Her Mountain Man. Cindi Myers
He climbed places where he was likely the first man to ever set foot, and felt awed and humbled by the experience.
“You say you enjoy the challenge—so is it an adrenaline thing? You get a charge out of the risk?”
He frowned. “That makes me sound reckless. I’m not. My goal is always to climb safely.”
“Safety is a relative term at nineteen thousand feet.”
“Things have changed since your father’s day,” he said. “We have more high-tech gear now, though I prefer to climb without supplemental oxygen as much as possible.” He watched as she made note of this. “How technical do you want me to get here?” he asked. “I can bore you with descriptions of safety harnesses, if that’s what you really want to know.”
She looked up from her notes, hazel eyes meeting his, her expression troubled. “What I really want to know is what would lead a man to repeatedly risk his life on the side of a mountain?”
The question was less an accusation than a plea. Paul searched for some way to answer her. “Climbing mountains is only part of any climber’s life,” he said. “A big part, but the climbers I know aren’t irresponsible about it, whether it’s their job or their avocation.” He rearranged the salt and pepper, as if lining up his defenses against her probing looks and questions. “I don’t look at it as abandoning my responsibilities,” he said. “I mean, I don’t really have any.”
“So you’re single. No significant other?”
He shook his head. He hadn’t exactly avoided serious relationships, but his schedule—away half the year or more—made attachments difficult.
“What about your parents? Don’t they worry about you?”
“My parents have been my biggest fans. They’re very happy for me.” He paused while Kelly put down their drinks. Ordinarily he would have encouraged her to stay and chat, but Sierra didn’t seem to want to linger on niceties.
Her question about his parents fueled his curiosity, and he leaped at the opportunity to turn the conversation momentarily away from him. “What about you? Tell me about growing up with Victor Winston,” he said. “What was it like having such a legend for a dad? Did he share his love of mountains with you?”
It was her turn to look uncomfortable. “I’m supposed to be interviewing you, not the other way around,” she said.
“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