Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel (26 page)

* * *

V
ic reached over
, took Eric’s hand. “I am grateful for my husband. I’m grateful for my home. I’m grateful for my new life. I’m grateful for good friends. I’m grateful that my father and brother came all the way out here to spend our first Thanksgiving together with us. I’m grateful that I don’t forget things all the time now.”

It was her father’s tradition each Thanksgiving to share reasons for feeling gratitude, and it was a tradition she was happy to keep.

“I guess it’s my turn.” Robin looked over at her son. “I am grateful for my son and his wonderful, beautiful wife. I have a new daughter, and I love her. She’s brought so much joy to our lives. Everyone in Scarlet loves her. I’m grateful for my continued health and the health of my loved ones.”

Eric gave his mother’s hand a squeeze. “Well, this is easy. I am grateful to be alive and to share my life with you, Victoria. You are the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I will be grateful for every single day we have together. I’m grateful for the mother who loves me, for the food on our table, for the roof over our heads, and for the new family I’m just getting to know.”

She saw his gaze meet her father’s, an understanding passing between them. What had they talked about when they’d been getting wood? They’d been out there for a while.

James put down his wine. “Let’s see... I’m grateful third-quarter sales figures were higher than we thought they’d be. I’m grateful that the old bag upstairs from me is moving out and taking her two yappy dogs with her. I’m grateful that my sister met a good guy and that they got married in Vegas so that I didn’t have to go to a wedding. I’m just kidding. I’m grateful that you’re happy, Vic.”

Then it was her father’s turn. “I’m grateful that my daughter is safe and alive and whole. I’m grateful for the good man she married. I’m grateful for the time we’ve been able to spend together. I’m grateful that I’m able to give them this wedding gift.”

He placed a small brown envelope in the center of the table. “Go ahead. Open it.”

Vic reached out, picked up the envelope, and opened it to find two keys inside. “What are these for?”

Her father smiled. “Look at the tags.”

There was an address written on them.

“That’s our address. Wait. No, it’s not.” Blood rushed to Vic’s head. “It’s … Oh, my God! You bought the house! You bought the property!”

She jumped out of her chair, ran around to the side of the table, and hugged him. “Thank you!”

“What?” Eric took the keys from her, stared at the address, then looked up at her father. “Holy fucking shit!”

For a moment, she thought he might faint.

He gaped at her father. “Pardon my French, but the property was listed for…”

More than two million dollars.

Vic had looked. She’d decided not to buy it because it would have come close to emptying her trust fund. Besides, she’d been happy in the cabin.

“It’s yours now—the house, the property, this cabin. You can live here and rent the big house out. You can live there and keep this as a man cave. Robin, you could live here, closer to your son.”

Robin blinked back tears. She reached out, took his hand, and gave it a squeeze. “That’s quite a wedding present. Forgive my son. I’m sure he’ll remember his manners when the shock wears off.”

Eric seemed to have recovered—mostly. “Thank you, sir. We’re both grateful.”

James reached for the potatoes. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s eat.”

* * *

A
s soon as
they were alone, Eric and Victoria climbed into his pickup and drove through the falling snow to see their new house.

“How much do you think your dad had socked away for your wedding?”

“I think I remember him saying it was close to a million.”

A laugh burst from Eric’s throat. “A million dollars? For a
wedding
?”

He’d thought Lexi and Austin had been nuts when they’d spent ten grand.

Clearly, it didn’t faze Victoria.

Eric was so blown away, he almost missed the deer standing in the middle of the road. He slammed on his brakes, saving the deer and his truck.

She laughed at his surprise. “A posh Manhattan wedding can be outrageously expensive, especially if you feed everyone.”

“Yeah, well, I believe that.” That’s what he said, but he was still trying to wrap his mind around it. “A
million
dollars?”

Victoria reached over, put her hand on his arm as if to comfort him, a note of amusement in her voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Hell, yeah. I’m fine.”

“And you’re okay with the gift? It made my father really happy to be able to surprise the two of us like that.”

Eric had to think about it. How did he feel about his gazillionaire father-in-law gifting him and his wife with a two-million-dollar mountain home? “Sure. Shit. I mean, it’s a house, right? It probably has toilets just like any other house, sinks, a place for my climbing gear.”

She laughed again. “I sure hope so. Otherwise, my father paid too much.”

“We’ll probably have to use my salary to cover the property taxes and insurance.”

She shook her head. “We can use the interest on my trust fund for that.”

“Oh, okay.” He shrugged, not sure what to say.

It was going to take him a while to get used to this new reality. The first two months of their marriage had been quiet, with her father playing an adversarial role. But he had apparently come around—Vicki said that seeing him save that old man’s life at the airport had had a big impact on him—and now Eric was co-owner of a freaking gigantic house and a dozen prime acres of mountain property.

“I know this is a big change,” Victoria said. “I know this isn’t the life you’re used to. I don’t want you to feel like you’re not providing for me or that your work doesn’t matter, because it does. You save lives, Eric, and you can’t place a price on that.”

“Hey.” He appreciated her words, but his ego wasn’t that fragile. He reached over, took her hand. “So my wife comes with a bazillion-dollar fortune. I can learn to get used to that if I have to. Money doesn’t bring happiness, but it sure as hell takes care of a lot of things that do.”

Their children would never know the kind of hardship he’d grown up with. That gave him some peace at least.

He turned into the wide concrete driveway and got the first look at their new residence. “Holy fucking …”

Victoria’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “It’s beautiful! It reminds me of the house at the Cimarron.”

“It’s a lot smaller than Jack West’s place.” That made Eric feel better.

He parked outside the freaking four-car garage—at least he knew there’d be room for his climbing gear—and met Victoria at the side of the truck. “Well, I suppose we should have a look inside.”

She gave him an indulgent smile. “I suppose so, since it belongs to us now.”

They walked up the sidewalk toward the double front doors, their feet leaving footprints in the dusting of snow that had stuck. Victoria handed Eric the key and stood aside while he unlocked the door. It opened soundlessly, the house dark.

Victoria caught him, held his face between her palms, snowflakes stuck in her hair and lashes. “I want you to know that I would be happy if the two of us spent the rest of our lives living in the cabin. It’s not the size of the house that makes it a home. It’s the love inside. Marrying you is the best decision I’ve ever made, Eric Hawke.”

He scooped her into his arms, kissed her. “I am the luckiest man alive.”

He carried her over the threshold and into their new home, kicking the door shut behind them.

“Hey, where’s the light switch?”

T
hanks for reading
Slow Burn
. I hope you enjoyed Hawke and Victoria’s story. Follow me on
Facebook
or on Twitter @Pamela_Clare. Join the
Scarlet Springs Readers Group
on Facebook to be a part of a never-ending conversation with other Scarlet Springs fans and get inside information on the series and on life in Colorado’s mountains. You can also sign up to be added to my mailing list at my
website
to keep up to date on all my releases and to be a part of special newsletter giveaways.

W
atch for Book
3 in the Colorado High Country series coming soon!

I
f you’ve read
the Author’s Note for
Barely Breathing
, you know the Colorado High Country series comes from a very personal place. Yes, the I-Team series was inspired by real-life work I did as an investigative reporter, columnist, and newspaper editor, but the Scarlet Springs stories talk about life in Colorado.

I grew up in a climbing family — rock climbing, mountain climbing, ice climbing — and there is so much family history in
Slow Burn
that my son, reading a draft of it, kept laughing.

Climbing the wrong mountain. If you haven’t done this, you probably haven’t climbed any 14,000-foot-plus peaks in Colorado. The experiences Hawke describes of twice climbing other mountains when trying to summit Mt. Bierstadt are just two of the instances in which my father and brother climbed the wrong peak. To get a list of all of them would require a spreadsheet, according to my brother Robert, who, by the way, has climbed Mt. Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere at 22,842 feet (6,961 meters).

Getting lost. This one made the newspapers. My mother and father had gone out for an afternoon of cross country skiing on New Year’s Eve, not knowing that some irresponsible jerk had turned the trail sign around. They ended up getting lost and being benighted on Grand Mesa. In the winter. Now, if you’re familiar with Colorado, you’re immediately thinking “frost bite,” “severe hypothermia,” and “body recovery.” My father, however, knows a thing or ten about surviving in the mountains. He used to teach mountaineering classes. So the two of them spent a very frigid night out under the stars on New Year’s Eve. They met rescuers on their way out the next morning when daylight enabled my dad to find their way back to the parking lot.

Rafting Browns Canyon. Done it. Love it. Yes, I have been one of those people sitting up on the cliffs near Hecla Junction applauding as boats taco—that’s what we call it—on Seidel’s Suckhole. I have relatives who worked as river guides on that stretch of the Arkansas River. I have a couple photos of myself shooting through Zoom Flume and Widowmaker, and I look like I’m having the time of my life because I am.

Climbing the chimney. What do climbers do on a holiday when they can’t really ditch their family and yet feel a pressing need to get vertical? Why, they climb their chimney, of course. One Thanksgiving, my dad and brother Robert disappeared. I found them outside, roped up, and climbing Robert’s chimney. I kid you not. I stood there watching for a moment then shouted up to them, “Is this a first ascent? What are you going to name the route?” Which, at least, made me and my kids laugh.

After reading through the draft, Benjamin, my younger son told me he thinks the Scarlet Springs books are ultimately more representative of who I am as a person than the I-Team books because I lived most of my life (until I had to get a job) in the mountains with my family. I hope you enjoy the stories.

A
s a columnist
who covered women’s issues for twenty years, I was once publicly tested for HIV/AIDs in order to drive home the message about safer sex to women in my community. In the real world, I take these issues seriously. That hasn’t stopped random readers from castigating me for omitting condoms or STI testing from my books. I have, in fact, included at least some mention of both in all of my contemporary novels.

If I choose to omit details about safer sex from a novel, that’s because this is fiction. I do not consider it my responsibility in fiction to go into great detail about contraception and STI prevention. We all know what causes these things, don’t we? Yes, it’s important to model good behavior, but that’s not what novels are about. No one expects police dramas to teach safe firearm handling techniques, and heaven help them if they did.

If my books are your only source of sex education, then I strongly urge you to read
A Guide to Getting it On,
written by Paul Joannides and published by Goofy Foot Press. It’s hands-down the best book on sex
ever
and includes everything.

U
SA Today
best-selling author Pamela Clare began her writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor-in-chief of two different newspapers. Along the way, she and her team won numerous state and national honors, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, Clare was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. A single mother with two sons, she writes historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense at the foot of the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Visit her website at
www.pamelaclare.com
.

• @Pamela_Clare
  
• PamelaClareFans