Mountain Man’s Summer Drift (Wildwood Valley Rapids #6)

1. Ross

ROSS

The woman on the road wasn’t supposed to be there.

When I spotted her, I’d already been at the Alderman shed for twenty minutes.

I was standing in the doorway counting throw bags and wondering why Wells had handed me the truck keys that morning like he was doing me a favor.

He’d been too cheerful about it. So had Cade, who’d stared at his clipboard with what I now realized was suspicious focus.

The inventory needed doing. That part wasn’t a lie. But there were other inventories that needed doing, and I’d never once been the one sent to this shed.

They could have their fun. I’d be back at the dock by three.

Then I looked up and saw the woman.

She was on the main road, walking the shoulder past the gravel drive. Not jogging, not heading anywhere. A tank top, shorts, hair pulled back, a paperback held loose in one hand. Her walk said she wasn’t on the way to anything in particular.

I set the clipboard down.

I should have gone back inside. I’d noticed things my whole life and let them go. Notice and move on. That was the skill.

She turned her head and looked down the gravel drive. That was when she saw me.

She stopped.

I figured she’d turn around. She had the look of a woman who’d just realized she was on someone’s property and wasn’t going to ask about it. She was just going to walk back the way she’d come and pretend she hadn’t seen me.

“You staying at the cabin?” I called.

She thought about it longer than the question warranted, then said, “Yes.”

That was all I got. No question back, no apology for being on the gravel, no anything. Just the word.

I walked out of the shed and down the drive toward her. Slowly. I didn’t want her bolting.

I stopped about ten feet away.

Brown eyes. No makeup. Sunburned shoulders. The ponytail was pulled tight and a little crooked, like she’d done it without a mirror. She wasn’t smiling, but the corner of her mouth was doing something that wasn’t far from one.

She was even prettier up close. The kind of beauty you had to be looking at to see.

Something settled in my chest. Quiet, the way a paddle stroke shifts a boat. Not enough to think about. Just enough to know things had changed.

“You walked the wrong way,” I said. “Town’s the other direction. So’s the outfitter.”

“Did I?”

She didn’t apologize. Didn’t explain. Just took it in.

“You here with Suri?” I said.

Her head came up a fraction. “You know Suri?”

“I know who she’s been on the river with.”

The corner of her mouth did the thing again. “That’s discreet.”

“Kyron’s a partner. We notice.”

“And he’s not subtle.”

“He thinks he is.”

She almost smiled. Not quite. I had the feeling I could spend a year watching her face and still be learning what each version of that meant.

“Ross Baldwin,” I said.

“Sunnie Jensen.”

We stood there. The road was empty. A cicada started up somewhere uphill. I could hear the river moving past through the trees. I could also hear my own pulse, which was new.

“You been walking long?” I asked.

“Twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Got water at the cabin?”

“I forgot a bottle.”

I tipped my head toward the truck. “Cooler’s in the back. You want one?”

She hesitated. Not because she didn’t want it. Because she was a woman who weighed things before saying yes to a stranger, and she was weighing.

“Yeah,” she said.

I walked her to the truck. Popped the cooler. Handed her a cold bottle. She took it with both hands and drank standing right there at the tailgate.

I should not have been watching a woman drink water like it was the only thing happening in the world. I was.

“You always work alone out here?” she asked, lowering the bottle.

“This shed, yeah. Quick job.”

“What do you keep in it?”

“Gear. PFDs, throw bags, a couple of extra paddles. We’ve got an arrangement with the cabin’s owner. Shed space for river trips.”

“That’s a good deal.”

“It was set up before me. I just check the inventory.”

She nodded. She had a way of nodding that made me feel like she’d actually heard what I said.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

She glanced down at the book in her hand like she’d forgotten she was holding it. She held it up. Paperback, cracked spine, something literary I’d never heard of.

“It’s not holding me today.”

She said it like she’d just figured it out while she was saying it.

“You want a ride back to the cabin?” I asked.

“I’ll walk. I came out for a walk.”

“All right.”

“Thanks for the water.”

“Yeah.”

She handed me the empty bottle. Our fingers touched. Half a second. I felt it through my whole hand.

She turned and walked back up the road. I watched her go. I wasn’t going to pretend I wasn’t. There was no one out here to pretend for.

When she got to the curve and disappeared past the trees, I went back to the shed and looked at the clipboard. I’d been counting throw bags. The number on the line said nine. I had no idea if that was right.

Wells was going to be insufferable.

I locked the shed, walked back to the truck, and pulled out of the gravel drive. I told myself I was heading back to the outfitter.

I drove toward town.