Page 1 of Rescue in Misty Mountain

ONE

TESSA

“Was that sound your car or a moose in heat?”

Despite the answer, I can’t help but laugh at my best friend Harper’s question over the speaker phone. “I don’t think there are any moose living in Colorado.”

At least not in the wild. I’d look that up right now, but I’m trying to keep my car securely on the winding mountain path. I hopped off the Interstate around the time my car started moaning like a ghost with unfinished business.

While I hope my car has what it takes to make the journey from Central Illinois to Las Vegas, I’ll feel better if I had a mechanic look at it. I took the first exit with a town’s name on it.

I hadn’t realized just how far off the route it was. Or how winding the roads would be. I called Harper just so there’d be one person in the world who knew where I was if my car craps out before I reach this place.

“Was it a mountain goat?”

My brow furrows. “Are there mountain goats in Colorado?”

“I don’t know. But unless it was one of them—or your poor cat is in serious pain—then I have to assume it was your car.”

I cast a sidelong glance at my blue tabby. Whiskey is happily curled up in his car seat on the passenger side of my car. Completely oblivious to the absolutely heinous sounds that have been coming out of my car for the last half hour.

Clenching my teeth, I groan. “I don’t know. Maybe my car wasn’t built for driving through the Rockies.”

“You did fine during the first leg of your trip,” Harper reminds me.

“Yeah, mostly across Iowa and Nebraska.” I roll my eyes and give Whiskey a sidelong glance, silently asking him if he can even believe we’re having this conversation with his aunt. “That’s a lot of flat land.”

“Maybe it’s just tired. You have been driving for a long time.”

“And I still have a long ways to go.” I take a deep breath. “Hopefully it’s just a belt or… gasket.”

“What’s a gasket?”

“I don’t know.” I blow a loose lock of hair off my face. “If I knew, I would have made sure it was working before I left town. Like an idiot, I didn’t have my car checked out at the mechanic before I hit the road.”

“That would have been awkward.” She gives a short laugh. “Especially considering that you broke up with the guy who owned the only shop in town.”

“Rafe didn’t own the shop.” I grit my teeth. “His dad did.”

Along with half the other businesses in town. Including the small marketing firm where I’d worked as a graphic designer. I’d given them my best until they announced they needed to “retrench” and given me a pink slip not long after the break-up.

“He still worked there. And, not just on cars.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

My ex-boyfriend’s inability to keep it in his pants was only one of the many reasons I broke up with him a few months ago.

I round another bend in the road and groan. “Come on. Where is this place?”

“Maybe it’s a Brigadoon-type situation,” Harper teases. “Maybe it only appears once every hundred years.”

“Then whoever put it on the exit sign has a sick sense of humor.”

My car gives another groan followed by a click-click-click. It shakes enough, Whiskey’s ears perk up and—with a yawn—he rises to his feet.

“Shit.” I hold on to the steering wheel more tightly, as if my grip will keep the damn thing from shaking. “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

“What… you say?” Harper asks, half the words cutting out. “You… breaking…”

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