Cracking with the Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights 2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

OWEN

The dog hears her before I do.

Boone lifts his head from the porch boards, ears swiveling like satellite dishes, and that low rumble starts in his chest. The confused one. The one that says something is approaching that doesn't belong on this mountain, and he hasn't decided whether to bark or investigate.

Fair enough. Nothing belongs on this mountain except me, Boone, and the woodpile that needs splitting before the first hard frost.

Gravel crunches from the switchback. Footsteps.

Uneven ones, like whoever's walking doesn't know the terrain slopes left about thirty yards out from the porch.

Tourists sometimes wander up here in summer, following trails that don't exist on any map because they were made by elk.

But it's September now. The aspens are turning gold, the nights drop below freezing, and nobody hikes up a dead end road for fun this time of year.

Boone stands. His tail does one uncertain wag.

"Easy," I tell him.

Then she comes around the bend, and every assumption I just made turns useless.

She's carrying a pie.

A real one, covered in foil, held in front of her chest with both hands like she's presenting an offering to a god she doesn't believe in.

She's small. Five four, maybe. Brown skin that catches the late afternoon light like warm copper.

Dark hair pulled back, a few strands escaping around her face.

Wearing a quilted jacket that probably cost more at the outdoor store than my monthly grocery run, and boots.

City boots. Leather soled things with a low heel that have zero traction on loose rock.

As if to prove my point, her left foot slides on the gravel where the path meets my porch steps. She stumbles, catches herself on the railing with one hand while the pie tips dangerously in the other, and lets out a laugh.

Full and loud and completely unbothered by the fact that she almost face planted on a stranger's property.

Boone's tail starts wagging for real.

Traitor.

She steadies herself, pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, and looks up at me where I'm standing in the doorway with a splitting maul in one hand because I was headed to the woodpile when Boone's radar went off.

Her eyes are dark. Almost black. And they're studying me with a stare so sharp I grip the maul handle tighter.

"Hi," she says. Bright. Warm. A voice that sounds like it smiles even when the mouth isn't cooperating. "I'm Priya. I moved into the Kessler cabin down the south trail about a week ago."

The Kessler place. Three quarters of a mile below me through dense pine.

The old A frame with the leaky roof that Bob Kessler's kids couldn't sell for two years after he died.

Somebody finally bought it. I saw the moving truck from my ridge a few weeks back, watched it for about ten seconds, then went back to splitting wood.

"Didn't ask," I say.

Most people would flinch. She tilts her head and mentally files the information under a tab labeled exactly what I expected.

"No, you didn't." She climbs the porch steps. The right boot slips on the second one, but she keeps her balance this time. "I brought you a pie."

"I can see that."

"Apple. Brown butter crust. Cardamom in the filling because I'm physically incapable of making a pie without it." She holds it out. "Figured you could use something sweet since you're clearly allergic to it."

Boone is now sitting at her feet with his chin practically on her knee, looking up at her like she invented belly rubs. She glances down at him. Her whole face changes. Softens into something that makes my chest do a thing I'm going to ignore.

"Oh, hello." She crouches, one hand still balancing the pie, scratching behind his ears with the other. "You're gorgeous. What's your name?"

"Boone."

"Boone." She says it to the dog, not to me, like I'm just the translator. "Boone, you are the handsomest boy on this entire mountain, and I mean that as both a compliment to you and a dig at your owner."

A laugh almost gets out of me. Almost. It dies somewhere around my sternum, which is where laughter has been going to die for about three years now.

She stands, holds the pie out again. "Take it. I'm not gonna stand here and beg you to accept baked goods. My arms are tired and your porch steps tried to kill me twice."

The way she delivers it stands out to me. She doesn't angle for an invitation, mention the community potluck or even note how sad it is that I live alone.

Just a pie and a mouth that doesn't know when to quit.

My hand reaches out before my brain approves the transaction. The pie is warm through the foil. Heavy. Whatever's inside that crust smells like autumn distilled into a nine inch dish.

"Thanks," I manage. The word sounds rusty. Probably because I haven't used it in a while.

"You're welcome." She steps back. Doesn't peer past me into the cabin or manufacture a reason to stay. "The plate's my grandmother's, so I'm gonna need that back at some point. Whenever you come down the mountain."

Then she turns, walks down the porch steps, and starts back down the trail in those ridiculous boots. Boone whines at the top of the steps, watching her go. His tail droops like she's taking the sunlight with her.

She trips once more on the gravel switchback. That laugh again. Carrying back up through the trees like it has weight.

The cabin is quiet after she leaves. It's always quiet. That's the point. Quiet is what I came here for. Quiet doesn't ask questions. Quiet doesn't need anything from me. Quiet can't be destroyed by one careless mistake because quiet is already nothing.

Three years ago, a solo hiker named Danny Reeves walked onto the Kinnear Creek trail while I was the senior ranger on duty.

Bear activity reports had been landing on my desk for two weeks.

Grizzly sightings in the corridor, fresh scat near the trailhead, a half eaten elk carcass a hundred yards off the main path.

The data didn't meet the threshold for closure.

Every metric said keep it open, so I kept it open, signed the form, and went back to my morning coffee.

Danny was twenty six. Had a wife, a daughter who'd just learned to walk. Went in with a daypack and a granola bar. Came out on a medevac helicopter with his face torn open and claw marks from his shoulder to his hip.

The investigation cleared me. The review board said I followed every protocol.

The activity data was below closure threshold, and every ranger in the province would have made the same call.

None of that mattered when Danny's wife looked at me in the hospital corridor and didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

My decision didn't put that bear on the trail.

But I was the one who signed the form that kept the gate open.

And the question I can't stop asking is whether there was something in those reports I should have read differently.

Some pattern I missed that would have told me to close it one day sooner.

Early retirement. Pension. A cabin forty minutes from Crimson Hollow bought with cash from my savings.

Boone, who was Danny's dog before the mauling.

The family moved to an apartment in Vernon for the medical access.

No room for a mountain dog. Taking him was the least I could do.

The volunteer search and rescue crew lets me help when they need extra hands because carrying someone off a mountain is the only thing I'm still sure I can do without making it worse.

That's the deal. Stay up here. Don't get close to anything. Don't become responsible for anything that can get hurt.

The pie sits on my counter.

Boone sits beside it, staring at me.

"Don't start," I tell him.

He puts his chin on the counter next to the foil. His eyebrows do the thing where one goes up and the other goes down, and somehow a seventy pound mixed breed manages to look like a disappointed therapist.

Fine.

The foil comes off. The lattice crust is golden brown, perfectly braided in a pattern that took real skill. Steam curls up carrying something warm and spiced. Cinnamon, cardamom, and something else underneath that makes the inside of my mouth water before I've picked up a fork.

The first bite shuts my brain off.

The apples are tender but hold their shape. The spice builds, warming, layered in the back of the throat. And that crust. Brown butter gives it a richness that turns a regular pie into something I'm going to remember at three in the morning when I can't sleep. Which is every morning.

Three bites in, I'm standing at the counter eating directly from the dish.

Five bites in, Boone gets a piece without crust because I'm feeling generous.

By the time the plate is half empty, I'm thinking about her boots. How wrong they were for this terrain. How she climbed my steps anyway without hesitating. How she called me allergic to sweetness while handing me the best thing I've tasted since before the fire.

Her laugh when she tripped. Full of something. Freedom, maybe. Or the complete absence of shame about being imperfect.

It echoes in the cabin for two hours after she's gone.

The plate sits on my counter the rest of the evening. Clean. Washed by hand because it's her grandmother's and you don't put a grandmother's pie plate in a dishwasher. I don't have a dishwasher. But the principle stands.

Boone sleeps on his bed by the stove while I sit in the chair by the window with a book I'm not reading. Every few pages my eyes drift to the plate. White ceramic with a faded blue rim. A small chip on the edge that's been there long enough to smooth over.

She's gonna need that back, she said. Whenever you come down the mountain.

Tomorrow morning, I'm walking that plate down to the Kessler cabin. Because returning someone's property is basic decency. Because her grandmother's plate shouldn't sit in a stranger's cabinet. Because it's the right thing to do.

It's just a plate.