2. Hunter
Two
Hunter
W atching Brooke slip and tumble down the mountainside… Christ, I’ve never felt panic like that grip my body. Never felt so helpless and horrified. Fear is a rough hand around my throat, squeezing my airway, and my limbs feel like lead as I sprint toward her, my bones jangled by the hard rock.
No.
Not Brooke.
Not my Brooke.
She lets out a pained yelp, bouncing off a small boulder, and I pump my arms to run even faster.
Working in Mountain Rescue for years has not prepared me for this. Sure, I have the skills and experience to deal with virtually any accident in the wilderness, but not when it’s her. Not when everything I care most about is at stake. Suddenly, all the procedures and proper steps have left my brain, and all that remains is my pulse thudding in my ears.
I’m a wild man, flinging myself up the mountainside toward her. I’d happily break her fall with my own body.
“Brooke!”
She stops tumbling quickly, thank god. Comes to a natural halt, lying in a pretty, rumpled heap on the stony ground. Her groans are muffled, but as I crash to my knees at her side, she’s cursing up a storm, and I hear each word with perfect clarity.
“Bitch ass motherfucking mother nature, I swear to god—”
“Brooke.”
Her long, brown hair is mussed, but her glasses are safe on her nose, miraculously unbroken. She huffs and sits up, squinting at me through the smudged lenses.
“Hunter?”
Okay, good. That’s good that she can sit up; good that she recognizes me. There are no spinal injuries, and no signs of confusion. In fact, as I scan every inch of her poor, battered body, Brooke barely looks hurt at all. Just two scraped up palms and an embarrassed flush on her cheeks.
“It’s me.” I touch her shoulder, swallowing hard when I feel her trembling. “I’m here. It’s alright.”
And I don’t know what I pictured for my grand reunion with my best friend’s little sister, for the girl I’ve pined after for years, but Brooke’s not having any of it.
She shrugs me off and scoffs, gathering her limbs like she’s getting ready to stand up. Her backpack hangs lopsided on her shoulders.
“I thought you were, like, eaten by wolves or something,” she says. She won’t even look at me, scowling at the distant treeline instead. “Why else would you disappear for years without speaking to anyone?”
Yeah. If she only knew why.
“Wait. Careful.” My hand reaches out again automatically as Brooke grunts and tips onto her knees, but I don’t touch her this time. I keep my distance, like I’ve been trying to do for so long.
Eaten by wolves. Ha.
If that were true, the last few years would have been much easier on me. And hey, the local wolves would’ve gotten a good meal too.
“Brooke, hang on a second—”
Too late. She rocks back onto her feet, getting ready to stand up, then sucks in a sharp breath and crashes to one hip instead.
“Ow! Oh, shoot. My ankle. Hunter, my ankle.”
“I’ve got you.”
This time, Brooke lets me touch her. Hell, she even stretches out her leg in my direction, blinking at me with those big, hazel eyes. They’re brimming with unshed tears, and the sight of her distress is a roundhouse kick to my chest.
For a split second, I’m thrown back in time to high school, when I spent most evenings hanging around Jake’s place after practice. Brooke was eight years younger than us and extra shy back then, but she liked being included. Liked playing video games in the basement and shooting basketball hoops out on the driveway.
Her big brother was always her idol, and I guess some of that hero worship rubbed off on me. Honestly, it made me feel a hundred feet tall. Jake used to grumble to me privately that his kid sister would never leave us the hell alone, but I never minded. Even back then, I liked having Brooke around.
Then, years later, when I moved back here from the city at twenty seven, I saw Brooke as an adult for the first time—and felt the earth split open beneath my feet. I was standing in the grocery store parking lot at the time, and I stood there like an asshole, dumbstruck, as my cart rolled away and bashed into a guardrail.
My best friend’s little sister. The girl who trailed us around and fell asleep on the bean bag chair as we played video games. That girl was now fully grown, curves pressing against her sweater as she loaded up her trunk, and god, I felt like a creep with how badly I wanted her.
No wonder I took to the woods, only seeing other people as part of my job with Mountain Rescue. No wonder I ran and hid.
Keeping my distance was the only way I could feel sane. And look, that instinct was right, because being this close to Brooke now, having her look at me like that, like she needs me desperately, is scooping out my insides.
“Is it broken?” Brooke sniffles as I squeeze her ankle gently, tilting the joint this way and that. Her foot moves easily, and there’s no yelp of pain. Just some swelling and a killer bruise climbing out of her sock.
“No. Just sprained.”
She lets out a shaky sigh of relief, then stiffens up and whips her head round like she’s just remembered where she is. Near the top of a mountain, with a freshly sprained ankle and no easy way down. Every hiker’s nightmare scenario.
“I’m guessing Mountain Rescue won’t scramble the chopper for a sprained ankle.” Brooke’s joking, keeping her tone light, but anxiety thrums beneath her words. All those years, we tried to coax her out for a day hike, telling her it would be fun, and now this happens. Poor girl.
“They won’t need to.” Placing her boot gently back on the ground, I brush my hands on my jeans before pushing to my feet. The landscape falls away in all directions: mountains and valleys, forests and lakes. The cool breeze tugs at my hair as I offer a hand.
Brooke looks doubtful, but she takes my hand without question. Something warm glows in my chest at that, like I’ve shaved off a piece of the sun and laid it inside my rib cage.
She still trusts me. After all this time.
“My cabin isn’t far from here.” Brooke lets me tug her to her feet, hopping to keep her weight off her bad ankle. I move quickly, wrapping one arm around her waist and pressing her into my side.
For balance.
Obviously.
And if her arm looping behind to grip my shoulder makes my insides quake with pleasure? If the scent of her hair makes my breath catch and my skin flush hot? Those are secondary effects that can’t be avoided.
“I’ll get you there, Brookeworm. I’ll take care of you, I promise. And after that, I’ll get you safely back to town. Scout’s honor.”
And I swear: I will keep my hands off my best friend’s little sister.
Even if being around her is the best I’ve felt in years.