“I know.”
“But I’m coming back. As soon as I can arrange it.”
“I know that too.”
She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her shampoo and see the flecks of gold in her blue-gray eyes. “I mean it, Duke. This isn’t me running away or pretending none of this happened. This is real for me.”
“It’s real for me too.”
“I love you,” she says, and hearing her say it in the daylight, sober and certain, makes my chest tight.
“I love you too.”
She reaches for me, and I pull her in, holding her close. She fits perfectly against me, like she was made for this space.
“I don’t know how this works,” she admits against my chest. “Long distance or whatever this is going to be. But I want to figure it out.”
“We will.”
She pulls back enough to look up at me. “You’re sure? Because my life is complicated. I have a career I care about. Responsibilities. I can’t just drop everything and move to the mountain right now.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I say firmly. “I’m asking you to come back when you can. To let me visit you when I have time off. To build something with me that fits both our lives, not just mine or just yours.”
Relief floods her features. “Okay. Yeah. We can do that.”
“We can do that,” I agree.
I kiss her then, slow and thorough, trying to pour everything I’m feeling into it. She kisses me back just as fiercely, hands fisting in my shirt like she doesn’t want to let go.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“I really have to go,” she says.
“I know.”
“Call me tonight?”
“Every night.”
She smiles, that warm genuine smile I’m already addicted to. Then she picks up her pack, shoulders it, and turns toward her car.
She pauses with her hand on the door handle. “Duke?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For finding me when I was lost.”
“You weren’t lost,” I tell her. “You were exactly where you needed to be.”
She laughs, bright and genuine, and then she’s in the car, starting the engine.
I watch until she disappears around the bend, then stand there a moment longer, letting the certainty settle in.She’ll be back.
I head back up the trail, radio crackling softly at my hip, boots finding familiar ground. The mountain feels the same as it always has.
But the future doesn’t.
Because from now on, Trista will be in my life. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.
