Read Online Her Ideal Man by Ruth Wind - Free Book Online Page B

was her earnestness, or the magpie way she chattered so easily, but it wasn’t hard to talk to her. He felt comfortable with her, and that had led to an unconscious lowering of his guard.
    He had a feeling he would be sorry.
    Â 
    Anna thought the whole thing was glorious. The gray of the skies over the frosted Ponderosa pines and blue spruce, the utter stillness of nature, the evidence of creatures that had been about this morning. She loved the heat in her muscles and the crisp sight of her breath hanging in the air.
    Most of all, she loved being with Tyler. Especially this new, approachable version. She’d always known this side of him existed; she had glimpsed it when he teased one of his brothers, and when he herded Curtis and his cousin Cody from one place to another downtown.
    But he’d never dropped his armor in her presence before this, and she found that it was very easy to like him. He had an ironic turn to his quick mind, a quick glitter in the pale eyes, and more—a rare, wry self-honesty that was surprising. If he would allow it, they might be friends after all this. He struck her as a man who could use a friend.
    Falling into the rhythm of the snowshoes, Anna wondered what he had been like as a boy, as a four-year-old, like Curtis. Louise, naturally, had spoken often of all three of her boys, spinning tales of their childhood as she and Anna performed the dozens of physical tasks required by the old house museum—window work and dusting and the arrangement of exhibits. Anna, always ready to hear a good story, had listened happily.
    Lance had been the wild one, even as a little boy. Full of mischief and trouble. Jake, the oldest, had been competitive and driven toward success, and had nearly destroyed himself.
    Louise loved all her boys equally. Anna could see that. She worried over them, and fussed, and meddled, and bragged shamelessly about each of them in turn.
    But Tyler, this tall, strong, silent man at Anna’s side, was the child of Louise’s heart. By the time he came into her life, she had been savvier about protecting her children from the hard ways of their father, and Tyler always had been different—quiet and introspective, but also fiercely intelligent and sensitive. Louise had shielded him in order to allow him to be whoever he became—and she was very proud of the man he had grown to be.
    He paused next to her. “One really tough ten-foot stretch ahead,” he said, breathing hard. He blew out, and tossed the hood off his head. “Then we can rest.”
    Anna nodded, unable to find enough breath to even frame the words. She’d be glad of a break, actually.
    The last stretch was steep, but when Anna stepped out to the clearing behind Tyler, she gasped aloud at the wonder of it. “Oh!” she exclaimed, and was rewarded with a rare, deep smile from Tyler.
    It was not a big space, perhaps only thirty feet square, at the pinnacle of the mountain. A few jagged rocks climbed skyward behind them, and a ring of trees clung to one side, so they weren’t quite above the timberline.
    But the true wonder lay to the southern end of the small mesa. The mountain fell away to reveal a deep valley stretching as far as Anna could see. Mountains rose in burly grandeur on either side, sweatered in blue and spruce and white. Clouds of slate and pumice and blue clustered densely over the peaks, pillows and feathers breaking free to drift over the valley. Starry clusters of snow danced in the still air.
    Closer in was a neighboring slope, and Anna pointed urgently, grabbing Tyler’s arm in a hard clutch.
    There, perched calmly on a rock, was a gray wolf, its paws crossed, its nose lifted to the air in a lazy manner. Anna’s heart hurt at the sight. He looked as if he’d been made from the sky itself, his fur the same melding of grays and whites as the clouds, the black markings only lending him a greater drama.
    The valley between the mesa where