Page 5 of Wild for the Mountain Man
A strong gust whips through, catching my hair that flows loose from my beanie. I reach to steady the tripod, but it shifts. Wade’s hand closes over mine — firm, sure, saving both camera and fingers.
“Careful,” he says.
The word isn’t scolding. It’s protective. Instinctive.
“I’ve got it,” I whisper, but neither of us moves right away. His glove is warm from his body heat, mine from his.
Finally, he steps back. “You good?”
“Yeah.” I blink hard, and focus on the horizon. “Just … perfect light.”
We stay until the sun clears the ridge. I pack up in silence, pretending to fuss with straps while my intrusive thoughts try to settle. When I glance up again, Wade’s looking at me, eyes reflecting a mood I can’t name.
He nods toward the slope. “Coffee back at the truck. Figured you’d need it.”
“Didn’t peg you for the kind who has a traveling coffee shop.”
“Old habit.” He gives a half-shrug. “You learn to bring warmth with you.”
I follow him down the trail, every step echoing that line.Bring warmth with you.
At the truck, he pours coffee into tin cups that look older than I am. The steam curls into the morning like a secret.
We drink in silence until I say, “You ever get tired of all this?”
He glances at the mountains. “You don’t get tired of something that keeps teaching you.”
I twirl that response around in my mind and take another sip. “Then maybe I’m here to learn.”
His mouth curves just slightly. “Maybe you are.”
A crow cuts across the pale sky, and the first flakes of snow drift through the air, early and unexpected. Wade catches one on his glove and looks up, as if surprised the season had the nerve to begin right in front of us.
“Guess the mountain’s ready for change,” he says.
I lower my cup. “Maybe we both are.”
Chapter 4
Wade
The first flake melts on my glove like it never happened. Another follows, and another … quiet as ash, bright as sugar. Early for this kind of fall, but the sky doesn’t ask permission. I pour the last of the coffee into Lilah’s cup and cap the thermos, listening to the way the wind changes when snow joins in. Softer around the edges. Colder in the middle.
“You’ll want to beat the slush down-canyon,” I say. “Road’s shaded past the switchbacks.”
She nods, brings the tin cup to her mouth. Steam blurs her face for a second, and when it clears she’s watching the ridgeline like it just told her a story. When she looks at something, she doesn’t merely see it. She joins it.
“Thank you,” she says. It’s not just for the coffee.
“You got what you came for?” I ask.
“I got what I didn’t know I needed.”
She smiles, small and honest.
I don’t touch that line. I move instead — pack cups, stow the tripod I insisted on carrying the last quarter mile because the wind was having its say. Practical tasks that are simply fence posts of my day. If I build enough of them, maybe I can keep things from straying.
Snow finds the brim of my beanie. I glance at her tires. They’re fine for dry gravel, wrong for the sheen that will glaze the first turns. “You carrying chains?”
