I put my hand on Jude’s arm, wanting to reassure him. “Just remember that we all took tumbles in the beginning.”
I dropped my sled to the ground, grabbed the tether, and started walking up the steep incline, Jude trudging along beside me.
“It’s eerily quiet out here, isn’t it?” he marveled.
I understood completely what he was talking about when he referred to the quiet. It was as though even nature was holding its breath. We were in the wilderness, away from any true semblance of civilization. Extreme sledding truly offered the opportunity to get away from it all.
“I love coming out here,” I said reverently.
“You come often?”
“Not often, because of school, but I come whenever I can.”
“You must enjoy it.”
“Trust me. You’re going to love it. I like it better than skiing.”
Boomer and Mel, holding hands, hurried past us. “Come on, guys, let’s hoof it. We’ve probably only got a few hours before that snow storm hits. Let’s get this done.”
A quick thrill shot through me when Jude’s hand tightened around mine. He grinned at me. I grinned back. He wasn’t the only one who was going to love being out here today. I was loving it already.
Something had definitely changed between us the night of the party. Even though I knew he was leaving, I’d convinced myself that I wanted to make the most of the time we had while he was here. I’d even given him his own blocks on my time chart.
We passed a scrap of red material tied to a bare branch.
“Boomer’s leaving those rags, right?” Jude asked.
“Yes. To make it easier for us to find our way back to the car.”
“This is a pretty isolated thing we’re doing.”
“We’ll be fine. We’ve done it before. Just don’t lose sight of me.”
His grin broadened. “I’m not planning to do that.”
And something in the way he said it made it sound like he wasn’t talking about only today. I shoved those thoughts back. Just take each moment as it comes.
I peered over at him. His cheeks were ruddy and he hadn’t shaved this morning. Insanely, I wanted to take off my gloves and rub my palms over his jaw, let the bristles tickle my skin. Or better yet, lean in for a kiss and feel them tickle my chin.
Suddenly Jude snaked his arm around me, tugged me up against his side, and spun us both in a circle until we landed behind a towering evergreen. My shriek mingled with laughter. The sound was cut off when he kissed me. Slowly. Thoroughly.
When he drew back, he said, “Sorry. My hundred-things list. Kiss a girl on a mountain. Had to, you know? Might never get another chance.”
Smiling broadly—I didn’t know if I’d ever smiled as much as I did when he was around—I teasingly slapped his shoulder. “You’re telling me that when you wrote your list, of all the things to do in your life, you put kiss a girl on a mountain?”
“Well, no, not originally. Last night I scratched ride in the space shuttle off my list to make room for kissing a girl on a mountain. Seemed a greater probability of happening.”
“You know, you probably could have gotten the kiss without putting it on your list.”
“Ah, well then, I’ll put the space shuttle back in.”
Then he lowered his head and kissed me again. I wrapped my arms around him and was tugging off a glove so I could thread my fingers through his hair when I heard, “Hey, guys!”
With a groan, Jude broke off the kiss and leaned to the side slightly, calling up the mountain, “Coming!”
He looked back at me. “I don’t suppose we could just stay here and do some extreme kissing.”
He had no idea how much that idea appealed to me and the sacrifice I was making. “You need to give the extreme sledding a try. You can do extreme kissing anytime.”
“Really?”
Giving him nothing more than a sly grin, I grabbed his hand and started tugging him up the mountain.
Really, I thought. Absolutely, positively, really.
After an hour of hiking, we reached the top of our improvised trail. We were in the middle of nowhere. An expression I really never understood because obviously we were somewhere. On a mountain. High up on a mountain. With no cities, no buildings, nothing in sight except snow and trees and one another. The wind had picked up. Maybe because we were at a higher elevation. Thick, fat snowflakes had begun to fall. The sky had turned a dark gray, and the sun had gone into hiding, peering out from behind ominous-looking clouds every now and then as though it had suddenly become shy.
“We need to carb up,” Boomer said.
Leaning against a tree, I dug into my backpack, pulled out a peanut butter protein bar, and handed it to Jude, then grabbed one for myself. Jude took a thermos of hot apple cider out of his, removed the top, and offered it to me. I drank, letting the warmth spill through me from the inside out—a feeling very similar to what I experienced when he kissed me. I gave the thermos back to him.
He put his arm around me. I smiled.
Click!
Mel was standing there with Jude’s camera. She handed it back to him. When had he handed it off to her?
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem.”
She walked off and Jude settled back in beside me.
“I really wish you’d give me a second to pose.”
“I told you. I don’t like poses. It’s not the real person then.”
“I think my mouth was open, like a bass or something.”
“I doubt it. And even if it was, it would have been cute.”
I couldn’t win with this guy. Glancing around, I noticed something in the distant shrubbery. I turned back to Jude. He started to put his camera away and I grabbed his wrist. I rose up on my toes, leaned near, pointed toward the underbrush, and whispered low, “A snowshoe rabbit.”
Jude moved in closer to me as though he needed to do that in order to get a clearer look.
“Caw,” he said, seeming truly intrigued. “You’ve got good eyes.”
“It must have moved its nose or something to catch my attention.”
“Still, you’re amazing.”
His face was right next to mine and as I studied him, I wasn’t certain he was even looking at the rabbit, wasn’t certain he’d ever looked at it. I felt a tightness in my throat that I didn’t understand. I wanted this moment to mean more than it should, more than it could. For all I knew maybe bagging an American chick was on his hundred-things list.
Keep it cool, Alyssa, I warned myself. I should heed my own advice, even when part of me thought it was stupid advice.
“Okay, guys,” Boomer announced in that booming voice he had, the one that had probably earned him his name. “The wind’s picking up so we probably need to start heading down. If you get too far behind, radio us.”
While Jude was stowing away his thermos, I walked over to Mel. “Why is Boomer making such a big deal of the radios? We’re not going to lose sight of each other.”
She looked a little sheepish. “We may go off trail. You know, so you and Jude…”
She wiggled her eyebrows.
I groaned. “You don’t have to make opportunities for us to be alone.”
“Okay then. Maybe Boomer and I want to be alone. Besides, he takes this extreme sledding to new heights. He always heads for the more dangerous twists and turns. Honestly keeping up with us is probably not an option, so just enjoy a slow descent and don’t worry if you lose sight of us.”
“Okay.” I glanced up at the sky. “Just don’t get too far off trail. It looks like that storm is moving in earlier than the weatherman predicted.”
“We’ll be fine. Boomer is all about the outdoors.”
“All right then.” I turned to go.
“You like him, right? Jude?” she asked.
I stopped, glanced back at her. “Oh yeah. Big-time.”
Mel and I walked over to where Jude was kneeling on his board while Boomer adjusted the s
trap over his calves. Jude sat back on his calves.
“Use your hands to move yourself forward,” Boomer told him. “Once you get at a certain angle, your weight should carry you down. You use your arms to steer and to brake. Mel will go first so you can get an idea of how it works.”
I set my board down beside Jude’s, climbed on, and strapped myself in.
“You won’t take off without me, will you?” he asked.
“Of course not. You’re my partner.”
Mel shoved off, hollering as her speed picked up. She took a turn and went between some trees. For a moment we lost sight of her, and then we saw her sailing over a snow bank, flying through the air, landing on the next slope with a yelled whoop!
“Got it?” Boomer asked Jude.
“Abso-bloody-lutely.”
“Okay, show me.”
He had a second to look panicked. “I didn’t know I was going to have to perform for you.”
“We all do the first time,” I told him.
“Yeah, but I didn’t get to see you.”
“Okay, fine.” I shoved off, traveling quickly down the incline a few feet. I used my body to angle the board, to slow my descent, and I came to a stop, looking back up the slope. I gave Jude a thumbs-up.
“Here I come!” Jude called out.
Then he shoved off and immediately tumbled over.
“It’s okay!” I yelled up to him. “We all do that in the beginning.”
Jude righted himself, smiling brightly. He shoved off again and traveled a little farther before eating snow again.
He pushed himself back up, got situated, then started off once more. He was barreling toward me. I tensed, preparing for impact—
Bam! Bumper sleds!
We were both laughing, tangled up together.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said, as we worked to untangle ourselves.
Boomer approached slowly on his sled. “I’ll follow you if you want.”
“That’s all right, mate,” Jude said. “I don’t think it’s going to take too long to get the hang of it. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just walk down the hill.”
“All right then.” Boomer shoved off, heading down the slope. He detoured by a mound of snow that formed a natural ramp, went up and over, rocketing into the air and flipping over, before landing perfectly in the snow and continuing on.
“Ah, he’s just showing off now, isn’t he?” Jude asked.
I laughed. Yeah, Boomer had the moves down.
Mel rushed after him with nothing more than a quick hand wave back at us. She hit the same ramp, flying into the air and turning 360 degrees before landing.
Jude scoffed. “Think they’re so good.” He eyed me. “Do you have those kinds of moves?”
“Not those exactly, but I have the tumbling-head-first and the falling-over-onto-my-side moves pretty much down pat.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No, seriously. I spend a good deal of my time just fighting to stay upright. But you’ll master the simple moves before the day is over.”
“You can go on if you want. No need to wait for me to catch up.”
“No way. We’re partners. Besides, I’m pretty new at this too, so I don’t travel as fast as they do. You’ll probably go faster because you’re heavier, so you go first.”
“I think you just want to be behind me so you can watch me tumble.”
I scooped up some snow and flung it at him, then I turned and headed down the hill.
“You’re gonna be sorry!” he called after me.
I didn’t think so. How could any girl be sorry when she had a hot Aussie on her tail?
Chapter 12
Jude overtook me with no problem. I preferred him in front because then I got to watch him skidding down the trail. I liked watching the way he moved. Just as I’d predicted, he’d caught on fast and was maneuvering himself toward natural ramps that could give him a more exciting ride.
We were having a grand time creating our own trails, skipping over little mounds of snow, making hairpin turns around trees, tumbling down rough slopes. Once Jude got the hang of free sledding, he was unstoppable and adventuresome. He was all about taking risks.
Traveling a short distance behind him, I watched as he hit a bump, went flying, hollering like a madman, then—
Splat!
I went around the lump in the snow and came to a controlled stop a short distance away from him.
“You okay?” I asked.
He shoved himself up, shook his head to clear it of snow, and rubbed his gloved hands down his face. “Yeah.”
He looked over at me and grinned. “This is madness.”
Chuckling low, I glanced off to the side and caught sight of something. I looked back and Jude already had his hands in the snow ready to shove off.
“Jude!” I whispered low, trying to get his attention without creating too much noise.
Luckily my voice carried because he glanced back. I unstrapped myself and got out of the sled, wobbled around a bit, forgetting how it took my legs a moment to adjust to the change. I motioned him over.
He unlatched himself, got up, and went straight down. I should have warned him about that. I staggered over to him and plopped down. “Give your legs a moment to adjust. There’s something over there I want you to see.”
My voice was tinged with excitement. I couldn’t help it. I was hoping to have something special to show him. The tracks looked fresh. With the amount of snow that had begun to fall, if they weren’t they would have been covered by now.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’ll see.” I hope.
“Does it involve locking our lips together?”
“Maybe eventually.”
“Then I’d better go for it now.”
He put his hand behind my head and leaned in for a kiss. Maybe the tracks could wait.
Or maybe not.
I drew back. “Trust me, this will be awesome.”
Linking our arms together, we supported each other as we stood. Then we walked stiff-legged back to where I’d been, dragging the sleds behind us. When we got there, I took his hand and led him through the trees to what I’d spotted.
He knelt down, studied the indentation in the snow, then craned his neck up to look at me. “What is it? A horse?”
“No.”
“Cow?”
Smiling broadly, I shook my head and held out my hand. “You’ll see. Let’s follow the tracks.”
He put his hand in mine and I pulled him to his feet, staggering back when he stood, lurching forward when he tugged me closer. I was breathing heavily as I landed against his chest. His arms came around me and for a second, staring into his green eyes, I forgot all about the tracks.
I gave myself a mental shake. “We don’t have a lot of time because of the storm that’s moving in, but you’ll like this.”
“How can I not if you’re there?”
Okay, this guy had about a zillion ways to melt my heart. But I was strong. Instead of reaching up to kiss him again, I grabbed his hand and forced him to follow the tracks.
“We need to be really, really quiet,” I whispered to him. “If this is what I think it is, we don’t want to scare him off.”
“How do you know it’s a him?”
“Oh, well, I don’t. I guess it could be a her.”
We kept between the trees. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of a frozen lake in the distance. No one else was around and it was probably crazy to pursue.
But then I saw it and quickly crouched down behind a tree, drawing Jude down with me. It was a moose, standing alone at the edge of the lake.
“Crikey,” he whispered in awe. “It’s huge.”
I was torn between being thrilled at his excitement over the find and teasing him about his reaction to it. I went with teasing.
“What? Are you the Crocodile Hunter’s replacement?”
Shak
ing his head, he glanced over at me. “My mates and I, whenever we saw something interesting, we’d go ‘Crikey!’ and imitate Steve Irwin. He got so excited about things.”
“I was so devastated when he died.”
“It was freakish. I’ve swum around sting-rays. They’re gentle creatures…. What?”
He was no doubt reacting to my shocked expression.
“Don’t do that anymore,” I ordered.
He studied me for a minute, gave a little shrug—I didn’t know if it was agreement or not—and looked back at the moose. “I thought they had antlers.”
“Only the males. And they lose them in the fall. But come spring they’ll grow back. You’d really say crikey then. They’re massive. I wish you could see them.”
“Maybe I’ll make another trip over here.”
I twisted my head to see him. His warm fingers touched my cheek and I wondered when he’d removed his gloves. He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss.
“I’m pretty sure I will,” he said quietly. He glanced back at the moose. “Thanks for sharing this with me, Lys.”
“Anytime.”
We stood up and headed back to the trail. The snow was coming down harder, filling in the tracks we’d followed as well as the ones we’d made.
“Let’s cut through here,” Jude said.
I’d warned Mel about going too far off trail. I should have listened to my own advice.
“Any idea where we are?” Jude asked.
“Lost?” I squeaked, turning in a circle and seeing nothing except trees and snow-covered terrain.
“I was afraid of that.”
The next obvious question was: Where were the others?
When Jude and I had emerged from the trees after spotting the moose, we weren’t where we’d gone in, but we’d both agreed that as long as we headed downward, we’d eventually arrive at the spot where we’d started or we’d hit the road we’d come in on.
We were now as far down as we could go and there was…
Nothing.
No cars, no people, no buildings. Had we come down the wrong side of the mountain?