Chapter 6 Carter
CARTER
The hike to Site One takes forty minutes, and I spend most of it trying not to look like I’m dying.
Rhi moves through the snow like she was born in it—steady, efficient, her boots finding purchase on icy rocks like she’s done this a thousand times. Which, apparently, she has.
I’m sweating under three layers and my pack feels like it’s full of concrete.
“You good?” she calls back, not even winded.
“Great!” I lie, adjusting the straps digging into my shoulders.
She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.
When we finally reach the site—a clearing with what looks like a metal box and some wires poking out of the snow—Rhi transforms. She’s all business, unpacking equipment with the kind of precision that makes me feel like I should probably shut up and stay out of her way.
But I’ve never been good at staying out of the way.
“So,” I say, crouching next to her. “What’s the verdict? Is the ground angry? Should we be worried?”
She blinks at me. “What?”
“You know. Geothermal activity. Angry ground. Lava demons.”
“There are no lava demons in this mountain range. Or in any.”
“That’s exactly what someone hiding lava demons would say.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Then she hands me a data logger. “Here. Make yourself useful.”
I take it, turning it over in my hands like I have any idea what I’m looking at. “Right. Data logger. Very important. Does a lot of... logging.”
“It records temperature readings from the thermocouples.” She’s already on her third sensor, moving with the kind of efficiency that comes from muscle memory. “You need to connect it to the junction box, but first you have to make sure the connection points are clean, or the readings drift.”
“Clean junction. Got it.” I fumble with the cables, trying to figure out which end goes where.
She glances over. “Wait—”
I freeze.
She sets down her equipment and comes over, patient but clearly trying not to sigh. “Here. Like this.” She takes the cable from my hands, demonstrates the connection. Her fingers are steady, confident. “Red to positive, black to ground. If you reverse them, you can fry the sensor.”
“And that would be bad.”
“That would be three thousand dollars bad.” She hands the cable back to me. “These sensors are expensive, and I wrote the grant proposal that paid for them, so please don’t electrocute them.”
“Jesus. Okay. No pressure.”
I reconnect the cable—correctly this time—and she nods. “Good.”
I reach for the pH meter at the same time she does. Our hands collide, and she’s already pulling back, letting me take it—that automatic deference I’ve seen her do a dozen times.
“Wait,” I say. “Which reading did you need?”
“The 7.2 calibration, but you can—”
I hand it to her. “You’re faster.”
She blinks, takes it, and I watch her hands move through the calibration sequence. No hesitation. No checking the manual. She’s done this so many times her fingers know the pattern.
I try to copy her movements with the next sensor. Drop the connector. Swear.
She catches it before it hits the snow—doesn’t even look up from her own work, just shoots a hand out at exactly the right moment.
“So what got you into this? The whole geothermal monitoring thing?”
“I like volcanoes.”
She says it simply, like that’s the whole story. But I catch something in her voice—something bigger she’s not saying.
“That’s it? You like volcanoes?”
“That’s it.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m mostly just holding equipment and trying not to feel useless.
Rhi moves through the site check like choreography—testing sensors, recording readings on her tablet, cross-referencing data, adjusting the solar panel angle.
The steam from the hot spring has made Rhi’s hair curl around her face in these soft waves that make me wish I knew how to paint.
Her cheeks are flushed pink from the heat and exertion. She’s crouched by the water, completely absorbed in her work, and there’s something incredibly attractive about how competent she is.
How her hands move with confidence. How she doesn’t need to check the manual because she’s done this so many times she just knows.
Intelligence is sexy as fuck.
I’ve always known that theoretically. But watching Rhi work—watching her be brilliant and focused and completely in her element—is doing things to me I wasn’t prepared for.
She looks up and catches me staring.
“What?” she asks, tucking a curl behind her ear self-consciously.
Everything, I think. You’re everything.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just impressed.”
She doesn’t need instructions. Doesn’t need to check the manual. She just knows.
“You’ve done this before,” I say.
“Forty-seven times.” She doesn’t look up. “This is site three. We hit it every two weeks during active monitoring periods.”
“Wait. You’ve been to all these sites?”
“Not all, but the ones close by. Some of them in much worse weather than this.”
That’s nearly two years of fieldwork. While I was sleeping through lectures, she was out here collecting data.
“Bam said she was adding me to the trip,” I say slowly. “That means you were already going. You were doing this alone?”
“With Bam, usually. Or her grad students.” She finishes the sensor check and packs up her equipment with practiced efficiency. “But she’s got a new fiancé, and the grad students have their own fieldwork. So”—she shrugs—“lucky me. I got a partner.”
The way she says lucky makes it crystal clear she doesn’t feel lucky at all.
“You didn’t want me here.”
It’s not a question. I already know the answer.
She hesitates, and for the first time, her polite mask slips. Just slightly. “It’s not personal.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I—” She shoulders her pack, still not meeting my eyes.
“I’ve been working on this project for two years.
I know the sites, the equipment, the protocols.
I know how important this data is for the seasonal analysis.
And then Bam tells me she’s adding someone who needs extra credit to pass her class, someone who’s been skipping lectures all semester, and I—”
She stops. Forces a smile. “It’s fine. Really. I’m glad to have help.”
She’s lying. We both know it.
“Rhi—”
“We should get to the next site.” She’s already moving, adjusting her pack straps. “We’re behind schedule.”
“Hang on.” I catch her arm, and she stops, surprised. “I need you to be honest with me. What’s at stake here? For you?”
She looks at me for a long moment, like she’s deciding whether I’m worth the explanation.
“This data,” she says finally, “is going into a paper. A paper I’m co-authoring with Professor Bam. As an undergrad. Do you know how rare that is?”
I shake my head.
“It’s the kind of thing that gets you into any grad school you want.
The kind of thing that opens doors. I want to be a volcanologist. I want to work at an observatory, monitor eruption patterns, do hazard assessment for communities near active volcanoes.
This paper is my ticket to that future.” She’s talking faster now, like the words have been building up.
“I’ve spent two years on this project. Weekends in the field.
Nights running data analysis. I’ve given up holidays, dates, sleep.
I’ve hiked these sites in thunderstorms and whiteouts.
I’ve recalibrated faulty sensors at 3 AM.
I’ve read every paper on hydrothermal systems I could find. And now—”
She stops, like she’s said too much.
“And now I show up,” I finish quietly. “Some guy who couldn’t be bothered to attend class. Who’s only here because he needs a last-minute save. Who doesn’t know a thermocouple from a hole in the ground.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I run a hand through my hair. “Look, I get it. I do. You’ve earned this, and I’m just... extra baggage. Field support. The guy who carries equipment and tries not to break anything.”
“Carter—”
“But look, listen to me.” I meet her eyes.
“I’m not going to mess this up for you. I know I don’t deserve to be here.
I know I haven’t put in the work you have.
But I’m going to learn. I’m going to pay attention.
I’m going to follow every protocol exactly.
And if I don’t understand something, I’m going to ask instead of pretending I know. ”
She’s watching me carefully, like she’s trying to decide if I mean it. I surprise myself because I actually do. I don’t want to screw this up for her.
“I need this trip to pass Bam’s class,” I continue.
“If I fail, I’m out of school. But that’s my problem, not yours.
Your paper, your authorship, your future—that’s what matters here.
So I’m not going to coast. I’m not going to charm my way through this.
I’m going to actually show up. Really show up. ”
She pauses.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She nods, and something in her expression softens slightly. “But if you fry a three-thousand-dollar sensor, I’m leaving you in the woods.”
“Fair.”
She almost smiles. “And you have to stop making lava demon jokes.”
“Absolutely not. The lava demons are my best material.”
This time, she does smile.
“Come on,” she says, starting down the trail. “Next site. And Carter?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For... for listening. I’m not really used to—” She stops, shakes her head. “Never mind. Let’s just get the data.”
And suddenly, I want to know everything about Rhiannon Pierce. Not just why she likes volcanoes.
But why she’s so surprised when someone listens.