Page 25 of Her Mountain Man Protector

I take the foil from her hands and start us up the path, her on my right, the lot above us, the falls throwing their white noise over a mountain that just proved my father can walk it without knocking on my door. The truck is where I left it. The kayak van is gone. The couple with the map is gone. A dark SUV sits three spaces down, engine off, glass too tinted for noon.

I put my body between Oakley and the lot and keep walking.

"Don't look at it," I say. "Get in. Seatbelt."

"I wasn't going to photograph it."

"I didn't say you were. I said get in."

She gets in. I start the engine. The SUV doesn't move. I take the river road the long way, away from the lot, back toward the ugly driveway and the one-room house.

Oakley watches the mirror until the trees swallow the lot. Then she looks at me, voice even, hands tight on the camera bag. "Next time we picnic," she says, "you’re bringing sandwiches. I'm raising my standards."

"Next time we picnic, there isn't a dark SUV in the lot."

"Then you owe me sandwiches either way."

8

Oakley

The river road keeps throwing the falls in and out of the trees, white water flashing on my right every time the truck leans, and I watch Colt's hands on the wheel instead of the mirror because if I keep hunting that dark SUV I'm going to start shaking and I refuse to give the glass the satisfaction.

He takes the long way. I count the turns. Four. Then the ugly cut of gravel that switchbacks up toward the Equinox house, gate already filling the windshield, timber and narrow windows waiting at the top.

"Code," he says.

"I saw you punch it this morning."

"And you forgot it on purpose so I'd keep doing it. Type."

I type. The gate drags open. He waits until it shuts behind us before he even breathes out, and that single released breath does more to me than the entire picnic. He was holding it. The whole drive. For me.

Inside, the one room feels tighter than it did when muffins were the biggest argument we owned. Bed against the far wall. Hearth cold. Foil packet on the table where he drops it without looking. He locks the door, checks the deck latch, then stands in the middle of the floor with his jaw locked.

"The receipt," I say.

He pulls it from his pocket and sets it beside the foil. Northline Bonded. Last week. Same ugly little logo I already carry on a drive in my bag. Seeing it on paper he found in a rock makes my wrists go hot.

"Someone left it for a Hawthorne," I say.

"Or dropped it running. Either way it puts the landing and the dock on the same week." His eyes lift to mine. "You did good on the path. You stayed when I told you. You didn't shoot the lot."

"Don't compliment me for sitting when I was told."

"I'm complimenting you because you listened without making it a thing. That's rarer than you think."

I dump the camera bag on the chair and roll my shoulders until the hoodie loosens. "What happens when they don't stay thirty yards? What happens when it's a porch knob again and you're on the other side of the room?"

He goes still. I watch the answer move through him before he says it. "Then you don't wait for me to finish being a hero."

"That's a speech. I want a lesson."

"Oakley."

"You hauled me off a ridge, out a window, down a trail, and into a gated house. At some point the sunshine has to know how to get a hand off her arm without asking permission. Teach me."

The quiet that follows is thick enough to lean on. He looks at the open floor between the fireplace and the bed, then at my boots, then at my face, and I can see him wanting a reason to refuse. He doesn't find one that survives contact with the receipt on the table.