A Haven Point Beginning Page 2

  Kevin had let her push him away, with depressing willingness, and was now married with a toddler.

  “I’m sorry,” she said now, forcing herself to move away from Joshua Bailey and his sweet dog. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t believe I passed out. I’m usually not such a baby.”

  “You’ve had a shock. Your reaction is totally understandable. I don’t think you’re a baby at all.”

  The sincerity in his tone went a long way toward easing her embarrassment. Maybe she had misjudged him in their previous encounters.

  “I need to call for help. I have no idea how I’m going to get my car out of here.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but that car isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s going to take considerable work to clear those boulders and debris. Also, I’m afraid cell phones don’t work on this stretch of road. We’re in a weird gap between cell towers.”

  She had found out the same thing. What was she going to do?

  She shivered and tried not to panic. She could perhaps sleep in her car.

  “Here. Don’t pass out again on me.”

  “I won’t. I’m fine.”

  He looked doubtful. “First thing we need to do is get you out of this weather. My ranch is about a quarter mile back up the mountain. I do have cell service there. Why don’t we head back that way, get you warmed up and I’ll make some calls so we can figure out how we’re going to get down the mountain?”

  He was a virtual stranger. How could she just go with him to his house?

  On the other hand, she couldn’t stay here. Who knew how long it would take for help to arrive?

  While she didn’t know him, she did know his aunt and his cousins. She had quickly learned the Bailey family was well respected and well liked around the area. His cousin Wynona was the wife of the Haven Point police chief.

  Some of her hesitation must have shown on her face. He looked rueful. “You don’t know me and don’t want to go home with a man who is a stranger,” he said, accurately guessing at the reason for it. “I get that and applaud your caution. But I can’t leave you here at night in the snow. I would be kicked out of the Good Guys club.”

  When she continued to hesitate, not sure what to do, he grinned, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.

  “How about this? I know you bought bear spray when you were in my store the other day. I assume you took it hiking with you, right?”

  She nodded, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Bear spray works even better on people. Bring it along. If I try anything funny, you have my permission to blast me in the face with it.”

  She didn’t see that she had much choice. The snow seemed to be falling harder. They needed to get help and couldn’t do that here with no cell service.

  Anyway, he had a sweet dog and a beautiful horse.

  After a moment, she grabbed her backpack, found the bear spray and quite pointedly put it in her jacket pocket.

  “How are we to get to your house?”

  He gestured to his horse. “Ollie can carry both of us. He’s a strong guy.”

  She looked at the horse and felt a fierce tug of longing. “I...haven’t been on horseback in a long time. I’m not sure I can mount up, with my...my bad leg.”

  It was a humiliating confession that earned her a compassionate look.

  “Sorry. I should have realized. I can help you. Can you raise your leg enough to put it in the stirrup?” he asked. The kindness of the question made her throat ache.

  “Of course,” she snapped. She hated feeling so weak. She put the foot of her mangled leg into the stirrup and grabbed hold of the pommel on the saddle.

  “Sorry if I have to get a little, er, personal here,” Josh said. Next thing she knew, he had boosted her up by her rump and helped her swing her leg over.

  “I’m sorry to ask but can you scoot behind the saddle? I could walk you and Ollie home but we’d get out of the storm faster if we both rode.”

  She nodded, feeling ungainly and stupid, and managed to shimmy her body back, pulling her leg out of the stirrup so he could use it.

  Her poor abused leg, already sore from the exertions of the hike and that stumble, throbbed at the long-unaccustomed position. She ground her teeth and held on to the back of the saddle, doing her best to ignore the pain.

  Whenever she found herself wallowing in self-pity about the limitations from the accident, she reminded herself it could have been much worse. For her brother, it had been.

  The saddle shifted a little as Josh climbed onto the horse but she managed to keep her balance.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Ollie is the greatest horse in Lake Haven County but even he might slip in these icy conditions.”

  She didn’t have anything to hold on to but Josh. Gemma frowned, reminding herself she had no choice, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He urged the horse forward and the big bay obediently started trotting through the falling snow, the dog following close behind, a dark blur in the snow.

  Her rescuer’s body blocked most of the wind but temperatures had plunged and her clothes were still wet. She couldn’t help shivering and buried her forehead against his back to keep her face out of the cold.

  “We’ll be there in a minute.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. “I’ve got a fire already going inside and we can get you warmed up in no time.”

  She held on to the idea of warmth as they trudged through the storm, taking a turnoff she barely saw and heading up a long, twisting driveway until they reached a sprawl of outbuildings and a sleek glass-and-cedar house.

  He rode to the front door, swung off the horse and reached to help her down.

  Gemma managed to swing her good leg over the saddle but hesitated to dismount, not at all sure her bad leg would be able to support her.

  “I’ve got you,” Josh assured her. His words comforted her in a way she couldn’t have explained. She hopped down and he did indeed catch her, his muscles strong and capable as he helped her to the ground.

  Was it her imagination or did he hold her just a smidge longer than necessary? She tried to ignore the little burst of heat that flared inside her.

  He led the way up the porch and opened the door for her. A blast of warmth enveloped her and she wanted to cry, suddenly feeling as if she had been cold forever.

  “I need to go take care of Ollie. Make yourself at home. Toby can keep you company. The fire should still be going and there are warm towels in the dryer. You need to get out of those wet clothes first. There are clean clothes in the laundry room. Feel free to change into anything dry you can find.”

  Her teeth were chattering too hard for her to do anything but nod.

  Josh gave her a look of concern. “Are you okay? Ollie can wait a minute or two, until I get you settled.”

  “I’m f-f-fine,” she assured him, though she was quite certain the chatter of her teeth said otherwise. “Go take care of your h-horse.”

  “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  She nodded and with the dog leading the way, she went toward that warmth.

  His house was beautiful, with comfortable-looking furniture, muted colors and Western decor that seemed just right.

  “Where’s the laundry room?” she asked Toby. She could swear the chocolate-colored dog cocked his head toward a hallway where she could hear a low hum.

  “Thank you,” she said. The dog followed her as she limped in that direction, ignoring the ache in her leg, and opened a solid wood door. It was indeed a laundry room, warm and steamy and fragrant.

  She opened the dryer and found it loaded with dark green towels nearing the end of their dry cycle. She pulled two out and used one to drape over her shoulders and the other to dry off the dog so he didn’t continue to drip on the floor.

  A little more searching unearthed a pair of baggy sweats folded on the counter of the laundry room as well as a frayed hoodie that read “Camping. It’s In Tents” with the logo of his sporting goods store.

  She scooped them up. “Powder room?” she asked the dog, hoping for further guidance.

  This time, Toby merely gave her a quizzical look. Apparently she was on her own for that one. She opened a few doors until she found a bathroom decorated in sage greens and browns.

  Leaving the dog in the hallway, she closed the powder room door and quickly changed out of her wet things and into her borrowed finery. Oh, if her mother could see her now, Gemma thought with a slightly hysterical laugh as she looked down at the baggy sweats and the disreputable hoodie.

  After hanging her clothes to dry on the shower rod, she opened the bathroom door. Still no sign of her host but the dog was waiting by the door.

  She smiled and petted his fur, already mostly dry.

  She followed the irresistible lure of the fire crackling in the other room. The living room had vaulted ceilings and massive windows. She could see the lights of Haven Point sparkling below and imagined the view would be spectacular in the daylight.

  As she sat by the fire, the stress of the past hour seemed to catch up with her. She closed her eyes, her head sagging against the cushion of the chair, so very grateful to be safe and warm and alive.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOSH MADE HIS way back to the house through the driving snow that made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead of him. At least the lights of his house glowed a welcome through the storm.

  He had lived in this area of Idaho his entire life except for the years he played college baseball in California but the intensity of fall and spring storms could still take him by surprise, especially when they seemed to come out of nowhere.

  Kind of like his unexpected visitor. And not just today but six weeks earlier, when she showed up one day in Haven Point with her big green eyes. He had known who she was at once and had almost blurted it out but caught himself when his cousin Katrina had introduced her as the new hotshot programmer working for Bowie, Kat’s husband.

  He had been so astonished to see Gemma here in Haven Point, straight out of his memories and his imagination, that he hadn’t known what to say. He had a feeling he had been a jerk that day at Kat’s barbecue, fumbling over his words, staring at her too long, saying all the wrong things.

  Whatever he’d done, they seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot. While Gemma had been warm and approachable to everyone else in town, she seemed to turn standoffish and painfully polite around him whenever they encountered each other.

  Josh had no idea how to get past the prickly barrier she had erected between them. He only knew she was rapidly becoming an obsession with him, which wasn’t at all anything he had ever experienced.

  Josh knew he had a reputation, not completely unearned, as a guy who shied away from anything serious.

  He had always figured he had plenty of time to decide what he needed and wanted out of a relationship. His two older brothers each had married young, right out of high school in one case and college in the other, and both were now divorced and entangled in ugly custody fights.

  Josh had decided he needed to grow up first and figure out the best kind of man he could be before he found that someone special.

  And then Gemma Summerhill had moved to Haven Point and shook his entire world.

  It was ridiculous. He had spoken with her exactly three times at various social occasions in Haven Point. Four now, he supposed, counting the past half hour. None of those encounters seemed to have done anything to soften her sharp edges around him.

  He never struggled to talk with women. Ever. He was usually completely comfortable with them.

  So why did she leave him so tongue-tied? She was smart, for one thing. Bowie Callahan, Katrina’s husband, had mentioned at that first meeting that Gemma had genius-level tech skills and that he and Aidan felt extraordinarily lucky to have her on their team.

  More than that, Josh knew the truth, the secret she had apparently decided not to share with the rest of Haven Point. Keeping it was becoming increasingly difficult.

  Maybe today, the first chance he had to talk to her alone, might offer him an opportunity to clear the air between them and start over.

  With that spark of optimism, he walked into his house. He took off his coat and Stetson, listening for some sign of her. All he heard was Toby snoring.

  Concern flared and Josh wanted to kick himself. He was an idiot. She had fainted for a few seconds earlier. He had been so busy worrying about getting her warm and safe through the storm that he hadn’t remembered that until now.

  He should have made she sure she was settled before worrying about Ollie. His horse could have handled standing out in the snow for a few minutes. What if she’d passed out again and hurt herself?

  As soon as he had the thought, a reassuring calm quickly followed. If that were the case, if she had fainted again or were in trouble, Toby would be whining or pacing to raise the alarm.

  Still, Josh hurried through the house and stopped dead when he reached the fireplace where he saw the fire had burned down to embers and needed a log.

  Toby was curled up on the floor, keeping a watchful eye on a blanket-covered figure asleep on the sofa.

  She looked fragile, delicate, skin almost burnished translucent in the fire’s glow. Everything he knew about Gemma Summerhill told him that was an illusion. She wasn’t fragile or delicate. She had been through a terrible ordeal and had the scars to prove it.

  He wanted to stand there all evening, drinking in the sight of her, but that was a little too stalker-ish for him. Not wanting to startle her too much, he cleared his throat quietly.

  “Gemma? Miss Summerhill?”

  She stirred a little but didn’t awaken. He was torn between his instinct to let her continue sleeping and his conviction that she wouldn’t be happy with him if he did.

  Now that he knew she was safe, he could give her a few more moments while he changed out of his wet clothing and made a few phone calls, he decided.

  Those few moments turned into twenty by the time he returned to check on her. By then, he had stoked the fire in the great room and the two ground-floor bedrooms in case the power went out, made a couple of phone calls to find out the status of the mudslide cleanup areas and pulled a ready-to-heat minestrone soup out of his freezer.

  They wouldn’t starve, at least. He had a freezer filled with meals, both from the gourmet service he used and from relatives and friends who were always bringing him a plate of this or that.

  He and Gemma had enough provisions to spend the entire winter hunkered down here in the mountains while the weather howled outside.

  The idea was far more appealing than it should have been.

  Toby rose and padded to his side. The dog’s movement seemed to pierce her subconscious, waking her where his voice hadn’t been enough. He watched her eyes flutter a little then open the rest of the way.

  “Oh,” she said, her cheeks turning rosy. “I think I must have fallen asleep.”

  “I believe you did.” He was enamored with her accent and wasn’t ashamed to admit it to himself.

  “I’m so sorry.” As she stretched a little, the blanket fell down, revealing that she wore his favorite hoodie and a pair of his sweats. She reached down to pet Toby and he tried not to be jealous of his dog.

  “What time is it?” she asked. “Have they cleared the debris so that I can drive home?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’ve just been on the phone with a friend who works for the county road crew and he says they won’t be able to make any headway on the slide until morning. Apparently another rockslide is blocking the road between Haven Point and Shelter Springs, which has to take priority because of the volume of traffic that uses that road and the proximity to the hospital.”

  She looked stricken. “Oh dear. Is there another way I can go home tonight? Surely there’s another road off the mountain.”

  He pointed out the window. “The storm is still going strong. We’ve got six inches of snow. By morning we could have a foot. I’m afraid we’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  “I can’t possibly stay here.”

  She didn’t need to sound so aghast at the very idea.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Summerhill, but I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. It’s not the end of the world. I’ve got plenty of food, even if we were stuck here for several days.”

  “We won’t be, will we?”

  Maybe if they were here longer, he could figure out how to talk to her without stumbling over his words. It was unlikely, unfortunately.

  “My buddy promised they’ll be able to move the slide away by noon tomorrow.”

  “I’m supposed to work tomorrow. I’ll have to let Bowie Callahan know I won’t be able to make it to the office.”

  He could put her mind at ease about that, at least. “I already called to tell him about the slide. He offered to send a helicopter for you as soon as the weather breaks.”

  She looked momentarily hopeful, then shook her head. “That’s kind of him but unnecessary. I can take a day away from work. I suppose the research and development department won’t fall apart without me.”

  “From everything I’ve heard, you’ve already made yourself indispensable.”

  She looked astonished and pleased. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Bowie has nothing but good to say.”

  “That’s lovely to hear. Working for Caine Tech is the best job I’ve ever had.”

  “Are you hungry? I’m heating some soup.”

  She sat up and pushed the blanket away. He tried not to stare as she revealed a little sliver of skin below the hoodie. “I am a little hungry. How can I help?”

  Heating soup in a microwave didn’t really take a committee but he sensed she needed something to keep her mind of her situation. “Would you mind setting the table?”