Chapter Two
Eagle Mountain’s Fall Festival was exactly the way Roxanne had always pictured small-town celebrations—lots of cute stalls spread out in a picturesque park, vendors selling locally themed and handmade items, charities hosting bake sales and local restaurants catering roasted corn, barbecue sandwiches and ice cream.
Laughing children chased each other through the pumpkin and corn shuck decorations, and families and groups of friends tried their hands at games of skill or sipped drinks in the beer garden.
Roxanne wandered the grounds, determined to get to know her new home. She was going to smile and mingle and fight the urge to hide in her house. This was New Roxanne—the friendlier, more outgoing version. “Hey, Roxanne!”
Startled, she looked over to see the barista, May, waving to her from a booth that advertised Fine Art Jewelry and Paintings. Roxanne hurried over. “Hi, May,” she said. She glanced at a display of intricately sculpted bracelets, necklaces and earrings. “Is this your work?”
“It is,” May said. “And the paintings are by my friend Chris. Chris, come meet Roxanne. She’s new in town.”
A woman with cobalt blue hair and full sleeve tattoos turned toward them. “Hi, Roxanne,” she said. “Welcome to Eagle Mountain.”
“Your work is so beautiful.” Roxanne touched the edge of a canvas that depicted a fairylike figure stepping into a mountain stream.
“Thanks,” Chris said. “What kind of work do you do?”
“Nothing like this,” she said. “Just computer stuff. IT.”
“Oh my gosh. You have to meet our friend Dalton,” May said. “He’s another computer genius.”
“Oh. I’m not a genius.” Roxanne took a step back, but May was already leaning out of the booth and calling to someone across the way. “Dalton, come over here!” She motioned him toward them.
And then Roxanne was face-to-face with a sandy-haired man with black-framed glasses and a tentative smile. “Hello,” he said, and the word touched Roxanne like a caress.
“This is Roxanne,” May said. “She’s new in town. And she’s a computer geek like you. Roxanne, this is my friend Dalton Ames.”
Dalton looked sideways at May, who was grinning at them. Then he shifted his gaze to Roxanne once more. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “What brings you to Eagle Mountain?”
Roxanne had planned an answer for this question.
She was going to say she had always loved the mountains and now that she had a job where she could live anywhere, she had decided to make Eagle Mountain home.
But that rehearsed speech vanished and what came out instead was, “I wanted to make a fresh start. This seemed like a good place to do it.”
“Ooh, I bet there’s a story there,” May said.
“Mom!” A slender girl with long, dark brown hair barreled across the park toward them and skidded to a stop beside Chris. “Hey, Dalton,” she said. “Hey, May.” She looked at Roxanne. “Hello.”
“Roxanne, this is my daughter, Serena.” Chris hugged the little girl against her. “Serena, this is Roxanne.”
“I like your name,” Serena said.
“Thank you,” Roxanne said. “I like your name, too.”
“What do you need, sweetheart?” Chris asked.
“Can I have money for a snow cone?” Serena asked. “Please?”
“Didn’t your dad give you money for the carnival this morning?” Chris asked.
“But I spent that already,” Serena said. “And I haven’t had a snow cone yet.”
“Here.” Dalton reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of colored paper. “I have an extra ticket I’m not going to use.”
“Dalton, you don’t have to do that,” Chris protested.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Thank you,” Serena said. She took the ticket and skipped away.
“That was sweet of you,” Chris said. “Thank you.”
He waved away her words, then turned back to Roxanne. “I hope you like it here,” he said. “I have to get back to the search and rescue booth. I hope I see you around.” He nodded, a gesture that seemed old-fashioned and courtly, and made her heart skip a beat.
“He’s cute, isn’t he?” May leaned close and kept her voice low. “Some people think his twin, Carter, has more charisma, but I think Dalton has that quiet smolder going on.”
Chris laughed. “Don’t let Eldon hear you say that.”
“Eldon Ramsey has my heart.” May clasped her hands to her chest. “But that doesn’t mean the rest of me doesn’t notice a cute guy with a smolder.”
Roxanne wouldn’t have said Dalton Ames was exactly smoldering, but she had definitely felt some heat there.
She shook herself. It didn’t matter. Starting over did not mean diving right into a relationship. She needed to get the rest of her life in order first. She could change some things about herself, but not that. She would never stop being careful.
“Who was the brunette you were talking to?” Eldon asked as soon as Dalton returned to the search and rescue booth. “I don’t think I’ve seen her around before.”
“Her name is Roxanne. Apparently she’s new in town.” He cut his eyes at his fellow SAR volunteer. At six-four and over two hundred pounds, Eldon Ramsey was an imposing figure, but he also had a reputation as a jokester. “I think your girlfriend was trying to set me up,” Dalton said.
Eldon laughed, a booming sound. “May is a romantic. If you’re not interested, just tell her to back off.”
Dalton busied himself refolding a stack of T-shirts shoppers had pawed through. It wasn’t that he wanted to remain single, but he didn’t like people thinking he was desperate.
“Hey, there. I was hoping I’d run into you again.”
The redhead from the coffee shop leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. She shaped her lips into a pout. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me.”
“I remember you,” he said. “It’s Debra, right?”
She beamed. “And how did you know my name? Were you asking about me?”
“Um, May, the barista, told me.”
“I’m flattered. Now it’s only fair you tell me your name.”
“Um, Dalton.” She was obviously flirting, but he couldn’t think of anything clever to say. Why was he so bad at this?
“I saw you talking to the brunette over there.” She gestured to May and Chris’s booth, across the way. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“No! I mean, I don’t even know her.”
“I thought the two of you looked very friendly.”
“I only talked with her a few seconds.”
Debra shrugged. “I don’t really know her, either. We ran into each other at the coffee shop. I try to be friendly with everyone but she was downright rude.”
The woman he had met hadn’t been rude. Just . . .reserved. Like him. Though come to think of it, he had been accused before of being rude also. Too quiet. Standoffish. “Not everyone has an easy time talking to strangers,” he said. “I think she’s new in town.”
“So am I.” She leaned across the counter, flashing a bit of cleavage. He forced his gaze up. “Care to show me around?” she asked.
“Um, I have to work the booth right now.”
She laughed, a musical sound. “I didn’t mean right now, silly.” She picked up one of the shirts he had just folded and shook it out. “Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue,” she said, reading the logo on the front. “I take it you’re part of the group.”
“Yeah. We both are.” He gestured to Eldon, who was busy making change for a customer on the other side of the booth.
“That’s so heroic,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it some time.”
Again, he couldn’t think of a thing to say. Whereas men like his brother were always able to come up with a glib remark, it took Dalton a while to organize his thoughts. By the time he found the right words, it was often too late.
An older couple approached and he turned to greet them. They asked about search and rescue and ended up making a donation. When Dalton turned back, Debra was gone.
Eldon moved over to join him when the older couple had left. “Who was the redhead?” he asked.
“Her name is Debra.” He refolded the shirt she had left lying on the counter.
“I overheard some of what she said. She was really into you.”
“I don’t know why. She’s doesn’t even know me.”
“She doesn’t have to know you to be attracted to you. May and I didn’t know each other when I asked her out.”
May and Eldon seemed like such a good couple. Really in sync. “Why did you ask her out?”
“Because she’s hot.” He laughed. “Hey, if you like a woman, ask her out. Maybe it doesn’t work out, but maybe it will.”
Why was everyone after him to go out with someone? Was his mother bribing his friends to talk to him about his monk-like existence?
The arrival of Ryan Welch and his partner, Deni Traynor, interrupted his thoughts. “We’re here to take over,” Deni—her light brown hair in two short braids—announced. She propped her sunglasses on top of her head, revealing blue-green eyes. “Anything we need to know?”
“Did you sell any shirts?” Ryan, with the lean, muscular build of a dedicated rock climber and short brown hair just peeking from beneath an EMSAR ball cap, asked.
“It’s been kind of slow,” Eldon said. “We sold three T-shirts and collected forty dollars in donations.”
“Deni and I will see if we can do better than that,” Ryan said.
“Looks like Carter and Caleb pulled in the most money today,” Deni said as she scanned the day’s log.
“No surprise there,” Dalton said. “We always said Carter could sell sand in the Sahara.”
“You two are twins,” Ryan said. “Shouldn’t you have the same gift for gab?”
“We have different personalities,” Dalton said. He smirked. “Carter got all the charm, but I got the smarts.”
“Go, boy genius.” Deni made a shooing motion.
Dalton and Eldon left—Eldon to join May in her booth and Dalton to the parking lot. His big plans for the evening included video games, then a little work on an update on the reservation program he had designed.
Nothing wrong with spending a Saturday night in, he told himself. It wasn’t the image most people had of a single twentysomething. But he liked his own company. He preferred it even, much of the time. He could go out anytime he liked. Debra would have accepted his invitation.
But he didn’t want to go out with Debra.
Roxanne, on the other hand . . . She was even prettier than Debra, but quiet, like him.
She had struck Dalton as a little sad. Maybe he could cheer her up, or at least listen while she talked.
He was good at listening. But if she didn’t want that, maybe they could just be with each other, without a lot of expectations.
Once the idea was planted, he couldn’t shake it. He wanted to go out with Roxanne.
It figured. The first woman who had interested him in, well, a long time, and he didn’t even know her last name or how to find her.
Roxanne ended up buying the fairy painting and a pair of earrings from May and Chris’s booth.
From there she had moved on to purchase a mug from a local potter, homemade jelly from the 4-H club, herbal tea from someone else and cookies from the high school cheerleaders.
Satisfied that she had done her part to support local causes, she carried her purchases to her car and set out for home.
In keeping with her goal of making a fresh start, the place she had rented was unlike anywhere else she had lived.
It was small—a genuine tiny home—and resembled a cross between an old-fashioned train caboose and a child’s playhouse.
It had dark green siding and cream-colored trim, and a cupola bedroom with a stained glass window.
The front porch was large enough to hold a single chair and a doormat, and the whole thing was parked in a clearing in the woods seven miles from town.
The rental agent had described the place as “remote and quirky”—two adjectives Roxanne couldn’t help noting could also be applied to her.
The road to the house was narrow and winding, with a steep drop-off on one side. Roxanne didn’t look forward to trying to negotiate the route in the dark, but she hoped by the time she had to do so, she would be so familiar with the route she didn’t have to worry about driving off over the side.
She was about five miles from home, half lost in thoughts of what she might make for dinner, when she became aware of a vehicle behind her.
It was approaching fast and had on its bright lights, despite the fact that it was still full daylight.
There must be some kind of emergency. She searched for a place to pull over to let the other driver pass, but there was none.
Thick trees closed her in on the left, and the steep canyon dropped off less than three feet from the right side of her car.
She tapped her brakes. Maybe the other driver didn’t realize how close they were to her.
But the vehicle—a truck, she decided—kept coming.
She flinched as its horn blared, the raucous sound insisting she move out of the way.
But there was nowhere for her to go. She gripped the wheel so tightly her arms ached and sped up as much as she dared.
But no matter how fast she drove, the truck behind her kept gaining.
Roxanne’s car skidded around a curve and she struggled to get back on the road.
“Slow down!” she shouted, though she knew the other driver couldn’t hear her.
Her back right tire dropped onto the gravel shoulder again and she fought the steering wheel.
Then a terrible jolt shook her as the truck collided with her car, and she lost control entirely, her windshield shattering and the seat belt biting painfully into her upper body, a silent scream ripping through her, along with a sudden, blinding pain.