Chapter 10 Noah
NOAH
Damn me. A cowboy’s gotta do what a cowboy’s gotta do, but I didn’t count on the ridge trail being blocked by a downed pine. I had to take the long way around, saddle baked, my patience thin. Now I was late, and Maya wasn’t answering her phone.
I nearly ran into Log on my way to the truck—my truck. I finally got my own wheels after this morning’s pickup. Still a rental, but at least I wasn’t borrowing anyone else’s.
“Hey, Noah boy,” he greeted with that laid-back grin.
“El’s inside,” I said. “Debating whether to start the beer or wait and pretend he has manners.”
“You in a hurry?”
“Sort of.” I yanked the door handle. “Might be too late, but I’ll try anyway.”
He narrowed his eyes, studying me. “You still trying to make something work?”
My spine straightened. “What?”
Had I told him about Blue Storm? I didn’t think so.
He held my gaze a beat longer, then shook his head. “Never mind. It’s written all over your face, cowboy.” He gave my belt a once-over, my knife and rope still clipped, my gloves still tucked in. “Don’t you think you need to—?”
“No time, Log.”
He raised a brow. “She’s surely got you starry-eyed.”
“Still early days,” I said, suddenly mulling over Log’s words about making it work. “We’re not exactly cut from the same mold, but I’m not above grinding the edges if it means we hold.”
Log held the edge of the door. “Well, if it wasn’t forged to match, all the sanding in the world won’t stop the friction.”
Classic Logan Pierce. Cowboy philosopher. Probably carved his first sermon into a hitching post. Then again, I was the one who started it. What the hell did I even mean by “grinding the edges”?
I was miles ahead of myself. It was just lunch. Just one meal with Maya.
And I was already running late.
So yeah, friction was coming, no matter how I cut it.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said, sliding in.
“Go on, then.” He closed the door for me.
I tore out of there and made straight for town. Buffaloberry Hill didn’t exactly have a lot of dining options, but if I had to bet, she’d gone to Mrs. Sutton’s harvest shop.
I burst in, my breath tight. “Hey, did a woman with…umm…long dark hair and about this tall come through?”
Mrs. Sutton barely looked up from the cherries she was bagging. “Oh, what’s her name? Maya?”
Of course she knew.
“She mentioned heading toward the waterfalls.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Sutton.”
“You sure you don’t want anything…?” she called, but I was already halfway out the door, tossing a wave over my shoulder.
I gunned it toward Raven Bluff.
I practiced what I’d say the whole way over.
I’m sorry for being late.
You looked great.
I was an idiot.
Each version sounded worse than the last. Too stiff. Too rehearsed. Eventually, I gave up, figuring I’d say it plainly. Say it like a man who meant it.
But as I neared the bluff, the nerves twisting through me took a different shape. I slowed the truck, my eyes on the treeline, my jaw tight.
Nothing.
She might not’ve known the backroads around Buffaloberry well. There were two ways to the river from town. Most locals knew to veer right at the fork. But the left? That led to a narrower trail. Steeper. Unstable.
Dad used to warn us about it every summer, about dry heat turning the cliff face to powder. All it took was wind, a deer in the wrong place, or the rumble of a far-off tremor, and the whole edge could slip.
Tessa warned us too. Somehow, her big-sister voice stuck more.
I shifted in my seat, tension pooling behind my ribs. I took the turn toward the riskier trail.
I saw it almost immediately—her car. Parked just off the dirt road, tucked near the brush like she hadn’t wanted to be seen. My gut dropped. I cut the engine and jumped out.
Tracks. Another set of tires had been here too. Faint, but in a hurry.
I broke into a run.
The forest swallowed me whole. The trail narrowed, rising then cutting sharply down toward the bluffs. My boots thundered across the packed dirt, my breath coming fast, but I didn’t slow down. Not even when branches tore at my shirt. Not even when the path dipped into a ravine.
“Maya!”
The clearing revealed more than I was ready for. A crushed buffaloberry crumble and the remains of a drink seeping into the soil. Something had happened here.
Two sets of footprints broke up the dirt—one small, one large. Not boots, but still a man’s stride. If Maya had been here, she hadn’t been alone.
And then—
“Help!”
Her voice tore through the trees.
“Maya!” I scanned the edge, and my heart nearly stopped.
She was clinging to the cliff, her fingers sunk into loose earth.
“I’m here!” I shouted. “Don’t move!”
“Noah…”
“Hold on!”
I rushed toward the edge of the bluff, my lungs burning. The last thirty feet of trail gave way to a steep slope. Half the ledge had given out, the dirt sheared into a ragged mouth opening toward a fall that would shatter bones.
“Maya, I’m coming!”
She clung to a root wedged into the slope, her feet scrambling against loose dirt, her hair wild in the wind.
“Noah! I can’t…”
“Hang on!” I dropped to my knees, yanking the rope from my belt—thank God for the years of cattle work and backcountry habits. I looped it around a boulder, the sturdiest one I could find, and double-knotted it.
She was slipping.
“Talk to me!” I called out, throwing the line around my chest and threading it through a second hitch to brace myself. I anchored it through my belt’s carabiner. It was not made for this. None of it was. But it would do.
She screamed again. Her grip broke on one hand, and I swore violently under my breath.
“Maya, I’ve got you!”
I went over the edge, my boots scraping against crumbling rock, the rope burning against my ribs as it took my weight. Dirt rained down, and the boulder groaned under the tension. My fingers reached her…almost—
“Look at me,” I said as she dipped her head. “Just me. Not the fall.”
Her eyes locked onto mine, wide and brimming. Brave.
I swung low, using my legs to brace against what little slope I could find, my boots sliding. The anchor slipped an inch, maybe two.
She cried out, “Noah!”
“Hold on to me,” I said, chest to chest with her now, my free arm wrapping around her waist. “Right here. I’ve got you.”
She didn’t ask questions. She just grabbed me, her arms tight around my neck like her life depended on it. And it did.
The rope strained as I began the climb back up, inch by inch, using my legs to push against the slope and my shoulder to shield her body. My back screamed, and every breath was a curse. But her heartbeat thundered against my ribs, wild and alive.
We reached the top. I dragged us both to the grass, collapsing beside her, my breath coming in ragged pulls. My arms ached, my chest burned, and my knees were scraped raw. But none of that mattered.
She didn’t let go.
And I didn’t make her.
Her fists stayed tangled in my shirt like she couldn’t trust the ground beneath her yet. I wrapped an arm around her, letting her lean into the solid weight of now. Her breath hitched, then started to settle, shallow and uneven but real. Her whole body trembled.
God, she could’ve died.
And I would’ve watched it happen.
I pressed my face into her hair, just for a second. She smelled like dirt and sweat and fear—and it undid me.
Then her mouth parted. A beat passed. And her voice came hoarse and cracked.
“You were fucking late.” She yanked at my collar.
“I know. I’m sorry,” I breathed. “Give me hell for it. I’m all yours.”
She pressed her face into my chest, and all the humor faded as her body trembled again. “Hurts,” she whispered.
My arms tightened instinctively. “Where, sweetheart?”
She pointed, barely lifting her hand. “A strain, I think. Left side.”
Relief and fury warred inside me—relief that she was still breathing, and fury because this was no accident. Those heavy footprints were scattered around the edge of the slide. Whoever the bastard was, he’d left her there.
She tried to push herself up but wobbled. I caught her before she could tip.
“Easy. Just sit for a minute.” I guided her onto a flat rock.
Her breath came slow, eyes drifting to the litter scattered across the ground.
“Stay here.” I crossed over, gathered what I could of her ruined lunch, and shoved it into my pocket.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’d have felt bad leaving it.”
“So would I.” My tone was calm, though my insides still trembled. “Let’s get you back to your motel and get you cleaned up. Then let me take a look at that side. You trust me?”
She gave a tiny, tired sigh. “You a physio or something?”
“Close enough.”
“Thought you were in media.”
“I’ll tell you everything, if you let me,” I said, helping her to her feet.
She winced as she tried to straighten. “Argh…shit!”
“Come on. Arm around me, bad side against me,” I said quietly, stepping in before she could shut me out. “Call it a small apology.”
“Fine,” she said, leaning in.
I slid an arm around her hips, guiding her so her injured side rested against me. She moved without hesitation, but I kept close, just in case.
Her face tucked into the space beneath my jaw, and I kept us moving toward the truck, slow and even.
Whatever this thing between us was, or whatever it wasn’t, I’d seen what fear looked like on her face, and I’d do everything in my power to never let her wear it again.