Hidden By the Wild Mountain Man (Summer Heat in Silver Ridge #5)

1. Nyla

one

Nyla

The trailhead parking lot is a gravel clearing at the end of a forestry road, and I've been standing in it for six minutes and I already can't get a signal.

I found this out by checking, and checking again, and then holding the phone up toward the treeline like an offering. Two bars at the hotel. One bar on the road leaving town. A blinking nothing somewhere around the second switchback, and then I was here, and the phone has been useless ever since.

It's not even five in the morning. The sky above the mountains is that particular dark blue that can't decide if it's still night.

My pack is on the gravel beside me because it's heavy and I didn't want to stand here wearing it, and my coffee from the hotel thermos is already half gone because I needed something to do with my hands.

There's one other vehicle in the lot. Mud-grey truck, cracked rear mudflap, roof rack loaded with gear strapped under canvas. No one inside.

I look at my phone again. Still nothing.

I think about the comment count when I last checked, somewhere around the second hour of not sleeping.

Tyler's video. Three minutes of Tyler in his car, voice low and considered, head tilted at the angle that makes him look like he's really thought about something.

I just think we've both grown in different directions. I want the best for her. I really do.

I found out at a dinner I'd been looking forward to all week — not from Tyler, from a friend of a friend who turned their phone around with that specific face people make when they already know you haven't seen it yet. Two hundred thousand views by morning.

The mountains don't care about Tyler's video. I can tell already. They've been here substantially longer and they'll be here substantially longer, and right now that's the most comforting thing I can think of.

A man comes out of the trees.

Worn boots. Faded green jacket open over a dark sweater. A pack that looks like it was assembled by someone with strong opinions about every commercially available option.

He's not what I pictured when I booked a guided backcountry trip online at two in the morning.

I pictured someone outdoorsy. Friendly. The kind of guy who says “great question” and points at things with a hiking pole while his hat flops up and down.

This man looks like the mountain sent him.

He's lean and muscular, the kind of build that doesn't exist in cities. There's a scar along his jaw that's been there long enough to be unremarkable. Dark hair that's grown past the point of intention. He glances at me once and then his attention drops to my pack on the gravel.

"Nyla Pratt," I say, because someone has to say something.

He nods and crosses to my pack and crouches beside it without asking. Runs his hands along the frame, checks the hip belt, lifts it by the top handle and tilts it. His hands are certain. Everything about him is certain.

I get the pack on and try to adjust it.

The man, the mountain guide, frowns. "Straps," he says, and reaches for my left shoulder strap.

He's close enough now that I can smell woodsmoke, pine resin, cold air.

His hands move efficiently, tightening, adjusting, and I hold still because I'm not sure what would happen if I didn't, and also because I've barely slept and I'm operating on half a thermos of coffee and the sensation of a stranger's hands near my face while I stare at his collarbone is genuinely the most present I've felt in two weeks.

He steps back. "Better."

Not to me. Just a fact entering the world.

"I’m Dawson," he says, like an afterthought, and starts walking.

"Do you do that with all your clients?" I ask, falling into step behind him. "The silent pack inspection?"

He glances back. "Your hip belt was wrong. You'd have had a bruise by noon."

"So yes."

I find out very quickly that I am not a hiker.

I mean, I walk. I have a gym membership. I once did a 10K for charity and didn't stop running, which I felt was impressive. What I am learning, at pace, is that none of that prepared me for a mountain at five in the morning behind a man who moves like the incline doesn't apply to him.

I extend my stride. I'm almost jogging. The pack is heavy and my lungs are doing their best and I don't say anything because I refuse to be the woman who asks the guide to slow down in the first three minutes.

He doesn't slow down.

Then, maybe two minutes in, he does. Just slightly. The pace eases by enough that I stop almost-jogging. He doesn't look back or explain it.

"Thank you," I say anyway.

"For what."

"The pace."

"Trail's uneven up here. Slower is smarter."

It is not uneven. The trail is perfectly reasonable. I appreciate the lie to save my ego.

We move up through the old growth. The light hasn't reached yet and the air is cold and smells like pine and wet earth and something older underneath that doesn't have a name. Root systems cross the trail like they're testing me. Dawson steps over them without looking down.

I step over them looking very much down.

"So," I try, after a few minutes of just breathing. "Do you take groups, or is solo clients a regular thing?"

"Both."

"Do you prefer one?"

He considers this like it's a real question, which I appreciate. "Groups talk more."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Depends on the group."

"And so far, how's this group looking?"

He looks back at me over his shoulder, his lips quirked in an almost-smile. "Ask me at camp."

An hour in, the trail opens and the valley appears below us.

Silver Ridge is small and still in the early light, the river a dark thread through it, the peaks above already catching gold. I stop walking without deciding to. The view is breathtaking.

Dawson stops too, this time. He turns and looks back at me, and I realise he's been watching for this — this specific spot, this specific view, waiting to see what I'd do with it.

"You planned that," I say.

"First overlook's always here."

"Do people always stop?"

"Most people." He looks out at the valley for a moment, easy and unhurried, like the view is an old acquaintance. "Some people take pictures. Some people just stand there."

Something in his tone makes me ask. "Which do you prefer?"

He looks at me instead of the valley. Steady, direct, a little longer than a guide probably needs to look at a client. "The ones who just stand there."

I don't have a response to that. I face the valley and stand there, and my phone is in my pocket and I don't reach for it.

I look up at him. He's already facing the trail, pack settled on his shoulders like it grew there, and the mountain rises above him in layers — treeline, ridge, sky — and he belongs to all of it in a way that I find, unexpectedly, less intimidating than reassuring.

"Do people ever not want to go back?" I ask.

He's quiet for a second. "Yeah."

"What do you tell them?"

"Nothing." He starts walking. "Not my job to tell them anything."

I follow him, and there is nothing to check, nowhere to look, no social media to scroll, no messages to refresh.

The man ahead of me knows nothing about who I am or what I left behind, and for the first time since I watched Tyler's video on a stranger's phone, that feels less like a loss and more like something I can breathe inside of.

I put my head down and I walk.