Caught By the Patient Mountain Man (Summer Heat in Silver Ridge #2)

Chapter 1

one

Peyton

Three weeks ago, I had a dress fitting.

The seamstress finished the alterations. I smiled and nodded and thought, Craig will love this.

Craig was at that exact moment in bed with someone named Brianna from his office. I know this because his phone was unlocked on the counter when I went to get a glass of water, and the text thread left nothing open to interpretation.

That was a Thursday. By Sunday, I had cancelled the venue and returned the dress — they kept forty percent, which I think about more than I should. Then, I drove north out of Vancouver until the mountains got close enough that the cell signal started dropping out in patches.

Silver Ridge was the first town with a vacancy sign. Maple at the Brooks Boutique Hotel gave me a room on the third floor that overlooked a river I didn't know the name of, and I stood at that window for a long time watching the water move and waiting to feel something other than fury.

The fury didn't move over. It's still there, three weeks in, running through me like a second bloodstream. I've started to think it might just be my baseline now.

I booked the guided fishing trip because it was the least me thing I could find on short notice. I don't fish. I don't do anything slow or quiet or requiring patience. I manage logistics for a mid-size events company, and I am very good at it, which means I am very good at controlling outcomes.

A guided fishing trip on a mountain river at six in the morning seemed like the specific opposite of outcome control, which is why it interested me.

The guide's name is Silas Fisher. His name is literally Fisher, and he is a fishing guide. I found this out from his website, which had not been updated since approximately 2019.

He is waiting at the bank when I pull up.

Silas is enormous. Six-four at least, built like someone who has been lifting things in the wilderness for the better part of twenty years.

Dark beard. Dark hair going silver at the temples.

A worn canvas jacket and waders are already on.

He is holding two rods like they are extensions of his own arms, and he is looking at the water, not at me, when I get out of the car.

He finally looks over when I slam the door.

"Peyton Archer," I say with a forced smile. I’m already wondering if this was the right choice. He’s looking at me like an inconvenience, not a paying customer.

He nods once. Holds out a rod. "Waders are in the back of the truck."

Four words.

The waders are enormous. I told him my height when I booked, and I don't know what he pictured, but I am standing in his truck bed rolling the waistband three times just to get them to stay up. When I hop down, he watches my clumsy ass with no expression whatsoever.

"They'll do," he says. Not much for customer service, this guy.

We wade in. The river is cold in the way that bypasses the word cold and goes straight to freezing up to my thighs, even with the waders.

He's out to mid-thigh before he stops and turns to demonstrate the cast. Once, slow, the line rolling out over the water in a long easy loop. Then again. Like he's done it ten thousand times. Then, he hands me the rod and takes one step to his left.

My first cast goes sideways and catches a branch. He retrieves it. No comment.

My second cast goes directly behind me. He untangles it from my jacket. No comment.

My third cast lands in the water in front of me, and I feel something approaching triumph until I look over and find him watching my line with the expression of a man waiting for a bus.

My excitement instantly deflates.

Over the next two hours, I lose three more flies — one to a tree, two to the riverbed, cause unknown.

I slip on a rock and grab his arm with both hands, and he stands solid while I find my footing and says nothing when I let go.

A heron downstream lands on a rock and watches me with frank professional contempt.

He has said exactly six words since we entered the water and none of them have been instructive.

He just watches. All this quiet, patient observation, and I have nowhere to put it, and the fury that has been running through me for three weeks is starting to feel less like power and more like a noise I can't turn off.

I finally snap. "Aren't you going to tell me I'm doing it wrong?"

He looks over at me. He has very steady, dark brown eyes. "You're doing it wrong," he says.

I wait.

"But the river's patient."

He looks back at the water.

I stand there in my too-big waders with my terrible casting arm in the morning light. What am I supposed to do with that info? There is no outcome to control out here. The river moves through the fury like it isn't there, indifferent and constant and completely unimpressed.

I cast again. The line goes wide, but it lands on water.

"Better," he says.

Two syllables. I'll take it.