“Ego,” she said, then teased him with her mouth and tongue. He carefully laid her back on the boulder and sealed his lips to hers. He created a tight, wet suction and gave her a hot kiss that scorched her skin in a way that had nothing to do with the sun pouring down on their heads. It had her pressing her hips into his and running her fingers through his damp hair. He buried his face in her neck. “I love the way you feel right here,” he whispered against her throat. “I love your soft skin and the way you smell, like powder.”
It wasn’t exactly a declaration of deep emotion, but it was the closest he’d come to it, and it made her heart ache. “I like you, too,” she said and shoved her hands beneath his shirt and rubbed his back.
He looked into her face, his breathing a bit labored. “Sorry, honey. I can’t show you my big ego right now.” He removed her hands and kissed her forehead. “Later. Under the stars.”
Hope’s hands stilled. “Under the stars? You packed a tent, didn’t you?”
“Nope, but I brought my big sleeping bag. It’ll be a little snug.” The grin curving his lips suggested he’d had the whole evening planned before they’d even packed. “I think we’ll manage somehow.”
Hope sat up. “What about bugs?”
“You’ll only suck in a few.” She clamped a hand to her mouth and he laughed. “You won’t even know it. You’ll be asleep. And if you get a beetle, just chew.”
She didn’t want to suck bugs and eat beetles in her sleep. She didn’t want to be a baby, either, but a little whine of distress escaped from behind her hand.
“I was kidding about the beetle,” he said, which did little to relieve her mind.
They hiked to Alpine Lake ridge and looked down into the tiny green lake nestled hundreds of feet below. Voices carried up to them, but they could see nothing for the dense sea of emerald trees. Hope almost felt as if she were standing on top of the world.
“Listen,” Dylan whispered.
“I don’t hear anyone talking now,” she said.
“Not to the voices.” He was silent for a moment and reached for her hand. “Do you hear it?”
She heard the breeze whistling through the tree-tops, the call of birds, and maybe the stream they’d crossed. “What am I listening for?”
“It’s hard to explain, but Shelly says it’s like listening to God. I think it’s more like a pulse, or like hearing beauty instead of seeing it.” He shrugged. “It’s different for everyone, but you’ll know when you hear it. You’ll feel like you’re falling and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.”
They hiked higher, the trail now chiseled out of rock. Hope listened carefully, but she didn’t hear God. She didn’t hear beauty or anything, but she was feeling increasingly exhausted. She and Dylan crossed outlet streams and walked around tundra ponds. Her ponytail was a snarled mess, she was sure her nose was burned, and she’d had to file one fingernail a lot shorter than the others.
Just when she was about to ask if they could stop and rest again, they stood on the snow-covered shores of Sawtooth Lake. She looked out at water so crystal blue, she could see the bottom all the way across to the base of the granite mountain towering above them.
“This lake is two hundred and fifty feet deep,” Dylan told her. “But it’s so clean it looks like you could wade across it.”
She was quiet for a few moments, watching the glaciered snow drip into the lake the color of the purest sapphire. While the beauty around her was awesome, she didn’t hear God.
“This is what I wanted to show you. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It reminds me of you,” he said.
And that was when Hope heard it, and it was better than anything she’d ever heard in her life. Her heart swelled like a balloon in her chest and her pulse raced. She felt herself fall, just like he’d said she would. She fell head over heels in love with Dylan Taber, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.
Chapter Thirteen
“There’s the Big Dipper.” Dylan grasped Hope’s wrist and pointed to the night sky. “And there’s the Little Dipper.”
He’d been right about the sleeping bag. They were somehow managing. Cramped but comfy, the down bag provided just enough room for them to lie side by side. Except for their shoes, they were fully clothed in jeans and sweatshirts. Dylan told her she’d be grateful in the morning when she didn’t have to change into cold clothes. Since she’d never camped before, she took his word for it.
She lay with her head on Dylan’s shoulder, his body throwing off heat like a human furnace. He’d blown up an air mattress to lie beneath the bag, and although her nose was getting chilled, Hope had absolutely no complaints.
“There’s the North Star,” he said and slid their hands to the west. “And Cassiopeia.”
Hope had never been a constellation buff and had to take his word for that, too.
“She’s chained upside down in her throne and has to circle the heavens on her head.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “I’m glad you came here with me.”
“I’m glad you brought me.” Of all the wonderful places she’d been in her life, or could think of being in at the exact moment, none held the appeal of lying in a sleeping bag in the Idaho wilderness with Dylan Taber. The man she loved with her heart and soul.
He rose up onto his elbow, and she gazed into his dark face, outlined against a sky crammed with stars. “Hope?”
“What?”
“I want to tell you something.” He placed her palm against his cheek, rough with stubble. “In my life, I’ve been with women I didn’t care about and women I cared a great deal about. But I’ve never been with a woman who makes me feel the way you do.” He lowered his head and whispered against her lips, “Sometimes when I look at you, it’s hard to breathe. When you touch me, I don’t care about breathing.” He kissed her slow and sweet, and with each press of his lips and touch of his tongue, her heart swelled and ached. It was wonderful and awful and brand-new. Then he pulled back to say, “I don’t know how this is all going to work out, but I want to be with you. You are important to me.”
It wasn’t exactly a declaration of undying love, but it stung the backs of her eyes. She slid her hands under his sweatshirt and combed her fingers through the short, silky hair that grew on his chest. She felt the sharp intake of his breath and the heavy beat of his heart. “I want to be with you, too,” she said and her heart swelled yet again.
Then, with her body, she showed him without words how she felt. And through the tangle of their clothes and the cramped confines of the sleeping bag, he touched her as if he felt it, too. He caressed her as if she were fragile and very important to him. Beneath the shooting stars, he made love to her as if they were the only people on the planet. Beneath Cassiopeia, she felt as if she, too, were circling the heavens on her head.
She forgot all about bugs and beetles and lay wrapped up in the arms of the man she loved. And while that was incredibly scary, it was also incredible. For the first time since she’d driven into town, leaving wasn’t quite so clear. She wondered what she would do if he asked her to stay. She’d fallen in love with the sheriff of a town without a Nordstrom, a movie theater, or even a 7-11. She wondered how she would live without him if he didn’t ask her.
In the morning, he made her a dreadful breakfast of oatmeal and dehydrated eggs, which was only slightly better than the dinner of dehydrated stew he’d made the night before. He laughed and kissed the snarled part in her hair and called her high maintenance.
They repacked their backpacks and made it down the mountain in half the time it had taken them to hike up. When they got back to Dylan’s house around noon, they peeled off their clothes and fell into bed without even bothering to shower the trail dust off their skin.
Exhausted, Hope didn’t remember falling asleep before her eyes opened again. A bit disoriented at first, she glanced at the bedside table and recognized Dylan’s clock. Beneath the sheet, his chest was pressed to her back
