Chapter Seven
Sophie
When she hit the three-mile mark, Sophie’s phone buzzed against her arm in its armband, signaling the end of today’s run. She ignored it and kept going. Too much weighed on her mind this morning to abide by the training schedule. She might only have time for two more miles before she needed to get ready for their road trip to Anchorage, but she was going to use every minute.
Running had always soothed her during her most stressful times, but she gave it up shortly after meeting Blake. She gave up a lot of things, she’d come to realize.Just another reason to keep going this morning.
Blake’s lawyers hadn’t responded to Mr. Jenkins yet. No replacement check had shown up in the mail. Denver tried to offer her money.Money!Sophie didn’t want to owe anyone, especially not her best friend. Add to all that the stupid flowers—she was so not ready to date—and the pesky feelings for Denver that were not onlynotfading, but growing . . . Sophie felt like running a full-blown marathon rightnow.
Though she’d never even braved a half-marathon, Sophie ran cross country in high school. She even made it to state her senior year. She’d started running late last summer, just a couple miles a day to keep her calm during the back-and-forth with lawyers.
But soon, two miles had little effect, so she ran three. Then four. By the time she was racking up five to six miles on a daily basis, Denver recommended a marathon. She laughed at him the first time. Twenty-six miles was a far cry from six. But the idea marinated over the winter when runs were cut considerably shorter by the blistering cold and the town’s lack of a gym. Great-Aunt Patty had never been the treadmill type, either. Instead of a workout room inside the lodge, she’d advocated getting outdoors. Hiking, trail runs, cross-county skiing. But Sophie could hardly stand on skis without getting her feet tangled.
She enjoyed the lodge’s trail that started in the backyard the most. It forked near a breathtaking lookout point. To the left offered a magazine-worthy view of mountains and water. Right added a three-mile loop into a borough-maintained trail through the wilderness.
Sophie was a mile down that loop when she rounded a curve and came to an abrupt halt. A black bear sat on the trail hardly a hundred yards ahead of her, as though leisurely enjoying the day. Give the bear a pot of honey, and he’d probably hang out there all day.
Sophie’s breath froze in her lungs.
Despite having lived in Sunset Ridge for over a year, and the town along the water being known for bears, she’d neverseenone in person outside of the wildlife conservation south of Anchorage. Sunlight highlighted the massive claws on the creature. No fence protected her now.
Just last week, Caroline came home from school all excited about the bear safety they learned in class. Mr. Andrews sent them home with a pamphlet describing what to do if they encountered black bears or grizzlies. It was by sheer luck that Sophie spent that evening helping Caroline with her homework—an assignment focused on identifying what to do if either type of bear was encountered.
“Too bad I don’t remember which was which,” she muttered under her breath.
She wished Denver was here; he’d know what to do. He would protect her.Not the time, Sophie.
Forced to trust her gut, Sophie stood her ground and made eye contact with the bear. She was thankful the bear seemed mature and not a cub. She was a fearsome mother herself, but she didn’t stand a chance against a real mama bear. Quickly, she scanned the area surrounding the bear, searching for more.No cubs.
“I’m going back the way I came,” she called out to the bear, taking slow steps backwards. Her legs trembled, but she refused to run. Running from a black bear was one detail she remembered from that safety pamphletnotto do. “No need to do anything rash.”
The bear continued to watch her curiously, as if deciding whether she was worth getting excited over.
“And here I thought the stupid bounced check was my biggest problem.” A few more backwards steps and she’d be out of sight. A few more beyond that and she might be safe to make a run for it all the way back to the lodge. No doubt she’d log her fastest mile, in case the bearheardher escaping. Had there been anything in that pamphlet about how good or bad their hearing was?
A rustling in the trees forced her to swallow a scream. “Not another bear. Please not another bear.” She didn’t care how desperate or foolish her need for Denver Grant was. He made her feel safe and she craved that right now. She had a baby to get back to, and Sophie wasn’t confident she would make it on her own.
Sophie exhaled a huge sigh of relief as Ed stepped onto the path with purposeful leisure. He lazily turned his head toward Sophie, then the bear, then back to Sophie. Despite being upset with him for helping himself to their cabbage, Sophie had snuck Ed some blueberries just last night. She prayed he remembered her kindness.
Ed swung his head back toward the bear, standing taller as he scraped hooves against the dirt-packed trail. The moose seemed gigantic when he was fully extended like that. Was heconfrontingthe bear? Sophie swallowed hard, too enamored to move.
The black bear lifted to its feet, and for a moment, Sophie thought it was all over. How could Ed take on a bear? Even if a black bear wasn’t as massive as a grizzly, it was a freakingbear. The beast took one step toward Ed, but the moose instantly snorted at him, steaming up the crisp morning air around his face.
The bear stopped, as if rethinking his plan.
“Go away, bear. Go away,” Sophie said quietly as she trembled in her running shoes.
The bear took one more step toward them. Ed lifted his head even higher.
The bear stopped, looked at the moose, then Sophie. After a long moment that felt like an hour, he turned and stalked off down the trail. Almost as if he were bored with the whole encounter.
“Ed, I could hug you.” Sophie hadn’t realized there were tears until she swiped them away with the back of hand. Her heartrate was double what it normally was on any hard run. Her heart felt as if it might burst right out of her chest. “I get why Tessa hates bears so much.”
After the briefest of glances—perhaps an apology for eating the cabbage—Ed marched forward, right off the path and into the woods.
Sophie waited a few beats, then took off down the trail and back toward the lodge. The only thing she craved more than a hot shower was Denver.
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