Out of the Blue PREVIEW

Chapter 1

Riley Lafleur

October

New fallen snow crunched beneath my boots as I walked along a dirt trail winding its way through blue spruce, fir, and pine trees that together smelled so strong and clean, it almost hurt my lungs to take a deep breath.

The cold air was foreign to my lungs, too, but it made me feel alive. Invigorated. 

I might be a Houston girl, but I loved a winter wonderland like this. I’d take the cold weather any day over the hot, muggy weather of south Texas. 

The path curved around to the right, entering a grove of maple trees bright and beautiful in a burst of red and gold leaves. A light breeze blew through the leaves, sending them quaking and tugging some of them loose to flutter gracefully to the ground. 

I stopped walking and admired the signs of autumn around me. I’d heard about people traveling to the northern climates just to see the leaves and now I understood why.

Whiskey Springs was high in elevation, over nine thousand feet, nestled among the even higher rugged Rocky Mountains. White wispy clouds gathered around the peaks, hiding them from view at the moment. The whole thing together looked like I’d walked into a postcard. 

The sun was warm on the top of my head, but the breeze was cool. 

A little chipmunk scurried up, stopped in front of me, stood up on his hind legs, then scurried off just as quickly. 

Looking for food maybe. I couldn’t say that I was familiar with wildlife. 

I usually flew from Houston to other cities and back again. I’d even gone to college in Houston. I’d always known I wanted to be an airplane pilot and I wanted to fly for Skye Travels. Pilots from all over the country lined up to apply to work there. But I had set my sights on that particular company early. I was very goal oriented and determined. 

That’s what they said about Houstonians. Why go anyplace else when you lived in the best place possible?

Apparently those particular Houstonians had not experienced the Rocky Mountains in early winter.

I might not want to live here… there wasn’t anything to do in the little town of Whiskey Springs, but it was certainly a good place to visit.

I’d heard that my boss, Noah Worthington, the founder and owner of Skye Travels, owned a cabin up here where he spent time with his wife and grandchildren. 

An enviable lifestyle, but I would not want the headaches that came with it. I preferred to enjoy flying and visiting new places.

I smelled the tangy scent of wood smoke before I saw the little log cabin nestled in the trees off to my right near the rushing river. 

If I had known about the cabins, I might would have stayed in one of them instead of staying in the Whiskey Springs Saloon, although it was interesting, too. Although it wasn’t actually a saloon anymore, it had started out that way back in the 1800s.

I liked the historicalness of the saloon that was now an inn. I wouldn’t call it a hotel exactly. They’d even had a young lady dressed like a saloon girl playing the piano when I walked out about an hour ago. 

Delighted with the scenery along the trail, I kicked at the new fallen leaves on the ground and kept walking. Since being a pilot involved a LOT of sitting, I made it a point to walk one to two hours a day depending on my schedule and location. 

Some places I ended up were more conducive to walking than others.

I considered this one to be a very good find.

I slowed when a flock of black birds fluttered overhead, landed as though they were one across the path in front of me, then took off again.

As I took a couple more steps, the hairs on the back of my neck tingled.

I lifted my long hair and rubbed the back of my neck. It was the wind.

Maybe the wood smoke.

Maybe the clean air that was so different from the city air I was used to. There was no scent of jet fuel out here. 

Stopping again, I turned around.

Blinked.

And took a step walking backwards. Then another.

A big bear stood in the middle of the trail behind me. It sat down and looked at me.

I could keep walking forward along the trail, but I didn’t know where I would end up. I’d never been here before and although I was able to find my way around in the air, I had no dead reckoning sense for the mountains. 

So I couldn’t keep going forward and now I couldn’t go back. 

The bear tilted his head to the side as though trying to figure me out. 

Then the bear stood up, shook its head, and started walking toward me.

 

Chapter 2

Wyatt St. Clair

 

It was one of those beautiful autumn days that reminded me of one of the many reasons I didn’t want to live anywhere other than Whiskey Springs. 

The sun was warm on my face, but the breeze coming off the mountainside had a bite to it. If the wispy white clouds gathering around the mountain peaks were any indication, it was snowing in the high country and it would probably snow here in Whiskey Springs tonight. 

Carrying a backpack over one shoulder, I walked along the trail from one of the cabins my family rented out. 

The guests, a couple from Ohio, had called with a problem with their stove and since I knew exactly what it was when they called, I set out to fix it. I’d been telling my older brother Gregory that we needed to replace that stove out. 

This was the third time in as many weeks that I’d had to go out and fix it. The time before that, the first time, Gregory had sent the maintenance man out. 

The maple leaves were already drifting from the trees. I’d already started tapping trees for their sap. I had started a maple syrup business myself. 

My family, the St. Clairs were all about trees. We had a Christmas tree farm, a firewood outfit that supplied all the firewood for Whiskey Springs and the surrounding area, a dozen short-term rental cabins nestled in the trees along the river, and now we had the maple syrup industry. 

The maple syrup business was growing much faster than I think anyone had expected it to. 

I’d been talking about it for years and I finally put together a plan and some numbers—finally using my business degree for something truly useful—and presented it to the St. Clair Enterprises Board. 

The board consisted of my parents and any of my five siblings who chose to attend. Fortunately they saw not only the financial potential and viability, but also my passion for the project. 

Once they gave me the green light, I hadn’t looked back. Our family’s business originally started sometime in the 1800s with my great great great… great? Grandfather Nathaniel. Each generation had not only kept it going, but they had added their own spin to it. 

My great grandfather had started the Christmas tree farm and my grandfather had built and started renting out the cabins. My father’s contribution so far was to tie it all together into St. Clair Enterprises, growing and expanding everything out. 

With six siblings, it was hard to stand out. My older sister was a social media influencer and my younger sister was an artist. 

My oldest brother, Gregory, pretty much ran the business that he’d been groomed to do since he was a teenager. He loved it.

Then there was my next older brother who was a pilot. That was interesting in that his fiancé was the face of the Whiskey Springs Maple Store. My store. The name I’d started with had been too long. I’d registered it as the St. Claire Maple Haven Syrup Company. I’d known it wouldn’t end up being the name everyone called it, of course, but I’d taken a lot of ribbing about that name from my siblings.  

The jury was still out when it came to my little brother. He was the wild one of the bunch. He worked as hard as anyone else, but he had yet to settle in his personal life. 

Not that I hadn’t done my share of running with him, but I didn’t have the time or the inclination anymore to do that. Once I’d gotten started on my maple syrup project, I had morphed into a boringly responsible adult.

Oddly enough, I was content. 

Deep in thought, mentally running down the list of things that needed to be done in the next few hours, I walked around a bend in the trail and stopped, taking in the situation in front of me.

A young lady stood with her back to me, slowly stepping backwards toward me. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Hair pulled up in a loose ponytail. 

Even though I could only see her from the back, I pegged her immediately as a city girl. Maybe it was her smooth brunette hair with stylish highlights. All in all, it was simply one of those quick split-second impressions. 

None of that, however, was the problem. 

The problem was that a momma bear ambled toward her. Not a grizzly bear, but a decent sized black bear. 

There was no time for me to think. 

There was no time for me to take a chance.

I yanked my tranquilizer gun off my backpack, stepped past the girl, holding out an arm to make sure she stayed back, aimed, and shot the bear in the shoulder. 

The bear lifted her head and growling, shook herself, then fell gracefully to the ground.

“Are you okay?” I asked the girl, keeping my eyes on the bear. 

She didn’t say anything, but she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. 

I looked over at her and caught my own breath.

This girl looked at me with big beautiful green eyes fringed by dark lashes. 

“You shot him?” she asked with obvious incredulousness.

“I had to,” I said. “You were in danger.”

“But…” she looked back toward the bear. “You shot him.”

“I need to make a phone call,” I said. “Walk with me.”

I glanced around, hoping that the bear was alone. With it being early fall, she probably was, but it was smart to play it safe. 

I’d call Wildlife and Fisheries on the way toward town.

Fortunately the girl didn’t argue. She followed me down the path after making a wide berth around the bear.

 

Chapter 3

Riley

My heart was racing, but I refused to overreact.

Pilots had to stay calm in the face of danger. It was part of our job description.

I didn’t have a lot of experience with being in danger, fortunately, and I certainly didn’t have any experience with being attacked by bears.

But still…

The man had shot him.

Surely there had been some other way to run the bear off. Weren’t you supposed to make loud noises? Or stand tall? Or were you supposed to run and climb a tree?

Obviously, I was unprepared for a bear encounter.

The man spoke on the phone.

“Can you send someone out to check on a bear?”

I looked back over my shoulder. The bear was still on the ground.

“Yes.”

The man was walking quickly enough that I had to jog a few steps to catch up.

“I’ll drop a pin for the location,” he said.

A little impressed that he knew how to drop a location pin, I looked over at the man and really saw him for the first time.

He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Hiking boots. Dressed like a local.

But he did not have the look of a local. He was clean-shaven with short hair. 

Yet he had a healthy tan that said he spent a lot of time outside. 

Disconnecting his call, he looked over at me.

I looked away, but not before I caught a glimpse of his eyes, as blue as a clear summer sky. 

He had a worried look about him.

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” I asked with another glance over my shoulder, but we had walked too far to see the bear anymore.

Unlike when I had walked this way earlier, I realized just how alone we were out here.

But, of course, he had the gun.

“You’re not from here,” he said. 

“No. I’m not from here,” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Bears and people don’t mix well. The bear was coming toward you so she put you in danger.”

“There are other ways,” I said. “Besides shooting her.”

He frowned at me. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Yell at her or something.”

“I couldn’t risk it,” he said. “I had to make sure you weren’t harmed.”

“She was dangerous?” I asked. He’d already said so, but I was still processing everything.

“Maybe,” he said. “Yes.”

I nodded and looked away.

The path veered toward the river and the roar of the water tumbling over the big boulders precluded us from talking.

A few minutes later, I realized we had taken a different path from the one I had come out on.

The trail ended at a log cabin. 

“We’ll wait here,” he said. “They’ll want a statement.”

Great. Just great.

I’d gone out for some exercise. To take a look around the area. And now I had to give a statement.

It was a simple case, as far as I was concerned. 

The man had shot the bear.

And yet I shuddered to think what might would have happened if he hadn’t come along.

I didn’t like it that he had shot the bear. 

But maybe he had saved me. 

He unlocked the door and we stepped inside what wasn’t just a log cabin, but a store.

Not a big store, but what looked like a little boutique with glass bottles with understated labels lining the shelves on one side. 

There was a comfortable sofa in front of a fireplace with signs of a recent fire.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, leaving me to walk into what looked like an office. 

I sat on the sofa and pulled out my phone to send Beau a message. My fingers were trembling a little as I typed. 

I was almost attacked by a bear.

But instead of sending it, I backed it out. It sounded too much like an overreaction.

GET YOUR EARLY COPY THROUGH THE KICKSTARTER!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kathrynkaleigh/out-of-the-blue-early-ebook-and-deluxe-hardcover