Read Online Bound to Happen by Mary Kay McComas - Free Book Online

timberline, the terrain was rough and rocky and would have been much harder to traverse if not for the old logging road. She found the mountains breathtakingly beautiful, with every gap in the dense virgin forest revealing a new and unique glimpse of their splendor. Above them loomed snowcapped peaks and jagged rock formations that looked extremely treacherous for all their magnificence. She took comfort in knowing she didn’t have to go anywhere near them.
    She’d had a lot to think about in the first few hours. Picking up where she’d left off the day before, she still couldn’t justify in her heart the destruction of the mountain for the sake of progress. It wasn’t even for progress, she decided despondently. It was for the entertainment of those who could afford it. For fun.
    Her stomach grew tight and began to burn at the thought that once violated, the slopes and valleys before her, never before touched except by the hands of God and a few lumberjacks, would fall prey to countless more abuses. It made her sick to think that simply because the numbers added up correctly and the facts supported the theory and she had been foolishly ambitious, a chain of ecological changes had been set into motion that could never be reversed. Once destroyed, this land could never be duplicated.
    For a while it was hard for her to remember how much her Chinese art collection meant to her or why she had bought into a co-op instead of renting an apartment. Had the money, the recognition, and the prestige from a job well done been worth it?
    She couldn’t bring herself to answer. Instead she’d come to a standstill and put down her end of the cooler. Wordlessly, without giving her companion the slightest bit of attention, she removed the down jacket and tied the sleeves around her waist. The cool mountain air felt glorious as it fluttered across her bare shoulders and upper chest, which had grown flushed and overheated in her efforts to keep up with Joe’s unmercifully long strides.
    When she bent to pick up the cooler and resume the trek, she found that Joe had unburdened himself as well. She watched as he removed his flannel shirt. She sucked in a deep breath and felt a rush of heat pass through her as he stood before her in a bright white T-shirt pulled taut over flesh and muscle that bulged beneath it and anchored into jeans that hung low on his narrow hips. When he held the flannel shirt out to her, she just stared at him, her heart racing uncontrollably.
    “Here,” he said, indicating she was to put it on.
    “Oh. Thanks, but I’m fine. The cool breeze feels great,” she said on a shuddering breath.
    “Put it on. The weather up here is deceptive. The sun’ll fry you like bacon, and you won’t even feel it until tonight. And,” he added, his eyes lowering and lingering on the soft upper slopes of her breasts, “you don’t want to ruin all that beautiful white skin of yours.”
    As if on cue, her chest rose and fell under his gaze as she automatically drew in a deep gulp of air. His insolence was wearing on her nerves, but she knew he was telling the truth about the sun—not because she knew it to be true, but because she was beginning to understand him. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of removing his shirt for her if he didn’t have a good reason. And she’d have bet her new pasta maker that his reason wasn’t concern for her. He was ensuring himself against a night of having to listen to her whine about her sunburn—as if she would.
    With the shirt on Leslie’s back and the cooler in tow, they continued their hike. They didn’t speak and rarely looked at each other directly, but they were both aware of the other, of being alone together in the forest.
    Ignoring her peripheral vision and keeping her eyes trained straight ahead, Leslie focused her mind on a few of her other problems at hand: Her job, or rather what she’d done as part of her job for one.
    She disliked being called a yuppie, but she had to