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Chapter 1 - Ben
I had barely set my suitcase on the tile floor of my new hideout when a phone rang. A loud, clanging, insistent ring that I traced to an old-fashioned wall clunker in the kitchen pantry. It couldn’t possibly be for me. After all, this was meant to be a hideout. I’d made sure no one knew where I was heading before I left New York. I tried to ignore it, but the damn thing kept ringing. Apparently, they do that when they’re not connected to an answering machine.
The secluded cabin was a rental, so it was most likely someone trying to reach the owners or a former resident. It was probably important or they would have given up. As much as I didn’t want to, I decided to answer it, set them straight, and then pull the plug out of the wall.
“Ben, where the hell are you?”
My long-time assistant Ruby. I should have just pulled the plug out of the wall. Damn my conscience. “You obviously know since you’re calling,” I said. “How do you know where I am?”
She laughed in her know-it-all way, and I pictured her in her workspace outside of my abandoned office. A glance at my watch told me she’d only been there an hour, somehow realized I wasn’t coming in, and already tracked me down. That was why my dad assigned her to me just out of college; she was that good. He secretly called her the Battleax and thought she’d keep me in line. I felt a twinge, thinking about my dad, and shoved it down, concentrating on how pissed I was at Ruby for finding me.
“Please tell me why you’re in the backwoods of Montana instead of running the three magazines you inherited?”
“You should be working for the government, Ruby. Your talents are wasted keeping tabs on me.” She grumbled and I knew my effort to butter her up failed. I could just about hear her tapping her toe. I was thirty-five years old, for God’s sake. “All right, I’m here to get some ideas forMountain Living. I spent the flight looking at it and it needs a ton of work,” I said, hoping this lie stuck.
If she thought I was here to work, maybe she’d let me be for a while. AndMountain Livingcould actually use a complete refresh. All three of the nature and outdoor magazines I was suddenly the editor-in-chief for needed help. I just wasn’t sure I was ready for it yet, hence the hideout.
Her grumble turned into a sympathetic sigh. Uh-oh. “How was the flight?” she asked.
The pity in her voice put my hackles up. No one was allowed to feel sorry for me. “It was fine,” I snapped. It really wasn’t, but I managed it.
“Okay, okay,” she soothed. “I was just surprised you went commercial is all.”
“Christ, Ruby,” I started to let her have it, then stopped. She wasn’t surprised. She knew I’d probably never get on a small plane again.
It’s not like I was actually on the plane with my dad and sister-in-law when it went down, but seeing it drop like a stone from the sky and then burst into flames was still no picnic.
“Well, you could have let us know where you were going,” she said. “Should I tell Dan you’re thinking of a new direction forMountain Living?”
“No.” I sighed. “I don’t want anyone over there to get anxious and start hating me before I get a single meeting with any of them.” Not because it was a big fat lie and I had no intention of researching anything. “And, Ruby?”
“Yes, Ben?”
“If you tell a single soul where I am, you’re fired.”
She cackled and hung up on me.
Still, I knew I could count on her to keep my secret, at least for a few days.
I took stock of my cabin, which was comfortable but not anything like where I normally stayed. I thought, if I sidestepped the usual resorts, it would be more difficult to find me, but I underestimated Ruby’s hacking skills. The place needed groceries, so I decided to take my rented jeep down the mountain to check out the little town and stock up after I unpacked.
I only brought a few changes of clothes, not planning to socialize or leave the cabin unless I had to. Which is why I wondered why I packed not one, but three of my favorite cameras, along with a selection of lenses. I hadn’t snapped a single photo since the accident, so why bother? That question got answered when I saw the view off the bedroom balcony.
I’d been to my share of resorts and seen plenty of mountain vistas. Craggy, snowy, tropical. I loved being outside and experiencing everything nature had to offer, snapping pictures of everything, always trying to capture the true beauty of what I saw. In my mind, they always fell a little bit short, but my photos had been published so they had to be pretty good. I guess being from a major publishing family didn’t hurt, but I liked to think I had talent, too.
The view here was amazing. Breathtaking didn’t describe it, although I felt the odd hitching in my chest, somewhere between happiness and pain, that I always got when I was taken by a perfect scene. And the vast expanse of clear blue sky, dark mountains, and rich, emerald green trees made me want to reach for one of my cameras. I wanted to try and capture what I felt and keep it forever. Impossible.
I shook it off and grabbed my wallet, heading for the town to buy groceries.
On the way down the mountain, I saw another car parked in the only turn off on the long road leading up to my hideaway. My already dark mood from being found so quickly turned pitch black. I was promised absolute privacy, and now it seemed I had a neighbor. Pulling up alongside the jeep, I noticed it was full of climbing equipment. Great, worse than neighbors. A bunch of tourists. Well, at least I could get rid of them because they were probably trespassing.
Cracking my knuckles, I stomped down the long path, ready to give them hell, already pulling up the cabin owner’s number on my phone to make sure this was his land. No bars. Still, I was pissed off enough to keep going.
In the clearing, instead of seeing a bunch of teenagers partying, there was a lone woman sitting cross-legged at the edge of a cliff. There was nothing but open sky and far off trees on the other side of her. Her long dark hair fell in waves down her back and floated in the slight breeze and she wore climbing gear that clung to her lush curves. I stopped feeling so grumpy for a second. Maybe having a neighbor wouldn’t be such a bad thing?
No, I came here to get some clarity, work through my shit, not get friendly with a local just because her tights hugged all the right places. I should have started yelling at her to get lost, but I watched as she seemed to be looking down at her phone. Talking to someone? She looked like she might have been crying. Well, damn, now I couldn’t yell at her at all. I turned to go when she stood up and took a deep breath.
A deep breath that accentuated her full breasts straining at her tank top. Damn it. So she was attractive, so what? I knew I needed to kick her off the property or introduce myself, but most of all, stop lurking in the clearing. She attached her phone to a strap on her arm, crossed herself, and wiped tears from her face. Then took a few steps back and got into a running position.
Christ, she was about to jump off the cliff.
