Out of the Blue

By Kathryn Kaleigh

When pilot Riley Lafleur's unexpected layover takes an unforeseen turn with a wild bear encounter, she finds herself grappling with the wild's mysteries. Just as uncertainty looms, local hero Wyatt St. Clair steps in, igniting a spark of gratitude and curiosity in Riley's heart.

 

Wyatt St. Clair's routine maple tree check becom

• Language: English
• Publisher: KST Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Apr 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869330543

Kathryn Kaleigh

Kathryn Kaleigh is a bestselling romance novel and short story writer. Her writing spans from the past to the present from historical time travel fantasy novels to sweet contemporary romances. From her imaginative meet-cutes to her happily-ever-afters, her writing keeps readers coming back for more.

Book preview

Chapter One

RILEY LAFLEUR

October

New fallen snow crunched beneath my boots as I walked along a dirt trail winding its way through blue spruce, fir, and pine trees that together smelled so strong and clean, it almost hurt my lungs to take a deep breath.

The cold air was foreign to my lungs, too, but it made me feel alive. Invigorated.

I might be a Houston girl, but I loved a winter wonderland like this. I’d take the cold weather any day over the hot, muggy weather of south Texas.

The path curved around to the right, entering a grove of maple trees bright and beautiful in a burst of red and gold leaves. A light breeze blew through the leaves, sending them quaking and tugging some of them loose to flutter gracefully to the ground.

I stopped walking and admired the signs of autumn around me. I’d heard about people traveling to the northern climates just to see the leaves and now I understood why.

Whiskey Springs was high in elevation, over nine thousand feet, nestled among the even higher rugged Rocky Mountains. White wispy clouds gathered around the peaks, hiding them from view at the moment. The whole thing together looked like I’d walked into a postcard.

The sun was warm on the top of my head, but the breeze was cool.

A little chipmunk scurried up, stopped in front of me, stood up on his hind legs, then scurried off just as quickly.

Looking for food maybe. I couldn’t say that I was familiar with wildlife.

I usually flew from Houston to other cities and back again. I’d even gone to college in Houston. I’d always known I wanted to be an airplane pilot and I wanted to fly for Skye Travels. Pilots from all over the country lined up to apply to work there. But I had set my sights on that particular company early. I was very goal oriented and determined.

That’s what they said about Houstonians. Why go anyplace else when you lived in the best place possible?

Apparently those particular Houstonians had not experienced the Rocky Mountains in early winter.

I might not want to live here… there wasn’t anything to do in the little town of Whiskey Springs, but it was certainly a good place to visit.

I’d heard that my boss, Noah Worthington, the founder and owner of Skye Travels, owned a cabin up here where he spent time with his wife and grandchildren.

An enviable lifestyle, but I would not want the headaches that came with it. I preferred to enjoy flying and visiting new places.

I smelled the tangy scent of wood smoke before I saw the little log cabin nestled in the trees off to my right near the rushing river.

If I had known about the cabins, I might would have stayed in one of them instead of staying in the Whiskey Springs Saloon, although it was interesting, too. Although it wasn’t actually a saloon anymore, it had started out that way back in the 1800s.

I liked the historicalness of the saloon that was now an inn. I wouldn’t call it a hotel exactly. They’d even had a young lady dressed like a saloon girl playing the piano when I walked out about an hour ago.

Delighted with the scenery along the trail, I kicked at the new fallen leaves on the ground and kept walking. Since being a pilot involved a LOT of sitting, I made it a point to walk one to two hours a day depending on my schedule and location.

Some places I ended up were more conducive to walking than others.

I considered this one to be a very good find.

I slowed when a flock of black birds fluttered overhead, landed as though they were one across the path in front of me, then took off again.

As I took a couple more steps, the hairs on the back of my neck tingled.

I lifted my long hair and rubbed the back of my neck. It was the wind.

Maybe the wood smoke.

Maybe the clean air that was so different from the city air I was used to. There was no scent of jet fuel out here.

Stopping again, I turned around.

Blinked.

And took a step walking backwards. Then another.

A big bear stood in the middle of the trail behind me. It sat down and looked at me.

I could keep walking forward along the trail, but I didn’t know where I would end up. I’d never been here before and although I was able to find my way around in the air, I had no dead reckoning sense for the mountains.

So I couldn’t keep going forward and now I couldn’t go back.

The bear tilted his head to the side as though trying to figure me out.

Then the bear stood up, shook its head, and started walking toward me.

Chapter Two

WYATT ST. CLAIR

It was one of those beautiful autumn days that reminded me of one of the many reasons I didn’t want to live anywhere other than Whiskey Springs.

The sun was warm on my face, but the breeze coming off the mountainside had a bite to it. If the wispy white clouds gathering around the mountain peaks were any indication, it was snowing in the high country and it would probably snow here in Whiskey Springs tonight.

Carrying a backpack over one shoulder, I walked along the trail from one of the cabins my family rented out.

The guests, a couple from Ohio, had called with a problem with their stove and since I knew exactly what it was when they called, I set out to fix it. I’d been telling my older brother Gregory that we needed to replace that stove out.

This was the third time in as many weeks that I’d had to go out and fix it. The time before that, the first time, Gregory had sent the maintenance man out.

The maple leaves were already drifting from the trees. I’d already started tapping trees for their sap. I had started a maple syrup business myself.

My family, the St. Clairs were all about trees. We had a Christmas tree farm, a firewood outfit that supplied all the firewood for Whiskey Springs and the surrounding area, a dozen short-term rental cabins nestled in the trees along the river, and now we had the maple syrup industry.

The maple syrup business was growing much faster than I think anyone had expected it to.

I’d been talking about it for years and I finally put together a plan and some numbers—finally using my business degree for something truly useful—and presented it to the St. Clair Enterprises Board.

The board consisted of my parents and any of my five siblings who chose to attend. Fortunately they saw not only the financial potential and viability, but also my passion for the project.

Once they gave me the green light, I hadn’t looked back. Our family’s business originally started sometime in the 1800s with my great great great… great? Grandfather Nathaniel. Each generation had not only kept it going, but they had added their own spin to it.

My great grandfather had started the Christmas tree farm and my grandfather had built and started renting out the cabins. My father’s contribution so far was to tie it all together into St. Clair Enterprises, growing and expanding everything out.

With six siblings, it was hard to stand out. My older sister was a social media influencer and my younger sister was an artist.

My oldest brother, Gregory, pretty much ran the business that he’d been groomed to do since he was a teenager. He loved it.

Then there was my next older brother who was a pilot. That was interesting in that his fiancé was the face of the Whiskey Springs Maple Store. My store. The name I’d started with had been