The jacket is waterproof and rated to twenty below. I hold it out to her at the door.
"Rain's coming," I say. "Take this."
Maya takes it. Turns it over. Finds the label.
"True North." She looks at the row of gear on the mudroom hooks. The base layers on the shelf. The boots lined up on the mat. All of it the same brand. She looks back at me with curiosity. "You're big fans. At this point you should own shares."
I clear my throat. I lift my own jacket off the hook. "Does it fit?"
She shrugs it on. The shoulders drop. The cuffs fall past her wrists. She zips it to her chin and looks up at me with a teasing look.
"Like everything else from this brand," she says, "it's extremely comfortable."
I hold the door open. "Let's go."
The trail takes twenty minutes on foot. Pine needles underfoot, soft from last night's frost beginning to give. The airhas the particular weight it carries before rain, cold and dense and smelling of wet earth and resin. Maya falls into step beside me. She doesn't fill the silence and I don't fill it either, and we walk through the trees while the grey sky shows itself in pieces through the canopy.
After a while she says, "This is your commute every day?"
"Every day."
She's quiet for a moment, looking up through the branches. "In LA I sat on the 101 for forty-five minutes every morning. Same stretch of concrete. Same smog sitting on top of everything like a lid."
I watch her from the side. She moves differently through the trees than she did when she first arrived. Easier. Her boots find the ground without her watching her feet. She's stopped doubting the terrain and started trusting it.
"Better commute?" I ask.
She turns and looks at me and says deadpan. "Considerably."
I face forward and keep walking.
"What exactly do you do at the center?" she asks.
"Manage operations. Keep things running." I think about how much to give her. Not the ownership. Not yet. Nobody out here knows that and I've kept it that way deliberately. It's better to be known as one of the crew rather than the man whose name is on the deed. I like working alongside people. I like the accountability of it, showing up and doing the same work as everyone else. The money that funds it is mine. The labour is shared.
I step over a root. "March is busy. The females are pregnant. Late winter is hard on the animals. They've been burning reserves for months and prey is still lean. We get injured animals coming in. Territory fights. Snare injuries."
She walks beside me and doesn't say anything for a moment. When she speaks again her voice is quieter. "That sounds like the kind of work that matters."
The trees thin slightly ahead and I can smell the rain getting closer.
The first drops come through the canopy in scattered intervals, cold and precise. One hits the back of my neck. Another lands on my cheek.
"We're close," I say, looking at her. "If we run we can beat it. Are you up for that?"
She grins. "Yeah!"
I reach for her hand without thinking about it. She gives it without hesitating, and we run.
The cold comes at us as we move, the rain thickening as we leave the tree cover and hit the last open stretch of path. Her hand is small inside mine, and I can feel the grip of it, the specific pressure of her fingers locking between mine, and I am aware of the contact in a way that has nothing to do with keeping her from stumbling on the path.
The path curves and the center comes up fast through the trees.
We hit the covered porch as the rain opens up properly, drumming hard on the roof above us, and we're both breathing fast and Maya bends forward with her hands on her knees and laughs. The sound fills the porch and my senses, warm and disorienting.
I unlock the door and we go inside.
The reception area is dim and smells of wood and the faint mineral edge of the cold that works its way in under the door. Maps on the wall. Radio on the desk. The wood stove in the corner that I'll have going in five minutes. I turn to tell her where things are.
