after their brief introduction from the now vanished Chance, who’d ditched Ally at his first opportunity.
Ally grumbled to herself about being deserted, but had to admit, the disgruntlement might have come from witnessing the enthusiastic hug Jo had given Chance, the one where she’d pressed herself against him like a suction cup.
He hadn’t seemed to mind in the least.
Ally told herself she didn’t care, but she had no intention of staying behind while he went up the mountain. Nope, she was going, too.
Jo was still talking ninety miles an hour. “I’ve got your calendar for the week, and all the phone messages that have to be returned.” The rest of her words were tossed over her shoulder as she headed toward the lodge steps, leaving Ally no choice but to run to keep up, straining to hear her words.
Jo just kept talking, not even looking back as they ran up the steps into the huge open-beamed lodge. “There’s a stack of stuff that needs a quick reading and your signature.” She made a sharp right and went up more stairs. As she moved, she consulted a clipboard. “There’s five potential staff members to interview, that land permit to check over, and the new trails to discuss before mapping. After that you can talk to the fire inspector about your upcoming meeting and…”
Ally missed the next words due to the fact they were on their third flight of stairs and she was barely keeping up. She stopped for a second, her hand to her chest, sucking air into her poor lungs, wondering how long it would take her to get used to the high altitude, when Jo called out from the landing above.
“Where are you?”
“Here,” Ally huffed, rolling her eyes at the slight irritation in the other woman’s voice. Apparently they were all superhuman athletes here in Wyoming. “Coming!”
When she got to the third floor, Jo was just disappearing into the second office down the hall. By the time Ally got there, still panting as if she’d run a marathon, Jo was sitting in a chair next to a large desk, furiously scribbling notes and still talking as if Ally had been right behind her all the time.
“Oh,” Jo said, startled, looking up. “What was the holdup?”
Ally dropped into a chair and struggled to catch her breath. “You’re kidding me.”
Jo didn’t crack a smile.
Perfect. Attila the Hun. “I don’t seem to be in quite the same physical peak that you are.” Though she would be, come hell or high water. She was going to do whatever it took to do this right.
“You’re out of shape?” Jo looked over Ally’s body with a trained eye, and Ally squirmed, knowing what she saw—too many soft curves instead of tight, toned muscle.
Could she help it she favored cholesterol over exercise?
“What is it that you do again?” Jo asked politely.
“I’m a librarian.” Was a librarian, she reminded herself, with the familiar pang for the loss of the job she’d loved. For the loss of life as she’d known it.
No matter. She was now going with gusto. Soon as she could breathe again, that is.
“I meant what do you do for exercise?”
“Oh. Um…” How to admit that exercise had always been at the bottom of her priority list, right next to getting her annual flu shot?
“You don’t do any of it, do you?” Jo seemed disgusted. “No running, no swimming, no biking, nothing. I think I knew the truth when you put your jacket on the ski rack instead of the coatrack.”
“Dead giveaway, huh?” Ally winced. “Well you might as well know right up front, I don’t know much about this outdoor stuff, but I’m a quick learner.” She smiled in what she hoped was a nonworried manner. “I’ll be fine.”
Jo remained unconvinced. “Chance is swamped right now. We’re understaffed and overworked, and he’s picking up all the slack.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m going to start helping right now. I’m going with him to work on the fire-damaged trails.”
“He’s not going to like being held by back a novice climber.”
Climbing? Not just walking up a nice, tidy path but climbing? Oh boy. Adventure number one, here she came. “Lucy asked me to help. I don’t intend to be a burden. I want to lighten the load, not make it worse.”
“Uh-huh.” Jo’s tone implied she doubted Ally would be much help in easing anyone’s burden. “With Lucy in the hospital, Chance hasn’t had a moment to himself to even breathe, and trust me on this one, he likes his time alone.”
Gee, Ally hadn’t noticed. “Like I said, I plan to help.”
“The work is not only time consuming, but dangerous. And he’s got Brian to deal with, dogging his heels, trying to match his every move—”
“That sounds even more dangerous.”
“No kidding. The kid is trouble.”
Ally reminded herself that she was no longer trying to save the world, no matter how much her heart squeezed. And it wasn’t just Brian it squeezed for, but Chance, too. He might be tough, and gorgeous, but there was something in his dark eyes that called to her.
She hoped to ignore that call. “Maybe with an extra person around to help watch out for Brian, things will be smoother.”
“Hmmph.”
Ally’s automatic apology for being who and what she was sat right on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. She would not be a mouse, never again. “I may not know what I’m doing, Jo, but I can assure you, I intend to learn.”
Jo softened slightly. “Well at least you have the best mountain manager available. Chance’ll cover you, whether he likes it or not. He won’t let anything happen to anyone on his turf.”
Was he really that good at his job, or was Jo’s clear adoration something more? Ally told herself she didn’t care, but she couldn’t get that hug Jo had given Chance out of her head. What would it be like to be plastered against that amazing body of his? “Has he been here long?”
“Ten years. His exploits on this mountain are legendary.”
“He must have started young.”
“Lucy once told me he came here before he was twenty, and as green as can be.” Jo smiled. “Hard to imagine Chance being green at anything.”
“But even he had to start somewhere.” Ally leaned forward earnestly, never more determined. “I can do this, Jo. I understand your reservations, but I’m going to make this work.”
Maybe she’d failed at being a librarian. At being a girlfriend. At just about everything so far, but she wouldn’t fail at this, whether they believed in her or not. “Just show me where to gear up. And I’ll be ready to go.”
IT TOOK LESS THAN five minutes in the lodge shop to realize every single staff member—the same who had looked at Ally with their polite, distant and disappointed smiles—absolutely revered one T. J. Chance.
They respected him, emulated him.
Loved him.
If she could accomplish a fraction of that in her time here, she’d be ecstatic. By the time she got outside, wearing her new boots, leggings and a T-shirt layered with a lightweight jacket, Chance was gone.
“He just left,” she was told when she asked about him.
Not a surprise. Determined, she took off on the trail pointed out to her, running, hoping to catch him.
Which she did, literally, only a moment later, when she came around a blind turn and plowed right into the back of six feet two inches of bad attitude.
“Sorry,” she said when he whipped around