Chapter 9 #2
I scramble to cover my fluster. I’m poised, cool, and calm, not a babbling woman with a schoolgirl crush. “So, what, you want my medical records? Blood type?”
Nothing. He just writes another note. My stomach knots. God, why am I like this?
“Have you been hiking before?”
“You could try not insulting me.”
“I wasn’t—” He sighs.
“I told you I spent summers here. My grandpa used to take me hiking all the time,” I say. “He’d show me the plants, and we’d argue over what the best chocolate was for s’mores. He was a Hershey’s man. I was team Dove chocolate.”
He doesn’t say anything, and the silence grows long like the space between lightning and thunder.
“Okay. Can you tie a bear bag knot?”
“Give me a cherry stem and see what I can tie.”
“Can you be serious?” He frowns.
“Can you have fun?”
He doesn’t laugh. Just shoots me that signature glare, and it’s sharp enough to make me straighten up. “Answer the question.”
Part of me wants to see what he’d do if I didn’t listen.
“No,” I sigh. “That’s a no.”
“Fire-starting?”
“Not recently.”
“Water filtration?”
“Sucking hard through a LifeStraw is pretty self-explanatory.”
“Can you pitch a tent?”
“Yes. But it might lean.” He makes a note. The pack’s weight drags at my shoulders, pressing into my hips, but I keep my face still.
If I stop talking, I’ll start limping, and I can’t let him see that. Pain is a weakness that someone else could use to take your part. I learned early to bleed in silence.
Right now, my blister is screaming bloody murder inside my boots. I should figure out how to get a pair like Alec’s Salomon-looking ones, but with my negative checking account balance, I don’t stand a chance of getting new shoes.
Just breathe, step, hip pop, breathe, step…survive.
“What about kayaking?” he asks.
“I’ve only gone out on Misthaven Lake. Grandpa never let us take the kayaks out on the river because the current didn’t care how good of a swimmer you were. Lake water was safe enough. He’d pack sandwiches, and we’d just drift for hours.”
“He was right about the current. And drifting, that’s where you learn the water. He had the right instincts.”
“It’s cool that you knew him,” I say, my voice softer now.
“Yeah. We talked a few times, and he taught me some things about glacial travel. Didn’t talk much about himself, though. Just about his wife, daughter, and you.”
“Sounds like him.”
Wind rustles the trees above, shaking leaves loose around us.
“I’ll teach you how to kayak. I guided whitewater rapids on the Russian River at seventeen.” What hasn’t this man done? “Are you CPR certified?”
“Not since I was a teen.”
“I can retrain you.” He nods, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I’m an instructor.”
The way he says it shouldn’t short out my brain. But I’m picturing his mouth covering mine. Not to save me from drowning, but to keep me under until I forget my own name.
I look away first, scanning the tree line like it holds the answers. Is he really this oblivious? Or does he know exactly what he’s doing?
The conversation feels different now. Less like an inventory of my skills and more like something else. Something that edges toward personal.
“Maybe we should just go to the CPR training event next weekend.”
“Why would we go to an event when I could just train you myself?”
I reach for a lie. “So we can size up the competition.” My smile feels flimsy, and from the way he’s staring back at me, it looks flimsy too.
“Fine, but only if it doesn’t interfere with our training schedule,” Alec says, tucking his notebook back into his pocket. “Also, you’re favoring your right leg.”
“I’m not.” I am.
“You need to walk with your hips forward. Don’t let your knee turn out.”
My cheeks flush hot. I don’t tell him he reminds me of my ballet teachers—unapologetically blunt, obsessive about form and discipline. The kind of people who expect excellence.
The last thing I expected to keep after my ballet career ended was a degradation kink.
His sigh shouldn’t sting, but it does.
“I know. I’m fine,” I tell him, keeping my voice light even though it costs me.
“If you were, you wouldn’t be favoring your right leg.”
It’s bossy. Infuriating. And unfairly hot. My first instinct is to snap back, but the last thing I want is for him to think he needs to slow down for me.
“Your people skills are lacking today.”
“I’ll work on it if you work on your stride.”
Stay focused, Clementine. Eye on the twenty thousand dollars.
“Okay.”
He turns, and I follow.
“I’m going to put together some mood boards for the lodge and try to figure out what kind of vibe we’re going for. I was thinking about the upstairs hallway,” I say, forcing my voice steady between breaths. “It’s dark. A mirror could pull light from the stairwell.”
Nothing.
“Or paint,” I push on. “Something warm, earthy. And those ceiling fans in the common room? They hum like angry bees—”
“Clem.” My name lands with enough weight to still me mid-step. He moves in front of me, big enough to cut off the sun. “Stay behind me.”
That’s when I see it. A massive, honey-colored grizzly bear with its beady eyes locked on us. I immediately step backward, boot slick against a tuft of moss.
Alec doesn’t hesitate. With bear spray in one hand, his other arm slides back, finding my hip and pulling me in. His body is a wall of heat and muscle, but he doesn’t waver, even when a predator is sizing us up.
The bear grunts, taking one slow step forward.
“We gotta be loud,” Alec says before roaring out, “Hey bear!”
“Heyyy bear,” I mimic with a tremble in my throat. His thumb sweeps along the side of my hand, steadying me, reminding me to breathe. My pulse isn’t listening.
Two cubs appear, tumbling out of the trees behind their mom. They stop and stare at us.
“Oh my goodness, they’re so cute.”
“They could kill us,” he cuts in, gaze never leaving the mother.
“Right.”
“Hey bear!” he yells again. We shout, retreating step by step until the bear exhales and vanishes back into the trees. The cubs follow.
Only then does Alec lower the spray. His hand leaves mine slowly, like he’s making sure my legs won’t give out before he lets go.
“You just put yourself between me and a bear,” I say, my voice lower than I expect.
“I wasn’t going to let it get near you.”
Unfortunately for me, I think my crush just became terminal.
No. I can’t be attracted to a man who speaks exclusively in monosyllables and doesn’t seem to be even an ounce interested in me.
I can’t. And yet, this feels like the moment before water turns to a boil, when everything’s still but just about to change.
“You thought it might?”
He finally turns around and gives me a once-over, like he’s checking to see if I still have all my limbs. His nostrils flare. “You can never predict what happens out in the wild, Clementine. We look out for each other.”
“Like camp buddies?”
“No. Not like camp buddies.”
“I never went to camp,” I offer quickly. “But they use the buddy system, right? Seems smart.”
“Let’s go,” he sighs.
We start moving again, and now my steps match his without effort. I tell myself it’s adrenaline from the animal encounter. But it’s not. It’s the fact that Alec Hastings just faced down a thousand-pound predator with me tucked against him like I was something worth protecting.
And that was very, very hot.