Falke’s Peak

Falke came running up, then skidded on the ice and slid into her, knocking her onto Axel’s lap. They both burst out laughing as Falke used his claws and scrambled to his feet with a noise that sounded an awful lot like a laugh. Then he pounced, pushing her into the snow and coming down over her.

She laughed so hard her sides hurt as she tussled with the big cat, picking up handfuls of snow and shoving them in his face. He purred and batted at her with his big paws, splashing snow into her face.

“Help me, Axel!” she cried around her laughter.

Then Axel was there too, with a big handful of snow coming down right at her.

“No,” she cried and rolled away, grabbed a scoop of the wet, white stuff and flung it at him as she tried to gain some footing only to slip and slide on the ice beneath the thin layer of snow.

Axel grabbed her behind the knee and pulled her back down, rolling beneath her and taking her weight so she didn’t smack the hard ice. Then he pinned her down with his body, tugged her shirt up, and rubbed a handful of snow on her bare stomach.

She gasped and laughed and struggled to get away.

“Jerk!” she screamed as she reached above her, grabbed some snow, then in a guise of putting her arms around him, dumped it down the back of his neck into his jacket.

Axel shouted in surprise, and rolled with her until she straddled his hips as she used her hands against his chest to lever herself up. Falke pounced on her again and knocked her back to the ground. With his big paws, he shoved snow toward her head, but she got him first, smack in the nose, with a lightly packed snowball. He jerked back and sneezed, then made that laughing sound again and grabbed her wrist between his teeth.

“Hey!” she said, losing her humor, realizing a full-grown male mountain lion had her in his teeth.

“Falke,” Axel said softly, but she heard the warning behind it.

The cat released her and lay down next to her, hanging his head, glancing up at her like a little kid who just got scolded.

Dakota looked between the cat and Axel.

“He wouldn’t have hurt you. He was playing.”

Falke hadn’t hurt her. She hadn’t even felt his teeth through her thick jacket and sweater. But still… She sat up and reached out to pet the cat’s head.

“It’s okay, big guy,” she said softly. “Just scared me is all.”

Falke licked her gloved hand, then stood up and rubbed his cheek against hers. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. “For such a big kitty, you’re just an old softy aren’t you?”

He purred and nuzzled her neck.

“Cold nose!” She shoved his face away from hers with a laugh.

Axel was beside her, and she smiled at him. He returned the grin, and she saw something in his eyes.

Don’t go there. Just don’t. The more time she spent with him, the more she never wanted it to end. But she knew it was all an illusion. She’d hired him. She was sure he would bring anyone out to this spot to show off the scenery. It wasn’t just for her.

But, damn, she could really imagine it was.

“Falke will never harm you, Dakota. I swear it on my life—the life of every one of my family members.”

“That’s a pretty big statement. He is a wild animal.”

She scooted around until she could get onto her knees on the slippery ice, made even more slippery by her ski pants. “I want a picture of you two.” She pulled off her gloves and reached into her jacket for the camera.

Axel didn’t say anything more, but he made a little face that let her know he wanted to argue the fact his cat was tame.

“Falke, go stand by Axel,” she said, making a shooing motion to the cat.

Falke got up, this time without sliding one bit on the ice, and she realized he’d probably…teased her?

No, a cat couldn’t tease. But he could walk on the ice just fine, his claws clicking softly, so what explained him sliding into her before?

“Put your arm around Falke,” she said to Axel, who sat in the snow.

He draped his arm over the cat’s neck.

“You don’t seem real affectionate toward him,” she noted, realizing that he never touched Falke.

“He prefers the ladies,” Axel said in a dry tone, making Dakota laugh.

She raised the camera to her eye, but stopped and lowered it as she stared at man and beast sitting next to each other. “Dang, you two must have been brothers in another life.”

“What?” Axel’s tone was filled with shock. The cat turned its head to look at him.

“You two…You sort of look alike.”

Axel sputtered. Falke made that silly chuckling sound.

“Same eye color, same hair color. Haven’t you ever noticed?”

“Uh…yeah…a bit, I guess. Take the picture, Dakota.”

She almost laughed again at Axel’s strange reaction to her comments. She snapped a picture, then another, then a third for good measure because she wanted to have one to hang up in her condo. They sat in the almost blindingly white snow, with the dark trees behind.

“Come here.” Axel held out his hand, and she walked on her knees to get over to him. When she was close, he took the camera from her hand and pulled her onto his lap. “It’s not ideal, but I think we can get the three of us in a shot.”

She grinned and snuggled up close to Axel, her head on his shoulder. Then Falke straddled her legs and scooted up to her, his head next to hers, which made her laugh.

Axel held the camera out, pointed at them, and snapped a picture just as Falke licked her face.

She burst out laughing and shoved Falke’s cold nose to the side.

“Be good,” Axel said to the cat.

Falke made that cute little laughing sound and laid his head against her chest. Axel snapped a few more pictures, then shoved Falke off of them and wrapped his arms around her. “Look,” he whispered, and gestured across the white expanse of the lake.

Dakota squinted through the brightness and saw what he pointed at. A huge bull elk was slowly picking its way across the lake, slipping here and sliding there.

“He’s big.”

“Yep. And those antlers can kill if they’re pissed off.”

She took the camera from Axel’s hand and held it up. Even though the elk was probably too far away for the cheap little camera, she snapped a couple of pictures.

“Want to hike across the lake? There’s this really pretty little glade over there—” he pointed in a direction away from the elk, “—where we could have lunch.”

“Lunch?” she turned and looked at him. “Elk stew?”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “No, I made some sandwiches. They’re in my pack.”

“A man after my own heart.”

He stared into her eyes, and she again saw that something she couldn’t quite define, or didn’t want to look at too closely. It made her skin feel tight and her heart race.

She pushed off his lap and carefully gained her footing. Axel followed.

“We can leave the snowshoes here,” he said, picking up two and sticking them in the snow so they were standing up, then he did the same for the other pair.

Falke took off over the white flatness.

“Dakota?” Axel said as he moved next to her.

She looked from Falke up into Axel’s eyes.

“Yeah?”

He leaned down and kissed her, softly, tenderly.

“All kidding aside, you might be the woman after my heart.”

Before she could get her brain functioning again, he was fifty feet away, heading after Falke.

“You coming?” he called over his shoulder.

“Uh. Yeah…” Her insides fluttered, and her heart pounded against her chest. She still couldn’t let herself fantasize such a thing, but she couldn’t deny that what he’d just said was probably the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.