She eyed me. “I know your type,” she said, her tone dry as dust.
I pressed my palm to my chest, gasping in mock dismay, gratified by how easy it was to rile her up. “I’m a type? You wound me.”
Asher leaned around from my other side. “Coleisa type. It’s called a flirt.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said.
“He’s harmless, though, I assure you.”
I glanced toward Asher. “Thanks.”
As conversation carried on, I realized something unsettling. Now that two of my five brothers had fallen in love, I had to confront my own deep reluctance to even believe in love. It had never seemed worth it. But then, no one really close to me had fallen in love until recently. Sure, my parents had been in love,but that was old news. I’d watched my mother grieve after our father passed from an unexpected heart attack. That was enough to make me want to avoid love forever.
Adele leaned forward and her elbow brushed my arm. The touch sizzled through me. “Oh, sorry,” she said, moving away quickly.
I glanced down at her again, thinking I wanted to kiss her. “No problem. Touch me all you want, Adele.”
Her jaw tightened, and she let out something like a growl.
“Did you just growl at me?” I asked.
Her lips twitched, and a flush rose on her cheeks again. “I guess I did.”
“Should’ve known.”
“Should’ve known what?” Her tone was pointed.
“Of course you’d growl at a man. The first time I met you, you were ready to take on a wolverine.”
Chapter Three
ADELE
Curiosity and casseroles
My breath heaved as I crested the top of a steep, rocky stretch of trail. For a beat, I paused, forcing myself to take several full breaths. My heart was kicking along, almost too fast.
When I straightened, shaking my arms loose, I lifted my gaze toward the view. For different reasons, I lost my breath for a moment. It was snatched straight out of my chest by the beauty stretching out in front of me. Snow-capped mountains stood bright and tall against the sky. Farther in the distance, an almost impossibly blue glacier-fed lake glittered under the sunshine.
Who knew how many millennia had viewed its beauty? That was the thing about Alaska for me. Even though I’d grown up here and seen so much of it—had my breath taken time and again by its wild, untrampled beauty—it still got to me. The landscape here had this ability to remind me how small I was in the world. I was just a speck. We all were. This moment in time was little more than a blink to the universe. And yet, it also grounded me and made me feel so alive. Bracingly alive.
The shock of it gusted through me, reminding me of all that I had. This rocky ledge under my feet. The eagle that called sharply in the air nearby, immediately followed by the chatter ofa few magpies chasing behind it—fearless despite their tiny size in comparison to the eagle. I laughed.
“Live like a magpie,” I said aloud.
Maybe I was just a speck. Maybe it was honestly a modern medical miracle that I was still here today, alive and well. But I would take it.
I let out a sigh, placing my palm over my heart. I wasn’t praying. I was just checking my heartbeat, although praying wasn’t silly. I sometimes thought of Alaska—and nature in general—as God’s cathedral, because it was, really. Where else could you always be reminded of forces beyond yourself? That glacier creeping along, slowly melting into the beautiful lake. Even though the melting was speeding up, practically speaking, it was still slow. My life and those of the rest of humanity would blink by and the mountains would stand, the glaciers would melt, and the sun would keep on shining.
I shook my head slightly, chuckling to myself. I spun around, looking behind me. This was a short hike, but steep. That was part of the reason I’d chosen it. I was building my stamina and strength to handle these steep bursts. I loved to hike and loved challenging myself.
I shrugged out of my backpack, fished my pair of binoculars out, and scanned the view in front of me, my lips tugging into a smile when I spotted mountain goats, deftly climbing a cliff in the distance. Sometimes, I thought mountain goats were insane. They just walked up rocky cliffs like it was nothing.
I lowered my binoculars and tucked them back into my pack. I sat down on a boulder nearby and stretched my legs out, taking several long swallows of water. I sensed the presence before I saw anyone.
I knew I would encounter other people hiking. It was impossible not to when you were near a town, especially one like Willow Brook. It was a popular tourist destination, like manytowns in Alaska. Between the multiple reality shows hosted here, Alaska had become more popular lately. It had always been that kind of destination though—a place on many bucket lists, especially for nature lovers.
I’d been born and raised in Alaska solely because it was a destination trip for my parents. They’d always wanted to visit Alaska. Both of them had met as, to be blunt, nature-loving hippies in the Pacific Northwest. They’d set off to visit Alaska, winding their way up the Alcan Highway, marking the mileposts as they did, and eventually settling outside of Fairbanks.
