Chapter 14 #2
“Not breaking up,” I say. “Just… seeing other parks.”
Gladys makes a choking sound into her coffee.
Sam clutches his chest. “Ouch. And here I thought what we had was special.”
“What we have is you yelling at campers about fire safety,” I remind him.
“And you patching up my paperwork,” he counters. “Sounds like a partnership to me.”
He’s teasing since I helped him once. It’s light and harmless. A few weeks ago, it sort of made me flustered in a vaguely pleasant way. Now all it does is make me think of Boone.
Warmth flickers in my gut at the thought, and I have to look away for a second before it shows on my face.
“So,” Sam says, sauntering into the room with all the subtlety of a labradoodle, “deserting us for Wyoming?”
“Temporarily,” I say. Clearly he was eavesdropping in the next room. Rangers gossip more than Akai.
“Well,” he says, “guess I better soak up your presence while I can. You walking back to your station? I’ll escort you.”
Gladys snorts. “You mean you’ll walk the long way and pretend it’s work.”
“Morale patrol,” he says. “Very important.”
I stand, feeling a little off-balance but not offended. Sam is… Sam. He flirts with everyone. Or at least I think he does. I’m usually too absorbed in research to listen to most of the park gossip.
“Sure,” I say. “Walking back anyway.”
We head out together.
The sun is stronger now, burning off the last of the morning haze. Gravel crunches under our boots as we leave the ranger buildings and hit the narrower trail that leads toward my station.
“So, Wyoming,” Sam says. “Big mountains. Less oxygen. More tourists in expensive jackets.”
“Also more interesting variation in plant communities,” I say automatically.
He grins. “Of course that’s where your brain goes.”
“Where else would it go?”
He gives me a sideways look. “I can think of a few places.”
I snort and roll my eyes.
We fall into an easy rhythm. He tells me about an argument he had with a hiker who insisted the trail map was wrong (“Sir, the mountain has been here longer than you. I promise it knows what it’s doing”).
I tell him about a squirrel that stole half my granola bar yesterday and then chirped angrily at me when I dared to move.
He laughs at all the right places. I do too.
It’s nice. Familiar. Light.
But it’s not Boone.
We’re a little way into the forest, past the point where the main tourist trails diverge, when my boot finds a shallow dip hidden under leaves.
My ankle rolls.
I make a very dignified noise—something like “whuf”—and pitch sideways.
Sam grabs my arm before I can properly eat dirt.
“Whoa,” he says, tightening his grip. “Got you.”
His hand is warm around my forearm, his other steadying at my elbow. We’re suddenly much closer than I realized we were walking. I can see the exact crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the sun-bleached tips of his hair.
My cheeks heat.
Though not because of Sam.
Because there’s a sudden, sharp, unmistakable sound from somewhere to our right—a deep, resonant crack and a rumble that vibrates faintly through the ground.
It’s not thunder. The sky is clear.
It’s not a tree falling. The echo is wrong.
It’s a sound I’ve heard before. In the forest. In the dark. When someone very large is upset.
A jolt of adrenaline shoots through me.
Birds explode out of nearby branches, squawking indignantly. A squirrel darts up a trunk at warp speed. The hair on the back of my neck rises.
Sam’s head snaps toward the noise.
“What was that?” he says sharply.
“Probably just a tree shifting,” I say too quickly. “Or, uh, a rockfall. Or… something.”
Smooth, Elias. Very smooth.
Sam narrows his eyes, scanning the trees. “Sounded like an animal,” he says.
“Could be,” I say. “Elk. Bear. Moose with a sinus problem.”
He doesn’t look convinced. My skin prickles. Somewhere out there, I know Boone is listening. Watching. Probably regretting whatever involuntary noise just escaped him.
Because let’s be honest: That was jealousy.
The realization makes my face even hotter.
I gently disentangle my arm from Sam’s grip, trying to make it seem casual, not panicked. “Thanks,” I say. “Gravity and I are having an ongoing disagreement. I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he asks.
“Positive. See? Upright. Functioning. Only mildly embarrassed.”
He grins. “It’s cute.”
I ignore that, because my brain is currently chanting, Boone, please stop making dramatic forest noises while I’m trying to lie to government employees.
The forest has gone quiet in that charged way it does after a disturbance, like everything is waiting to see what happens next.
Sam’s hand hovers near his radio. “If you want, we can circle around,” he says. “Make sure there’s not an injured—”
“No,” I cut in, perhaps a little too forcefully. “I mean, I appreciate it, but I’m okay. And I have work to do. You know how it is. Data waits for no one.”
He studies me for a long second, then sighs and lets it go. “Fine,” he says. “But keep your radio on. And if you hear that again and it sounds closer, do not investigate alone. Call us.”
“I won’t investigate,” I lie.
He gives me a look that says he knows exactly how likely that is.
We walk a little farther together, but I’m clearly jittery, and he has actual patrolling to do. At the junction where the trail veers toward my station, he slows.
“This is you, right?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Home sweet station.”
He tips his hat. “Guess I’ll see you before you vanish to your mysterious comparative forest.”
“Okay,” I say.
He hesitates for a breath, like he’s weighing saying something, then just smiles and turns back toward HQ.
I wait until he’s well out of sight. Then I pick up my pace. Then I run.
Branches whip at my sleeves; leaves crunch under my boots. My pack thumps against my back. I dodge roots and rocks more by instinct than attention, homing in on that almost tangible sense of presence ahead of me.
Nature Sense is not my gift. But I’ve spent enough time around Boone now that I swear my body has learned the contour of his being in the landscape. I can feel where he is, even when I can’t see him. It’s like my heart leans toward a particular patch of forest and says, There.
I round a bend and almost collide with him.
Boone steps out from behind a cedar at the exact wrong moment, and I barrel straight into what feels like a very solid, very furry wall.
“Oof,” I say eloquently, bouncing back a half step.
His hands—big, familiar, warm—come up automatically, catching my upper arms to steady me.
“Careful,” he says.
His voice is low, a little rough. His eyes are wide, scanning me quickly from head to toe as if expecting to find blood or missing limbs.
“You okay?” he asks. “Did they—did anything happen?”
The frantic concern on his face knocks the breath from my lungs. I grin. “Hi,” I say, breathing hard. “Missed you too.”
He blinks, thrown. “I heard…,” he begins, then stops, jaw tightening.
I know exactly what he heard. Or rather, what he made everyone hear. The memory of that deep, guttural sound rolls through me again, twined with the image of Sam’s hand on my arm.
“You were jealous,” I say.
His expression does something complicated, like I’ve just poked a sore spot and a ticklish one at the same time.
“I was not—” he starts.
“You totally were,” I singsong. I can’t help it. The giddiness bubbling up in me will not be contained. “Big forest roar, birds everywhere, rangers on alert. Classic ‘hey, that’s my human’ behavior.”
He scowls. On anyone else, it would be intimidating. On him, with his ears tinting slightly darker and his hands still on my arms, it just makes me want to climb him like a tree.
“Rangers should not be grabbing you like that,” he mutters. “He had his hand on you. You almost fell.”
“That’s kind of his job,” I point out. “Preventing face-planting. Also, gravity and I were arguing again.”
“He was enjoying it,” Boone says.
I simply look at him. “You could tell that from there?”
“I have very good senses,” he says. “And eyes.”
“You were watching,” I say.
“Of course I was watching,” he snaps, then softens instantly. “You were with humans. The flirt.”
I bite back a smile. “I like when you call him that instead of his name,” I say. “Very dignified of you.”
“I’m allowed to dislike him,” Boone says. “He stands too close.”
I’ve never been more charmed in my life.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Look at me.”
He hesitates, then lifts those molten-gold eyes to mine.
I step closer until my chest brushes his stomach. His grip on my arms tightens, then relaxes, then tightens again, like he can’t decide if he wants to pull me in or let me go for my own safety.
“You know you’re the only one who gets to… do all this, right?” I gesture vaguely between us. “The kissing. The lap-sitting. The ‘almost falling apart against a log’ thing.”
Heat sparks under his fur; I can feel it.
“You’re not helping my jealousy,” he mutters.
Good. He deserves to be just a little off-balance after making my heart race with that protective roar.
“Seriously,” I say, sobering. “Sam is… nice. A little flirty. A little like a golden retriever with a badge. But he’s not… you. He’s noise. You’re signal.”
His brow furrows. “That is the most biologist compliment I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m a man of my craft,” I say.