Her conscience tried to reason with her ire—in truth, wasn’t it actually a decent-guy move?—but she shut down that part of her brain. It was her birthday and a girl should get a pass on logic for at least one twenty-four-hour period a year.
Still, she had to get some fresh air. In her jeans, a simple T-shirt and a pair of sneakers, she crept down the stairs, a bottle of water in hand. The bar and dining room held a scatter of refugees, but no Jay. On a sigh of relief, she pushed open the front door and set out along the quiet streets of the tiny hamlet surrounding the Deerpoint Inn. While she’d never been to the town, which was little more than a crossroads, she’d seen enough of the fire coverage to have gained a general sense of direction. She took every turn uphill and hiked along the narrow roads while committing her route to memory.
Though she didn’t actually venture far, she was moving steadily upward, surprising chipmunks and squirrels who skittered across the asphalt to ascend the trunks of the towering conifers lining the road. Black ravens sailed among the top limbs while blue jays flitted at the lower levels. If she wasn’t used to elevations that were over five thousand feet, she might be laboring for air. As it was, she appreciated the cool breeze on her sweat-dampened skin and welcomed the chance to pause when she came to a break in the trees that offered a glorious view.
From here, there was no sign of fire. The wind must be carrying the scent of it away, too. And spread out before her were miles of craggy pine-covered peaks and a slice of blue that signaled one of the many local lakes in the distance. She breathed in double lungfuls of the air that was just starting to come down from its afternoon high temperature. It had probably been seventy-five at some point today.
Already she felt calmer, she thought, as she took in more fresh oxygen. She might not have true Walker blood in her veins, but the mountains were still her place. The foundation beneath her feet.
A twig snapped, the sound loud enough to make her whirl and her heart jump to her throat. She put her hand there as she stared at the man who last night and this morning had been seated on the neighboring stool. “You,” she managed to choke out. “Did you follow me?”
Jay held up both hands. “Not exactly. I wanted to stretch my legs. I thought by trailing you I could have a guide of sorts.”
“Unwilling guide,” Shay muttered under her breath.
“Yeah. Sorry.” He paused to suck in air, then half turned. “I’ll go.”
“Wait.” Narrowing her eyes, Shay took a closer look at him. His breath was more ragged than it should be for such a fit man. Altitude, she thought. Clearly, it was getting to him. Stifling a sigh, she held out her unopened bottle of water. “You need a drink.”
He inhaled sharply again. “I think that’s where one or both of us went wrong yesterday.”
Ignoring that comment, she stepped closer. “Seriously,” she told him. “You need water. You’re feeling the effects of the elevation.”
He took the proffered bottle but his expression was dubious. “It wasn’t that long a walk.”
“We’re near seven thousand feet here. Where you came from...?”
“Sea level.”
She nodded. Beach. His tan already announced it. Glancing around, she saw a fallen log a few feet away and gestured to it. “Sit down. Drink. Rest a little.”
He didn’t look happy as he followed her direction.
Shay shook her head, reading his mood. “Don’t worry. Your macho will bounce right back once you descend a few hundred feet.”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Last night I lost at War. Now this.”
His disgruntled tone made her almost smile. “I’m lousy at gin rummy,” she said. “If we played that it would shore up your ego in an instant.”
He glanced over as he settled on the log and stretched out his long legs. “You’re offering another round of cards? Thought you were mad at me.”
Shay shoved her hands in her pockets. She was mad at him—except when her conscience reminded her that he’d done the more honorable thing by refusing her. She’d been under the influence of birthday and booze.
Now that she thought about it, she and her half-tipsy offer had probably been less than flattering—and she had maybe been not all that alluring. Great. The pulsing sexual energy she’d sensed was likely a one-sided figment of her own inebriated imagination. “Can we forget about that?”
His eyes on her, he took a long swallow of the bottle, then lowered the plastic. “I probably can’t forget a moment of it,” he admitted.
Heat crawled up Shay’s neck and she looked down. Okay, so not one-sided? “Um...”
“And I also can’t help thinking it would have been damn good,” the man continued.
The words had her gaze leaping back to him. She stared at his face and into his golden eyes as the sexual attraction spun between them again, the line of it thrumming with energy. She could feel the heated effect of it in her chest, in her belly. Lower.
With a wrench, she cut the connection and turned away, to once again take in the view. Say something, she thought. Something inconsequential. Something to cool this down. She was sober now, and this wasn’t a safe or sane sensation.
“So...” Shay swallowed. “What is it you do at sea level?”
“Construction, mostly.”
Of course. Just as she’d figured. He was a man made to wear low-slung carpenter bags.
“Yourself?” he asked.
“This and that. I’m mountain-born and-bred. Lots of us have to do a variety of jobs in order to meet the alpine-resort prices.” This was all true. The schools in the area were small and though she had a credential, a teaching job had yet to open up. So she kept herself busy—and paid her bills—by tutoring and running some college test prep boot camps. Sometimes she helped out with her sister Mac’s maid service. The temporary live-in tutor job she’d scored until summer’s end was kind of a combination of all three.
Redirecting her gaze to the northeast, she thought about her sister Poppy’s pet project. “And my family has a tract of land and some cabins we’re refurbishing there. We’re hoping to create a quiet and very exclusive retreat for people who want to get away from it all.”
It wasn’t clear whether the idea would come to fruition, though. Her brother and Mac were still unconvinced, claiming to hold on to the outlandish idea that the property was cursed. Shay was on Poppy’s side, but as the non-Walker Walker, she kept quiet about her wishes on the subject. Because that outside-the-circle feeling was impossible to leave behind. The whispers she’d first heard on her fourteenth birthday had rooted deep in her heart and it didn’t help when to this day she caught old-timers going over the old gossip.
Behind her, she sensed Jay rising. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll head back.”
She swung around, risking another glance his way. “Are you going to be—”
“I’m better now. Fine.”
