Her Mountain Man

“Yes, but the whole reason I agreed to this interview was to get a chance to meet you.” He leaned across the table. “Your dad was my hero when I was a kid. I was fascinated by the incredible things he did. He wasn’t content to follow in other climbers’ footsteps. He insisted on finding new routes up some of the most challenging peaks. And he was one of the first to create high-quality films of his expeditions, so that others could share the experience. I wore out a tape of a British documentary made about him. You know the one—about his ascent of K2?”

He grinned, remembering a point in the film where others in Victor’s climbing party wanted to turn back in the face of adverse conditions. Victor had insisted on forging on, and stood at last at the summit, a solitary conqueror, wind whipping back the hood of his parka, the huge grin on his homely face saying all that needed to be said about his triumph. Paul had watched that part over and over, imagining himself in Victor’s boots, victorious after overcoming insurmountable odds.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever saw that one.”

“Aww, you gotta find a copy. You’re even in it.”

“I am?” She looked surprised.

“Well, you were probably too young to remember, but there’s this great shot of him carrying you in a sling on a training climb.” Amazing to think that the woman before him was that baby. “He said he wanted you to learn to climb almost as soon as you could walk.”

Her expression softened. She looked … almost wistful. “I don’t remember that. How old was I?”

“Two? Maybe a little older. I’m not good at judging ages. How old are you now?”

“Twenty-six.”

“The documentary was made in 1986, so you would have been two.”

“And you were four. How old were you when you saw the film?”

“Ten. It wasn’t released in the U.S. until 1992, after Victor became more well-known.” Before she could ask why he’d been watching the film—a subject he didn’t care to discuss—he shifted the conversation again. “Are you hungry? I forgot to eat lunch and I’m starved. I bet you didn’t get a chance to eat, either.”

“I had a pack of pretzels on the plane.”

“I’ve gotten to where I pack a lunch when I fly. You never know when you’ll get a chance for real food. Do you care if we order a pizza?”

“Uh, I guess not.”

He signaled Kelly and ordered a pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza, and another beer for him and more water for Sierra. He really was hungry, but mostly he was glad of the chance to shift the conversation away from his least-favorite topic—the dark circumstances that had driven him to climb mountains for a living.

CHAPTER TWO

SIERRA KNEW PAUL was evading her questions; she just couldn’t figure out why. She’d steeled herself for a swaggering braggart who would try to impress her with tales of his mountaineering exploits. Instead she’d met a disarming, slightly goofy, regular guy who seemed reluctant to talk about climbing mountains at all.

He was also decidedly better-looking than the blurry Internet photo she’d found had indicated. Not too tall, with short, spiky brown hair and brown eyes, and the great legs she’d expect from a climber. He had a smile that would stop any female in her tracks—but if he thought he could use that smile to distract her from her purpose here, he’d be disappointed. She, of all people, was immune to the charms of a mountain climber.

“Why don’t we get back to the interview,” she said when they were alone again.

His brown eyes were wide and innocent. “I figured you’d be sick of listening to me talk by now.”

“You keep changing the subject.” She tapped her pen against the pad of questions. “Tell me more about yourself.”

He threw one arm across the back of the booth and looked out over the saloon. Was the pensive profile an act, or was he really that uncomfortable with her? “I don’t know why you want to know all that stuff about me,” he said. “The real story is your father and all he did. I’m only a small part of it, the person who found his body. I thought you came to talk about that.”

She never liked to talk about her father, yet he was, in truth, the reason she was here. Because the magazine wanted this story from the point of view of Victor Winston’s daughter. And because she was determined to uncover some insight that would help her reconcile the father she’d adored as a child with the man who’d abandoned her when she was older. In some ways, Paul seemed to know Victor Winston better than she had; could he be the key to reconciling her two views of her father?

“I need to know your background in order to give readers a complete picture,” she said. She consulted her notebook. “I read that the first mountain you climbed was Long’s Peak, here in Colorado. Why did you pick that one?”

He faced forward again. “Because I was living in Boulder at the time and it was close. Say, did you and your mom ever go with your father on his climbs?” he asked. “I know you didn’t climb with him, but were you at base camp? Or waiting in a nearby village?”

“No. We never accompanied him on his climbs.” The idea of her pampered, patrician mother in some frozen base camp was preposterous. “I’m sure he would have thought we were in the way.”

Even as she said the words, a memory flashed in her mind of her at six or seven, weeping and clinging to her father as he prepared to leave on an expedition, begging to go with him. Victor had knelt and embraced her. “Maybe I’ll take you with me someday, sweetheart,” he’d said. “When you’re a little older. We’ll go climbing together.”

She blinked rapidly, and sipped water to force down the knot in her throat. She hadn’t thought of that memory in years.

“Base camps are like little villages, you know,” Paul said. “There are all kinds of people there—men and women, and some children, too. There’s a fourteen-year-old boy who’s already summited four of the seven sisters. His parents climb with him.”

“Not my idea of fun family bonding,” she said. Though if her father had asked her to follow him into the icy, forbidding wilderness that was a high mountain peak, there had been a time when she would have gladly done so.

The waitress, Kelly, delivered plates and silverware. “Pizza will be out shortly,” she said.

“Great.” Paul rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “I’m starved. I remember reading about your dad waiting at base camp for two weeks for conditions to clear enough to climb Everest,” he said. “He lived off oatmeal and peanut butter for the rest of the expedition.” He made a face. “I hate oatmeal.”

“But you became a mountain climber despite the hardships. Why?” This was a question she would have asked her father; the one her readers would surely want to know.

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

He hesitated, then said, “There’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment in climbing. The freedom of setting your own pace. The challenge of testing yourself.”

“That describes how climbing makes you feel, but is that the only reason you do it—for the adrenaline rush?”

“You don’t think that’s enough?” The grin was a little more lopsided now, a little less sure.

“Most people don’t spend their lives looking for a rush,” she said. “Is that really all you get out of mountaineering?”

“Let’s put it this way—why did you become a reporter?”

“You’re trying to shift the conversation away from the interview again.”

“No, no, this relates, I promise. You’re asking me to explain what I do for a living. I want to hear your reasons. Did you always have a burning desire to write? Or did you just fall into the job after college?”

“I always wanted to write,” she said. She’d majored in journalism and had gone to New York after she’d graduated, determined to get a job at a magazine. She’d never even thought about a different job.

He nodded. “I guess mountaineering is like that for me. It feels like what I was meant to do.”

“Climbing mountains? Come on—that isn’t a real job. It doesn’t offer a service or entertainment or improve the world. And unless things have changed since my father’s day, the pay is pretty lousy.” Her mother had had the money in the family; in darker moments, Sierra had wondered if that was the chief reason her parents had wed.

“He made money selling the film rights to his expeditions, didn’t he?” Paul said. “He was one of the first climbers to do that. Today, it’s all about sponsorships. I have a couple of mountaineering-equipment manufacturers and outdoor-clothing suppliers who sponsor me. And I’ve got an agent who’s trying to get me to go on the lecture circuit.”

“My dad did some of that, too. There was nothing he liked better than a captive audience.”

“Really?” He leaned forward, eyes alight with interest. “Was he like that at home, too?”

The man was good, but she’d dealt with tougher interview subjects. She focused once more on her notebook, reserve firmly back in place. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why do you climb mountains?”