Lessons in Mountain Climbing: Far From Home, #1

By Eliza Lloyd

Industrialist billionaire recluse Rane Kirk has all he wants—his plants and his privacy. That doesn’t mean the media is willing to leave the Titan of Telluride alone—not when his past is shrouded in mystery and not when one particular journalist has something to prove.

As a young girl, Kinzey Vance still remembers when she first met Rane. She’s never forgotten him. She’s also never lived down her perceived failure as one of the Kirk Enterprise Grant’s original scholarship recipients. She had planned to change the world, only life got in the way.

As an adopted orphan herself, she feels particularly responsible for her siblings, and gives up her dream, in order to care for them after the death of their mother. Years later and back in Colorado, Kinzey finally has something she must share with the elusive Rane Kirk.

Climbing the mountain to Kirk’s compound, Kinzey is more determined than ever to tell her story. And to learn the truth of his. She doesn’t know Kirk has never forgotten her and the moment she lands in his koi pond, their stars don’t realign; they collide.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eliza Lloyd
• Release date: May 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781507032138

Book preview

LESSONS IN MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

Eliza Lloyd

Table of Contents

Title Page

Lessons in Mountain Climbing

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Other romances by Eliza Lloyd

Lessons in Mountain Climbing

Never climb alone.

Trust the map: It will tell you how to get there but not what you’ll find along the way.

When climbing in an unfamiliar location, you may have to adapt to dangerous terrain.

Watch for hazards.

Weather can change rapidly at higher elevations.

Ascending too quickly may cause rapid heart rate and light-headedness.

Mountain climbing requires stamina and determination. Don’t give up before you reach the summit.

Chapter One

No. It can’t be done. Rane Kirk hasn’t given an interview in over twenty years. Think of something else.

To Kinzey Lynn Vance those were fighting words. Rane Kirk might be a recluse but his story was going to be on the front page, followed by her byline.

Her boss Dave Handlin stared down the other reporters in the room, waiting for additional proposals. His arched brows all but commanded another, better, newer idea.

She judged how far she could push him since everyone else in the room had gotten quiet, nervously doodling and trying to avoid contact with Hammerin’ Handlin.

Twenty-three and half years to be precise, Kinzey said, speaking out in favor of her idea. Waiting for Dave to acknowledge her, she rocked back in her office chair, shaking her head in annoyance. Her suggestion had gone unnoticed before, but her determination had been building for years.

She tapped the yellow pencil, full of her teeth marks, against her chin. One elbow rested on the padded arm of her chair. She peered at her boss through black reading glasses, giving him the Vance evil eye, the look that had spurred action from her siblings when they were all much, much younger. The large diamond of Handlin’s sweater vest came in and out of focus as he moved about the conference room.

When no one else spoke, Kinzey jumped in again. No one can hide for that long. And any man with the dough Kirk has lining his pockets doesn’t deserve his privacy. People want to know about him.

"You want to know about him. The guy’s done nothing to warrant a piece on the front page of the Post-News. Hell, no one even remembers him anymore," Handlin countered.

Kinzey sat up, knowing her frown was one of her best. You’ve got to be kidding. This guy is Wall Street Journal worthy, New York Times worthy and he lives in our own backyard. We can get an interview.

Better reporters than you haven’t been able to get within five miles of him, let alone get an interview. You’ll have the same luck as every other schmuck who’s made the attempt. The answer’s no.

She gave Handlin one last determined glare and with her nose in the air, ignored his answer. Kinzey wasn’t giving up. Kirk Foundation was a philanthropic warhorse. Raandel William Donovan Kirk IV was the third richest man in the country and Forbes listed him in the top fifty richest men in the world, yet no one could prove they’d seen him since he was twenty-three years old, when the first Kirk Enterprise Grant scholarships were awarded. However, his final interview occurred long before that, as he left the Betty Ford Clinic after a supposed suicide attempt. His last words to the public, Please respect my privacy. A bit eccentric but understandable given the situation.

The Recluse of the Rockies. The Titan of Telluride. All the rags ran periodic pictures, blurred and indistinct, claiming to be the reclusive Kirk. The comparison to Howard Hughes was almost inevitable. Only Kirk wasn’t self-made. He’d inherited every penny, and at the appallingly young and innocent age of sixteen.

Let me try, Dave, Kinzey said. Give me a month. No. Two months to get a story that will knock your socks off.

I’m not wearing socks. The others in the room tittered. Kinzey scowled at the people around the table until there was silence.

Well, do any of you have better ideas? Kinzey asked. The Monday morning brainstorming meetings were always ill timed. Everyone was still out of it from the weekend, but Kinzey dared hope she would get the plum assignment if she could only convince Handlin it had merit.

What they didn’t know—how personal this assignment was to her.

We had a quarterback Hall of Famer coaching high school football over at Cherry Hills High. We could do a follow-up piece, Wayne Billquist suggested, as he pushed his round, wire-rimmed glasses up his beak-like nose.

Been done to death, Dave said. Is Raandel Kirk the best any of you can come up with?

"It’s not Ran-del. It’s Rain-del," Kinzey said, miffed because Rane Kirk wasn’t a priority to anyone else.

Shannon DeWitt’s in town filming some D-list zombie flick up in Commerce City—at an abandoned warehouse, I think, Wayne added.

Oh great, another connection to Rane Kirk. Can’t we find a scoop worthy of the name? Dave asked.

What’s so interesting about a guy no one knows anything about? If Kirk was so fascinating, someone else would have gotten to him, Linda Bannister said. He’s probably some nasty old hermit who lives in his unwashed, terrycloth bathrobe who hasn’t had his toenails clipped in ten years.

Kinzey cringed at the description.

Kirk’s only forty-one, she said. And that’s the whole point. Wouldn’t the world want to find out what a billionaire does with his time? What makes the guy tick?

Maybe he finally offed himself, Dave said.

That story’s not true, Kinzey said, defending him, believing she knew his real character. There was more to the story than a mere suicide attempt. She’d heard about it, she’d even done research on it, but the information was sketchy at best. No one seemed to know what had really happened to him that night on Coronado Island.

I thought you were a fount of information where Kirk was concerned. He tried to kill himself when he was seventeen, Dave said.

It’s all conjecture, Kinzey insisted. Stories of Kirk, the old stories, were blown out of proportion. She fought her own romanticized nature and overactive imagination. Still there were times when she considered Rane Kirk might actually be a little crazy. His behavior was anything but normal.

Everyone looked at Dave, waiting for an explanation. The temperature in the room notched up a few degrees. Kinzey had heard the rumors, but there were so many untruths about him, she’d convinced herself the incident was overblown because of his name.

The truth was, she didn’t want to believe it.

It’s true, Kinzey. I remember reading about it. Wayne looked at Kinzey. It was out in California. Rane was living fast and hard on the inheritance. And then one night, he went up in flames. He rolled his eyes searching his memory. San Diego, I think.

Dave agreed. That sounds right.

Yes, but one summer night ages ago had nothing to do with the Rane Kirk of today. And she did not want such information derailing her plans.

Why would he do such a thing? He had everything to live for, Kinzey asked. He was only seventeen when it happened, months after the accident. She must give Rane Kirk the benefit of the doubt. Just like she always had.

Dave responded, tugging at his pants, hiking them up over his belly. "There were two theories. One that he still grieved over the death of his parents and sister. And the second, and probably more accurate theory, was that he was an out-of-control party animal. He overdosed on speed or crack or the drug of the day. At the time he was on the cover of every magazine. In a car accident every other week. DUI’s. A different starlet or groupie on his arm every night. Think about a Lindsey Lohan and Prince Harry wrapped up into one international uberkid. Rane Kirk had everything. And he threw it all away."

So what exactly happened with his family? I’d heard they’d been killed in a plane crash, Kinzey said. Showing all of her cards would be a mistake. She didn’t want Dave or her co-workers to know how much she knew about Rane Kirk or her thin connection to him. She was biased, a cardinal sin for a reporter.

Dave stopped pacing and sat down in his chair at the head of the table. It was a year or two before the attempted suicide.

Thirteen months, Kinzey wanted to add.

Right, Wayne said. The family was going on a ski trip in Switzerland. They were to meet Rane in New York where he was in school at Choate, and then fly to Europe from there. It was a private plane. It went down somewhere in the Appalachia’s. The kid was waiting for them at the airport. Another front page story.

How awful for him, Kinzey murmured. Memories of her father’s passing when she was about to go to college still haunted her. Not that it even compared to Kirk’s situation, but at least she wasn’t left alone in the world. At the time, she’d had her mom and her brother and sisters.

She’d been adopted into a family made just for her.

Like I said, after that, he threw everything away, Handlin added.

Kinzey scoffed at the idea Kirk had wasted his life. Well, obviously not everything. The Kirk Foundation doesn’t seem like the ineffectual efforts of a has-been superstar or a washed-up industrialist. The foundation is a testament to private charities around the world.

Dave held up a finger as Kinzey made his point for him. And that, my dear Ms. Vance, says it all. No one wants to know about a boring old charity. Period. Unless it’s Oprah.

Dave got the meeting restarted. Kinzey doodled vampire castles on her note pad while she listened with half-hearted interest to several ideas being tossed around by the staff. She would get the interview with Kirk. She just had to. And if Handlin didn’t like it, she would find someone else to buy the article from her.

But it was the pictures that would rake in the money. Every rag in the country would pay big bucks for a photo of the real Raandel Kirk. It would be a healthy addition to the rainy day fund, or perhaps the tuition payment for her brother’s graduate work.

She believed in luck and living right—she would be the reporter to get the exclusive. She had more than one determined reason to track down Rane Kirk.

Kinzey opened her notebook. Tucked inside was the Kirk Enterprise Grant Scholarship publication that had started her on this tear several months ago. This year, they’d listed every grant scholar along with their noteworthy achievements. One hundred and seventy original scholars—ten of them weren’t included in the glossy, full color promotion. Humiliation burned through her at the omission of her name. Why had no one contacted her about her achievements with her grant? Kinzey was determined to find out why.

Yes, she was a slow starter, but weren’t her accomplishments just as important as the recipients listed in the book? Now, all these years later, she had her success to share with them. With Kirk himself.

She finally had something even the most hardened committee member would agree had been an achievement. If she could only prove it to them. Hard to do when she was persona non grata at the Kirk Corporation.

Angela Layton Sandstrom’s face smiled back at her from the inside cover. She ran the program now. Kinzey had troubling getting an appointment with her too—it wasn’t just Kirk who was avoiding her.

Getting to someone on the committee shouldn’t be as difficult as it was proving to be.

Kinzey walked out of the meeting beside Handlin. Dave, I’m going to freelance this one. I just want to know if I get a story and photos, will you print them? And what will you pay me?

Dave halted in front of her next to the water cooler, opened a black leather folio and scribbled on a piece of paper. Handing it to Kinzey, he turned and walked away.

She sneaked a peek at the number written in Dave’s bold black Sharpie. IF was written in large block letters followed by a very respectable offer. Oh, yeah. Kinzey stuffed the paper in her pocket then called out after him. Hey, we’re going to renegotiate when I actually have the pictures and story.

That’s a big if—that’s why it was in capital letters, Dave said. He walked on to his office, tucking his white shirt inside his sagging pants.

He didn’t say no. She now had her license to pry on company time.

* * * * *

Kinzey prepared for battle renting a four-wheel drive Hummer in Grand Junction. She barreled up the mountain toward the Kirk compound. This was her first weekend of warfare.

She was nervous about climbing the mountain on her own, but she didn’t want to involve anyone else in her chicanery.

Dave had sent her to Grand Junction for another assignment. Okay, she’d begged Dave for the assignment on senior citizens who choose Grand Junction for their retirement years, just so she could get within a few miles of the elusive, camera-shy Kirk. Everyone else in the office thought her choice a little crazy, and they were all relieved they didn’t get the work assigned to them. It was a small price to pay.

She humphed and shook her head thinking of the real Kirk.

Wasn’t that the worst part? Rane Kirk could have been standing next to her in the rental car line and she wouldn’t have known it.

Not quite true, she thought. She would recognize his eyes anywhere.

The coffee-break theory claimed his eyes were so green because his family had done nothing but look at printed money for decades. Deep, emerald green. Yeah, she’d recognize him.

So what was he like now, she wondered? Was he the kind-hearted teenager she’d met when she was ten? Or the change-the-world idealist she’d met when she was eighteen? Or some mix of both? Or worse?

She couldn’t quite imagine a bitter, angry man especially with his philanthropic ventures. The guy had all but dropped off the face of the earth, but he couldn’t exactly erase his footprints. His empire thrived, but somehow he managed it all behind the scenes.

The death of one’s parents and sister would wound anyone, but it hadn’t made Kirk the recluse he’d become. Kinzey suspected the up-and-coming starlet he’d been with had something to do with it all. Too many catastrophes in a short amount of time seemed to have driven him over the edge.

The story she worked on spanned Kirk’s lifetime, but there were still so many holes.

During the week before her trip she had schemed with Hal Wohlnick, the paper’s computer whiz and an ace research assistant, when he had the time. They went through Internet GPS maps together until they found the spacious private retreat Kirk called home. She had routes marked for every possible entry into his securitized world. None of them would be easy, since she probably wouldn’t get through the front gate.

She doubted the good citizens of Telluride would give her directions to his retreat, though they surely must know more than they were saying.

And what was the likelihood Kirk would be there?

At the first security checkpoint, about seven miles out of Telluride, she ran into an armed guard. On the other side of the high, barbed wire fence lived the man she wanted in her grasp. Even a glimpse of the mansion was impossible from this vantage. No checkpoint and no uniformed guard would stop her plans. She’d keep on searching until they carried her off the mountain. Until they pried her Bic from her cold, dead fingers.

Kinzey lowered her window when the guard stepped toward her vehicle. He was of medium height with just a hint of a pudge at his waistline. He wore a gun tucked in a black leather side holster and his face appeared stern. But his eyes sparkled a bit too merrily for her to take him seriously as a body guard, and his round face had the jolly appeal of Santa. He could be charmed.

Ma’am, I’m sorry you’ll have to turn around. This is private property.

She squinted at him, then with a deft pull, brought a huge map out in front of her to show him how wrong he was. No, it says if I want to get to Ouray, I have to go down this road.

There isn’t a road from here to Ouray. You’ll have to turn around.

Are you sure? Have you actually been down this road? Kinzey was all innocent, wide-eyed wonder.

Many times—and there’s no way to get to Ouray.

Well, why don’t you let me drive on down a couple more miles and I’ll see for myself. Nobody will mind. Kinzey pulled out her best smile—the one with the small dimpled hollow on the right side of her chin.

Turn around, ma’am. The guard wasn’t laughing. She caught a glimpse of his nametag. Her charm fell flat or else Oliver just couldn’t be charmed.

It’s Miss. Miss Vance, Kinzey said. She wasn’t a ma’am! Oliver, exactly what is down this road? She lowered her voice, hinting at a conspiracy. Is it a secret government operation—like Area 51?

I wouldn’t know, but I suspect you do. I am paid to keep people out. That’s all. Good day, Miss Vance, Oliver said with a finality even Kinzey understood.

Shoot! Kinzey shoved the Hummer in reverse and whipped the vehicle around, heading down the mountain.

On to Plan B.

The GPS map showed a National Parks service road a mile ahead. Kinzey turned, making a hard right and headed back up the mountain. The road was rutted and rocky, but the Hummer glided right over with plenty of clearance.

Kinzey drove with the window open. The San Juan mountain morning air was still pure and crisp. Tall, slender pines and large outcroppings of rock dominated the rich, unspoiled landscape. What in the world did Rane Kirk do to entertain himself in such a remote location? Maybe Linda was right—maybe he sat around in his bathrobe watching ESPN and reruns of Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?

In the middle of the road, she brought the Hummer to a full stop. The curve up ahead was her signal to park. She would be hiking in the next three and half miles.

Kinzey parked on a rather steep slant, pulled hard to set the brake and jumped out of the Hummer. How would she climb back in? The footrest was almost belly high. She’d float in after she got those pictures of Kirk.

Her backpack was in the rear compartment. It was already loaded with snacks, a light blanket, a flashlight, two cameras and three bottles of water. Wire clippers. Check.

She bent to retie her shoes then donned another light jacket before she hoisted the pack on her back and trudged up the incline in front of her.

Her guilty conscious reared its principled head again. Reminding herself she had tried for three months to contact him, without success, she folded and boxed her morals into a tiny little corner of her mind where she couldn’t hear the screaming words like: hypocrite, fraud, fool. In his world, she was a nobody, less than nobody since she was also a reporter intent on invading his world and, gasp, actually talk to Rane Kirk.

She was doing the one thing she had to do, and perversely, it was the one thing he would probably hate her for. Steeling herself for her clandestine incursion of trespassing and vandalism, she took a step forward. Life on the wild side. Hopefully, she wouldn’t end up in jail.

She clicked the keyless lock and the whirr-whirr echoed in the open glade around her. Two hundred yards in, she ran into the first wire fence. She’d seen a second one much closer to his manse. It wasn’t electric, but just high enough she’d never get over it, and laced with sharp barbed wire running along the top to boot. The No Trespassing signs were posted about every two hundred yards.

She lowered her head for a moment. What was she doing? Was there some other way to Kirk she had missed? No Trespassing wasn’t a welcome mat for her to violate Rane Kirk’s privacy.

She ignored the signs, willfully breaking the law for the first time in her life.

Kinzey reached over her head and tugged the wire clippers from her backpack. She went to work trying not to think about the crime she committed. Within fifteen minutes, she was through the wire cutout and on her way to see Mr. Kirk.

The map and compass guided her through the continual sameness of the trees and rocks. Trust the map, Hal had kept telling her while they planned the assault on Kirk’s fortress. She repeated his mantra. It will tell you how to get there, but not what you’ll find along the way.

She ran two miles, five days a week in Denver’s high altitude air. Kinzey planned conservatively and thought she would be to the compound within three hours. Hopefully sooner. Hal had volunteered to come along for the trek. When she asked if he had a regular exercise program, his face flushed and he went back to typing on his computer. Yeah, sure if Call of Duty counted. So it was just her. All the better really. If she made an idiot of herself, no one would be around to see.

Even during the daylight, the trees blocked out much of the sun and she found she was prone to overreacting to snapping twigs and errant animal sounds as she bound up the steep inclines. She would hate to be out here alone in the middle of the night. No sir. She would not like that at all. She hoisted her pack against her back and shoulders with a firm yank and picked up her pace. Nightfall was hours away, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Jive Talkin’ blared in the forest around her, startling her from her quiet reverie. She pulled the cell phone from her pocket and verified she had decent reception. Kirk must have a nice, big tower sitting on his hill.

Hal, what’s going on?

Did you make it?

Yeah. No surprise, but the guard wouldn’t let me in so I’m about a mile inside his property. If you don’t hear from me Monday morning, send a rescue crew. Or get Handlin to foot some bail money.

Can I have your desk chair if you don’t make it?

She took a deep breath, panting a little with the strain of conversation. It’s all yours, just write me a nice obit.

You’ll be fine. Trust the—

Trust the map. Kinzey finished the phrase with him. I gotta go. I can barely talk and climb this mountain at the same time.

Well, call me if you need anything, Hal said.

With that reassurance, she snapped the phone shut and trudged ahead. Sweat trickled down her spine and water droplets raced down her face. Kinzey wiped at them time and time again.

The hike gave her ample opportunity to think about Rane Kirk. She had a secret vision of what he might look like now. She’d seen him three times in her whole life.

At the MV Manufacturing company picnic when she was ten, he threw her soccer ball back to her. Her dad worked for the Kirk Corporation subsidiary in California. She had trouble remembering what young Rane looked like, only that her friends nudged her and had to tell her the departing teen was Rane Kirk. She’d watched him walk away, thinking he was the greatest thing since New Kids On The Block!

The second and most important meeting was a thirty-minute conversation at her Kirk Enterprise Grant scholarship interview when she was eighteen. It was stored in her mind and heart. There was a connection, fueled by the fire of his green-eyed gaze. He’d flirted with her, she would swear it. She remembered the eyes, the surfer-boy sun bleached hair, and stupidly, the vivid purple of his tie and matching triangular wedge of his pocket hankie.

Then three months later, she’d seen him for the last time at the KEG awards banquet. Kinzey got her grant and all of thirty seconds with Rane Kirk. She shook his hand, squeezed with gentle affection and tried to convey all of her feelings in that single moment of contact. She’d placed her free hand over the top of his. Thank you. For everything. She’d stared into his deep green eyes and he’d stared back at her. Rane Kirk gave her a one-sided smile. And then her thirty seconds vanished along with Rane Kirk.

People changed in seventeen years, but she’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

She knew what the driving need to see him was about, but it was difficult to explain her obsessive desire to others, so she never tried. It was something she had to accomplish.

Kirk had to know what she did with her grant money since all of her youthful declarations had gone by the wayside. She had to tell him.

At two hours, forty minutes, Kinzey found the second wire fence, made a few cuts and slipped through without any difficulty. Her oxygen deprived brain conveniently forgetting trespassing was a crime.

She’d also forgotten mountain climbing wasn’t the same as an afternoon hike.

On the other side, she plopped down