Page 35 of Trapped with the Mountain Man

Ryan chews on my words for a second. If there’s anyone who might actually know me, it’s probably Ryan. We got hired around the same time and were teamed up for rec duty for over a year before I moved to the cabin. Ryan got stuck in the office managing the interns and volunteers.

I brace myself for more questions that I don’t want to answer.

“So, you two found some ways to pass the time then?” he says suggestively.

“Guess so.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“I doubt it,” I admit. “We didn’t really end on a good note today.”

“What happened?”

“She wanted to go back out on the trail today to finish the hike, and I told her no.”

Ryan inhales sharply and cringes. “Yeah, women love it when you tell them they can’t do things. Good move.”

The waitress comes back and sets our giant plates of food on the table.

“Yeah, it didn’t go over so well.” I consider stopping there. I’m not normally one to share much detail about my personal life, but I feel compelled to tell him the worst part. Maybe it will help to get it off my chest. “And then I threw her copy of the book into the fire.”

Nope, that didn’t help at all. I still feel like shit about it.

“Wow, I’m surprised she didn’t just kick you straight in the balls,” Ryan laughs as he digs into the crispy bacon piled up on one corner of his plate.

“Me too,” I admit.

“Well, at least you know you would have deserved it.”

I’m thankful when Ryan changes the subject to the summer interns and how happy he’ll be when they all leave. Apparently, this year’s batch is particularly incompetent and idiotic. I don’t know how Ryan does it.

After breakfast, we retrace our path through the alley back to the office. Between the buildings, I catch glimpses of the lingering crowd along Main Street.

“Looks like the news crews are still here,” I say.

“Yeah, they’ve been pretty persistent. We had to ban them from the building; told them I’d have the police trespass them if they kept coming inside and trying to get interviews. It was more for their protection than ours. That Emmett kid is on front desk duty for a reason – he’s a jackass. Anyway, you’re safe if you stay inside the building. Maybe you can even catch Abigail once the reporters are done with her…tell her you were a fucking idiot for burning her book.”

It’s weird to hear him say her name. I guess I confirmed her name over the radio with him, but there’s something off about it. I would like to say a proper goodbye though, so maybe I’ll hang around and see if I can catch her before she leaves.

“I’ll stick around for a while. I don’t think an apology will make any difference though. We live on different sides of the country; it wouldn’t work anyway.”

“That’s a shame,” Ryan grins knowingly. Even though I like him, I have a fleeting urge to punch him. “She’s cute, man. I watched her interview onGood Morning America. I can see how a face like that could burrow into your hermit heart.”

“Interview?”

We’re back in Ryan’s office and he’s taking a seat behind the desk. He glances up at me quickly before typing something into his computer. “Yeah, you know, after the shooting.”

“Right,” I say. I didn’t realize that she received so much attention after the shooting.

I have an office inside the building, but the staff uses it as storage mostly. They know I’m not likely to show up there to do any work more than a few times a year, mostly when I have to rely on the internet for something. The rest of the time, I’d rather be out on the trail.

After clearing boxes and stacks of paper off my desk, I sit there and accomplish exactly nothing. I refill my water and coffee in the lobby way too much, each time with a redundant greeting from the kid I now know as Emmett. I force some small talk just so I have a reason to keep an eye out the front window for Abby.

The crowd clears out a couple of hours later, but Abby disappears with them. I don’t have her phone number or any other way to reach her. I don’t know if she already left town, or if she’s staying at a local hotel. There are a million of those though. I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for her. And if I did find her, what would I say? I keep telling myself we owe each other a proper goodbye, but what difference does it really make?

Proper or not, this is our goodbye.

I stick around the office until it starts to get dark, long after everyone else has left. Eventually, I return to my truck. The grocery store is an even worse experience than usual. Folks around town have heard rumblings about Abby being trapped in my cabin during the storm and the media circus that followed, and they want to ask me questions. I leave with a fraction of the groceries I actually need.

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