6. Grant
SIX
GRANT
“There are no marauding men on my horizon.”
I would love to say I’m not fixating on that sentence as we walk back to camp, but the damage is done. It doesn’t even tell me anything definitive—it could be literal. Maybe she’s been plagued by robbers and bandits lately. Doubtful, but probably more likely than the tantalizing possibilities swirling through my head right now.
I’ve fallen into my usual spot close by her. It’s the safest option—we’re walking in pairs this way. Plus, I have the bear spray, and animals can be unpredictable. But that’s not really why I want to stay in her orbit.
It’s not just because of Lila’s wry enthusiasm for everything except this trip. She has no idea about my past. Living in a small town, my reputation is impossible to escape. But to her, I’m not Grant Irwin, Guy Who Was Left at the Altar . I’m the Guy With the Bear Spray . Potential Newbie Bestie .
I’m just Grant.
I didn’t realize how much the gossip had weighed me down until I met this woman who doesn’t know a scrap of it.
Unfortunately, Scott and Brian hang back with us, too, and they’re dominating the conversation. They’ve been grilling me on my certifications for ten minutes, trying to find something I don’t have. It would be flattering if it didn’t feel like a trap.
“What about ice climbing? Do you have that one?” Scott asks.
I nod. I might tell them about one of my ice climbs in Wyoming or Banff, but they probably just want the highlights.
Brian snaps his fingers. “Wilderness first aid?”
“That, too.”
“You’ve been busy. How many mountains have you climbed?”
“I don’t have the exact number.” I do have it, but they’re treating me like a minor celebrity even without the specifics.
“What was it like climbing Mount Whitney?” Scott wants to know.
“Did you do the day hike or two-day?” Brian asks. “We’ve been thinking about tackling it, ourselves.”
“Did it in one day. But I applied to the permit lottery for four years before I got my chance.”
“How’d you handle the altitude?”
“I hiked a couple of smaller peaks in the area first, and camped at altitude to acclimate.”
“He climbs smaller mountains to get ready to climb the big mountain,” Lila says next to me. “As one does.”
I turn to her and drop my voice. “It’s the best way.”
She rolls her eyes, keeping me humble in the middle of my mini fan club meeting.
“What was the most surprising part of the climb?” Scott asks as he adjusts his sun hat.
It’s like I’m being interviewed for that magazine article all over again.
“Probably the marmots.” I know they want something technical—crossing the snow and ice at the top, dealing with the physical exertion, or the dangers of sudden bad weather. But I’m already enough of a spectacle as it is. I don’t need to give them more fodder.
He chokes on a laugh. “Marmots?”
“They’re a real threat. They’ll chew up anything they find to get to food. One of the guys came back from Whitney to find holes in his tent, his pack decimated, and marmot poop everywhere.”
Thousands of dollars in gear destroyed, all for the sake of a granola bar wrapper. Which reminds me—Lila’s still got one in her pocket.
“Do they have marmots here?” Her question doesn’t sound as casual as she probably intended. Maybe she’s thinking about the wrapper, too.
“Big ones. And they’re mean.” Scott bares his teeth like a chipmunk and waves his crooked fingers as if he’s clawing at her.
Four more days with these guys. He’s harmless and only trying to joke around with her, but I don’t like how she’s become their punchline simply for asking questions.
I shift slightly in front of Lila, blocking her from his bad marmot impression. “I’ve never had issues with them in the Cascades,” I tell her. “Deena and Mitchell would have mentioned it if they were a problem.”
Any animal ransacking their camp would be worth a warning. They’re not even using bear canisters out here, only odor-proof bags—we’re probably safe from curious rodents.
“Do you have any marmot spray on you?” she asks.
I pat down my chest. “I left it at home.”
“I thought you were prepared for everything.”
“Not everything.” I’m not prepared for her, that’s for sure. I could stare at the curl of a smile along her pink lips for the rest of the trip. Shouldn’t, but…could .
“What’s your most memorable climb?” Brian asks. “What’s the one that stands out the most?”
I know my answer before he finishes the question.
“Mount Katahdin, about five years ago.”
“Really? Katahdin’s not a technical climb. More of a walk in the park. You had a hard time on that one?” He looks like he’s about to crow.
This is why I don’t feel like giving them details. Guys like this only want to compare. Even when someone else comes out on top, they’ll find a way to spin it in their favor. There’s no winning.
“It’s not memorable because of the challenge. I met a woman on that climb who gave me some much-needed perspective.” The men bob their eyebrows, but I shake off their suggestive looks. “She was celebrating her cancer going into remission. She’d been battling it for three years, and finally got the all-clear. It was a special moment to witness.”
I was still reeling from the shock of heartbreak when I tackled that mountain. I’d been in a fog of regret, and wanted the physical exertion to numb my emotions. That day, I didn’t care about the sights, the experience, or even checking another mountaintop off my list—I wanted the mental escape.
But she conquered the climb as a testament to possibility, and how beautiful life can be despite our setbacks. She smiled the whole way, in awe she had the chance to experience it.
Watching her glory in being alive shook me out of my pity party. I’d gone up a heartsick fool, and come down…well, I like to hope a slightly wiser fool.
“You asked what stands out,” I say. “That one does.”
“Okay, what’s your most challenging climb?” Scott asks.
I shrug. “Denali, I guess.”
“Whoa.”
Denali is an impressive accomplishment, but it doesn’t stand out in my mind like that day on Katahdin. Sometimes the heart of the climb is more important than the technical details.
“Here’s a tip.” Brian sounds like he’s ready to whip out a whiteboard and teach a class. “Always lead with the more impressive one.”
“He did,” Lila says at my side.
I have to fight off a smug grin. I like her jumping to my defense more than I should probably say.
After eating our fill of Mitchell’s surprisingly good pesto pasta, our group scatters to do our own thing as evening falls. Deena offered to initiate some get-to-know-you games, but the couples declined, on the grounds they’ve known everything about each other for forty years.
I sit not too far outside my tent, working my pocket knife against a dry chunk of wood. We can’t have a campfire out here, so I have to use what daylight we have left.
“This many layers of bug spray can’t be good for me.” Lila rubs something into her neck from her chin down to the top of the pale blue fleece jacket she’s thrown over her camp shirt. She sits at the other end of the fallen log I’ve commandeered—I already checked it for ants. “That’s a lot of eucalyptus oil.”
“At least you’ll breathe easy all night.”
“I guess that’s a bonus.” Her gaze skates over me. “Are you whittling?”
“Badly, but yes.”
She scoots a touch closer. “I’ve never seen anyone whittle before. I thought it was a myth.”
“It’s more of a dying art form, which I’m currently bungling.”
“What are you making? ”
“I don’t know yet. Something will come to me.”
She squints at the chunk of wood as though she can decipher something in it. “Are you an artist?”
I can’t help the laugh that barks out of me. “Not even close. It’s just something to pass the time.”
It’s surprisingly relaxing on evenings like this. Soothes my mind when it would otherwise be consumed by technical details, route plans, and weather forecasts.
“See, my first thought would have been card games.”
“Cards are useless weight. A knife can be used for a lot of things.”
“One thing, really.”
I pause. “Fair point. But it can do one thing in a variety of scenarios.”
“Did they teach you how to whittle in all your outdoorsman classes?”
“I’m a self-taught whittler, specializing in the boredom technique.”
Laughing softly, she watches me work for a minute. Then she swipes at a mosquito that hasn’t caught wind of her eucalyptus aura yet. “There’s really such a thing as wilderness first aid?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of things can go wrong out here, and it’s not a normal emergency scenario if something goes sideways.” Not that I should point any of that out. She’s already out of her comfort zone, she doesn’t need me outlining worst-case scenarios.
“I guess I’m safe in your hands, huh?”
Do not think about her in your hands.
That warning is several hours too late.
I meet her gaze, and a soft pink washes over her skin.
“You know—in an emergency. Obviously.” Nervous laughter bubbles out of her. “Do you have to take all those classes to climb mountains?”
My brain is still stuck on the idea of her in my hands, and it takes me a second to recover. “Not necessarily. A lot of peaks are just long hikes. But some involve ice climbing or traveling across glaciers, and you need to learn those technical skills first.”
“Are you a mountain guide on the side or something? With all of those classes, it seems like you could be.”
I focus on the wood in my hands and the knife slicing away each thin strip of bark. “When I was in my twenties, I had dreams of starting my own guiding company.”
“What happened?”
“Reality happened. I took on more and more responsibilities with my family’s business and had to make a choice.”
“Oh. Do you still want to be a mountain guide?”
I look up to find her watching me with big doe eyes. “It’s been a long time since I considered it. Most guides don’t work past fifty, and nobody does it for the money. They do it for the love. This way, I can still climb and keep my family’s stores running. Everybody wins.”
It’s what I told myself all those years when the choice still stung. Something in it feels like a lie, but I can’t pinpoint what.
She zips her fleece all the way up. The temperature’s fading along with the daylight. We might have to retreat to our tents before the sun is completely down just to cuddle up and stay warm.
I really shouldn’t be thinking about that , either.
“What are your stores like?”
I summon my best impression of Dean. “When you walk into an Irwin’s, you know everyone is there because they love using the gear, and know it inside and out. They answer customer questions from experience, not a brochure. ”
She stares for several beats before she bursts out laughing. “Why are you talking like that?”
“It’s something one of my brothers said, and I never got over it.” I close my knife and slip it into my shirt pocket. I don’t need to put my first aid skills to the test out here. “We sell all kinds of gear for outdoor activities—camping, hiking, kayaking, you name it. Some stores are pretty small and niche, but most have sizable square footage. We want them to be warm and welcoming, no matter anyone’s sport or experience level.”
“Your family must all be outdoorsy nuts—I mean… outdoors enthusiasts .”
I laugh. “We are outdoorsy nuts, but we come by it honestly. My parents met on a camping trip.”
“Your parents met on a camping trip like this?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way until exactly this moment. Huh. I swallow. “They fell in love that week.”
I don’t know why I added that last bit. I don’t know if I’ve ever fully bought into the story.
“I guess that’s romantic. If you can get past the camping parts.” She smiles to let me know she means no harm. She has no idea how the simple gesture aches through me. “And your whole family works there?”
“My parents are co-presidents, and they handle all the biggest decisions. I’m the General Manager, my middle brother Dean is the Chief Financial Officer, and my youngest brother Rhett is our marketer and social media manager.”
“And they’re all…like you?”
I narrow my eyes on her in the deepening twilight. “Elaborate.”
“You know. Outdoorsy. Accomplished. Handsome.” She runs a hand over the air between us. “Big.”
Her cheeks grow even pinker, and she tucks her hand between her knees. I can work with handsome and big .
“Big is a very interesting description?—”
“Just tell me about them, please.” She widens her eyes at me, practically begging me to end the awkwardness. I rather enjoy the begging, if I’m being honest.
“We’re not all that alike. Rhett is thirty and possibly the most immature man I know, but he’s great at what he does. He’s a whitewater rafting nut. Dean is thirty-three, and the most serious of us. He doesn’t do as much outdoors as he should.”
“What does that mean? He doesn’t do as much outdoors as he ‘should’? Is it a requirement?”
I get the feeling she’s ready to leap to Dean’s defense from my unjust shoulds . “I mean, I think he needs the distraction. He’s so caught up in our business, he doesn’t take time for himself. He needs a life outside of work.”
Hypocrite, thy name is Grant. Rhett wasn’t wrong when he said I’ve been too busy to enjoy myself lately. Even my trips away have been more distractions than vacations. Plus, that characterization is unfair to Dean. He’s created a work/life balance for himself these last couple of years that I envy. He took on our grandparents’ house when our grandma downsized, and he’s planning to fill it up with babies just as soon as Eliza gives the okay.
If any of us has a full life outside of work, it’s Dean.
“Actually, that info’s kind of out of date. He got married last year, and his wife has softened some of his rough edges.”
“And you? Do you have somebody back home in Texas to soften your edges?”
“Do I seem like I’m rough?”
“I don’t know, I’ve heard rumors about guys who whittle…”
I hold her gaze for a second. “I don’t have anybody back home in Texas. What about you?”
“I don’t have anyone, but my edges are already pretty soft, so.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “That’s—pretend I didn’t say that.”
“I never disagreed with you.”
She gives me an unimpressed look. “Well, it’s getting dark. I guess we should probably go to bed. I should go to bed, I mean. You can whittle for as long as you want.”
I’m loving the awkwardness. It gives me a stupid kind of hope.
“I really made an impact with the whittling.”
“It’s memorable. You’re the whittling guy in my head now, I’m sorry.”
“If that’s what it takes.”
She stands and dusts off her pants. “All right, Grant the Whittler. See you in the morning.”
She scrambles away to her tent, crawls inside, and zips it shut.
I stay up way too late thinking about Lila’s soft edges.