they oversaw, and David had been lucky to do most of the work on that film long-distance. Come to think of it, maybe that was why the thing hadn’t had big box-office success. But that was beside the point.
He gave Addy a sharpened look. “I know how to handle myself. Do you have any legitimate objections to my going?”
“You mean other than the obvious one? That we really don’t…get along?”
Boy, talk about an understatement, he thought. But what he said was, “Yeah. Besides that.”
She shrugged. “Not if you can keep up. I’m not a babysitter.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Great. I can always make use of someone to pound tent stakes and carry water.”
He realized that he’d missed her habit of coming back at him with mockery and sarcasm. Addy had always been able to give as good as she got. The next two weeks spent in her company might be very irritating…but strangely stimulating.
She rifled through a small stack of papers that poked haphazardly out of the notebook she carried, then handed him a brochure and a supply list. “Think you can pull it together on such short notice and find your way to the lodge? I want to leave at sunup.”
“No problem. I’ll be there.”
Seeming resigned to the idea, she hefted one of his grandmother’s bags and left him to get everything else. While his grandmother locked up the house, the two of them settled the luggage into the back of the lodge van.
“Oh,” Addy remarked as though she’d just remembered something. She slammed the vehicle’s tailgate, then moved closer to him so that her words wouldn’t carry. “Two things I think we should get clear between us right up front.”
He waited.
Her dark eyes had such a fearless, challenging look in them, a look he vividly remembered. How little she’d changed over the years. “This all might be an amusing lark to you, but this kind of trip is serious business. That means out there, what I say goes.”
“You’re the trail boss, huh?”
“That’s right,” she agreed. “Fail to pull your own weight or treat me like some flunky out of your corporate steno pool, and I’ll have you hitchhiking back to the ranch in thirty seconds flat.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Get the picture?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
With that, she started to walk away. David stood back from the vehicle. He supposed he ought to be annoyed. But, oddly enough, he wasn’t. Instead his heart was beating with newfound interest. He felt as though he had drunk some of the strong, glowing sunshine all around him.
“Addy,” he called.
She turned to look at him, waiting.
“You said two things. What’s the second one?”
She smiled, this time without the stiletto in it. “This trip is important to your grandmother,” she said softly. “Don’t spoil it for her. I’m going to have a couple of mules to keep in line. I don’t need a jackass, as well.”
CHAPTER TWO
TWO WEEKS WITH DAVID McKay back in her life.
Two whole weeks.
Oh Lord, how was she going to handle that?
All the way up the mountain road to Lightning River Lodge that question circled in Addy’s brain. Unfortunately no answer ever circled with it.
Ten years had passed since she’d last seen David. Ten years since they’d argued past the point of all good sense. And now he was back. Back in Broken Yoke, a place he supposedly hated, surrounded by the trappings of a life he’d been eager to ditch. Soon to be spending day after day in the company of a woman he’d once accused of trying to stifle his creativity and tie him down.
Two weeks was going to seem like an eternity.
The interior of the van was quiet for so long that Geneva cleared her throat and looked over at her sympathetically. “I’m so sorry about the way this has turned out, Addy. I know having David along will make you uncomfortable.”
“No, it will be fine,” she said quickly and wished she meant it. “We’re both adults. It was a shock at first, seeing him again, but we’ll manage.”
“I can’t believe he’s coming with us, but you know how he is when he gets an idea in his head. So…unstoppable.”
“Oh, yes. I remember.”
She did, too. She’d known him since the seventh grade, when he’d come to live with his grandparents. But it was the summer after high school had ended that she remembered most.
He’d told her that he’d been hired to do grunt work for the film crew that had come to Broken Yoke. Trailblazer had been a low-budget Western shooting in the nearby Arapahoe National Forest. From the time David’s father had given him his first camera as a child, he’d wanted to be a filmmaker. This had been his big chance to see what it was like from the inside.
She should have known right then that things were going to change for them.
From the corner of her eye Addy saw Geneva shake her head. “I had no idea he was coming home. He seldom does, you know.”
“When was the last time?”
“When he helped me settle Herbert’s estate two years ago. Since then I’ve been out to see him in California, of course, but I don’t like it much. All that endless sunshine and plastic-looking people everywhere. It’s just not right.”
“I guess he likes it.”
“I suppose,” Geneva said in a clearly mystified voice. After a while she added, “I never dreamed he’d show up on my doorstep. I wish I could have warned you somehow. But it happened so fast.” She reached across the seat and placed her hand on Addy’s. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle this, dear?”
Addy wished Geneva would stop asking her that. Especially since she didn’t know the answer. All she could say was, “As long as he earns his keep on this trip. No free rides.”
“I’m sure he will. And you’re right. It will be fine. You two got along so well in the old days, before he decided to go back to Hollywood with those wretched film people. It would be nice if you could be friends again.”
Addy stole a glance off the road to look at Geneva. Had there been some wishful thinking going on in that head of hers? Surely not. But just to be safe, Addy thought she’d better nip that in the bud. “Not likely. We’re two very different people now. Did you see that suit he was wearing? I’ll bet he doesn’t know what it’s like to walk among us common folk anymore.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what the next two weeks bring,” Geneva said with a bright smile.
Addy
