded the view from this angle, but he couldn’t help but feel she’d moved ahead to get away from him—or from something in herself he made her feel.
CHAPTER THREE
MORE THAN A LACK OF OXYGEN had stolen Sierra’s breath back there on the trail—for a moment, when she’d looked into Paul’s eyes, she’d wanted him to kiss her. The impulse had surprised her. Yes, he was good-looking and entertaining. His evasiveness of her questions frustrated her and his fascination with her father puzzled her, but he had a zest for life and a goofy wit that disarmed her. When he did answer her questions, she sensed that his replies were honest, and he had none of the arrogance she’d expected from a star in a sport that demanded supreme self-confidence.
She’d awakened this morning prepared to endure the day’s activities for the sake of the story, but she was actually having a good time, thanks to Paul. Maybe it was their surroundings that influenced her feelings toward him. Odd, how such vast open spaces could seem so intimate. She and Paul were truly alone, without another soul around.
The important thing was to not let her attraction to Paul get in the way of writing a good story. Her job was to find out everything she could about him and his motivation for climbing, and share that with her readers. If she also gained some insight into her father, that would be a bonus.
If she could only understand why her father had been so determined to conquer mountains while he avoided any obstacle at home, maybe she could find a way to reconcile her feelings for him—to mingle love and hate into acceptance.
“The mine ruins I was telling you about are just ahead.” Paul touched her elbow, pulling her from her reverie. “On the left.”
She stopped and studied a square black hole in the side of a hill, framed by leaning timbers and blocked by a rusty metal grate. “What was the name of the mine?” she asked.
“I don’t know. There are dozens of them scattered around these mountains. Maybe hundreds.”
“I wonder how many of them ever made any money?”
“Apparently a lot of them—for a while, anyway. There are still people with mining claims up here, still looking to strike it rich, I guess.”
They continued on the trail, which began to slope down, making the hike easier. “I’d forgotten there are still places this remote in the United States,” she said.
“I guess there’s not much hiking in New York City,” he said.
“There are trails in Central Park, though I haven’t explored them. When I was a girl, I used to go hiking with my dad.” She hadn’t thought about those trips in years. Climbing this trail—the smell of pine, the crunch of gravel beneath her feet—had brought the memories rushing back.
Those trails had seemed long and steep to her, but her father must have chosen the easiest routes, and modified his long strides to accommodate her short ones. When she tired, he’d carry her on his shoulders; the whole world had looked bigger and brighter from that lofty perch.
“Where did you go?” Paul asked.
“Everywhere. Weekends when he was home, we’d get in the car and drive. We’d pack a lunch and hike for hours. We were living in northern California then, so we had a lot of trails to choose from. We’d stay out all day, just him and me.”
“In the Sierra Nevadas, right? You must have been named after them.”
She frowned. “Yes. I still can’t believe my mother let my father name me after a mountain range.”
“At least he didn’t saddle you with Shasta or Bernina or Lhotse. Sierra’s a really pretty name. Maybe that was his way of bringing together two things he loved most.”
She swallowed past a sudden knot in her throat. As a girl, she had looked forward to those hiking trips with her father with all the anticipation of Christmas. The opportunity to have him all to herself for an entire day had been better than any gift she could have received.
“How old were you when you went hiking with him?” Paul asked. His expression was gentle, full of warm interest. The caring in his eyes emboldened her to reveal more than she ordinarily would have to someone she’d known such a short time.
“This was probably between the time I was six or seven and ten. Before my parents split up and Mom and I moved back east to live with her parents.”
“I didn’t know your father and mother were divorced.”
“Technically they weren’t. I think my mom hoped her leaving would convince him to stay home more and give up risking his life climbing mountains. She told him he had to choose between his family and the mountains.” She watched Paul’s face, waiting for his reaction to this statement.
