Chapter 11 Maya
MAYA
The western boundary fence was in worse shape than I’d expected.
Posts leaning at drunken angles, wire sagging between them, one whole section flat on the ground where something had pushed straight through. I killed the quad’s engine and surveyed the damage, already running through the mental checklist of what needed doing first.
Nate climbed off behind me and stood there, hands on his hips, taking it in.
“Where do you want me?”
Loaded question. I shoved that thought into a box and kicked the lid shut.
“Start at that end.” I pointed to the worst section. “Pull the old wire free, check if the posts are still solid at the base. If they wobble, they need replacing. I’ll work from this end and we’ll meet in the middle.”
He nodded, grabbed the wire cutters from the cargo rack and got straight to work.
I did the same.
Yeah, this was good. Working side by side, the sun warm on our backs, the work keeping our hands busy. No need to look at each other. No risk of accidentally staring at someone’s mouth and losing your train of thought.
Not that I was thinking about his mouth. I was thinking about fence posts. Exclusively fence posts.
We worked in comfortable silence for a while, nothing but the clink of tools and the wind in the trees. It should have been easy to just let the quiet sit, but my brain had other ideas.
“So.” I tested the tension on a fresh stretch of wire, giving it a firm tug. “Ten years in the army.”
He glanced over. “Yeah.”
“Where were you stationed? Or is that classified?”
His lips quirked in a half smile. “Not classified. Fort Liberty for the first couple years. Then overseas. Qatar, Germany for a stretch. Couple other places.”
“Germany?” I hadn’t expected that one. “What was that like?”
“Cold. Good beer.” He wrestled a leaning post back to vertical, holding it steady while he packed dirt around the base. “Honestly, it was the best posting I had. Quieter than the others.”
“And Qatar?”
His hands stilled on the post, just for a second. Then he went back to packing dirt, his movements a fraction more deliberate. “Different.”
I recognized the door closing and didn’t push. “Fair enough.”
I snipped a length of wire, threaded it through the post, twisted the ends tight. Beside me, Nate did the same.
“You’re getting good at that,” I said.
“Had a good teacher.”
“You learned from watching me for five minutes.”
“Like I said.” He looked over, and something warm flickered in his eyes. “Good teacher.”
My stomach flipped. I turned back to the wire before he could see it on my face.
“Can I ask you something?” I kept my voice light. Casual. Just two colleagues making conversation over manual labour.
“Shoot.”
“What made you leave the army? Dan said you loved it.”
He was quiet for long enough that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he straightened, rolling his shoulders, his eyes on the tree line.
“I did love it. Parts of it, anyway. The structure, the purpose. Knowing exactly what was expected of me every single day.” He picked up a fresh post and positioned it over the hole.
“But ten years is a long time. At some point I started feeling like I was staying because it was all I knew, not because it was where I wanted to be.”
Something about that landed closer to home than I was prepared for. I knew what it felt like to stay somewhere because it was comfortable. Because the alternative meant asking hard questions you weren’t ready to answer.
“So, you just... left?”
“Finished my contract and didn’t re-up.” He drove the post into the ground with the mallet, three clean strikes. “Wasn’t a dramatic exit. Just walked away.”
“And now you’re mending fences in a national park.”
“Apparently.” He almost smiled. “Life takes you places.”
I reached for the wire coil, measuring out the next length. “Are you worried about money? I mean, starting over isn’t cheap.”
“No, actually.” He said it simply, no bravado.
“I saved most of my pay while I was in. Didn’t have much to spend it on, living on base.
And a buddy in my unit got me into investing early.
Started with index funds, then a couple of individual plays that paid off way more than they should have.
” He shrugged, like he was talking about the weather.
“Money’s not something I need to worry about. ”
The way he said it, casual and certain, told me he wasn’t talking about a modest safety net. He meant real money. Money that meant choices, not compromises.
Something warm bloomed in my chest. Pride, maybe, which was ridiculous because I had no claim on his achievements.
“Look at you,” I said, bumping his arm with my elbow. “Secret financial genius.”
“Hardly. I just didn’t spend anything for a decade.”
“Still. That’s impressive, Nate.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, tight and awkward. Definitely time to change the subject.
“So what is next?” I kept my tone breezy. “You going to get a place, plant some roots? Hang out with the rest of us at Lacey’s every Friday night?”
His voice was low and quiet when he answered. “I’m not planning to stay, Maya.”
“N-no?”
My brain stalled out. I had just pulled my heavy right glove off to fiddle with a stubborn, rusted knot in the old fence.
The sudden, heavy weight of his words threw my rhythm completely off.
The wire slipped through my bare fingers.
I jerked back, but the sharp end snapped up and caught the fleshy part of my palm.
“Ow. Shit.” I cradled my hand against my chest, staring at the damage. A thin red line across the heel of my palm was already welling with blood. Nothing serious. Definitely more startling than painful.
“You okay?” He was beside me in two strides, and before I could pull away, his hand closed around my wrist.
“I’m fine, it’s just a—”
“Let me see.” He studied my hand with a focused intensity that made my breath catch.
“It’s not deep,” he said.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
His thumb rested against my palm, and the sting of the cut had faded into something else entirely, replaced by the heat of his skin against mine. My pulse hammered directly against his fingertips, frantic and loud.
His eyes lifted to mine. Something flickered in them, dark and unguarded.
Then he released my hand and stepped back, clearing his throat. “You should clean that up when we get back.”
I tugged the glove back on with shaking fingers. “Yes, sir.”
We went back to work.
I’m not planning to stay, Maya.
“I didn’t know you weren’t coming home for good.” Fuck, that sounded pathetic. I cleared my throat. “But I can imagine Esperance feels too small, after all the travel you’ve done.”
He was quiet for a moment, working a stubborn knot of old wire free from a post. “It’s not that.
I just didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He tossed the wire aside.
“It’s the closest thing to home I’ve got.
But there’s too much history here for me to stick around long-term. I need somewhere with a clean slate.”
He said it simply, like it was just a fact. But something about the way he said “too much history” hit me hard.
Too much history. I was part of that history.
A dull ache spread behind my ribs, like a thick fog that doesn’t plan on leaving.
Of course it made sense. He had every reason to leave our stupid little town. He’d spent ten years building a life somewhere else. Anywhere else. Why would he stay?
Why would he stay.
I snipped the wire. Threaded it through. Twisted the ends tight.
“So where are you thinking?” My voice came out even. Steady. I was proud of that.
“Haven’t decided. West coast, maybe. Somewhere new.”
“West coast is nice.”
“Yeah.”
Snip. Thread. Twist. My hands knew the motions so well I could do them on autopilot, which was good, because my brain was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere stupid and pointless and eighteen years old, watching him leave all over again.
“Well,” I said, reaching for the next post, “wherever you end up, at least you’ll have fence-mending on your resume.”
He huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Marketable skill.”
“Absolutely. Very in demand on the west coast.”
“Good to know.”
The silence returned, but it was different now. Full of something neither of us was going to name.
My palm stung under the glove. I ignored it and kept working.