Gemma could feel herself shaking violently. What the bloody hell had just happened?
Her mother would die if she heard such unladylike language coming from her. But Margaret wasn’t here, was she? She and Henry were safe and sound at Summerhill.
A wave of homesickness washed over Gemma and for a wild moment, she wanted to be with them, even though their overwhelming concern had been strangling the life out of her.
She sat for another moment, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. How was she going to get out of there? She checked her phone. While she had some remaining battery life, she didn’t have a signal, something not uncommon, she had learned, in the mountains surrounding Lake Haven.
So she couldn’t call someone to rescue her. She would just have to find help. She thought of those ranch houses again. Maybe someone would be home at one of them and she could call for a tow—though how a tow truck from Haven Point would cross that mountain of debris that was taller than she was, Gemma had no idea.
Still shaking, she opened her vehicle door and started to climb out. The snow immediately soaked her coat, cold and merciless. She needed supplies and her backpack was in the rear seat. She carefully made her way there and had just started to open the back door when her stupid bad leg decided to give out. Gemma had to grab hold of the door frame so she didn’t end up in the mud.
She reached in for her backpack. When she stood again, she saw a huge creature emerging from the darkness, heading straight toward her.
Gemma screamed. She couldn’t help herself, afraid she was about to become dinner for a bear or a cougar. The creature faltered for a moment but then kept coming. She aimed the torch she instinctively grabbed out of her pack at it and realized it wasn’t a mountain lion, it was a happy-looking chocolate Labrador retriever wearing a red collar.
“Where did you come from?”
The words were barely out when an even larger creature emerged from the darkness. It took her several seconds to realize it was a man on horseback wearing a cowboy hat and an oiled slicker against the elements.
“Hey there. This looks like trouble.”
Gemma knew that voice, with its slight Western drawl. She narrowed her gaze and then recognized Joshua Bailey, who owned the outdoor supply store in Haven Point where she had bought her backpack and other hiking items. She had met him several times since she came to town, as she was friends with cousins of his, sisters Katrina Callahan and Wynona Emmett.
She didn’t know him well but had the impression he was the kind of man she generally despised, the sort who thought he could charm his way into any woman’s bed, that every female should come running when he crooked his finger.
She couldn’t have said why she thought that. Maybe because of that drawl or that wide smile he freely bestowed on women of all ages or maybe because he was so extraordinarily good-looking.
Or perhaps because of the intense way she had caught him looking at her a few times since she came to town.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“The one and only.” His teeth flashed in the darkness as he dismounted from the horse with a grace she tried not to resent.
“You look like you’re in a pickle, Miss Summerhill. What happened?”
“I was driving along, minding my own business, when half the mountainside fell away.”
She seemed to be shaking more in delayed reaction. She would be having flashbacks to that slide for a long time.
The dog nuzzled her hand and she reached down to pet its wet fur, finding an unexpected comfort from the warmth and protective stance.
“I was afraid that would happen with the first hard rain. A couple acres on that mountainside burned up in a wildfire a few months ago, leaving it prone to mudslides without the trees and undergrowth to anchor all the rocks and dirt in place. I hope you weren’t hurt.”
“I was able to swerve at the last minute and ended up hitting the tree. Not so much hitting it as bumping it, I suppose. I wasn’t even going fast enough for my airbag to deploy.”
He frowned. “What were you doing on the mountain? Seems like a nasty day for a picnic.”
“It wasn’t a nasty day when I started out. This only started about an hour ago. I went on a little hike and was trying to make it home.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t a few seconds earlier or the mudslide would have carried you over the side of the mountain.”
She could have died.
Was she cursed somehow? Other people went their entire lives without near-death experiences. She had now experienced two.
She looked at the debris field and then at her car, her head spinning and her knees weak. She felt dizzy and sick. She sagged against her car for support—and the next thing she knew, Josh Bailey was next to her, his arm around her and his face close to hers.
“Easy there. Easy. You’re okay.”
How had he made it to her side so quickly? “What...happened?”
“I’m not completely sure. You were talking to me one minute then slumped against your car, unresponsive, the next. If Toby hadn’t been there to prop you up, you would have fallen to the ground. I think you may have passed out for a few seconds. Are you sure you didn’t bump your head somehow when you hit the tree?”
“No.” Not this time, anyway. One other fun side effect of her accident three years earlier was an unfortunate propensity to faint in times of great exertion or emotion. It never lasted long. Doctors thought it might be a result of the head injury she had sustained.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry. It...it must have been stress.” She didn’t want to move. He was warm and smelled delicious, rugged and masculine, and she felt safe for the first time since the rains started.
Longer than that, if she were honest.
She
