Wild Montana

“Maybe you should worry about yourself,” Travis grumbled, glancing over toward Casper.

Casper smiled, the motion so wide that it made her wonder if he had misunderstood Travis’s tone. “Don’t worry about Alexis,” he said, motioning toward her. “She’ll be safe with me.”

Travis gave a tight nod and turned away, muttering unintelligibly under his breath.

Watching him walk away, she was filled with mixed emotions. She thought of the first time she’d met Travis. It had been her first day at work, he had been so kind in showing her around and when she’d gotten a headache, he’d driven three hours to get her Tylenol. At first he had been so good at the little things, the love notes and wildflowers left on the counter. Yet after a couple of years, things progressively got worse and she hated him and what he had done to her, the way he had always put her down and treated her like she was less-than. Then again, such hate could only come at the cost of having once loved.

Casper looked over at her, and she tightened her jaw in an attempt to hide her thoughts from leaking into her expression. She didn’t need him asking her any questions about her past. “Thanks for everything, Hal. And please let me know how it all turns out,” she said, giving the coroner a quick wave.

“No problem. But wait, what about the drugs?” Hal asked, motioning toward the backpack at Casper’s feet.

“This whole thing’s going into evidence once we get down,” Casper said.

“You sure you don’t want me to take them with us? I can drop them off in evidence for you. Would save you a couple pounds carrying it out,” Travis said.

She would carry a thousand pounds just so long as she never had to ask for Travis’s help. “Nope. We got it,” she clipped.

“My team’s at your disposal if you need,” Hal added and then quickly made his way to the helicopter, disappearing behind its doors. She reached down and took Casper’s hand and pulled him, urging him to follow. His hand was hot in hers and she let go, the touch a jolt to her cold, exposed skin. Casper looked at her, a shocked expression on his face like he was surprised that she had touched him, but she pretended not to notice.

Hopefully Travis was watching and could see that no matter how they had left things, she was moving on with her life.

The helicopter lifted off the ground, the wash sending bits of dust and debris in every direction. Travis sent her a look through the copter’s window as he said something on his radio.

Casper turned toward her. “You do realize that now we’re going to have to hike out...in the dark.”

“That’s the easy part,” she said with a wicked smile.

He raised an eyebrow in question.

“The hard part,” she teased, “is that you won’t be able to beat me.” She took off with a laugh, relieved that once again she was alone with the cowboy.

* * *

THE CBP’S CHEVY always seemed to list to the left when he drove down the road, and it squealed when he applied the brakes, but as they got to the bottom of the trail, he had never been happier to see his old, beat-up, Fed-issued truck.

“You’re crazy. You know that, right?” Casper said between heaving breaths.

He’d thought five miles uphill going in was bad, but basically jogging five miles down steep terrain carrying not only his go-bag, but also the missing hiker’s drugs, had nearly killed him.

Even in the light of his flashlight he could make out the beads of sweat that were dripping down Lex’s temples. Her hair was damp and her cheeks were red, but she laughed like her body couldn’t be aching as badly as his. “Come on, that was fun.”

“Having a heart attack is never fun. You could’ve killed me. I’m getting old, you know.”

She lifted her brow, giving him a sexy “come on now” look. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out two protein bars and handed him one. “Here. Eat this, old man. It’ll make you feel better.”

He took it, dropping his bags on the tailgate of his truck parked at the trailhead. She lifted her bag up and set it beside his.

He looked over at her and tried to guess at her age. She was young; the lines on her face were barely defined in the thin light, but she had the eyes of a woman who had had her heart broken more times than once. “How old are you?”

“Young enough to be okay with it, but old enough to know not to answer,” she said, her sexy smirk returning.

He laughed, and some of his tiredness disappeared. “You wanna ride back to Apgar with me or do you want me to drop you off at the nearest station?”

She dropped her hand down on her backpack. “Apgar would be great. I don’t want to have to wait for another ranger so I can catch a ride.” She looked down at her watch.

“You don’t want to have to wait for another ranger, or is it that you don’t want to run into Travis?”

Her face puckered at the man’s name and he instantly regretted asking her the question.

“Sorry. Don’t answer that. It’s none of my business. Let’s go.” He slammed closed the tailgate and the topper. He jumped into the truck before she had a chance to answer.

After a minute she dropped into the seat beside him. They drove in silence for what seemed like an hour.

“How’d you know about Travis?” she finally asked.

“I was in the FBI for five years. Let’s just say I’ve learned how to read people.”

“If you’re so good at reading people, then how did you end up working at Goat Haunt? I thought only loners and outcasts liked that station. Last year it was manned by some lady...Gertrude or something. I swear the only word that woman ever said to me was, ‘Passport?’” Lex’s voice was soft, like she was trying to avoid hurting his feelings, but the blade had already sliced.

She was right. Goat Haunt was his own private version of Alcatraz.

“What can I say, I guess I’m just lucky,” he said, trying to make light of the situation.

He steered the truck around the sharp corners and down the narrow road of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. The moon had risen and made it just bright enough that he could make out the snowcapped peaks of the jagged mountains around them. To their left was a steep drop-off; the only thing standing in the way of a car going over and plummeting hundreds of feet to the bottom of the mountain was a short rock wall.

He forced himself to focus on the road and ignore the tight knot of fear that always filled his gut when he came this way. At least the park was closed for the night, so there were only a few other cars—those that dared to spend the night in the park, or were hurrying to get out.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Alexis started. “I...I’m just a little touchy when it comes to Travis. He’s my ex-husband. Lately things haven’t been going well between us.”

He knew all about exes. He’d had more than his fair share, but after the events that had transpired with the FBI, he’d taken the last two years off from dating. It was his way of protecting another person from getting hurt. Yet when he looked at Alexis, he was tempted to break his self-imposed vow of celibacy. There was just something about the tomboy next to him. She wasn’t the type of woman who worried about a broken nail. She was the type who would be happy hanging out, reading a book, maybe going for a hike—and no matter how he counted it, spontaneous and real were always a turn-on. No matter how badly he didn’t want them to be.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, trying to avoid looking at her hand resting between them on the bench seat.

She shook her head. “What about you? I noticed you don’t have a ring.”

“It’s a long story,” he said, casting a look at her.

“I heard that kind of thing has been going around.” She smiled. “Relationships are tricky—when you think you have a good one, it’s easy to get complacent and take things for granted, and with bad ones you are always struggling to find an escape.”

His thoughts moved to his parents and how tricky their relationship had been. They hated one another and had fought every day when he’d been growing up. Though they were still married, the thought of the relationship they had made the word marriage sour on his tongue.

Though he didn’t like the thought of marriage—at least the type of marriage he’d seen as a child—he still held hope that one day he’d find something different. Yet from the way Lex spoke, he wasn’t sure if she was attempting to make him feel better, or if it was a way of telling him she wasn’t interested. Either way, whatever residual hopes he had held in making something out of their clandestine meeting were gone.

A roar grew loud behind them. In the rearview mirror was a single headlight.

Alexis leaned forward and peered into the side mirror. “Who’d be crazy enough to drive a motorcycle down this thing at night?”

Besides the cliffs and the sheer drop-offs, Glacier was known for the goats and random assortments of animals that loved to use the highway as their own personal travel system, avoiding the steep embankments and treacherous climbs.