Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(72)

“You got it, cookie.”

“And just so you know, even though my sister was an alcoholic, that doesn’t mean after seeing my beautiful, obviously popular, smiling nephew today, I don’t intend to use beer as a crutch and drink until I pass out. So advice, keep an eye on that so you can get in there and get yourself drunk sex before it turns unpretty and drunk sex ends with me puking and/or passing out during the act.”

“I’ll keep an eye on that. I’ll also order a pizza so we can draw that out, seein’ as you goin’ down on me rocks my world but when you’re smashed, you ratchet that shit up so it’s so f**kin’ good, I don’t know whether to come in your mouth or f**k you then hold you until you pass out, before I slip out while you’re asleep and buy you a trophy.”

He was damned gratified when she threw back her head and laughed with no sadness hidden behind the sound. It was all genuine.

And Reece took a drag off his beer as he watched her laugh.

Her laughter waned and her eyes focused on his. “You know, of course, that now I really need a Blowjob Trophy.”

“Then I’ll get you one, you earn it.”

She grinned. “Challenge accepted, Bruiser.”

Reece moved his gaze to the mountains, muttering, “Good to hear, cookie.”

She butted her leg against his, not to get his attention, just a show of affection, and he heard her soft giggle before she squelched it to drink more beer.

His girl.

Drama.

Then easy.

Jesus, but he’d f**ked up. He could have had that for a decade and, more, given it to her.

Oh yeah. Fuck yeah.

He’d f**ked up.

They sat in silence awhile before Reece got up and ordered pizza.

Then they drank, ate, and drank some more.

And, later, Zara earned her trophy.

Then she passed out.

But she did it cuddled close in his arms.

Chapter Fourteen

Two Different Things

Six days later…

“You know, Cotton,” I called to the old man’s back as we trudged through the mountains, “they have digital cameras these days. Most of them are small and none of them require film and all this other stuff I’m lugging through the perilous off-trail Rocky Mountains.”

I wasn’t joking. We weren’t on a trail. I had to admit, the views were stunning but still, the terrain was treacherous. So treacherous, the old guy’s easy pace moving through it flipped me out. Then again, he wasn’t carrying a heavy camera bag on his shoulder like I was.

“Did you come to bellyache or did you come to see a master at work?” Cotton asked, not turning back to me.

“I came to see a master at work but, prior to that, you failed to divulge you were a slave driver.”

He stopped abruptly, murmured reverently, “There she is,” then reached an arm back toward me, again without looking at me but snapping his fingers and demanding, “Give me my bag, girl.”

I gratefully pulled the strap off my shoulder and positioned the handles in his hand.

His fingers curled around the handles and he went right to work, unzipping the bag, yanking out his camera, then dropping to a knee with the camera up to his face.

I got close and looked at the view he was shooting.

Then I lost my breath.

All my life, I’d lived in the Rockies and never, not once, did I get used to their splendor.

They might be hard to climb, difficult to traverse, and the weather in them unpredictable, but none of that meant that God didn’t know exactly what He was doing when He created them.

Once I’d drunk in the view, my eyes moved to Cotton.

I was more than pleased that I’d found time to go out with him on a shoot. Or more to the point, I was more than pleased he’d phoned me way early that morning, waking me after a few hours of sleep since I’d had a shift the night before, and telling me to haul my behind to his place to get him because we were going out.

I left a disgruntled but soon-back-to-fast-asleep Ham in his bed in order to have this opportunity.

But navigating dangerous mountain passes was worth the view. More, watching Cotton, who looked like Rocky Mountain Santa with his shock of white hair, white beard, jolly belly, and red nose, focused on creating what I knew once the photos were done would be sheer beauty made it even more worth it.

I drank this in, too, and did it until Cotton dropped the camera then sat on his ass on the boulder we were perched on and looked up at me.

“Thermos ’a joe in that bag, Zara, coupla mugs. Pour us some lead,” he ordered.

I dropped to my ass on the boulder and did as told. I handed him his travel mug and wrapped my gloved hands around mine.

“How’d you know this was here?” I asked after I took a sip, motioning to the view with my head.

“Lotta years on me, girl,” Cotton answered. “Spent ’em high and low, traipsin’ through these hills. Saw this spot years ago. But this spot, the light’s gotta be right. Woke up and just got the feelin’, the light would be right. Luckily, I was not wrong. So here we are and, finally, I caught that old girl’s glory.”

I looked to the “old girl,” a sweeping range of Rockies that punctuated a cloudless blue sky, the sun stark on its planes, shaded through its angles.

It was phenomenal. Cotton’s feeling was spot on. Then again, that was why he was world famous and became that way exposing the beautiful mysteries of America’s mountains’ majesty.