Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Rachel stood on the stone steps outside the front of the main entrance and watched as her sister headed down the ski‐lodge road. Once Kellie’s car had disappeared around the bend and was lost from sight, Rachel glanced up at the sky. Apart from a few scattered gray clouds, everywhere she looked was a huge and very welcome patch of blue.
Please god, no more snow or ice.
Could winter finally be giving way to Spring? Her and Matthew’s shared concern over the layer of ice on the roof had them holding back on celebrating the pending arrival of warmer weather.
I wonder if the Brocks know someone with a crane who could scrape it off before it turns to water and floods the lobby. Or even lay some pipes down and take the flow directly off the roof. I’ll talk to Matthew and see what he thinks.
She and Kellie had already packed away all the groceries, and with Matthew adamant that he didn’t want her helping with his model, Rachel found herself with time on her hands.
I could do with some fresh air and a walk.
The softening snow crunched under Rachel’s boots as she made her way from the resort grounds to a nearby path which led along the edge of the woods. Past the property line of the Green Tree Resort, the dirt track widened. Wooden signs along the trail marked the distance into town, along with expected walk time and level of difficulty. Someone had put a lot of effort into making this a good walking trail.
“Now this is something we should be looking into for the redevelopment. There must be a heap of things we can offer guests outside of the usual things. Not everyone wants to ski.”
Rachel made a mental note to add that to her and Matthew’s now daily project discussion. He seemed to be slowly coming around to her way of thinking, and if she could get him to see a way for the dollars to work, then they stood a real chance of saving the original resort. At times he was hesitant about things, and she sensed it had a lot do with what his family might say if he failed to win approval for the bid.
Do billionaires even know how to spell failure?
As she walked along the path, Rachel let the worries of the resort and her life slip gently to the back of her mind. Her to-do list was never ending, but it could all wait. She needed time for herself. A few precious minutes alone.
But as soon as she let her worries slip away, her heart took up its case and pleaded.
What on earth are we going to do about Matthew?
They’d reached a point where friendship might be the inevitable outcome. After a couple of impromptu kisses neither of them had pushed for more. She should be grateful that he was maintaining a respectful distance. Keeping their relationship as close to professional as possible was the sensible thing to do right now.
It would be really dumb for her to get seriously involved with him again, especially now that she knew who he really was, and the consequences for the Brock family if the sale to Royal Resorts were to fall through. If she and Matthew couldn’t make their relationship work a second time, he might decide that Aspen was all too complicated for him and walk away from the project.
And where would that leave this old place, and my family?
There were lines that she shouldn’t cross.
And yet, all she could think of was the ache in her body. The yearning for him to touch her. To let her desire for him win out.
“Let it go, Rach,” she muttered, rounding a bend in the path. “Just get this?—”
Something black dashed out from the woods, then stopped in front of her.
A bear. A baby bear.
No sooner had her brain registered this fact, then a crashing noise behind her had Rachel whirling round.
A second small black bear now appeared from out of the trees. It put Rachel in the unenviable position of having a bear on either side of her, with both the way forward and back on the trail effectively blocked. She knew enough about bears to be sure that where there were baby bears, the mother couldn’t be too far away.
She wanted to scream for help, but her brain refused to engage. Fists clenched tightly by her sides, Rachel searched frantically for a way to escape.
To her left was the drop over the side into the ravine, and down to the lake.
That’s a long way to fall.
The only safe route left open to her, away from either bear, was through the woods.
She took a half step toward the trees, then stopped. Her blood turned to ice.
A dark shadow rose from the snow-covered undergrowth. The shadow had a long nose and piercing black eyes. The mother bear huffed a clear message of warning as she ambled toward Rachel.
I’m such an idiot. Dan said, don’t go into the woods alone.
Why had she come walking in the woods on her own? And without her whistle. She hadn’t even bothered to buy bear spray. Rachel’s bottom lip trembled.
I’m going to be this year’s cautionary tale. The stupid out-of-towner who didn’t follow any of the safety rules.
She glanced back at the side of the track and all hope of surviving a tumble down the side of the mountain died. The odds of her becoming a bear meal were now very real.
“Oh fuck,” she whispered, as tears welled in her eyes. This was not how she had ever thought she’d die. Old and in her bed had always been her choice for when the time eventually came. But eaten by a bear was going to be a horrible, bloody death.
She had to take a chance. The small cub to her left was preoccupied with a stick, swatting at it with its paw. If she could just make a dash past it, then she might stand a chance.
All those things she’d read in the pamphlets about standing still and not running, didn’t stack up in a moment of sheer terror. If the mother bear came after her, she would probably have to take her chances over the edge of the trail. Crashing into a rock or a tree on the way down would hopefully give her a mercifully quick death.
The mother bear ambled closer, its head moving left and right as it took in and assessed the threat which Rachel posed to its little family. A second huff, this one laced with anger echoed in the silence of the trees.
Rachel turned, ready to run.
The loud whirr of helicopter blades split the air. The bear stopped in its tracks, confused by this new and clearly more powerful enemy. The chopper moved into position and hovered directly above them. The noise was ear splitting .
“Rachel. Don’t move, you can’t outrun her,” came a familiar voice over the chopper’s PA system.
“Dan,” she whimpered.
The nearest of the bear cubs startled by the roar from the helicopter’s engines and blades, quickly scrambled over to its mother. Seeing that part of the path was now clear, Rachel was tempted to make a run for safety.
“Don’t!”
From his vantage point in the sky, her brother-in-law could see the same opening.
Okay. Okay. Don’t run from the bear. Got it.
But that was all well and good if you happened to be safely hovering fifty feet in the air, not so much when you were standing a yard or two away from an overprotective mother. Fortunately, the bear had now turned her attention away from Rachel and was busy with comforting the frightened cub.
The screech of an airhorn had Rachel covering her ears. The other cub raced toward its mother. As the airhorn continued its deafening blast, the bear family finally decided they’d all had enough. The mother bear shifted behind her two babies and urged them away, following close behind.
Rachel kept her eyes fixed on the retreating bears, only stirring from her fear‐induced stupor when Dan, suspended by a rope, suddenly dropped onto the trail next to her. He locked the airhorn and tucked it into a holster.
“Are you alright?”
She nodded, too afraid to speak in case she threw up all over him.
Rachel stood numb with shock as Dan carefully strapped her into a harness. She barely noticed what was happening. Then her feet were off the ground, and she was being lifted into the air.
“Rachel! ”
Her brain came back on line, and she laughed. “Dan Brocks, am I glad to see you.”
He could lecture her about the perils of going unprepared into the Colorado wilds to his heart’s content. All that mattered was that she was still in one piece and her day was not going to end with her being the main dish for a bear family supper.