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One corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile, but he didn’t say anything. Then they turned one last corner and pulled into the almost full parking lot at the top of Mount Evans. Mara’s chauffeur found a spot to park and carefully backed into it. When the SUV stopped Mara drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then thanked her chauffeur in Zakharan. “I am glad you were driving,” she told him with her best smile. “I felt safe with you at the wheel.”
“Thank you, your highness,” he replied, touching his cap. “It was my pleasure.”
“I know you stayed with the car at Echo Lake,” she said. “But please...please go see everything for yourself here. I am told it is an experience not to be missed. Do not wait for me.” She’d already broken him of the habit of holding her door for her, not wanting to draw undue attention to herself.
“I will do that now,” he told her, opening his door and getting out.
When he was gone Mara turned to Special Agent McKinnon. “I am ready,” she told him. “What should I see first?”
He reached into the pocket of his jacket. “Before you do anything else,” he said. “Put some of this on.” He handed her a tube of sunscreen. “We’re over fourteen thousand feet up,” he explained. “That means you have fifty percent less protection from the sun, and I wouldn’t want you to get sunburned.”
Mara squeezed some sunscreen into one hand, rubbed both hands together, and tried to apply it to her face. But it was difficult without a mirror. Then she rubbed the remainder on her forearms and the backs of her hands.
“Uh, you have a little too much here,” Special Agent McKinnon said, raising a hand to her face and gently wiping away excess cream.
Mara’s startled gaze met his. His fingers were strong, firm, warm. And the masculine touch she wasn’t used to sent shivers through her so that she trembled. Noticeably. “Thank you,” she said when he finally removed his fingers and she was able to speak in something approaching a normal voice. “What of you?” she asked.
“I never burn,” he assured her.
“But that is silly.” She took the tube, squeezed a small amount onto her fingertips, and dabbed it on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose before he could stop her. Then she rubbed the cream into his skin, feeling his muscles tensing under her touch. Their eyes met again, and even though he wasn’t touching her, she was touching him, Mara shivered, and trembled again. “There,” she said at last. But she didn’t draw her hand away.
There was something wrong with her breathing. A tightness in her chest made every breath she drew ragged. As if in a trance her fingers slid slowly down his cheek, feeling the slight beard stubble of a man who had shaved very early that morning. Without volition, her thumb brushed itself against his lips. Strong, firm, unyielding. Like him.
He caught her hand and dragged it away. “Not a good idea, Princess.”
Suddenly Mara realized what she had done, and she felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment. “I am sorry,” she whispered, turning away and fumbling for the door handle. She scrambled out of the car, appalled at herself. She wanted to run away and hide, but wherever she went he would go, too—there was no escaping him. Except one place. She bolted for the ladies’ room in a small building beside the ruins of the Crest House.
Five minutes later, composed but still ashamed, she walked out of the ladies’ room and found Special Agent McKinnon waiting for her, leaning one shoulder against the stone wall. There was an expression on his face that defied her ability to read it, but at least he wasn’t looking at her with the mocking expression that would have shriveled her.
“I am sorry,” she said again, humiliated, but determined to salvage her trip to Mount Evans if she possibly could. The day had been wonderful so far, right up till the moment when she’d practically thrown herself at him.
“It happens,” he said dismissively, as if women routinely made unwanted advances toward him that he had to fend off.
Not surprising, the way he looks, she thought. But she didn’t want him to think she was like all the other women he knew, only interested in his handsome face. She knew in her heart she would have been drawn to him no matter what, but would he believe her?
“It does not happen with me,” she told him, her eyes crinkling in an expression she hoped didn’t betray how vulnerable she felt at that moment. “Truly.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek, but all he said was, “Don’t worry about it.” He smiled faintly. “Now that that’s out of the way, did you want to walk to the real top of the mountain. The summit?” He pointed at the outcropping on the other side of the parking lot. “The climb is only a hundred twenty feet, but at this altitude it’s not easy—the air is thin and you could tire easily. It’s up to you.”
