I didn’t like the way her words hit. Too close to the truth. Too close to the marker burned into my mind.
“You’re going to piss off half the town,” I said.
“They can take a number and come see me down at town hall during office hours.”
I huffed out a dry laugh. “You really think you’re ready for Mustang Mountain?”
“I moved here, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” I said, starting to doubt the rumors that she hadn’t earned the job. “You did.”
For a second, her expression softened, like maybe she wasn’t just here to draw lines on a map. Like maybe she saw somethingin the snow and the trees and the ridge that reminded her why people fought for land in the first place.
“It’s beautiful up here,” she said.
“It is.”
“And remote.”
“That too.”
Snowflakes drifted sideways, clinging to her hair. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Will you show me the boundary line?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t pushy this time.
I studied her for a long moment… her flushed cheeks, her determination, the way she was trying to act like she wasn’t freezing.
“Fine,” I said. “But be careful. I don’t want to have to haul you back down the ridge if you get hurt.”
“I’m not going to—” She slipped again.
I caught her by the arm again.
She sighed, her breath shuddering. “Okay. I might have worn the wrong boots today.”
“Might have?” I asked.
Her lips twitched but she bit back her smile before it could form.
I turned and started up the ridge. She followed, crunching through the snow, muttering under her breath every time the wind shoved her sideways.
We finally reached the crest. The valley spread below us, open, quiet, and glowing under the winter sun. Morgan stopped next to me.
“It’s even prettier from up here,” she said, her voice full of the soft kind of awe I still felt when I came up here.
“Gets into your bones,” I told her.
She glanced up at me. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. So I didn’t. Instead, I took a few more steps and nudged snow away from the disturbed ground. The survey marker glinted again.
She sucked in a small breath. “What’s that?”
“Something that shouldn’t be here.”
She crouched, studying it, her eyes sharp. Then she pulled her phone out of her pocket and muttered something to herself. When she finally looked up at me, her expression set off warning bells in my chest. “Slade, this marker predates the official Kincaid settlement records.”
“Yeah. I figured.”
