Before he’d left the cabin, she had invited him to come view the stars with her tonight. And in his gruff, sexy baritone, he had replied with perhaps. It was a very noncommittal answer on his part. She worried that she was reading too much into the situation. They’d had a stellar, exotic, sex filled night together. One she didn’t regret at all. And she refused to allow herself to mope, wondering whether it would end up being a one night kind of deal.
But she figured he would return. If not tonight, another night that she was here. They were drawn to each other in an almost magnetic fashion. It was something she wished she could analyze under a microscope, or divine the reasons behind their attraction with some new mathematical equation.
Because for Avery, the potency of their attraction—and the sex, good god, the sex—was on the level.
It should terrify her, the stark depth of her attraction, the way she craved more of his lovemaking after only one night. But after a lifetime of loneliness, a part of her wondered if she had finally found her penguin. They were one of her favorite animals. She had spent months down in Antarctica, studying them, because they fascinated her with the journeys they took each year to mate. And how, once they found their mate, they tended to mate for life. She realized that penguins mating wasn’t for any romantic reason, that it was biological, and a bond formed with that first mating.
But still, with Colt and her last night, the sex had been out of this world spectacular.
Deep down, it was what Avery wanted in her heart of hearts: her life mate, a commitment that stretched beyond the dark. A man who wouldn’t see her absentmindedness as she ignored the world at large while submersed in her studies as a trait to be ridiculed or worse, considered a giant personal flaw. She knew she tended to become lost in her work and her own little worlds with scientific hypotheses she just had to prove and calculate, but then again, it wasn’t like she had anyone to tether her to the real world, or who made her want to ignore her studies for a change. The only remaining member of her family was as flighty as she, but then again, she had learned it all from her grandmother.
Then she reminded herself that not every man was like Matt. Not every man considered her a flighty, scatterbrained woman unfit for monogamy, or true commitment, or romance, and who could be easily tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage.
Avery shook herself from the direction of her maudlin thoughts. Her relationship with Matt had ended years ago. Last she’d heard, he had accepted a tenured position at MIT. He was a brilliant biologist. His mind had been one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. Still, that didn’t excuse that he was an abysmal excuse for a human being, and while she hadn’t been in love with him for half a dozen years, his mistreatment still stung, still had enough teeth to rip her to shreds if she wasn’t careful.
She breathed deeply in the pine forest as she trod. The past was done, no point in rehashing it.
Besides, Colt wasn’t like her ex at all, or like any man she had ever been with, if she were honest. The majority of men she had dated or had a love affair with had been intellectuals, even the outdoorsmen. Perhaps that was her problem all along—they had been thinkers and not doers. Maybe she needed a man more earthy and elemental, who worked with his hands, and who, while intelligent in his own right, didn’t spend the bulk of his time in his head.
Sure, Colt was gruff. But he didn’t treat her as if she had a few screws loose. Instead, he had promised to cover for her with his boss and the ranch when he found her squatting on ranch property. He was right, that was exactly what she was doing by staying without paying. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have the money. She had plenty—she just didn’t have any access to those funds at the moment.
Avery took a break from her hike at an outcropping of sedimentary rock. She checked for rattlesnakes inside the crevices before she removed her pack, laid it on the flat surface, and had a seat on the smooth top. It was a prime spot for observing the flora and fauna, with a clear view of a mountain meadow below. The land was picture perfect. The Rockies were on display in all their stone glory: a combination of igneous and sedimentary rocks that had been folded and raised, formed by erosion and regional uplift that had crafted them into the mountains they were today. Most people didn’t realize that this was the second set of Rocky Mountains. That, three hundred and twenty million years ago, the ancestral Rocky Mountains had stood in this spot. She had always loved that bit of geological trivia, along with the fact that the Appalachian Mountains along the United States eastern seaboard had once been as tall as the Himalayas were today.
With her notebook and pencil, she sketched the valley below, then set about cataloging her observations of the area from her hike and what she spied down in the basin. There was an abundance of wildflowers—or anemone multifida, scientifically speaking—their cream and soft red petals waving in the breeze. Fat bumblebees buzzed around them like big bruisers, but those were actually some of the nicest in the bee family.
Along the far ridge, she spotted a herd of bighorn sheep, known for the large, curled horns adorning their heads. She made a mental note to stay away from that ridge because while the sheep weren’t predators, if they felt that they were being threatened, they would attack, and those horns would hurt something fierce. Those were just the animals she had spied out in the open, she was certain there was more wildlife about the area. She’d enjoy studying a moose, albeit from a distance, as they could be downright pissy. There were also the predators in the area: the brown bears, mountain lions, bobcats, wolves, and coyotes. Of all of them, she would enjoy observing the wolves the most. She’d studied her fair share of packs on her travels and found them utterly fascinating. She’d been to Vancouver Island and visited a wolf sanctuary where she had been able to pet them. That had been one of her favorite trips.
But then again, she found everything fascinating, and had even bandied about the idea of getting a third PhD in ecology or geology. But that would tie her down too much, and she preferred being able to pack her bags on a moment’s notice and head to the wilds of Kenya, or the Amazon rainforest, or the Galapagos Islands, or anywhere really.
Avery detailed all her observations while munching on her protein bar. When she noted the sun was beginning to make its descent toward the western ridge of mountains, she packed up, and hiked the trail back to her cabin. She figured that, when she returned, she would take a shower before she started setting up her field equipment out in front of the cabin. That way, she could spend time observing the stars and searching for those unidentified flying objects that Colorado seemed to have an abundance of—more than most places.
Avery enjoyed the trek back as much as she had the journey out. There were plenty more spots for her to explore on the ranch. She wished that she had more time in the area. That she did not have to leave because she was required to attend this big gala to represent the family in Vegas in two weeks.
But she was one of the last remaining Morgans in her family. The science foundation named for her grandfather, Henry Morgan, hosted an annual benefit to encourage STEM training in middle school. The money earned from the donations helped fund schools across the country with the tools and supplies they needed to teach the next batch of scientists. Being the host of the event was her responsibility. Her grandmother, Gertie, didn’t ask much of her, and in fact encouraged her adventures. But she had asked Avery to attend the gala in her stead months ago. Her grandmother had given her everything worthwhile so in this, Avery wouldn’t let her down.