* *
THE MOMENT MAL got outside the pub, he let out a long string of profanities. He’d realized he’d have to deal with this sooner or later, but he hadn’t expected it this soon. What the hell was a reporter doing here, in his hometown? The story must be much bigger than he’d ever assumed.
And how the hell was he supposed to react? He and his family had dealt with the loss for nearly twenty years now, and yet the pain hadn’t dulled at all. There were still the “what ifs,” all the possible scenarios that could have unfolded that day on the mountain that could have resulted in a different outcome. Those were the worst.
What might it have been like to grow up with a father? It wasn’t as if his childhood had been bad. There’d just been a huge, gaping hole in his family that Max Quinn should have filled. How was he supposed to explain these things to a total stranger? This wasn’t about some frozen body on Mount Everest. This was about his father.
“Mr. Quinn!”
He spun around to find the reporter running toward him. In the next instant, she stumbled over a crack in the pavement and before he could reach to help her, she went down, face-first. “Oh, hell,” Mal muttered, racing to her side.
By the time he got to her, she had managed to sit up, but both her knees were scraped and bleeding and her computer was in pieces around her. “Oh, no,” she said, picking up the shattered bits of plastic.
“Are you all right? Did you hit your head?”
She reached up and touched her forehead. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Anything broken? Does it hurt anywhere?”
“Just my pride,” she said, wincing.
He met her eyes and his anger softened. She was only trying to do her job. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so rude. “Can you stand?”
She nodded her head. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “Thank you.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Amy Engalls.”
“Amy Engalls from High Adventure,” Mal said. “Any relation to Richard Engalls, the publisher?”
“He’s my father,” she said.
“And that would make David Engalls your brother?”
“Yes,” she said.
Richard Engalls had built his media empire, in part, to fund his love of adventure. He’d circumnavigated the globe in a balloon, had attempted to row across the Atlantic, and had climbed all Seven Summits. He’d also funded a number of expeditions and was the go-to investor in adventure expeditions after the National Geographic Society. Mal had also met David Engalls, the younger version of his father, who was very good at spending millions of Daddy’s money on his own exotic adventures. Mal’s opinion of David was that he was a horse’s arse—but a very wealthy horse’s arse. Mal had never known there was a daughter involved in the business, as well.
He reached down to brush the dust off her skirt, moving to a spot on her backside before he realized what he was doing. She had a very nice bum, as bums went. In fact, there wasn’t much about Amy Engalls that he found unattractive—beyond her profession. “Come on. Let’s get those scrapes fixed. I live just down the road. I’ve got antiseptic and bandages.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
“If I were you, Amy Engalls, I’d accept my offer. And while I’m bandaging your knees, you can try to get a comment out of me.”
This brought a smile to her pretty face. “All right.”
He picked up the pieces of her computer and then led her to the Range Rover. She groaned in pain as he helped her climb up into the passenger seat. Mal jogged around to his side and hopped in, then started the car.
As they headed out of town, he glanced over at her. She was pretty. Not overblown gorgeous, but cute in a clean, girl-next-door way. Her pale hair fell in waves around her face, framing eyes that were an odd mix of green and blue. Although none of her features were particularly striking, when put together, they made a face that he found very pleasant to look at.
As for her body, she was slender, but there were curves in the right places. Coming from a climbing family, he expected her to be lean and wiry, the kind of woman who could hold her own on a mountainside. But instead, she seemed soft and feminine despite clothes that did nothing to enhance her figure.
“So tell me about yourself, Amy Engalls. Do you share your family’s love of adventure?”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“What was the last mountain you stumbled up?”
She laughed softly. “Very funny. I’m not always so clumsy. I studied ballet. I’m just not used to...running.”
“I can see that. That was quite a fall you took.”
“I wasn’t actually running, I was chasing. You,” she said.
“Oh, and now you’re blaming me?”
“No, I just wanted to explain.”
“That you studied ballet?”
“No, why I came here to interview you.”
“You have me alone right now. It’s as good a moment as any. Have at it.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time and Mal waited, wondering what her first question might be. “I’m not sure I can do this,” she finally said.
“Do what?”
“Pry into your personal life,” she said.
“You’re not a top-notch chaser, and if you won’t pry, you won’t get very far as a reporter, either.”
She straightened in her seat. “All right. Tell me how you felt when you heard the news that they’d found your father.”
“My father’s body,” he corrected. Mal could explain exactly how he’d felt. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to start blathering on about it. From the time of his father’s death, he and his family had always maintained a stiff upper lip. Max Quinn had died doing what he loved, that was what they’d always said. And no one ever knew when he’d go. He could be hit by a bus tomorrow.
And yet, what had that answer ever gotten them?
Mal glanced over at her and sighed softly. “The answer would be...gobsmacked.”
“It must have brought back a lot of memories.”
“He’s never been far from my mind,” Mal admitted.
In truth, his father’s memory had loomed large in Mal’s life. Max Quinn was a legend, a man everyone had assumed was invincible. Hell, he was the bloody Titanic of mountain climbing, the guy who could conquer any peak and do it with a smile.
And
