Chapter 24
Juniper
Healing was an exhausting business, apparently, and June was more tired than she realized.
After a few hours of working through Carson Wells’s journals, she found herself dozing off and decided to take a nap.
She intended to only rest on the sofa for a half hour then go back to reading. Two hours later, she awoke with a stiff neck,
gritty eyes and the realization that Beck would be there to pick her up in only a few hours.
After a few stretches and a large drink of the delicious water that came out of the faucet in the cabin, she made some sandwiches
for their hike, as she had promised Beck.
As she still had time before he was coming, she returned to the table and quickly lost herself in the journals again.
Carson seemed to be making more frequent entries. Where the first few had each contained about six months of entries, the
past few covered half that time.
She had reached up to a year past the publication of his first book and Carson still seemed to be struggling with his broken
heart. He was apparently trying to write through it, finding peace and solace through words.
Winter is settling in and I wonder if she feels it, too. Does she still think of me when the nights grow long or has the memory
of us turned cold, like everything else?
The doorbell’s sudden ring made her jump. She glanced at her watch and was stunned to see that while she had planned to read
for only an hour, she had become totally absorbed.
She wasn’t at all ready for an evening hike, especially not with Beckett, the man she had dreamed about while she napped.
She marked her place and hurried to the door. “Sorry. I was so busy reading, I lost track of time. I need a few minutes.”
“Take your time,” he said with a smile that left her feeling slightly breathless. “I don’t mind waiting.”
She was tempted to try wiggling out of going with him, but Hank pushed his way past Beckett in the doorway, tail wagging as
he pressed his nose into her hand. She sighed. She might be able to resist one of them, but she was helpless against both
of them together.
“Come in,” she said. “I only need to put on my shoes and grab some water and our dinner.”
“That’s fine.”
She quickly grabbed a jacket, her water bottle and the wrapped sandwiches and cut vegetables she had prepared for them.
“I’ve got a day pack,” Beck said. “I’m happy to carry whatever you need.”
Since she didn’t have one here, she would take him up on that.
“Sounds good.”
“How are the journals?” he asked.
“Fascinating,” she admitted as she tied the laces of her tennis shoes. “For being a brilliant writer, he’s so full of self-doubt
and confused angst. And he is dealing with a broken heart. He calls the woman only E. Very mysterious. He makes it clear their
love can never be, but he doesn’t really explain why. I get the impression she might have been married or something.”
“That doesn’t sound like Carson at all.”
“I don’t know. He really aches for her.”
“Intriguing.”
She stood up. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Do you have sunglasses and a hat? You might want them. The sun can be fierce at higher elevations. People don’t always expect
it, especially when the air is relatively cool.”
“I have sunglasses. But I’m afraid a hat wasn’t among the things Ali was kind enough to help me pack before we left Seattle,” she admitted. “I didn’t think of it and I guess she didn’t, either.”
“I brought an extra just in case, a new one I haven’t had the chance to shape to my head yet.”
“Thanks.”
He opened the door to his pickup for her then helped her up into the seat before letting the dog into the back seat, who settled
in and promptly fell asleep.
The scent of Beck surrounded her and she found herself back in his house, reliving that moment when she thought he wanted
to kiss her.
“How did you and Carson become friends?” she asked after he pulled away from the cabin and headed down the driveway toward
the road. “From reading the journals, he strikes me as a complicated man who didn’t make friends easily.”
“You’re right about that. He didn’t trust people very easily.”
“Why you?”
“I can’t answer that. I wasn’t in a good place when I came here. I was a mess, if you want the truth. Drunk most of the time
and angry the rest of the time. I didn’t want to be around myself. Not sure why anyone else would. That didn’t seem to matter
to Carson. He came around every day to check on me.”
“That’s taking being a good neighbor a little far,” she said.
“Definitely. But Ali had just graduated from high school and left for college and I think Carson was looking for a project.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your perspective—he found me.”
“You miss him,” she observed.
He gave a short laugh. “Every damn day.”
They fell into a companionable silence as he drove under the ranch arch and turned north. After only a few miles, he turned
off onto a dirt road.
“I thought we were hiking. How far do we have to drive?” she asked as the truck bumped through a couple of ruts.
“Not far. The trailhead is about a mile in.”
A short distance later, he pulled into a small clearing and she saw a Forest Service sign for Mary’s Lake.
He let the dog out and Hank immediately ran to a small creek near the trailhead and took a big drink while Beck loaded up
her sweatshirt, water bottle and their sandwiches into his day pack then handed her a red baseball cap.
It was obviously far too big for her head, but he made a couple of adjustments until it fit exactly right.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
He whistled for the dog, who came at once, and the three of them headed off through a trail that wound uphill among a meadow
dotted with wildflowers.
“After this first slight incline, it’s mostly level, I promise,” Beck assured her.
June nodded. It wasn’t a big grade, maybe only ten degrees, but it felt more daunting than any of the much bigger hills in
her neighborhood back in Seattle.
She felt the beginnings of panic fluttering through her. She shouldn’t be doing this. What if she collapsed here?
He seemed to guess her thoughts with uncanny accuracy. He grinned at her. “Don’t worry. If you have another cardiac event,
I am fully prepared to give you mouth-to-mouth.”
His teasing words did exactly what she knew he intended. They made her smile, which helped the panic recede a little.
“You can do this,” Beck said.
“How do you know what I can or can’t do?” she asked crossly.
“From everything Ali tells me she learned about you in Seattle, you don’t give up. Someone who ran track in college and was
considering training for a marathon is tough enough to handle anything.”
She would be fine. Dr. Singh had said she could return to regular activities as she felt able. He had also told her to trust her implanted defibrillator to handle another episode if she had one.
She let out a breath while Hank came up beside her, as if lending her his strength.
After a pause, she continued up the trail with Beck behind her and the dog still at her side.
She used to be able to run sprints all day and still have energy after track practice to run another three or four miles back
to her apartment. Would that ever come back?
“Let’s stop here for a minute,” Beck said when they reached an area of the trail that leveled off, as he had promised it would.
“I could use a drink.”
He spoke in a calm, steady voice that somehow made her want to cry. She knew he didn’t need a rest. He was taking things slow
because of her.
She ought to be mortified. Instead, she could only manage gratitude. He handed her water bottle over and gestured to a large
boulder. She leaned against it and sipped at her water bottle as birds flitted through the evening shadows and a squirrel
chittered from the treetops, drawing Hank’s immediate attention.
“It’s so peaceful here. I can see why you love it.”
“Like so many things in life, it’s worth a little climb.”
She nodded, breathing in the mountain air and the scent of sage and pine and wildflowers.
After a moment, she handed back her water bottle. “Okay. Let’s push on.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it? We’re not in any hurry. We can go as slowly as you want.”
“I should be okay.”
They walked through thick Douglas fir and aspen, the undergrowth overflowing with wildflowers.
He was right; it wasn’t a long hike. After perhaps fifteen minutes of walking, she started to catch glimpses of color through
the trees. Finally, they rounded a bend and she had to catch her breath.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “You were absolutely right. It’s stunning.”
Mary’s Lake wasn’t very large, perhaps a hundred yards across and twice that long, but the color was a brilliant blue, like
the mountain bluebirds she had seen in the trees around the cabin. Steep, jagged mountains rose up on three sides of it, enclosing
it in its own small valley.
“It was originally a glacier-fed lake and is now filled by the summer runoff and a couple of small springs coming out of the
mountains.”
“It’s beautiful. I’m glad I had the chance to see it.”
“Wait until sunset,” he said. “That shouldn’t be long now. Have a seat.”
He pointed to a fallen log, bark removed long ago by the elements, that formed a natural bench. She sat down on one end and
he took the other, handing over her water bottle again.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.
“Like I said, sunsets are really stunning here, but they come early because of the mountains. Once the sun goes down below
them, it can get dark pretty fast.”
“Will we be able to find our way back?”
“I brought along a couple of headlamps for us as well as flashlights. We’ll be fine.”
She trusted him, an astonishing realization for someone who didn’t let people into her life easily. Given her initial hostility
toward him, she wasn’t sure at what point the shift had happened. The truth was she hardly knew the man.
Somehow, she instinctively knew Beckett Hunter was the kind of man a woman could count on when she needed him.
He pulled out the sandwiches she had made them, chicken salad with dried cranberries and celery on whole grain bread. “When I first moved to Bridger Peak,” he said after taking his first bite, “I used to hike up here almost every day. This was one of the few places where I could find peace.”
His admission touched something deep inside her and she sensed it wasn’t something he shared with everyone.
“Tell me about your wife. How did you meet?”
“You don’t want to hear about that.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know. But you don’t have to talk about her if you find it too painful.”
He gazed out at the lake, rippling in the breeze. “We met through mutual friends and immediately connected. Soledad was so
passionate about her work. That’s what I admired first. She taught in an elementary school where many of the students live
below the poverty line. She used to come home brimming over with ideas about how she could meet their needs. She convinced
her administration to put a washing machine and dryer in her classroom so she could help students who might not be able to
wash their clothes at home. She always kept clean clothes in her room so they could change while they laundered theirs before
school.”
“She must have been lovely.”
“Inside and out. One of those people who was most happy when she was helping someone else. It wasn’t uncommon for her to be
up until two or three in the morning working on some project or other for her students.”
“She was expecting when she was killed, wasn’t she? That’s what the news report I read online said.”
He nodded, his features suddenly looking as granite as the mountain face.
“Yes. Four months along. She loved children and couldn’t wait until we started our own family. She had two miscarriages before
that pregnancy and we were both so thrilled she had made it to four months.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
He shook his head. “I’m glad you did. No one here knew Soledad so I rarely have the chance to talk about her. She deserves to be remembered.”
She had never considered herself a particularly demonstrative person, but she was compelled to reach out and touch his arm
in sympathy. He gazed down at her hand against his skin and she quickly pulled it away and folded her fingers around her water
bottle again.
“What about you?” Beckett asked. “You’ve never married? Have you come close? I thought Ali said something about you dating
the CEO of your company.”
“Adam? No. We dated a little in college, but quickly realized we worked better together as friends and coworkers. For all
his talk about balance, Adam doesn’t tend to carve out a lot of room in his life for personal relationships. Neither of us
are very good at that. We’re both classic workaholics, which isn’t a great combination.”
“Do you expect that might change for you now? Will you be able to go back to that high-powered life in Seattle?”
“Everything is changing,” she said, her voice low. She could hear the slight catch in her voice and wondered if he caught
it, too.
She swallowed. “Two weeks ago, I knew exactly who I was. Now I feel like a stranger in my own skin.”
“You’ll figure it out. Give yourself time.”
“I don’t expect romance will play much of a part in my future.”
She hadn’t meant to say that, but the words had somehow spilled out like the spring runoff that filled the lake.
“Why not?”
She heard the shock in his voice, but couldn’t meet his gaze. “I am thirty-four years old and I just found out I have a congenital
heart condition. I have a device in my chest that is keeping me alive. Who would ever want to sign up for that?”
She spoke the words in a remote, matter-of-fact tone, but even as she said them, she felt a hard jolt. Some deeply suppressed part of her longed for someone to love. How had she never realized that until now, when that possibility had been completely taken away from her?
She felt absurdly close to tears, sitting here on this fallen log overlooking a mountain lake. She set her sandwich aside,
not able to eat more than a few bites.
This time, Beck was the one who reached between them. He took her hand in his, wrapping his strong fingers around hers, and
she had no choice but to meet his gaze. The warmth and compassion in his expression nearly sent those tears spilling over.
She managed a shaky smile. “I’m sorry. That sounded terribly self-pitying, didn’t it?”
“It sounded real. The sad truth is I’m sure there might be certain guys who will never swipe right because you have a heart
condition. They’re assholes who probably wouldn’t interest you, anyway.”
To her surprise, she gave a ragged-sounding laugh. “You’re probably right.”
“You are a smart, beautiful, courageous woman, Juniper Connelly. Any man would be lucky to be a part of your life.”
She gazed at him, his sharp, handsome features beginning to blur in the fading light.
Awareness suddenly bloomed between them again, as bright and vibrant as the wildflowers carpeting the meadows around the mountain
lake.
She wanted to kiss him. Not only because of the sweetness of his words, but also because some part of her subconscious had
been thinking about it all day.
Without thinking through all the ramifications, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
It was a slow kiss, quiet and sweet, but she felt the heat of it seep through every pore.
He tasted of mint and cranberries and his mouth was as cool and refreshing as the mountain lake.
She knew this was a mistake, but it felt so good to be kissed, to feel that sparkle in her veins and feel completely alive.
Desire for him had been simmering at a low burn all day, and now it seemed to bubble over. She knew she shouldn’t give in,
that she should pull away, but she couldn’t do it. Too much had been taken from her. Couldn’t she have this, if only for a
moment?