Page 6 of Mountain Struggle

Working together, Damien and Gael belayed first Aline and then her boyfriend. By the time he and Gael reached the bottom, it was dark, and Damien was wishing he’d worn an additional layer of clothing.

The couple were already settled in the helicopter, wrapped in Mylar blankets. They were holding hands and whispering in each other’s ear—Damien thought of what the hut manager had said, and hoped this would become just a story for the couple to tell their children and grandchildren.

Or maybe they’ll break up next week.

Either way, it didn’t matter. What mattered to him was that they’d both have the ability to make that choice. That was the single biggest reason he and his team did what they did.

Damien looked down at his watch. His son would probably be getting ready for bed already.

Chapter 2

Tess

Tess Porter leaned her head back against the comfy navy couch. The couch was 100% masculine, like the rest of Damien’s house. Or rather, 100% masculine with toys strewn all over the place.

Something clenched in her lower belly, as it did every time she thought of Damien and his son—she loved Jamie, and loved the close relationship that existed between him and his father. She just wished she could see Damien as simply a father—as her boss—and stop thinking about him as a man.

She put the book down on her lap. It had nothing to do with the book, which was a romantic thriller by one of her favorite authors, but it was getting close to eleven p.m., and she was tired.

She knew she wouldn’t be getting any sleep until Damien came home. She couldn’t help but worry about him. He hadn’t said much when he’d called earlier, but she knew the only reason he would have been heading up to the mountains in the evening was if somebody needed rescuing.

Damien led the Chamonix specialized rescue unit, the Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne—not that she’d ever be able to say that out loud in her rusty French. That was one reason she’d come out to Chamonix in the first place, to improve her French. The second, and most important reason was, she needed time and a change of scenery to finish her novel—that was her biggest goal for the year, and she wasn’t contemplating failure.

Finding a job as a live-in nanny had seemed sensible at the time—she’d get the experience of living in another country, and the time to write, and not have to worry about living expenses. She’d interviewed with four other families before settling on the Grays.

Damien had hired Tess as a nanny for two reasons: one, his hours were unpredictable, so he needed someone who could take care of Jamie when he was gone, but also, Damien wanted Jamie to grow up bilingual in English and French, like himself.

Not that I sound American.

She smiled to herself, thinking about the first video interview she’d had with Damien. He’d been looking for an American nanny. She was good at reading people and was certain he’d been about to dismiss her profile based on her British accent alone, until she’d made Jamie laugh with something she said. She’d been hired on the spot.

Or maybe not on the spot, as it’d taken her two months to make the move from Edinburgh, where she’d been wrapping up her master’s degree in Creative Writing.

It’d taken that long to convince her family that she really wanted to do this, and that it was the right thing for her. Tess came from a close-knit family, and it hadn’t been easy for them to understand why she would move to a small town in France to live with a stranger and his child.

Of course, she hadn’t technically moved into Damien’s house. She was here now, while he was working and Jamie was asleep, but she had her own studio in the backyard. It was the kind of room that made her think of one of her favorite authors, Virginia Woolf. Her studio, for she’d made it hers shortly after moving in, had become her place to think and write, the place where she prioritized that which she’d always wanted to do but had never dedicated enough time to.

As a boss, Damien was fair. When he asked her to stay late, he always made up for it later, giving her more free time to write. It was an arrangement that worked for both of them. The fact that she’d fallen in love with Jamie, to the point where caring for the boy no longer seemed like a job to her, was incidental, and not something she was planning on sharing with Damien.

A noise at the door had her getting up from the couch. As always when she saw Damien, she was struck speechless—with his dark hair, piercing blue eyes and strong features, he looked more like a movie star than a search and rescue specialist. Add in the fact that he was six three and looked like he could easily bench press her body weight, and it was no wonder she often felt like drooling.

Not appropriate.

He’s Jamie’s father.

Stop embarrassing yourself.

She sobered up when she saw him frown. He looked exhausted, like he’d just been pulled through an emotional wringer—which was probably the way his job felt every other day.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, feeling the inadequacy of her words. “Was everyone okay?”

His lips curved up softly, the smile transforming his expression.

“We found the two missing climbers, and they’re going to be fine. So yes, everything’s fine.”

He was staring at her bare feet with an intensity that made her wish she’d worn her socks. She looked down at her toenails.