Marooned with the Maverick

“Get real, Willa. You go up the mountain with me and spend the night, the whole town will be talking when you come back down. The Traub bad boy and the kindergarten teacher. I can hear them all now.”

She laughed. As if it was funny. “I’m sure they’re already talking. We’ve practically been joined at the hip since the flood. And in case you’ve forgotten, we spent a whole night together in my dad’s barn and the world didn’t come to an end.”

In case he’d forgotten? He would never forget. Especially not what had happened in the morning. “We had no choice then. It was the barn or drowning. This—you and me, up the mountain together? That’s a clear choice.”

“What is going on with you? Suddenly you’re acting like it’s 1955 or something. Like you’re worried about my reputation, which is excellent and unimpeachable, thank you very much.”

Unimpeachable? She really did talk like a schoolteacher sometimes.

Which got him hot. Real hot. But he wasn’t going to think about that.

CHRISTINE RIMMER came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a salesclerk to a waitress. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oregon. Visit Christine at www.christinerimmer.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my dad.

I love you, Dad. And miss you so much!

At 2:10 in the afternoon on the Fourth of July, Collin Traub glanced out the great room window of his house on Falls Mountain and could not believe what he saw in the town down below.

He stopped stock-still and swore under his breath. How could the situation have gotten so bad so fast? He probably should have been keeping an eye on it.

But he’d been busy, his mind on work. And it was later than usual when he stopped for lunch and came upstairs.

To this.

He could kick his own ass for not paying more attention. It had to be about the wettest day on record in Rust Creek Falls, Montana. The rain had been coming down in buckets since yesterday morning. And Rust Creek, which ran northeast to southwest through the center of town, had been steadily rising.

Collin had told himself it was no big deal. The creek had good, high levees on either side, levees that had held without a break for more than a hundred years. He’d never doubted that they would hold for another hundred.

And yet somehow, impossibly, sections of the levee on the south bank were crumbling. Through the thick, steady veil of rain that streamed down the windows, he watched it happen.

The levee just … dissolved, sending foaming, silvery swaths of water pouring through more than one breach. It was a lot of water and it was flowing fast and furious onto the lower-elevation south side of town.

People were going to lose their homes. Or worse.

And the water wouldn’t be stopping on the edge of town, either. South of town lay Rust Creek Falls Valley, a fertile, rolling landscape of small farms and ranches—and any number of smaller creeks and streams that would no doubt also be overflowing their banks.

The Triple T, his family’s ranch, was down there in the path of all that water.

He grabbed the phone off the table.

Deader than a hammer.

He dug his cell from his pocket. No signal.

The useless cell still clutched in his hand, Collin grabbed his hat and his keys and headed out into the downpour.

It was a hell of a ride down the mountain.

One-third of the way down, the road skirted close to the falls for which the mountain was named. The roar was deafening, and the pounding silver width of the falling water was twice what he was used to seeing. He made it past without incident. But if the rain kept on like this, the road could easily be washed out. He’d have himself a real adventure getting back home.

But now was not the time to worry over coming back. He needed to get down there and do what he could to help. He focused his mind on that, keeping his boot light on the brake, giving the steering wheel a workout, as he dodged his 4×4 F-150 around mudslides and uprooted trees, with the rain coming down so thick and fast he could hardly see through the windshield. Now and then, lightning lit up the gray sky and thunder boomed out, the sound echoing off in the distance, over the valley below.

Lightning could be damned dangerous on a mountain thick with tall trees. But with the rain coming down like the end of the world and everything drenched and dripping, a lightning strike causing a forest fire was probably the last thing he needed to get anxious over today.

Water. Rivers of it. That was the problem.