Chapter Four #2
nervous energy. Her skin was milky pale, with only a smattering of freckles to suggest she was a natural redhead. She reminded
Mandy of some of her best students in the art studio: twitchy, obsessive, completely focused on their work.
The teenager was standing by a pack of mules roped together in a shuffling line, her gaze grazing across their bristly ears,
the dusty leather saddlebags on their backs. A few feet behind the animals, Thor was giving instructions to another man in
an identical Wild Adventures tank top.
“Which one is sexiest?” Imogen asked, her voice deadly serious.
“What?”
“Which one?”
Thor was lean and rangy—that desert wildcat vibe—with warm brown eyes and a wave of blond hair spilling over his shoulders.
The other man was barrel-shaped, bald, with a chest that seemed ready to tear his tank in two.
“Um, I don’t . . .”
“The mules,” Imogen clarified. “Which mule do you think is most attractive? I want to shoot one of them carrying our supplies
down to the river. I have to bank footage for when we get back to civilization, and charismatic mammals kill it in the Hitch
algorithm.”
“Oh. The mules.” Mandy hoped she wasn’t blushing.
She scanned the animals, then pointed. “This one.” Mandy grabbed a handful of dry grass and offered it to the long-lashed
beast. It had a shock of hair sticking straight up between its ears.
“Careful,” said Thor. “Sal likes to spit.”
Imogen took a big step back. “Are there any mules that don’t?”
“You’ll have to consult Marc on that,” Thor said, slapping the bigger man on the back. “He’s the transport guy on this crew. I got called up to raft guide, which means my mule-wrangling days are over. Marc’s head of the herd now.”
Imogen grabbed Marc’s massive forearm and steered him down the line with her, analyzing the assets of each animal.
“Congrats,” Mandy said to Thor. “Mule man to raft captain sounds like quite the promotion.”
“I’ll be president before you know it.” He grinned. “You ready for the rapids?”
“I was born ready. Not that I’ve ever done it before.”
“Open to adventure. Sweet. We could use a little more of that in this group.” Over by the pile of bags, a middle-aged man
was bent over a white duffel with PK, both of them trying to muscle it shut. “That one, Charlie Sauvage, the CFO, I think?
He told me he’d pay an extra grand if I could guarantee we’d get through every rapid without him taking a dip in the river.”
Charlie wrestled the duffel out of PK’s hands, shoved his foot inside, tried to zip it, got stuck, then toppled over.
“I may be easy, but I ain’t cheap,” Thor whispered. “I’m holding out for a better offer to dunk him.”
Was Thor flirting with her? At four in the morning?
“I just want to know if there are any troublemakers on the trip,” Mandy said. “Don’t want anyone cutting in on sister time.”
“You never know what surprises are in store,” Thor said. “Once there was a trio of accordionists who insisted on serenading
us every night. It was cool at first, then it was torture, and then it kind of became cool again.”
Mandy shot a look at the bags piled high. She prayed there were no polka instruments inside.
“There’s plenty of trouble down in the canyon,” Thor said. “But mostly not the human kind. The risks here are extreme weather,
falling rocks, folks not respecting the power of the natural world. Considering how many millions of people come here, there’s
almost no serious crime.”
“So if we were to rummage through these bags later and someone’s accordion went missing . . .”
Thor winked. “We’re in the clear.”
He looked east, toward the suggestion of sun peeking over the North Rim. “Life on the river is simple. But not smooth. There’s
always guests who make things challenging. Someone’s entitled kid who doesn’t want to be here. A couple on their way to breaking
up.” Thor smiled. “A garden-variety blowhard or two.”
“That makes you . . . happy?”
“The pay is lousy and the hours are worse. But big waves make the river worth running.” He reached out and scratched Sal behind
her ears. “People become their most essential selves on a rafting trip. It’s animalistic, you know? Getting to the heart of
who we really are. In the canyon, there’s no hiding. No lying about how you feel or what you’re up for. Law of the wild. It’s
all real.”
Thor looked hungry for it, eager. But his words sent a chill through Mandy. Real was for confession, not vacation, and ever
since their mom had died fifteen years ago, she and Liv had kept things on the surface. It wasn’t as if that day fundamentally
changed their relationship—they’d been on different paths since childhood. But before their mom died, they’d banged against
each other, affection and frustration crackling in the same hot pan. After, it was as if they’d discovered that love was breakable.
And what broke that day stayed broken. She and Liv started drifting, gliding by each other instead of bouncing off, two satellites
on different orbits, avoiding collision at all costs. There were no more shouting matches, but also no more bone-cracking
hugs. No more late nights arguing and laughing and shaking instant mashed potatoes into their mouths (okay, maybe only Mandy
had done that).
Mandy looked over the rim into the dark fissure below. Fifteen years. No matter how many trips they took, how many rickety
bridges they crossed, they’d never ventured back into that canyon of grief together. Was there a river of pain at its bottom?
Of love? It had always felt too risky to find out.