The Mountain Between Us. Cindy Myers

      Also by Cindy Myers:

      The View from Here

      “Room at the Inn” in Secret Santa

      The mountain Between Us

      CINDY MYERS

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

      www.kensingtonbooks.com

      All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

      Table of Contents

      Also by Cindy Myers: Title Page Dedication Acknowledgments CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN A READING GROUP GUIDE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Copyright Page

      To Loretta Myers, a wonderful mother-in-law and friend

      Acknowledgments

      Thank you to Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for your unwavering support and the many friends I’ve made in this wonderful organization. A special thanks to the Hand Hotel for hosting the writers’ retreats where much of this book was written. Mike, Stella, and Richard, I couldn’t have done it without you. The same goes for the writers who are regular parts of the retreat—you keep me going!

      Thank you to the many people at Kensington Publishing who work behind the scenes to make this book possible, with special thanks to my editor, Audrey LaFehr, for her continued support of my stories.

      As always, the people and places of Ridgway and Ouray, Colorado, inspired my writing. I can’t think of a more beautiful and special place.

      Finally, thank you to my husband, Jim, for his unwavering encouragement and love. You are the best.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Maggie Stevens stared out the front windshield of the Jeep, at the mountainside ahead painted with golden aspen, maroon rock, and purple aster—as if fall were playing a game of “top this” with summer, decorating itself with even more beautiful color. A lot of people probably came to this overlook above Eureka, Colorado, to try to deal with life’s big questions, to let the hugeness of the mountains lend perspective.

      Really, she’d only driven up here because the cell phone reception was best.

      She glanced at the plus sign on the little plastic strip in her hand again. “Maybe the test is defective,” she said into the phone. “Maybe that’s why it was for sale at the dollar store.”

      “You bought a pregnancy test at the dollar store?” On the other end of the line her best friend, Barb Stanowski, sounded very far away.

      “I certainly wasn’t going to buy it here in town.” If anyone had seen her with her purchase at Eureka Grocery, the news would have been all over town before she even got back to her place. So she’d driven half an hour up the road to Montrose. “And I couldn’t bring myself to pay ten dollars for something I was going to pee on. Besides, I needed three of them.”

      “Three?” Barb was laughing again.

      “I wanted to be absolutely sure. What if they’re wrong?”

      “All three of them? Not likely. How are you feeling?”

      “I told you. Sick. Scared. And kind of elated.” Her first husband had refused to consider the idea of children. When he’d left her shortly before her fortieth birthday, she’d resigned herself to never having the baby she’d always wanted. Then she’d met Jameso and now . . .

      “Any physical symptoms?” Barb asked.

      “My breasts are really sensitive. I’ve been throwing up, but not just in the morning. Yesterday, Janelle brought onion rings with my lunch. I love her onion rings, but one whiff of those and I had to leave the café. And Rick told me I was glowing.”

      “Your boss told you you were glowing? Have you been around any leaking nuclear reactors lately?”

      “He was teasing me.” Rick Otis, editor and publisher of the Eureka Miner, made a hobby out of getting people’s goat. “He said I must be in love, because I was positively glowing.”

      “You are in love, aren’t you?”

      “Yes, maybe. I mean, yes, I love Jameso, but he’s not exactly responsible father material.” Handsome, sexy, unpredictable Jameso Clark, who’d roared into her life on a motorcycle on her very first night in Eureka. He’d made her feel alive and sexy and hopeful again after the emotional wreckage of her divorce.

      “How can you say that, if he cares about you and the baby?” Barb liked Jameso. She’d liked him before Maggie did, and continued to see qualities in him Maggie couldn’t.

      “He’ll probably freak out when I tell him about the baby.” Maggie shuddered. She pictured him climbing on his motorcycle and riding away, out of her life forever. “I do love him. I think he’s great, but I don’t have any illusions about him. He’s a part-time bartender slash ski instructor slash mountain guide, whose most valuable possession is a motorcycle. He’s estranged from his family, and he probably suffers from post-traumatic stress, though he won’t admit it.” Jameso refused to talk about his time in Iraq and turned away if she tried to question him.

      “I think you’re underestimating him,” Barb said. “This may be just what he needs to turn his life around. He’ll probably make a great father.”

      “What about me? What kind of mother will I be?” Maggie allowed herself to give in to the panic a little. “I don’t know anything about children. I’ve never spent any time around them. I’m forty years old. I’ll be ready to retire when this baby graduates college.” She closed her eyes, fighting a wave of dizziness.

      “Calm down. Lots of women