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- Herausgeber: Ylva Publishing
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
When the mountain turns deadly, only love can guide them home. Liv and Kai, old friends and ex-lovers who own a gift shop together, decide to play hooky on a gorgeous fall day and go for a hike up a nearby mountain. Their day off ends with physical and emotional consequences neither could've foreseen when the mountain they love turns deadly. Can they find their way home together? Or will it all end…above the tree line?
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Seitenzahl: 54
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Above the Tree Line
About Lois Cloarec Hart
Other books from Ylva Publishing
Coming from Ylva Publishing in October 2014
Acknowledgements
My deepest appreciation to my fabulous long-time collaborators, my wife, Day Petersen, and my friend Kathleen Grams-Gibbs. I’ve entrusted all my stories to these two for many years now, and they’ve never let me down. I also very much enjoyed working, for the first time, with Fletcher DeLancey. Well known for her sci-fi novels, she’s also a wonderful editor with a terrific sense of humour to lighten the task. I’m still laughing over her suggestion for the first sentence of a future novel—“Long story, but there is a very pregnant woman in my basement.” Who knows? Maybe I will write that novel one of these days.
Dedication
For Day,
Who once kept a foot on the scree,
But who left it behind for me.
Above the Tree Line
Lois Cloarec Hart
“Liv, can you get Reta or Toby to cover for you tomorrow?”
Hunched over her computer, engrossed in her end of day sales calculations, Liv Teager barely heard her business partner and best friend. When the quiet words finally sank in, she lifted her gaze from the screen. “Sorry, what did you say? Something about Toby?”
Kai stared out the window into the dark. “Yes. Do you think Reta or Toby would be available to take over the shop tomorrow on such short notice?”
“I don’t know. Toby might. He’s been asking for extra shifts. Why? What did you have in mind?”
“I want to go up Faeroe Peak.”
Liv straightened, her sales figures momentarily forgotten. “Faeroe Peak? I didn’t think you’d ever want to go back after the Labour Day fiasco.”
“Well, I definitely don’t want to go with Patty and Mia, but I’d really like you and me to make the hike again.”
Liv glanced at her screen as she made rapid mental calculations. “Couldn’t it wait until next weekend? I’ve got more inventory arriving tomorrow, and I’d rather Toby didn’t have to process it all on his own.”
“If you don’t want to go, just say so, but don’t make excuses. Toby is perfectly capable of checking in a bunch of boxes. If you’re concerned, have Abby or Ethan come in after school to help him, but you know damn well that all we’re getting right now are the leaf tourists, and most of those come on the weekends. There couldn’t have been more than half a dozen people in the store today. Anyway, I’m going. The only question is whether you’re coming with me.”
Liv frowned at Kai’s sharp tone, but couldn’t argue with her logic. Teager and Teale Gifts had been a fixture in the small mountain tourist town for thirty-three years, and every year there were several slow weeks between Labour Day and the beginning of the winter sports season. Logistically, it was a good time for them to play hooky and leave the store in the capable hands of their employees.
“What’s so important that we can’t put off Faeroe for a few more days?”
“The forecast isn’t great for the weekend. If it’s raining down here, you know it’ll be snowing at the upper levels. I want to get back to the spot on the trail where Patty broke her ankle. You remember, it was just above the tree line on the western approach.”
“What’s so important about that spot?”
Kai hesitated, and Liv’s interest was piqued. Her old friend was an avid hiker, but their expedition three weeks ago had been such a trial that she would have thought Faeroe Peak would be a permanent bane in Kai’s memory.
She strained to hear Kai’s mumbled answer. “Sorry, what?”
“I want to find my hiking pole. I lost it in all the chaos.”
“I know, but it’s just a pole. It’s not like you don’t have others.”
“That one was special.” Kai turned to look directly at her. “You gave it to me our first Christmas together.”
A wave of bittersweet nostalgia swept over Liv. She remembered that Christmas well. After being friends since middle school, they’d finally acknowledged their love and become a couple. Their union lasted scarcely two years. She had been devastated, yet at some level unsurprised when Kai broke it off. No woman had been able to make a relationship last with her mercurial friend. Liv had been hopeful that she would be the exception, but she was unable to find the elusive key to induce Kai to make a permanent commitment. She was, however, truly thankful that they’d salvaged their friendship and business partnership out of the wreckage.
Given their history together, she was touched to hear that the old hiking pole meant something to Kai. “Okay. Let me call Toby and if he can come in, I’ll go.”
Kai smiled and turned back to the window.
Liv counted the ringtones and wondered what Kai could possibly see in the darkness that fascinated her so. Even her beloved mountains were obscured by the early nightfall.
* * *
Liv shrugged her daypack onto her shoulders while Kai locked up the Tahoe. Settling the pack into place, she checked her boots one last time to ensure her laces were double knotted and then picked up her hiking pole.
Kai strode around the truck and grinned. “Now aren’t you glad you ditched the shop for a day?”
Liv inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with clean air. It was a perfect morning for a hike: cool and crisp, with a brilliant blue, cloudless sky overhead. “I suppose it’s marginally better than the store, but really, can anything beat the fragrance of fresh money?” she asked, and bolted for the trailhead knowing full well that Kai would swing a hiking pole at her rear end.
She was fifteen feet down the trail before Kai caught up and they settled into a familiar pace. A muttered “brat” from behind her made her grin. In truth there was nothing she loved more than one of their adventures, whether they were hiking, climbing, skiing, snowshoeing or kayaking. They’d grown up here. Even though Kai had left after high school while Liv stayed, they were equally at home in these mountains.
Dry leaves crunched underfoot and Liv allowed her mind to drift back to the day Kai left, determined to see the world beyond their small hometown. Liv was working for her Uncle Stephen, the original owner of Teager Gifts. She couldn’t understand why her best friend wanted to abandon their mountain paradise, and was heartbroken when Kai left her behind.
