The Mountain Between Us. Cindy Myers

anchored firmly to the rock, but on her first visit here she’d been sure she was in danger of sliding down into the canyon. She hadn’t known anything about her father, Jake, then, but his choice of a place to live seemed to confirm the picture his lawyer had painted of a first-prize eccentric.

      Maggie had spent the first night in the house—divorced, unemployed, and absolutely unsure of the future—disappointed that her inheritance was this ramshackle house and a mine that produced no gold. Yet, she’d found everything she needed to get back on her feet right here in this mountaintop cabin.

      Jameso came around the side of the house. “The pipes are okay.”

      “Do you remember that first night we met, when you drove up here on your motorcycle?” she asked.

      “You threatened me with a stick of firewood.”

      “You accused me of trespassing.” Jake hadn’t told many people he had a daughter, so when Maggie told Jameso the cabin was hers he’d thought she was lying.

      “I was a goner from the moment I met you.” Jameso closed the gap between them in a few strides. “You were so beautiful—and clearly scared out of your skull, but determined to be brave. Even without the firewood, you knocked me for a loop.” He kissed her, his lips firm and warm against hers.

      She turned away, heart fluttering wildly. It’s just the altitude, she told herself. They were above 10,000 feet in elevation, where the air contained less oxygen, making breathing more difficult.

      “Is something wrong?” Jameso’s dark brows drew together, giving him a foreboding look.

      “I’m just”—she looked around for some excuse that would explain her attack of nerves—“it’s just sad, that’s all, closing the place for winter. I really enjoyed living here. I felt like a real mountain woman.” For the first time in her life she’d made her own decisions, done what she wanted. She’d come to understand why Jake had chosen to live here, surrounded by sky and mountains.

      “Jake would love knowing that. This place was always special to him.”

      Jake had been a larger-than-life figure to everyone who knew him. The people in Eureka had filled Maggie’s head with stories of things he’d done—both heroic and awful. These stories had kept company with the fantasies she’d built up over the years about the father who was only a smiling young man in a photograph to her. He’d walked out on her mother when Maggie was three days old, but before she’d died, Maggie’s mother had forgiven him. Maggie had spent months uncovering Jake’s story, and though she still didn’t know it all, she had learned how his experiences in Vietnam had left scars that wouldn’t heal—psychological wounds that made it impossible for him to stay with the ones he loved the most.

      “Do you ever think much about Iraq?” she asked Jameso.

      “Iraq?” His expression darkened. “Why are you talking about that now? What difference does it make?”

      “I was just thinking how Vietnam messed up my dad’s life so much.”

      He compressed his lips into a thin line. “I’m not your dad. Come on.” He took her arm and they started down the path toward the mine.

      The air held a winter chill at this altitude, and the wind blew from the north as they headed up the path. Maggie drew her coat tighter around her. “I’m surprised we haven’t seen Winston,” she said. Her father had tamed the bighorn ram by feeding it cookies, and Maggie had continued to hand out the treats.

      “He’s probably found some pretty little ewe to cozy up with for the winter,” Jameso said.

      “No more Lorna Doones.”

      “No, but something better.” He looked back over his shoulder at her, his gaze smoldering.

      She smiled in spite of herself. Jameso was an incorrigible flirt. And maybe Barb was right about him being a romantic. His declaration at the cabin just now had been unexpectedly tender.

      They reached the new gate at the entrance to the mine, which Maggie had ordered to replace the old barrier after Lucas Theriot squeezed through the bars and fell down a mine shaft. “Looks good,” Jameso said, giving the heavy iron a tug. The gate had narrower mesh at the bottom and wider spaces at the top to let the bats who lived in the mine fly in and out.

      “That should be good, then.” Jameso started to turn away and Maggie grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him back.

      “What?” His gaze searched hers, questioning.

      “There’s something I have to tell you.” She opened her purse and he took a step back, as if prepared to run.

      “What are you doing?” she asked.

      “I had a woman pull a gun on me once after she said those words.”

      The image surprised a laugh from her. “No guns, I promise.” She took out the little cardboard box that held one of the pregnancy tests and shoved it toward him.

      He stared at the box but didn’t take it. “What is it?”

      “It’s a pregnancy test. It came back positive.”

      “A pregnancy test?” He’d gone very white beneath the dark beard stubble.

      “A positive pregnancy test. I’m going to have a baby. Your baby. Well, our baby.”

      He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her, just continued to stare at the box in her hand, his mouth slightly open.

      “Dammit, say something,” she said.

      At last, he raised his gaze to hers. “I . . . I . . .”

      Then Jameso Clark, modern mountain man, ski instructor, rock climber, and all-around tough guy, sank to his knees and keeled over in a dead faint.

      Olivia had the noon-to-happy hour shift by herself on Thursday. This late in the season it should have been slow, but three couples from Texas came in and all the women ordered dirty martinis, forcing Olivia to use the last of the olives. When lawyer Reggie Paxton came down from his law office next door in search of a Diet Coke, Olivia recruited him to man the bar while she went to the Last Dollar Café next door to borrow more olives.

      “Do you want garlic stuffed, pimento stuffed, Kalamata, black, or green?” one of the café owners, Danielle, asked, surveying the metal shelves in the pantry behind the kitchen. Petite and curvy, her dark hair in two ponytails worn high on either side of her head, she reminded Olivia of the heroine of one of the anime novels she’d been fond of a few years back.

      “Pimento stuffed,” she answered. “One jar should be plenty. We don’t get that much call for martinis. I’ll pay you back when we get our next grocery order.”

      “No problem.” Danielle handed over the jar of olives.

      “Hey, Olivia. You’re just the woman we wanted to see.” Janelle, Danielle’s partner in business and in life, leaned around the door. Tall and willowy, her white-blond locks cut short and wound with a pink bandana, she resembled a Bond girl, complete with an alluring German accent.

      “Me?” Olivia clutched the jar of olives to her chest. Her high-school principal and more than one former boss used to say the same thing when they were about to chew her out, but Danielle and Janelle were both smiling.

      “We’ve decided we want to paint a mural on the back wall of the dining room,” Danielle said. “Something depicting the history of Eureka.”

      “We don’t want to paint it,” Janelle corrected. “We want to hire someone to paint it for us.”

      “That’s a good idea,” Olivia said. Not that she’d ever given the décor of the restaurant much thought. And she didn’t care much about the history of the town, though Lucas was into that kind of thing. He’d spent much of the summer researching local Indian tribes and mining and stuff.

      “So you’ll do it?” Danielle