Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Thankfully, Marigold is sitting prettily where I left her, and Jack slides her onto my back when we exit the restroom, working that jaw like his goal is to break a molar. Then he takes hold of my hand, and a humorless laugh tumbles from his chest.
“The first person in years whose touch doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my own skin, and she’s a magnet for trouble.” His head shakes before he turns, heading away from the campsites. “Let’s go set up camp.”
I blink at him. “Can we circle back to that first part?”
Jack is on a mission, though, his long legs pounding up the hill. “Not here.”
I’m quite impressed with the level of cool I’m faking right now.
Sirens are blaring in my head, urging me to wrap this man in my arms until he confesses why he can’t stand anyone’s touch.
The little fact that my touch is the first to garner a different response—it’s threatening spontaneous combustion.
Just consider me a lovely charred sacrifice to the canyon.
Instead, I’m a cool cucumber. I mean, look at me, not so much as a girly squeak escaping. Maybe it’s because I’m also having to focus on not passing out as I struggle to keep up with Jack.
“Okay, can we slow down a smidge, though?” I pant, wiping hair out of my face with the hand not clasped in his.
“Sorry.” He slows down so that I’m no longer running. “I wanna get higher and make sure no one’s following before we head off trail.” He positions me behind a tree, and then we wait, watching.
Questions are stacking up in my mind, and the web of what’s currently unfolding is only adding to the pile.
But just like on the five-mile incline to Cottonwood Campground, Jack insists we hold off on discussing anything until we’re off the main trail, as the narrow passageways often carry secrets farther than intended.
The canyon doesn’t care if a conversation wasn’t meant to be shared—it’s only too willing to dispense echoes of secrets for miles.
Just when I’ve finally caught my breath, Jack declares we haven’t been followed and can leave the path.
The thing is, I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon the path that’s been one of my only sources of comfort over the past two days.
Through all the struggles, the heat, the scratches, the danger—all of it felt like little bumps in the road.
But now we’re choosing to forgo the security of an only slightly bumpy road, actively ignoring my mantra of just one foot in front of the other, stay on the path, keep going.
It’s another challenge from the canyon, demanding to know if I belong here, whether I’m strong enough and brave enough to make it through unscathed.
Let’s be real, if it weren’t for Jack, I’d probably have bailed a long time ago.
I’d like to think I’d still be in this furnace, fighting for significance, but the tiny realist on my shoulder says there’s no way I wouldn’t have already tucked my tail between my legs and called for an airlift.
The fear that washed over me while Brandon had me pushed up against the wall would have been enough in itself—just thinking of it sends a shiver down my body.
I hate this feeling, and it’s exactly the kind of obstacle that has led me to retreat or abandon my ventures in the past. But there’s too much at stake now.
I force my shoulders to relax, reminding myself to be grateful for the afternoon sun and its promise of a reprieve from the heat. Shadows stretch their limbs as Jack and I walk on, stopping when we come to an alcove.
“I hope you know how to get back to that path because this feels very middle-of-nowhere to me.”
“We followed a small creek.” Jack nods toward the restless stream behind me as he sets his backpack down, then stands to help me with Marigold. “I’ve camped here before, and it’s easy enough to get back on the trail.”
I can tell he’s making an effort, evidenced by his slight smile, but I can still sense the tension in his eyes and a tightness in his shoulders. My wandering off and that interaction with Brandon must have triggered him.
But before I can coax this bear to show me his paw, I sense we both need to debrief and wrap our heads around everything we know so far about this dang artifact and who might be involved.
“It’s early, but I’d like to get dinner out of the way before it gets too dark. You okay with that?” His brows lift in question before he kneels and begins pulling supplies out of his pack.
“Oh, I brought enough food for myself. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Let me see what you have,” he demands without looking up.
I narrow my eyes, enjoying this height advantage as I cross my arms and glare down at him.
He sighs. “Willow, would you please show me what you brought for dinner, so we can assess what we’re working with?”
“That’s better. But in my defense, I only planned to have two dinners out here, including the one at the canteen. So take those judgey pants off right now, sir.”
It’s his turn to narrow his gaze.
“Yes, I heard it,” I concede, rolling my eyes. “Let me rephrase: don’t put on any judgey pants.”
“You forgot the sir that time.”
“You need to earn it back.” I pat him on the shoulder and proceed to spread out my little tarp to lay out all of my remaining food. Turns out there isn’t as much left as I thought there was.
“I may have eaten my anxiety the past two days,” I admit, chewing on my lip as I inventory my meager offering, which consists of one beef stick, two protein bars, and a melted pack of peanut butter.
My throat begins to ache as another wave of shame floods me.
Think of something funny, Willow.
I can fix this, make light of my slip-up. I’m good at that.
Diversion is my speciality.
Come on, think!
Jack stands, eyebrows drawn together as his gaze bounces between me and the proof of my ineptitude on the ground. My foot begins tapping involuntarily, and I resume biting at my top lip—anything to avoid the quiver of the bottom one.
I force out a laugh, but it sounds gurgled and blubbery, failing to bring with it the quick-witted response that normally comes so naturally to me.
And I suspect the adrenaline dump from the interaction with Brandon is finally catching up with me.
“I would have starved,” I squeak out, because unfortunately, I’m not one of those girls who can cry and talk at the same time.
Not to mention, I’m still grinning like a maniac at the ridiculous leftovers that were supposed to sustain me for the next twenty-four hours.
But faking a smile helps me pretend there’s still a chance something witty and self-deprecating might spring to mind.
But everything I’ve been working to stuff down over the past two days is beginning to spew over, like the volatile splatters of a volcano before it erupts.
My shoulders shake, and my chin trembles, and then I’m ugly crying while still clinging to a smile. Jack panics as if someone has just shoved a live grenade into his hands, his eyebrows rising higher than the canyon walls.
“You wouldn’t have starved, Lo. Gone a little hungry, maybe, but you’re smart. You would’ve figured it out.” He inches closer like he’s approaching a feral animal.
“Nope.” I shake my head, sniffling and wiping the tears away. “Everyone was right. I’m not cut out for this. I’ve failed. Again.”
Jack lifts a hand to gently wipe away my tears, but I continue, feeling like a fraud.
“Do you know the one time I actually won something, it was just a lie? That stupid first-place trophy has mocked me and haunted me for years! I wasn’t even trying to win the stupid ski competition that my parents basically forced me to enter, only to survive it, and I accidentally won because I took a detour.
I was so terrified by the end of it that I never even put on a pair of skis again. How dumb is that?”
“Look at me.” Jack cups my shoulders, turning me to him before tipping my chin up, but I just stare at his chest.
“Nobody knows that I didn’t really finish first in that race. They were so happy, too, which is the real kicker.” I sniff again, scowling at the sky as I continue. “Why are there so many people here? And the helicopters!”
“There are a lot of helicopters,” he agrees calmly.
“A freakish number of helicopters! They’re so loud, and I needed quiet. If it weren’t for you, I’d have run out of here the second I got to that tunnel. I should just leave now so this canyon can gloat. Because I am a quitter.”
“You haven’t failed, and you don’t need to become someone else to learn something from this place.
You were thrown into a mess, Willow. Maybe you never believed that you could handle the hard stuff and the ugly parts, but you’re not a quitter.
Through every obstacle that’s come at you so far, you chose to carry on. You can finish this hike.”
“But what if I never learn who I am?” I bring my eyes up to his, my voice trembling. “And I come out of this the same, still quitting everything because it’s easier to give up before I fail?”
“You know who you are, and when you make it out of here, then you’ve already won. You’re stronger than you think.”
“You read that in a fortune cookie, didn’t you?” I sniffle loudly, and he gifts me one of his rare full smiles, the one that makes the gray in his eyes shine. Even in my current state, I can’t help but find him earth-shatteringly and heartachingly handsome.
“You’ve got this,” he reassures me.
I give him a watery smile. “I’m not known for my perseverance.”
“Perserverence isn’t about being good at something—it’s about refusing to walk away from what matters. It’s not your fault that your family has always failed to see what matters to you.”
My eyes fall to my feet. “I just want them to be proud of me.”
“That’s not something you can control, Lo. What you can control is making powerful decisions for your future, without fear of what anyone else will think. You have what it takes to push through when it’s hard. That’s all I’ve seen you do the past three days.”
Tears roll down my cheeks at the feeling of being understood and seen.
Jack’s hands slide up my sides, curling around my back.
He brings my head to his shoulder in a warm, comforting embrace.
But I must be dreaming, must be imagining this almost too-good-to-be-true man, like some spiritual guide who’ll disappear in a cloud of dust as soon as I complete my mission.
“That’s very good advice,” I croak, nuzzling against his chest as my eyes fall closed. “And this feels very nice.”
“Yeah,” he says as his chest rises with a long, slow inhale. “It does.”
This man.
I want to pry and beg for him to open up to me, but I can sense he’s still skittish. He’s quick to put up those walls, and if I push, they’ll be reinforced before I know it.
“Ready to ration the scraps you left yourself with?”
I gasp, stepping back to poke him in the ribs. “Too soon!”
He shocks me again by laughing, and then he takes a quick step forward, lifting me off my feet in another tight hug. I’m in a state of mental paralysis.
The laugh. The hug. The smiles.
So much touching.
Each time he makes physical contact, the significance of it snags me like a hook in the chest, embroidering letters of his name on my heart each time.
He lowers me back to the ground, that beautiful, dizzying smile still in place as he kneels and gets back to combining our food supplies.
“You can handle more than you think, Willow Sinclair,” he adds over his shoulder.
It’s him I can’t handle right now, especially not if he keeps smiling like that. Good luck to him if he thought there’d be any space between our sleeping bags tonight, because he just activated otter mode.
“This feels unfair now. I think it’s time you give me your last name.” I say, wiping my tears and snot on my bandana before shoving it into Marigold. He straightens, his dark hair catching the sun with threads of violet as he prowls closer.
“You tryna finagle a proposal out of me, Princess?”
“Wh—no!” I splutter. “You know what I mean. Tell me your last name. Obviously.”
“I think I like keeping you guessing.”
I bite my lip at his flirty tone. Now, this, I can work with.
“It’s something weird, isn’t it?” I say, faking a regretful smile. “You know you can change it. It’s only a few hundred dollars.”
Jack snorts. “Nice try,” he muses before walking back to our food stash.
After that, we plan out what we’ll eat for the next forty-eight hours, just in case things go awry again. Jack pulls out a small gas stove and puts water to boil. By the time he’s heated two meals of lasagna, the sun is dipping below the horizon in another boastful display of colors.
We eat in silence as all of the encouraging things he said earlier linger in my mind. Do I dare let his words hang around long enough to overgrow the weeds I’ve heard too many times from my family: You always bail when it gets hard.
Well, I’m not quitting this time.
This time I’ve got something worth fighting for.