Her Mountain Man by Cindi Myers

he’d see a therapist, not a reporter.
    “I thought we could conduct the interview at your house,” Sierra said. “I want to see where you live.”
    At least he’d cleaned up the place since that first day. “It’s nothing special,” he said. “But you’re welcome to see it.” Conducting the interview at his house wasn’t a bad idea. If the conversation got too personal, he could always show her pictures or souvenirs from his expeditions. He’d play the part of the reckless mountaineer—that was what magazines wanted, wasn’t it?
    If she asked what drove him, he’d keep his answers vague. If George Mallory could announce that he wanted to climb Everest “because it’s there” that ought to be good enough for Paul Teasdale.



CHAPTER FIVE
    P AUL PARKED THE J EEP in front of the little house where he and Sierra had first met. Josh collected his gear and said goodbye, then disappeared into a similar house next door. “Most of the houses around here were originally built by miners in the late 1800s or early 1900s,” Paul said as he led Sierra inside. “They’ve been remodeled and updated, but the basic structure hasn’t changed much.”
    The front room was furnished with a leather sofa, chair, bookshelves, an old trunk that doubled as a coffee table and a brass-trimmed woodstove in the corner. The bare wood floors and white-painted walls gave the room a clean, modern look, and large windows let in lots of light. A flat-screen TV sat in one corner and books filled the shelves and were piled on the trunk, along with numerous framed photographs.
    “Let me stash my gear and I’ll be right with you,” Paul said, and went back outside to unload the Jeep.
    Sierra moved to the bookshelf to study the photos there—Paul with grinning Sherpas, Paul and Josh on what might have been their trip to Everest, Paul with a puppy that must have been Indy, Paul with an attractive older couple—his parents?
    Then she spotted the framed eight-by-ten at the back of the grouping and caught her breath. The man in the photo grinned at her with an expression as familiar as her own face in the mirror, and just as much a part of her.
    She stared at the photograph of her father in his prime. She’d been there the day the photographer from National Geographic had visited their house. Her father was smiling at her in this picture—she was just off camera, making faces at him from behind the photographer’s left shoulder.
    She’d been nine, still at the stage where she thought of her dad as a superhero. He could do anything, from conquering distant mountains to fixing a flat on her bicycle. He’d lived at home for nine months before this photograph was taken, only going on short trips to speak about his exploits or to meet with sponsors of his next expedition. Sierra had grown used to the idea that he’d be with them forever, and even her mother was happier than Sierra could remember.
    The day after the photographer left, their world fell apart again. Victor announced that National Geographic was sponsoring an expedition to Kilimanjaro, and he would leave the next week for four months.
    “It’s a good picture of him, don’t you think?”
    She hadn’t heard Paul return to the house. He walked over to stand beside her. “He looks really relaxed and happy,” he said.
    She nodded, unable to speak. “He was looking at me when that picture was taken,” she said. “He was smiling at me. ”
    She turned away from the photographs and walked to the sofa. “Should we get started with the interview?”
    “We should have lunch first.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “After that climb, I am. Come on into the kitchen. You can talk to me while I fix us something to eat.”
    The kitchen was as simple and lovely as the living room, with cabinets painted a soft green and matching stone countertops. The deep sink might have been original to the house, though the side-by-side refrigerator was obviously newer.
    She sat at the square wooden