The Mountain Between Us (2 page)

“Lucille has gas heat, and I don't plan on exploring the hinterlands this winter,” Olivia said.

“You laugh now, but you'll find out soon enough if you stick around,” Bob said. “Folks around here look after each other.”

“I can look after myself. Thanks all the same.” Olivia had a hard enough time getting used to everyone in town knowing everyone else's business—knowing
her
business. How much worse would it be when there were fewer people to keep the busybodies occupied? She was tempted to get out of town while she still could, but her son, Lucas, liked it here, and though her mother, Lucille, would probably never admit it, Olivia thought she liked having them here in Eureka, too.

Besides, she didn't want to give certain people the satisfaction of thinking she was running away from them.

She hefted the recycling bin onto one hip and headed out the back door, to the alley behind the bar where the truck could pick it up this afternoon.

“Let me help you with that.” Before she could react, two strong arms relieved her of her burden.

She glared up at the man whose broad shoulders practically blotted out the sun. “What are you doing here, D. J.? I thought I made it clear I didn't want to see you again.”

A lesser man might have been knocked off his feet by the force of her glare, but Daniel James Gruber, too good-looking for her peace of mind and far too stubborn by half, never flinched. “Which do you think is heavier?” he asked. “These bottles or that grudge you're carrying around?”

If he thought her feelings about him were the heaviest thing in her heart, he didn't really know her very well.

But, of course, he didn't know her. If he had, he never would have left her in the first place. So why had he tracked her all the way to middle-of-nowhere Eureka, Colorado? And why now? “Go home, D. J.,” she said. “Or go back to Iraq. Or go to hell, for all I care. Just leave me alone.”

“Mo-om!” The shout was followed almost immediately by a boy with wispy blond hair, large ears, and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He wore cutoff denim shorts, a too-large T-shirt, and the biggest smile Olivia could remember seeing on him.

“You don't have to shout, Lucas,” she said. “I'm right here.”

“Mom, you gotta come out to the truck and see the fish I caught.”

“Where were you fishing? You know I told you not to go off in the mountains by yourself.” Almost two months ago, Lucas had fallen down a mine tunnel on one of his solo expeditions, exploring the surrounding mountains. Ever since, Olivia had been haunted by worries over all the ways this wild country had for a boy to get hurt—mine tunnels and whitewater rivers, boiling hot springs and treacherous rock trails. Lucas had never been a particularly rambunctious boy, but he was still a boy, with a boy's disregard for danger.

“I didn't go by myself. D. J. took me.”

She could feel D. J.'s hot gaze on her, though she didn't dare look at him. If she detected the least bit of smugness in his expression, she'd leap up and scratch his eyes out. How dare he think he could get to her by playing best pal to her son!

But she couldn't tell him what she thought of him now, with Lucas standing here. The boy idolized the only man who'd ever really taken an interest in him. The man she'd been so sure would make such a good father.

She bit the inside of her cheek, the pain helping to clear her head, and managed a half smile for Lucas. “Go ask Jameso to give you a soda and I'll be out to look at your fish in a minute,” she said.

She watched him go, his shoulders less rounded than they'd been even three months ago, his head held higher. He'd shed the hunched, fearful look he'd worn when they first arrived here. That was the real reason she couldn't leave Eureka, at least not yet. As improbable as it sounded, Lucas was thriving here, roaming the unpaved streets of town and the back roads beyond, as if he'd lived here all his life.

“He's a great kid,” D. J. interrupted her thoughts. “I'm not hanging out with him to get to you, if that's what you think. I like spending time with him.”

Since when had he developed this ability to know what she was thinking? Too bad he hadn't been so tuned in before he skipped town. “You're just prolonging the hurt,” she said. “Isn't it enough that you broke his heart once?” That he broke
her
heart? “You should go now, before you make it worse.”

“There's unfinished business between us. I won't leave until it's settled.”

“It's settled, D. J. It was settled when you walked out the door six months ago.” She started to move past him, but he took hold of her arm, his touch surprisingly gentle for such a big man, familiar in the way only someone with whom you'd shared the deepest intimacy could be. No matter that they hadn't been lovers in months, her traitorous body responded to him as if he'd last held her only yesterday, her skin heating, her heart thumping harder.

“I'm not letting you off that easy,” he said. “I've decided to stay. At least for the winter. Maybe if we spend a few months snowed in here together you'll let go of that grudge long enough to grab hold of what you really need.”

“And you think you're what I need? Of all the self-centered, arrogant, male things to say.”

“All I'm saying is, you don't have to carry all your burdens alone. Let me help.”

She wrenched away, rushing into the bar and out the front door, past Jameso and Bob and Lucas, who sat on a stool next to Bob, sipping a soft drink from a beer mug. She wanted to jump in her truck and drive and keep driving without stopping until she was a thousand miles away from here.

But she'd already learned moving on wasn't the answer. You couldn't ever really run away when the thing you were running from was yourself.

“I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a magician. I can't pull money out of thin air or make this budget stretch to cover one thing more.” Lucille Theriot, Eureka's mayor, stood behind the front counter of Lacy's, the junk/antique shop she owned, trying her best not to lose her temper with the older woman across from her. Cassie Wynock, town librarian and perpetual thorn in Lucille's side, thought her family's deep roots in the town entitled her to anything she wanted. Today, she wanted new shelves for the library, an item not in the town's very tight budget.

“We ought to have plenty of money,” Cassie said. “The Hard Rock Days celebration this year was the biggest it's ever been. I know for a fact the Founders' Pageant sold out.” She patted her hair, preening. The play devoted to telling the story of the town's origins had been written and directed by Cassie, who'd also taken a starring role.

“The extra money we took in from Hard Rock Days doesn't begin to make up for the money we aren't getting from the state and federal governments this year. We've had to really tighten our belts. I've already warned people not to expect plowing of side streets this winter.”

“People around here can do without plowing. They can't do without the library.”

Lucille was trying to think of a suitable response to this bit of skewed logic, perhaps by pointing out that if the streets weren't plowed people couldn't get to the library, when the cow bells attached to the back of her front door jangled. She looked up, hopeful of a customer who would necessitate cutting her conversation with Cassie short. Instead, Bob Prescott shuffled in.

“Afternoon, ladies,” he said, touching the bill of his Miller Mining ball cap.

Cassie wrinkled up her nose. “You smell like a brewery.”

Bob did have a faint odor of beer about him, but this was nothing new. He spent most afternoons propping up the bar at the Dirty Sally. “Stop by the saloon any afternoon, Cassie, and I'll buy you a drink,” Bob said. “I predict it'll do wonders for your disposition.”

Considering Cassie's disposition was almost always bad, Lucille doubted alcohol would help. “What can I do for you, Bob?” she asked.

“You're interrupting a private conversation,” Cassie said before Bob could reply.

“I was explaining to Cassie how the town budget is so tight this year we've decided to forgo plowing side streets for the winter,” Lucille said.

“I say we set up snowmobile-only lanes and forget about plowing altogether,” Bob said. “ 'Course, you won't have to worry about that at all if we don't get snow.”

“And I say new library shelves are a matter of liability,” Cassie said. “The old ones are falling apart. If we don't replace them, someone could get hurt.”

Lucille met Cassie's defiant look with a skeptical one of her own. Were the shelves in such bad shape? Or would Cassie see to it that they did start falling apart, even if she had to remove a few bolts to do so? She looked like a prim old maid, but Lucille knew she had nerves of steel. Coupled with her outsized sense of self-importance, it could be a recipe for trouble.

“I'll have someone come down and examine the existing shelves for safety concerns,” Lucille said. “Maybe we can reinforce them somehow.” She turned to Bob. “Can I help you, Bob? I just got a nearly complete set of 1970s-era
National Geographics
and two solid brass spittoons in stock if you're interested.”

“Nah, I'm here on official business, Madam Mayor.” He propped one elbow on the counter and leaned against it, his customary posture at the Dirty Sally.

“Official business?”

“You might say it relates to your conversation with Cassie. I've got an idea for a fund-raiser for the town. Something to liven up the quiet weeks after the summer tourists have left and before the ski crowd shows up.”

“We don't get a ski crowd, Bob,” Lucille said. “That's over in Telluride. The best we can hope for is a few folks who stop on their way to and from the slopes.”

“They're all tourists to me,” he said dismissively. “What I'm talking about is entertainment for the locals and a way to bring in a little extra cash for the town coffers.”

Lucille leaned back, arms folded. “Let's hear it.” Bob's past ideas—all of them voted down by the town council—had included boxcar derby races down the steep main road leading into town, hiring a burlesque troupe to “liven up” the Independence Day celebrations, and letting tourists pay to be a miner for the day and work Bob's claims with a pickax and shovel.

“Let's start a pool on when the first snow will fall,” he said. “Charge five dollars a guess and the person who gets closest to the date and time wins half the money. The town keeps the other half.”

“I'm certain city-sponsored gambling like that is illegal,” Cassie sniffed.

“She's right, Bob,” Lucille said. “We can't do something like that. It was a good idea, though.”

“Humph. Nothing to stop me from doing it, is there?”

“You can't run a gambling operation of any kind without a license,” Lucille said.

“Tell that to the weekly poker games in the back room of the barber shop.”

Lucille covered her hands with her ears. “I didn't hear that,” she said loudly.

The door opened again and a distinguished-looking man with tanned skin and silver hair and moustache entered. Lucille's heartbeat sped up and she fought the urge to smooth her hair or check the front of her blouse for lint. “Hello, Gerald,” she said, aware that her voice had taken on a musical lilt.

“You're looking lovely as usual, Lucille.” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth she suspected were caps, but who cared? Everyone was entitled to his or her little vanities.

“Who are you?” Bob demanded.

Gerald's smile never faltered as he turned to face the old man. “I'm Gerald Pershing. Who are you?”

“I'm Bob Prescott. I live here.”

“In this store?”

Bob looked as if he'd bit down on a walnut shell. He scowled at Lucille. “He a friend of yours?”

“Mr. Pershing is visiting from Texas,” she said.

“Him and half the state, feels like.” Bob gave Gerald a last dismissive look, then stomped out.

“So nice to meet you, Mr. Pershing. I'm Cassandra Wynock, the town librarian.” Cassie extended her hand, palm down, as if she expected Gerald to kiss it. Her cheeks were pink and while she didn't exactly flutter her eyelashes, the suggestion was there.

“Nice to meet you, too, Miss Wynock,” Gerald said. He shook the offered hand but didn't linger over it. Lucille fought back the urge to toss Cassie out onto the sidewalk by her ear. It had been years, but she recognized jealousy tightening her stomach and lending a sour taste to her mouth—a particularly ugly and useless emotion.

“I stopped by to see if you'd be free for dinner tomorrow evening.”