We end up leaning against the tailgate of my truck on Main Street with a thermos of black coffee between us. The sun is going down behind the canyon walls, and the steam from the hot springs is rising between the old mining buildings like the whole town is exhaling.
She holds the thermos cap with both hands. Her fingers are long, slender, and they wrap around the metal like she's trying to absorb the warmth through her skin. I poured her the cap. I'm drinking from the thermos.
"How long have you been in Iron Peak?" she asks.
"Three months."
"That's not long at all."
"Well, I grew up here. Left at seventeen. Came back." I don't elaborate. I'm not going anywhere and I'm not in a hurry. We’ve got all the time in the world.
"Military?" she asks, and her eyes drop to my forearms. I watch her look at my tattoos.
"Twenty-one years."
"That’s quite the career. And now you're?—"
"A handyman." I take a drink. "All around Iron Peak, but lately Nora keeps me busy up at the bed and breakfast up the road. You’ve seen it up on the ridge.”
"The place with the green shutters and the wraparound porch. Yeah, it’s beautiful up there. But that's such a big shift for you, isn’t it? Military hero to Mr. Fix-it."
"Not as much as you’d think. Fixing things is fixing things,” I shrug.
She nods slowly, like she's filing away every sentence I let out. She's observant, I can see it in the way her eyes move, the way she tracks details. She's always reading the room.
"What about you?" I ask. "How long have you been here?"
"Technically?" She pushes her glasses up. "About nine hours."
I look at her.
"I drove in this morning," she says. "First day at the library. First day in Iron Peak. First day of—” She stops and takes a breath. Her fingers wrap more tightly around the thermos cap. "Just a day of firsts."
There's a whole world in that pause and I want to know every bit of it. But I don't walk into it. Instead I just hold the space open and let her decide how much of it to fill.
"Do you like it? Being back?" She fills it with a question instead, which tells me everything I need to know.
"Most of the time. Some days aren’t so good."
"That’s honest." She looks up at me with so much sincerity it makes my chest hurt.
"Don't know how to be anything else."
She looks at me over the rim of the thermos cap, and her dark eyes are steady even though her hands aren't. "That's good. The world could use more of that."
We chat as the sun drops behind the cliffs and I’m lost in her. The hot springs steam thickens as the air cools. Main Street goes blue-gray and the neon sign from The Broken Antler buzzes to life at the end of the block. A few trucks rumble past us. Someone waves from a porch but I hardly notice.
"I should probably go," she says. But I don’t miss the hesitation in her voice. "I'm still figuring out the road and I’ve got to get all the way up the canyon in the dark."
"I'll follow you."
“What? No.” She blinks. "I mean, that’s nice but you don't have to. I don’t make a habit of having strange men follow me home." She pushes her glasses up her nose and tucks a wayward curl behind her ear.
I hold my hands up. "Listen, the canyon road's tricky at night. Tight curves, no guardrails. I'll follow you up. Make sure you get there. Then I’m going to head home and we’ll both sleep better at night knowing you're safe. That’s all. I won’t even get out of my truck. I’ll give you three flashes of my headlights instead."
“Three flashes?”
“Yes, I’m here. You’re safe. Goodnight.”
