Free Rocky Mountain Hideaway (To Love Again Book 2) by Kate Fargo Page B

whiteout.”
    “A whiteout?”
    “What we need to do is start back down. Now, Isabel.” He grabbed her hand and dragged her along behind him, moving quickly, the loose shale sliding beneath their feet. He didn’t want to put her in danger by moving too quickly but he needed to get them back to the tree line. Several years ago, he and Jesse had found a cave just off this trail. He had to find it again. If not the cave, at least the trees would give them more cover.
    “Isabel, can you move faster?” She strained forward to hear him over the rising wind.
    “I keep sliding on the rock.”
    “Watch me. You have to jump and land sideways – the rock will slide, but you’ll get a rhythm. Just keep jumping.” He jumped away to demonstrate, sliding a couple of feet as his boots dug into the loose rock. He jumped again.
    Isabel stood on the mountainside, the sky an ominous dark purple behind her, hat covering her forehead. In the borrowed jacket hanging past her wrists, the black work mitts and borrowed hat she looked like a waif. She seemed frozen to the spot and Tray thought he’d have to go back to get her. And then she jumped, and jumped again, getting her rhythm and passing him. As she passed, he could hear her laughter just before it was whipped away by the wind.
    They made good time down the mountain but Tray worried that it wasn’t fast enough. The snow had already started to swirl around them and he paced himself to keep Isabel close enough so that he could see her. The tree line still seemed a long way off.
    There was nothing to do but keep going. Tray jumped and slid and Isabel kept pace beside him. He caught the lines around her eyes, her face taut with worry but at the same time, strangely alive and excited with the adventure. His heart pounded, not from exertion but from fear. Fear that he’d done something to put this beautiful woman in danger. Fear that she might never want to speak to him again if he got her out of this.
    Tray knew it was useless to beat himself up over this. There was no way to know when the weather would turn in the mountains. That’s why he loved them – wild, exiting, and totally unpredictable. He was finding Isabel to be much the same way. She looked like a conservative, middle-aged woman but underneath that persona he was discovering someone else; an exciting, unpredictable, adventuresome woman that could make his blood boil in less time than it would take to pour a coffee.
    He had to keep her safe, he’d never forgive himself if something went wrong. He breathed a sigh of relief as the trees loomed through the snow. They’d soon have some shelter, and he thought he remembered where the cave was.
    That summer, both he and Jesse had worked at the hotel in Banff. Their father hadn’t wanted to spare them for the season, but their mother had insisted. Working at one of the mountain hotels was a rite of passage. It had certainly been that. Kids their age from all over the country, from the United States too and even Europe, came to work in the hotel, mostly as wait staff and laundry workers and housekeeping, but the work wasn’t important. The after-work was. The large staff quarters behind the hotel had a party going on at all times. The staff accommodation had rooms smaller than most college dormitories, and when their friend Wes had come from Red Deer to hang out, they’d cleaned out the closet, thrown a mattress on the floor and he ended up having more privacy than Tray and Jesse.
    Tray had laughed at the typical coming of age antics – drinking all night, everyone sleeping with everyone else. Jesse always had some girl in the room. Even then Tray had kept to himself. There was something unsatisfying about the constant turn over in women, girls, whatever. It wasn’t for him.
    Tray breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the trees, and he stopped a few feet inside, once it felt more sheltered, to check on Isabel. “Are you all right?”
    Isabel nodded, jamming her hands