Ditching the tent on the trail was hands down the best decision she had ever made. Kate sipped her high-priced cabernet sauvignon and popped a dark chocolate truffle into her mouth.
Who knew that a small town like Topaz Falls would have one of the best wine bars she’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing? The Chocolate Therapist was something out of a fantasy—all streamlined and modern and classy without crossing the line into pretentious. After meeting with Jessa Cortez and discovering that no one had contacted her about a lost dog, Kate had offered to keep Jane with her—a fostering situation, if you will—while Jessa checked around. It wasn’t only that she wanted an excuse to stay off the trail. She happened to love Jane Doe, too, so it was a win-win.
Once that had been settled, Everly had driven Kate and Jane Doe straight over to the Hidden Gem, where Naomi had upgraded her into their best suite at no charge. Then Naomi and her husband, Lucas, even offered her an extra car they currently weren’t using, just in case she needed it while she stayed in town to help locate Jane’s owner.
It didn’t matter what she needed; Kate’s new bestie Everly would say, “I have a friend for that.”
After Kate had enjoyed an extended time-out in the marble-tiled steam shower of her new suite, Everly had insisted they walk Jane Doe to Main Street so she could show Kate around and they could have an afternoon treat. Her new friend had brought her straight to the Chocolate Therapist, where the owner, Darla Michaels, had hooked them up with the best wine and chocolate pairing that could possibly exist in this world.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.” Kate took another sip of wine. She and Everly were sitting outside at a bright orange bistro table—with Jane Doe contentedly curled up underneath. The patio looked out on a downtown area where quaint shops with striped awnings lined the cobblestone sidewalks. Baskets of bright-colored annuals hung from the wrought-iron streetlamps, and the mountains hovered in the background like a beautiful barricade constructed to keep reality out. It was something straight out of a storybook fairy tale, safe and fictional and untouchable. “I might never leave Topaz Falls,” Kate told Everly, popping another truffle into her mouth.
Everly laughed. “Watch out. That’s exactly what happened to me. I showed up here thinking I might stay a few months, and over two years later, I can’t seem to leave.”
“I can see why.” It wasn’t only the mountains and the whimsical small-town charm. It was also the people, all connected, all watching out for each other—and even for the strangers who found themselves in their midst. “I can’t thank you enough for—”
“What the hell are you doing with my dog?”
The angry male voice came from behind. Kate turned at the same time Jane Doe shot to her feet, whining and yipping.
A man stalked toward them, his chiseled features locked into a punishing scowl. He dodged people on the sidewalk, looking as out of place as Oscar the Grouch at Disney World.
The dog immediately hurdled the fence and made a beeline for him, ending the dramatic scene with a leap directly into his midsection.
“Bella.” The man caught her and knelt, setting her paws on the ground as he wrapped his arms around her. “Jesus, pup. Where have you been? I looked for you all night.”
Kate glanced at Everly and mouthed, “Do you know that guy?”
Everly shook her head with a pained expression. Yeah, he didn’t seem like a very personable man, but that had never stopped Kate before. She pushed back from the table and stood, calmly letting herself out of the patio’s gate before ambling over to where the joyous reunion was still taking place.
“Ahem.” She cleared her throat.
The man looked up at her, and immediately the soft relief on his face tightened into anger. Even with the tension that pulled his cheeks taut, there was something vaguely familiar about his features. Though he wore a stocking cap and sunglasses, she could swear she’d seen his square jaw and that exquisite mouth before…
“Why the hell was my dog sitting under your table?” he demanded, standing upright. He was half a foot taller than her, easy, and had broad, fit shoulders, she couldn’t help but notice through his T-shirt.
“How about you thank me for rescuing your dog from the woods during the storm last night?” Kate asked cheerfully. No one would ruin this perfect afternoon for her. “She wandered into my camp.”
“Your camp?” He flicked his glasses off and swept an irritatingly skeptical look from her head to her toes. “You were camping?”
Okay, sure. She would be the first to admit she didn’t exactly look the part right now. On the way to the Hidden Gem, Everly had driven past a boutique and Kate had seen this lovely sundress in the window. What could she say? It was love at first sight. The soft pink dress had layer upon layer of delicate, embroidered lace with eyelet trim at the neckline. You couldn’t find things like that in L.A. It was both modern and sentimental at the same time. And, since she would be staying in town for a few days, she couldn’t resist a few purchases. “Yes, I was camping.” Her smile dimmed at the smug look on his face. “In fact, I was on a seven-day backpacking trip,” she informed him, glaring right into the man’s eyes. They were steely and blue. Whoa. Unmistakable eyes. Famous eyes…
Well, what do you know? J.J. Alexander—disgraced Olympic snowboarder—was walking the streets of Topaz Falls. She knew she’d recognized him!
Kate kept her expression in check. He obviously did not want to be identified, given the hat and the sunglasses, which he’d quickly slipped back on.
“So, what? You were going to keep my dog forever?” he asked, backing down a bit.
“Of course not.” She gave him the dutiful smile of a Good Samaritan. “I hiked all the way down the mountain and brought her to the Helping Paws Animal Shelter first thing this morning.” And look where that had led her. Right to Jaden freaking Alexander. He’d hidden from the media ever since a reporter tried to accuse him of assault right after the accident. The accusations turned out to be bogus, but after that, J.J. had disappeared. No stories, no interviews, nothing. And now here he was, standing in front of her like some ruggedly wrapped gift from God. If she could score an interview with J.J. Alexander, she’d never have to go on another backpacking trip again.
“I’m Kate Livingston, by the way.” She stuck out her hand, but the man simply stared at it.
He hesitated, obviously not wanting to share his name.
“Your dog is such a sweetheart,” she went on to compensate for his silence. He couldn’t walk away. Not yet. Not until she figured out an excuse to spend more time with him. “Bella is it? I was calling her Jane Doe. Anyway, she slept in my sleeping bag all night. Curled right up next to me and kept me warm. Didn’t you, girl?” She knelt and scrubbed behind Bella’s ears.
The dog gave her a loving, slobbery lick across the lips.
Laughing, Kate stood back up and wiped her mouth. “We definitely bonded.”
“I can see that.” J.J. didn’t seem to appreciate it much either, judging from his frosty tone. “Well, thanks for bringing her back.” He turned. “Come on, Bella.”
“Wait.” Kate flailed to catch up with him.
The man stopped and eyed her like he was considering making a run for it.
Humiliation torched her cheeks, but she muscled through it. Typically she didn’t chase men down the street, but this was an emergency. “Why’d she run away?”
J.J. seemed to debate whether he was obligated to answer the question. Finally he sighed. “She hates storms. And I’m working long days at the resort. Sometimes nights too. I didn’t know there’d be a storm, so I didn’t lock her dog door.”
Long days at the resort, huh? “Poor thing.” Kate petted the dog again, seeing the perfect opening into J.J. Alexander’s world. Thankfully, the dog ate up the attention, wagging her tail and whining for more. “When we were hiking this morning, she never let me out of her sight. She seems to get lonely easily.”
“Yeah.” J.J. watched her interact with Bella. “She’s a rescue. Doesn’t like being alone.”
Kate turned up the wattage on her sunny expression as if an idea had suddenly lit up inside her. “Well, I love your dog, and it just so happens that I’ll be in town for a few days, so maybe I could help.”
“I thought you were backpacking.” J.J. obviously didn’t want to take the bait, which meant she’d have to use another angle. Something other than her love for the dog.
“My tent was damaged in the storm, which means I’ll have to finish out my vacation in town.” She nearly gagged on the word vacation. Maui was a vacation. Hell, she’d even consider Miami to be a decent vacation. Camping was so not a vacation. “I’d love to watch Bella while you work. Like a doggie day-care thing. I can pick her up in the mornings and spend the day with her so you don’t have to worry about her running off.”
“That’s okay.” The man still stared at Kate like she was a lunatic. “She’s fine.”
“It would be better for her than sitting around a lonely house all day,” Kate prompted. If the earlier reunion was any indication, this man loved his dog. So all she had to do was convince him it would be best for Bella. “I’ll take her on hikes, and we can play fetch. She can play with my new friend Naomi’s dog at the Hidden Gem. Oh, and I bet she’d love swimming in the river at the park.”
His torn expression revealed that, yes, Bella did indeed love to swim. What Lab didn’t?
“So you’d pick her up in the morning and drop her off after I got home?”
“Yes. I’d love to spend more time with her while I’m in town,” she assured him. “You don’t even have to pay me.” Getting to know J.J. Alexander, aka the Snowboarding Cowboy, would be all the compensation she needed.
* * *
There had to be a catch. Why would some hotter-than-sin woman offer to watch his dog while he worked? For free?
Jaden eyed Kate Livingston from behind the anonymity of his dark sunglasses. She sure didn’t look like she belonged anywhere near a backcountry trail. Her silky black hair had that perfect beach-wave thing going on, which he suspected she’d paid good money for. And her skin…it was rosy and flawless. Not lined from the sun like his. Her eyes were the most striking feature about her, though, so dark they were almost black and narrowed slightly in the corners like she had some exotic mix of genes.
His body’s swift reaction to her raised his defenses. He’d met women like Kate. All sunny and rosy and completely fake. He’d even had a good time with a few of them, but those days were long behind him.
To get his eyes off the temptation in front of him, Jaden glanced at Bella. His dog had attached herself to Kate’s side as though trying to convince him to close the deal. He could see the plea in those sorrowful eyes. Aw hell. He was such a sucker. Bella would love having the company. He’d worked almost eighty hours this week, and his poor dog had been on her own.
What would it hurt? The woman—Kate?—hadn’t seemed to realize who he was. Bella liked her. And he liked the fact that he wouldn’t have to worry about the dog running off again, which would mean he wouldn’t have to spend another night tromping all over the mountain searching for her.
Last night had been hell. He hadn’t slept at all. He’d hiked until dawn, yelling and whistling and searching until he’d had to go up to work. As soon as the crew had quit for the day, he’d gone home to print some of those lost dog posters he’d seen plastered to lampposts when he was growing up. Which now he wouldn’t need.
“So what do you think?” Kate persisted. Yeah. Persistent. That was the only way to describe her. She looked like a woman who had no trouble getting what she wanted.
“I guess it would work.”
“Great! Oh, that’s so great.” A smile made her eyes sparkle. Something about her seemed so young. She was happy; that’s what it was. Happy all the way down deep, like Gram used to say.
“We can start tomorrow,” Kate said as she hugged the dog again. “We’ll have so much fun, Bella! We’ll play all day! I’ll pick her up at eight. Okay? Make sure to send along everything she’ll need for the day. Food, her leash, any toys she’d like to bring, treats.”
“Uh…” Jaden blinked at her. Damn Kate had a lot of energy. It felt like she’d boarded a speed-of-light train and he was hanging on the back. “Sure. Okay. That’s fine.”
“I’ll need your address. And I didn’t catch your name.”
“Jay,” he blurted. “My name is Jay.” He quickly rattled the address for his rental so he could get the hell out of there.
“Very nice to meet you, Jay.” Kate leaned over and gave Bella a kiss on the top of the head. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.” With a twinkling wave, she sashayed back to a table, where one of her friends was waiting.
“What the hell just happened there?” Jaden asked Bella on the way back to his Jeep. “Did you have to crawl into her sleeping bag?” Out of all the sleeping bags in the backcountry, his dog had somehow found the one that held a tempting, aggravating, overly cheerful Disney princess.
“Couldn’t you have found some transient guy?” he muttered as he helped Bella jump into the passenger’s seat. “That would be a lot less complicated.” Something told him he wouldn’t be able to keep himself in check forever when Kate Livingston was around. And he’d eventually want to do more than look, seeing as how it’d been a damn long time since he’d had the opportunity. The first sight of her in the strappy little dress had him rubbernecking in a bad way. Not that he’d admit it to anyone else, but that was the only reason he’d seen Bella. He’d noticed Kate first.
Jaden started the Jeep and drove away from Main Street, his eyes sticky with fatigue. All he wanted to do was go home and eat his bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and then fall into bed. Maybe he’d actually sleep tonight. For once he felt tired enough. But unfortunately, he couldn’t go home. Not yet.
“We’ve got big plans tonight,” he announced, trying to muster some enthusiasm.
Bella stuck her head out the window, her lips flapping as she sniffed the air.
“Levi was an old friend of mine. Back in high school. He invited us over for a beer, if you can believe that.” Bella probably couldn’t, seeing as how they hadn’t visited anyone’s house since he’d adopted her.
He turned off the highway and onto the familiar dirt road where he used to race bikes with Levi. The Cortez Ranch had gotten a major upgrade since he’d been gone. Originally, there’d been only one house on the property. Now there were four that he could see. Two were newer, one right across from the corrals and one farther up the hill tucked into a stand of aspen trees. That would be Levi’s house. He’d described it over the phone but hadn’t done it justice.
It wasn’t obnoxiously large like the house Jaden had rented near the resort, but it was impressive all the same. Hand-hewn logs stacked one on top of another, stone siding coming halfway up the structure, and a copper roof that must’ve set him back a good hundred thousand.
Jaden parked the Jeep and let Bella out, taking his time on the stamped concrete stairs that led up the front porch. Stupid that he was nervous. Levi had been pretty mellow at the store, but still…his team had turned on him. When he was winning competitions, they’d become like his family, but after the accident, they’d quit calling, quit inviting him out, quit acknowledging they ever knew him. As his ex-girlfriend and fellow USA team member had reminded him, it wasn’t personal. They simply couldn’t afford the bad publicity.
His teammates hadn’t been nearly as bad as the random strangers, though. The people who had verbally attacked him on social media…and on the streets. It had all made him withdraw from everyone, everything. Social anxiety, they called it. He’d finally looked it up on the Internet.
Bella whined and scratched at the front door, coaxing him onward as usual.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going.” If it weren’t for the dog, he’d probably never get off the couch.
Levi’s front door was as grand as the house—stained wood with an inlayed frosted window. He knocked, half hoping his friend wouldn’t be around. Maybe he’d forgotten or maybe something had come up—
The door swung open, and Levi greeted him with a hearty handshake. “Glad you could make it.”
Jaden kept his grip firm. “Me too.”
Bella jumped up on Levi. “Happy to see you too, pooch.” He stepped aside. “Come on in.”
Jaden walked into an open-concept living room with high arched ceilings, dark plank floors, and a stone fireplace that took up one whole wall. Even being brand-new and so extravagant, the place still had the cozy touches that made it a home—clusters of pictures and books strewn on the coffee table and some of Levi’s bull-riding memorabilia on the walls.
“Let me grab you a beer,” Levi said, heading for the kitchen on the other side of the room.
“Sounds great.” Jaden wandered closer to the fireplace to get a better look at the framed photographs arranged on the mantel.
An image of a blond woman in a wedding dress—Cassidy, he presumed—stood out from the others. She was dancing barefoot in a grassy meadow, laughing, looking past the camera, presumably at her new husband. “That’s a great shot.” Not posed or unnatural, but spontaneous and full of emotion.
Levi handed him an IPA and studied the picture with a tender expression. “That’s my wife.” He said it like it still surprised him. “Cass. Remember her? Cash’s little sister.”
He vaguely remembered, but Cash had made sure that none of his idiot friends had come within a twenty-foot radius of her, so Jaden hadn’t known her well.
“She’s a nurse in Denver. Working today.” He grinned. “Still have no idea how I got her to marry me.”
“You lucked out, I guess.” That was a joke. Judging from the other wedding pictures, Cassidy looked as happy and in love as Levi. Something told him luck didn’t have much to do with it.
The doorbell rang, sending Bella into one of her happy-barking fits. For being so anxious, she sure seemed to like meeting new people.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Levi said over the noise. “I invited some other friends.”
Tension laced up his spine, pulling his back tight. “Nope. Don’t mind at all.” It was crazy how casual he could force his voice to sound even when that feeling of dread crawled up his throat.
He hung out by the fireplace while Levi opened the door, and Bella greeted the two new visitors with a nose to their crotches.
“Bella, off,” he commanded.
She obeyed but whined until they both gave her some attention.
“This is Mateo Torres and Ty Forrester,” Levi said, waving Jaden over. “We trained together forever, and now we run a mentoring program when we’re not on the road.”
“Nice to meet you.” He shook each of their hands briskly. Gram would’ve been proud of him remembering his manners, even when his throat seemed to shrink.
“J.J. grew up on a ranch a few miles from here,” Levi told his friends. “We used to raise enough hell that his granny thought about sending him to boarding school.”
“Not true.” Gram never would’ve sent him away. “She couldn’t get rid of me.” He forced a grin. Maybe after enough pretending, it would eventually start to feel real again. “There would’ve been no one to do the work on the ranch.” But Gram had loved him too. The way a mother was supposed to. He’d never doubted that.
“I bet you’ve got some awesome stories,” Mateo said. “I’m always looking for new material that I can use to humiliate Levi.”
Jaden took a sip of his beer and nodded. “I can help you out with that.”
“I’ve got plenty on you.” Levi directed the words to Mateo as he went to get more beers from the fridge. He handed them out while the three men compared who had the worst dirt on who.
Jaden stayed out of the conversation. If they’d watched the news in the last three months, they all had dirt on him, and he didn’t want to talk about the accident.
Eventually, the pissing match ended, and Levi led them all out to the back deck. Bella followed behind and then trotted down the grass. It seemed his friend had chosen the prettiest spot on the property for his house, right up against the mountain, hidden in a stand of aspen trees. Evening sunlight filtered through the leaves, making everything seem calm.
“House looks good,” Mateo said, examining the stone fire pit before flicking a switch to turn it on.
“Yeah. Real fancy, Cortez.” Ty kicked back in one of the reclining chairs. “Let me know if you want a roommate.”
“Yeah, Cass would love that.” Levi pulled two more chairs over and gestured for Jaden to sit.
He had to admit…it wasn’t half bad sitting there on the deck with these guys, watching the sun start to sink behind the peaks. It was easier than he’d thought. No questions about the accident. No judgment in their eyes.
“I’m thinking about buying some land so I can build,” Mateo said. “Got my eye on a piece of property right on the edge of town. What about you?” He glanced at Jaden. “You sticking around Topaz Falls or you got something else in mind?”
“I’m still deciding.” Originally, he’d planned to take off as soon as they’d finished up the project at the resort. He owned a condo in Utah and a cabin in Alaska, but he didn’t have a home anywhere. “I guess I wouldn’t mind sticking around.” The statement surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise Levi.
“That’d be great,” his friend said. “Just like old times.”
Jaden couldn’t resist. “Only now you have a wife who wouldn’t take too kindly to you going up to the hot springs to drink beer and skinny-dip with Chrissy…what was her last name again?”
They all laughed.
“Cass would kick your ass,” Ty said.
“True statement,” Levi agreed. He turned to Jaden. “But seriously, you’d love it here. Small town. Great community. Old friends. You’d be welcome.”
Welcome. That one word sparked hope. Maybe Jaden didn’t have to live in hiding forever. Maybe he could come back to the place he’d always thought of as home.