Prologue

All I’d known for the last few hours was pain. Four small summits, they’d said, like it was no big deal.

Lies. All lies.

I wanted to drop to the ground and refuse to go any farther. But there were so many reasons why that wasn’t an option, not the least of which was tall, Scottish, and sexy. And had been the bane of my existence since the beginning.

He was keeping pace with me, looking over every few minutes to make sure I was still there. It was mortifying, but I took some sadistic pleasure in knowing that his long legs were probably aching from the effort to go slowly as much as mine were from trying to keep up with the group.

My thigh and calf muscles screamed on the ascents, and my knees screamed on the way down. My eyes burned from the wind, and my shoulders ached from my pack.

And we hadn’t even made it to lunchtime yet.

What the hell was I doing here?