He wore a thin chambray shirt and jeans that had to be at least five years old. His boots were faded yet soft, the result of regular rubbing with saddle soap. Funny that she would recall his devotion to his footwear. When they’d first married, she hadn’t understood his concern with the way his boots fit. That was before she realized that next to his keen eyesight, the most important skill he brought to his work was his ability to cover vast distances as quickly as possible.

She couldn’t say how long it had been since he’d had his hair cut, several months at least. Deeply black, the coarse hairs slanted across his forehead and bunched over his collar. Once she’d loved to bury her fingers in the thick mass. Once she’d… He needed a shave. His eyes were half closed against the swirling wind that had kicked up this afternoon, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling their impact.

Lordy, but he could see, and absorb. At seventeen she’d thought his eyes the most compelling things she’d ever seen-them and his hard, compact, already deeply muscled body. Well, she wasn’t seventeen any longer. It had been years since she’d felt anything simply because he looked at or touched her.

Years.

Although she should be saying something about the whereabouts of their ten-year-old son, her thoughts caught on the passage of time and what it had done to Cord. The elements had etched his features, furrowing lines around his eyes and mouth, darkening his flesh until it was impossible to know where his Ute grandfather’s heritage left off and the power of the sun, wind, rain, and sometimes snow began. If she got any closer, she might catch his scent, but even with necessary distance between them, she remembered. He smelled like the wilderness, always. Except when they’d just made love and then her nostrils would pull in something primitive and basic.

How many mountains had he climbed? Maybe a thousand, each of them adding to the strength in his legs and the breadth of his shoulders. One reporter had called him magnificent. Another wrote that he was a cross between an oak and a bear, an odd poetry of words that must have embarrassed him. If he asked her, she would be forced to tell him that both reporters were right.

As a man, he was exactly that-a man. So rawly alive that it was impossible for her to know where muscle and strength and physical competence left off and what else he was began. Unfortunately, an undeniably masculine body wasn’t enough. There had to be emotion, as well, that essential, missing element in Cord Navarro’s makeup. Or if it existed in him, he kept it too deeply buried for her to tap. And she was tired of trying.

Tired but still aware.

With her body feeling as if it had been hit by an outlaw shaft of lightning, she stepped forward and extended her hand. “So, tell me how it went.”

“The rescue?” He engulfed her hand with his but didn’t take his eyes off her face. “She was easy to find.”

“But there was some kind of problem, wasn’t there?” she asked so she wouldn’t think about the heat and power in those fingers. “Something to do with her health?”

“She’s diabetic,” he said, and released her hand. “Can you call him?”

She knew he was asking about Matt, who’d all but tripped over his lower lip when he’d heard that his plans to spend the summer with his father had been delayed. Cord, probably the country’s premiere search and rescue expert, had been called away at the last minute to track a lost hiker in Yellowstone. She told Cord she’d try to get in touch with Matt, but it was possible that he and his friend Kevin had already left for the Wagon Creek campground. Until they reached the remote area managed by Kevin’s uncle, she had no way of contacting him.

“I have to tell you, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with him,” she said. “He was so disappointed. Thank heavens he and Kevin came up with a plan to spend a couple of days together. Apparently Wagon Creek is full, but Kevin’s uncle offered to let them camp out next to his tent. You must have found that woman in record time. How did you get back here so soon? And that vehicle?” She pointed at the dusty Jeep parked in the graveled lot she’d probably never have the money to pave. “That’s not your run-of-the-mill rental car.”

“It belongs to a local pilot. He was at the airport when I landed. Since he was flying to Denver and going to be there for several days, he let me borrow it.”

“Did he? That’s good.” They could carry on a civilized conversation. It might take effort, but they would do it. “You must feel like a bouncing ball, always being sent somewhere new, not knowing how you’re going to get there.”

“I’m used to it.” He shrugged, as if relieving himself of a weight, and placed one foot on the bottom porch step, stretching denim over a hard thigh. “One thing about the traveling, I’ve seen a lot of places I wouldn’t like to live.” He looked around, and as he did, the strong wind tore through his hair. “I love this part of Colorado. The seasons, the vastness. I always have.”

“I’d like a longer summer, but you’re right about the vastness.” She looked around, taking in the surrounding, sheltering mountains of the Arapaho National Forest. Sometimes, mostly in the middle of the night, they made her feel trapped. But maybe it wasn’t the mountains; maybe the restlessness came from within her. “I’ve been wondering something. Why didn’t you come back? After all, you grew up here, and it can’t matter where you have your base of operations.”

Cord blinked, his eyes strong on hers. “A lot of reasons, Shannon. However, I’ve been-” He stopped whatever he’d been about to say. “I flew over the high school on my way in. The football field looks the same. And the gym. Do you ever go back?”

She shook her head. “Maybe when Matt gets into high school. I’m not much into nostalgia.”

“Hmm. I wonder if they still have your picture in the main hall.”

“My picture? Oh, the homecoming one.” He remembered. What was she supposed to do with that piece of information? “I’d forgotten. It seems so long ago.”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, and she wondered if there was a touch of regret in his voice. “Do you still have the dress you wore? The pale blue one.”

“Dress?” Don’t do this to me, Cord. I don’t want to go back in time. “I think… I think my folks have it at their place. That and some other stuff I need to get out of their hair. I ought to tell them they don’t have to hang on to that horribly dated thing anymore. I’ll certainly never wear it again.”

“No nostalgia where it’s concerned?”

What did that matter to him? “Not really. I try not to live in the past.”

“No, you’ve never done that. Besides, being homecoming queen’s a little different from what you’re doing now, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t be more right. She’d been a cheerleader, mainly because she was athletic and understood the rules of competitive sports. Being crowned homecoming queen had come as a shock. She couldn’t say she hadn’t enjoyed the attention, dressing up, having a professional photographer pose her. But now she lived in jeans and boots because, working with horses the way she did, that was the only attire that made sense. Still she asked herself if she would have worn something else today if she’d known she’d see her ex-husband.

When he again rubbed his neck, she invited him inside so she could make the call that would take him away from her again-him and their son. As he entered the front room that served as her office, she wondered if he would notice the changes she’d made since he was here last Christmas. Probably not, since he’d stayed only long enough to pick up Matt so they could spend the week between Christmas and the new year together. Still she hoped that on some level it would register that she’d put down new tile to replace the horrible old carpet that had come with the place and had given the walls a fresh coat of white paint so that her framed photographs of wildlife stood out. Success. Competence. Independence. That’s what her surroundings said.

She hadn’t bothered with drapes, which meant the office was flooded with light whenever the sun shone. Today, however, clouds were boiling on the horizon and would soon cast the room into shadows that played up the structure’s age. That might mean a storm was on its way, something she didn’t need with a full complement of tourists due to rent horses over the next few days.

“Would you like something to drink?” she thought to ask as the phone rang.

“Water. I can get it myself,” he said, and headed toward the small kitchen at the other end of the house, his boots making a soft thud on her new floor covering. If she didn’t know him as well as she did, she might have been put off by his assumption that he had full use of her house, but Cord Navarro wasn’t a man who expected others to wait on him. No wonder. From the time he was a toddler, it had been only him and his reclusive Ute grandfather, Gray Cloud.

He returned a minute later as she finished talking to a representative of a group of high school seniors set to arrive the beginning of next week. Cord had a large glass of ice water held in a hand that had probably never cradled a long-stemmed wineglass. She’d always thought her office large enough to accommodate the press of clients that trooped in most summer mornings, but Cord’s presence changed her perception. It was, she admitted, because he wasn’t a man for walls. Even at rest, part of him always seemed to be reaching beyond manmade boundaries, seeking more space for himself. He was breathing in that easy way of his, a cadence that changed only when they were making love.

Had made love.

Had.

Fighting free of thoughts she’d spent the past seven years exorcising, she dialed Kevin’s number, hoping to reach his parents. Although she kept her gaze trained on the massive old rolltop desk she’d refinished last winter and the pile of paperwork awaiting her, she was all too aware that Cord had stepped closer. She experienced a flash of resentment, and pain. Her ex-husband wanted her to tell their son that he wasn’t going to be spending the night camping with his friend after all because his father was here and was going to take him God knows where until school started. She would be alone.

“Kevin?” she asked in response to the unexpected juvenile voice. “What are you doing there? I thought you and Matt were going to Wagon Creek.”

“We were. Only…”

“Only what?” she prompted, punching the speaker button so Cord wouldn’t have to stand so near.

“We…well, we had a fight.”

“You did? I’m sorry. Look, Matt’s dad is here. Could you tell him he should come home? I’m sorry if that’s going to mess up your plans, but-”

“He isn’t here.”

“He isn’t?” Sighing, she shook her head to let Cord know she wasn’t responsible for the actions of ten-year-olds.

“No.”

“Then, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she said patiently. “How about your best guess? Where do you think he is?”

“On his horse.”

“On his horse where?”

“Probably halfway to Yellowstone.”

“What?”

“That’s what he said.” Kevin sounded exasperated. “He thinks he’s so smart. He tried to tell me he’s going on all his dad’s rescues this summer, that his dad needs him. I told him, no way. He doesn’t know nothin ’ ’bout searches and stuff. How can he when he doesn’t even live with his dad? When I said that, he got mad and told me he was too going to rescue people.”

“Yellowstone.” She had to struggle to get the word out, but it was important to keep Kevin on track. “He didn’t really say that, did he?”

“Just about.”

“Kevin.” It was Cord, his voice low and controlled, in command. “This is Matt’s dad. I want you to tell me exactly what he said.”

Chapter 2

Cord concentrated, not just on what Kevin was saying, but the boy’s tone, as well. His son’s friend was obviously more than a little miffed at Matt, maybe so focused on that that he was unable to remember the details of their conversation.

“Let me get this straight,” he said after Kevin had rambled on for several minutes. “Matt had brought over his gear so the two of you could spend the night at the Wagon Creek campground, but you don’t think that’s where he went. He didn’t say anything about coming back home, though, did he?” Kevin’s family lived some two miles from here, an easy horseback ride for a boy who’d been around horses most of his life.

“No. He called me a butthead. Said I didn’t know squat ’bout what you’ve been teaching him. Is it true? You’re really gonna take him wherever you go this summer, even if it’s to the top of the highest mountains in the world?”