Chapter 2
SHELBY
The man walks away from me like I'm a weather report he's already checked and dismissed.
I watch him go. Broad shoulders, deliberate stride, not a single wasted movement.
He moves through his own territory the way predators do, aware of every angle and completely unconcerned about being observed.
His ice-blue eyes held mine for maybe fifteen seconds back there and my entire nervous system is still recalibrating.
Cory Matthews is not what I expected.
I expected gruff. Rhea warned me about gruff. "He's like Cal," she said during our call last week, "but without the Southern manners to sand down the edges. Brilliant, though. His program is the real deal."
What Rhea did not warn me about was the way his voice sounds like gravel over bedrock.
Or the way his hands looked when he wiped them on his pants, scarred and capable and enormous.
Or the way he looked at me like he was trying to decide whether I was a problem or a threat and hadn't yet considered the third option: that I might be something he actually wanted on his mountain.
"Cabin Four's this way."
The kid next to me, Tuck, barely hides a grin. He's young, early twenties, with the compact build and easy confidence of someone who's seen real combat and come out the other side with his sense of humor intact. I like him immediately.
"Is he always like that?" I ask, falling into step beside him.
"Like what?"
"Like he's running a military installation and I just showed up without clearance."
Tuck laughs. "That's him being friendly. You should see him when he's actually annoyed."
We cross the equipment yard toward a row of four cabins tucked into the treeline.
They're simple but solid, built from timber that matches the lodge, with metal roofs pitched steep enough to shed heavy snow.
Cabin Four is at the end, slightly apart from the others, with a view of the valley that makes me reach instinctively for my camera.
"This one's separate from the student cabins, so you'll have privacy," Tuck says, pushing open the door.
"Woodstove for heat, propane for the stove and hot water.
Outhouse is thirty yards north, but there's also a bathroom in the lodge if you prefer plumbing.
Satellite Wi-Fi works about sixty percent of the time, less if there's weather. And there's weather coming."
"I saw the forecast." I drop my duffel on the single bed, a sturdy frame with a thick mattress and what looks like a military-issue wool blanket.
The cabin is small but clean. A desk under the window.
A shelf with a kerosene lamp. A woodstove in the corner with a stack of split pine beside it.
Everything functional. Nothing decorative.
It reminds me of every temporary home I've ever had, which is all of them.
"Dinner's at eighteen hundred in the lodge," Tuck continues. "Cory cooks for the staff. It's actually incredible, not that he'd ever admit he puts effort into it. Denver group eats at seventeen hundred and clears out before we sit down."
"Separate mealtimes?"
"Cory doesn't do small talk with clients over dinner. He says digestion and diplomacy don't mix."
I smile. "Sounds like a direct quote."
"Verbatim." Tuck heads for the door, then pauses. "Hey, for what it's worth? He wouldn't have agreed to this if he didn't think the piece was worth doing. He just needs to pretend he hates it for a while first."
The door closes behind him and I'm alone.
I unpack with the efficiency of someone who has done this in forty-seven countries across six continents.
Everything has a place. Camera bodies and lenses in the padded case on the desk.
Clothing in the duffel, organized by layer weight.
Notebooks, pens, voice recorder, and the battered laptop that's survived being dropped into the Ganges, left on a bus in Patagonia, and used as a makeshift plate during a sandstorm in Morocco.
My life fits into two bags. That used to feel like freedom. Lately it just feels light.
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull out my phone. One bar of signal, flickering. Enough to send a text.
I open my thread with Rhea:
Arrived. Mountain is gorgeous. The mountain man is...
I stare at the cursor.
The mountain man is six foot two of ice-blue intensity who looked at me like I was simultaneously the most irritating and most interesting thing he'd seen all week.
I delete and retype:
Arrived safely. Subject is cooperative. Ish.
Rhea's response comes through choppy but readable:
That's his version of rolling out the red carpet. Get good material. Cal says the SEAL community needs this kind of press. Channel 16 says hi.
I smile. The Channel 16 group chat has been my lifeline since Rhea brought me into the Salt & Steel orbit for this assignment.
I'm not technically on Cal's team, but Rhea vouched for me when Altitude wanted someone embedded with a veteran-run operation, and the S&S network opened doors that would've taken me months to crack on my own.
Cory Matthews, former SEAL. Arctic warfare specialist. Now runs one of the most respected wilderness survival schools in the country from a perch so high you can practically see tomorrow from his front porch.
My editor wants the profile in three thousand words with a photo package. "The man behind the mountain," she said, which is exactly the kind of headline I'd normally roll my eyes at.
But standing in that parking lot, looking up at Cory Matthews with the wind pulling at my hair and his eyes locked on mine like he was reading my survival odds in real time, I understood something about the assignment that I didn't before.
This isn't a puff piece. This man is the story. Whatever he's carrying, whatever drove him up this mountain and made him stay, that's the article. And he's going to fight me every inch of the way.
Good. I've always been better at the stories that fight back.
I check my phone again. Below Rhea's message, another notification sits on my screen. An email, forwarded from my website's contact form.
I know before I open it.
I saw your Instagram story. The drive looks beautiful. Colorado suits you.
No name. No signature. Just the familiar anonymous email address that's been popping up in my inbox for the past four months. Different platforms, different accounts, always the same voice. Calm. Observational. Like someone narrating my life from a window I can't see.
My ex-boyfriend Garrett doesn't sign his name because he thinks that gives him plausible deniability. It doesn't. I know his sentence patterns like I know my own heartbeat. We were together for eight months, which was seven months too long, and I've been running from him for four.
Running is maybe too strong a word. I've been doing what I always do. Moving. Taking the next assignment, the next flight, the next mountain. The difference is that now someone's watching.
I close the email without responding. I always close without responding. Engaging is what he wants. Silence is the only weapon I have.
I also delete the Instagram story he referenced.
I posted it three hours ago, a quick video of the switchback road climbing toward Mountain Ready.
Nothing that reveals my exact location, but Garrett is resourceful and my published work creates a breadcrumb trail for anyone motivated enough to follow it.
The smart thing would be to stop publishing. Stop posting. Go dark.
But my work is the only thing I've never let anyone take from me. My mother dying when I was twelve took my childhood. My father remarrying took my sense of home. Twenty years of military bases and temporary addresses took my ability to form attachments that lasted longer than a lease.
My writing stayed. My camera stayed. The byline "Shelby Cruise" in the corner of a magazine page is the only permanent address I've ever had.
I'm not giving that up for a man who can't accept that I left.
I pull on a fleece, grab my camera, and head outside.
The afternoon light is golden and angled, perfect for exterior shots.
I start with the lodge, working my way through the property, framing the cabins against the mountain backdrop, catching the way the equipment yard looks both rugged and precise.
Everything about Mountain Ready reflects the man who built it. Intentional. Stripped down. Built for survival, not comfort.
I'm crouched near the equipment shed, shooting the rope coils and carabiners that Tuck left organized on a workbench, when I hear footsteps behind me. Quiet. Almost silent on the gravel. I know who it is before I turn around because no one else on this mountain moves like a ghost.
"You're documenting the equipment before you've documented the program."
I lower the camera and look up at him. He's standing about six feet away, arms crossed, watching me with that same assessing expression. Like I'm a weather system and he's calculating whether I'm going to blow through or settle in.
"Equipment tells me who someone is faster than a conversation does," I say. "Yours is maintained, organized, and serious. Not a single piece of sponsored gear in sight. You buy for function and you take care of what you own."
Something shifts in his expression. Barely perceptible, but I've spent my career reading people through a lens and I catch it. Surprise. Maybe grudging respect.
"Most writers who come here want to start with the view," he says.
"Most writers who come here probably aren't still alive after filing from a Category 4 cyclone in the Bay of Bengal.
" I stand and brush the gravel from my knees.
"I'm not here for the scenery, Cory. I mean, I'll take the scenery, it's stunning.
But I'm here for the operation. How it works.
Why it works. What makes this particular program different from every other 'tough guy teaches camping' outfit marketing itself on Instagram. "
He uncrosses his arms. Not softening exactly, but shifting. "What did Rhea tell you about me?"
"That you're the best cold-weather specialist she ever worked adjacent to. That your program has a zero-incident record in three years of operation. And that you'd rather eat a pine cone than sit for an interview, so I should get my material through observation, not interrogation."
His mouth does something. Not a smile. Not even close. But the tension around his jaw loosens by a fraction, which on this man might as well be a standing ovation.
"Smart woman, Rhea."
"She's terrifying, is what she is. In the best possible way."
Almost. I almost get something resembling amusement out of him. His eyes warm by one degree and I feel it all the way down to my boots.
"Tomorrow I'm taking the Denver group through water purification and basic navigation," he says. "If you want to observe, you're welcome. But you gear up like everyone else. Full pack, full safety protocol. No shortcuts because you've climbed in Nepal."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"And tonight at dinner, I'll answer three questions. Three. Choose them well."
He turns and walks toward the lodge, and I watch him go for the second time today, which is becoming a habit I need to examine.
Three questions. He's rationing information like it's water in the desert. Like every word he gives me costs him something.
This man is locked up so tight that a crowbar couldn't pry him open. Every wall is reinforced, every entrance guarded. He's built his entire life around control and preparation and the absolute certainty that if he stays disciplined enough, nothing will get through.
I've spent my whole life getting through.
Getting into places I'm not supposed to be.
Getting stories out of people who swore they'd never talk.
Getting past borders and barriers and bureaucracies with nothing but persistence and the honest belief that every human being wants to be seen if you just give them a safe enough place to show themselves.
Cory Matthews is the most fortified man I've ever met.
I'm going to find every crack in those walls.
Not for the article. I mean yes, for the article.
That's why I'm here. That's the job. But something happened in that parking lot when I took his hand and looked into those frozen blue eyes and saw, beneath the ice, something burning.
Something that recognized me before his brain had time to throw up defenses.
He felt it too. I know he did, because he walked away. Men who feel nothing don't retreat.
I head back to Cabin Four to prep my questions. Three chances. I need to make them count.
My phone buzzes on the desk where I left it. I check, expecting Rhea or my editor.
Channel 16 group chat: Who's got eyes on the NOAA alert? System's upgraded. Heavy snow above 8K starting tomorrow afternoon, not tomorrow night. Could be 18-24 inches.
Then another message from someone tagged "Rhea": Shelby, you seeing this? Your window just got shorter.
I pull up the weather data on my laptop, waiting through thirty seconds of satellite lag before it loads.
The system that was supposed to arrive tomorrow night has accelerated.
Current projections show heavy snowfall beginning midafternoon tomorrow, with accumulation potential of up to two feet at Mountain Ready's elevation.
Two feet of snow means the access road becomes impassable. Which means I either leave tomorrow morning with half an article and no real story, or I stay and ride out the storm with the man who just rationed me three questions like they were classified intelligence.
I type back to Rhea: I'm staying.
Her response: Figured. Be safe. And Shelby? He's worth the story. Trust me.
I set the phone down and stare at the mountains through the cabin window. The western sky is darkening earlier than it should, the steel gray from this morning thickening into something serious.
A blizzard is coming. I'm about to be trapped on a mountain with a former Navy SEAL who looks at me like I'm the most dangerous thing in his territory.
I pull out my notebook and uncap my pen.
Three questions. I need to choose them carefully, because if I'm going to be snowed in with Cory Matthews, I want to know exactly what I'm trapped with.
And underneath the professional calculation, underneath the reporter's instinct and the strategic planning, there's something else. Something warm and inconvenient that started the second his rough hand closed around mine.
I want to be trapped with him. And that terrifies me more than the storm.