Chapter 6 #2
“I’m fine.” The growl in his voice could’ve stripped paint. Strike one for playing it cool.
“Right.” She selected a bear claw, messenger bag sliding off her shoulder.
Noah reached automatically—mistake. Lightning shot up his spine. His grimace must’ve betrayed him because Meg snatched the bag back, her eyes narrowing. “You’re fine, huh?”
“Will be fine.” He forced his expression neutral, which probably looked constipated, frankly.
She studied him another beat, then headed for their window table where the canyon rim blazed in newborn light. Noah followed, each step calculated to avoid further humiliation.
He’d met Meg his first summer—two early risers claiming the lodge at dawn. Small talk had evolved into shared silence, which had somehow stretched into daily coffee. Black for him, cream and two sugars for her, with the pastry of the day.
They maintained careful boundaries. He’d disappear into backcountry work—clearing trails, mapping, or meeting with researchers to track animal migrations—she’d vanish into her clinic, and that was that.
They’d reconvene at sunrise. That first summer, grief had crushed everything else into background noise.
Meg never pushed, never probed the shadows under his eyes or the pale band around his finger where his wedding ring used to live.
She’d just existed, steady as sunrise, asking nothing.
Last season had reset like nothing had changed. He’d even considered crossing the line, asking her out properly. But grief clung like smoke, and loss lurked behind every possibility. Opening up meant risking the kind of pain that had gutted him when Mary died.
This year felt different somehow. Meg had stopped being just morning routine. She lingered in his thoughts, her laugh echoing when he hiked the trail, her smile flashing when he pored over the migration maps.
He couldn’t wait until morning coffee.
Her blue eyes scrutinized him now over her cup rim, not missing anything. “That’s it. You’re obviously in pain. My office. Now.”
“I’m fine.” Even he didn’t believe it this time.
“Course you are. Let’s go.”
She stood, striding toward the exit. Noah could’ve resisted, but Meg possessed the determination of a heat-seeking missile. Better to surrender with dignity intact. He dumped their trash, each movement broadcasting his condition to anyone watching, and followed her outside.
The canyon painted itself in dawn colors—rose and gold bleeding across ancient stone. He would have preferred to finish his coffee, enjoy the view.
“You, Liam, and Teague have gotten pretty tight.” Her tone stayed casual, but something underneath probed for information.
Noah shrugged, immediately regretting the motion. “Why the commentary?”
“No reason. Just noting the change. Your previous seasonal staff barely rated nods in the hallway. Suddenly you’re all ‘These are my bros’ with a couple of thrill seekers. What’s so special about them?”
Something in her voice tightened his chest. Interest?
Was she fishing about Liam? Or Teague? Her age remained a mystery—late twenties, early thirties maybe, considering medical school and two North Rim summers.
But she carried herself younger, with the sort of energy that said she lived on medical drama.
Maybe she was some prodigy who’d breezed through med school at twenty-two.
His grip strangled the ceramic mug he’d apparently stolen.
Great. He’d have to add “return stolen property” to his morning agenda.
Meg reached the clinic’s side entrance, holding the door wide. “This is the secret back way. We’re not officially open.”
Noah hesitated at the threshold. Medical facilities triggered memory landmines—sterile corridors and beeping monitors, the whiff of antiseptic and approaching death. But this was just a National Park clinic, walls papered with heatstroke warnings and rattlesnake advisories.
“Bag on the chair. Get on the table.” Meg flipped on lights, then pointed toward an examination bed before disappearing around a corner.
Noah eyed the table like it might bite. Too close to a gurney for comfort. “Really, Meg, it’s just a muscle strain. Nothing dramatic.”
She reappeared in a pristine white lab coat, drying her hands on a paper towel. “Or a herniated disc. Compression fracture. Pinched nerve—”
“Fine.” He surrendered to the table, which protested his weight with ominous creaks. He left his feet dangling off the side.
“Hold your legs up for me.”
He obeyed. She pressed down on both. “Pain?”
“Told you. I’m fine.”
“This goes faster with yes or no answers.”
“No.”
“Arms out, palms up.”
More pressure. “Numbness? Tingling?”
He shook his head, trusting her to interpret.
“Deep breath. Hold it. Any pain?”
Another negative as he exhaled.
“Shirt off.”
“What?” Shoot, he sounded thirteen.
“Your shirt, big guy. Lose it.” She put her hands on her hips. “I need to examine your spine.” She produced a black hair elastic. “And tie that mane back. I need to see your shoulders.”
“I don’t do man buns.”
“Man ponytail, then. Honestly, Samson, how long are you planning to grow it?”
“Haven’t thought about it.” The lie slipped pretty smoothly, given that he thought about it every time he spotted himself in a mirror—the shaggy mess that had replaced his normal cut.
Mary had been his last barber, fingers gentle through his hair, laughing at the cowlick in the back.
Back then, everything was simple. Easy. Now even haircuts felt like betrayal, another erasure of her memory.
Avoiding a haircut had started with grief.
Now it was about dodging stylist small talk—questions that led to conversations about his dead wife.
Meg pivoted to type on a nearby laptop, and Noah stripped off his shirt—not without having to stifle a groan—and secured his hair with the elastic. Air hit his bare torso, cool against heated skin.
“I’ll walk my fingers down your spine. Tell me if—” Meg’s words died as she turned back. Her eyes fixed on his chest, lingered, something almost…curious flickering across her face.
And that look just…well, it set off something inside him, something he didn’t want to acknowledge. “You said take it off,” he groused.
She blinked, nodded sharply, moved behind him. “Right. Let me know if this hurts.”
Frankly, everything hurt for so long now he didn’t know how to answer.
Her fingers settled at the base of his skull, working outward to his shoulders before tracing each vertebra with professional precision.
Noah’s breath hitched—not from discomfort, but from contact.
He’d endured plenty of medical exams, but this was Meg.
Meg, who’d invaded his thoughts without invitation.
Meg, who made him count hours between sunrise meetings.
Meg, who’d awakened things he’d buried with Mary.
And now, everything inside him was on fire.
“That hurt?”
Not yet. But it would. Because with her question, truth crashed over him like cold water. Loss struck without warning—Mary’s death had taught him that. Couples didn’t exit together, hand in hand, like that movie The Notebook that Mary had made him watch. Someone always ended up broken. Grieving.
“No.” He cleared his throat, forced his brain to recite Cubs statistics—batting averages, ERAs, anything to drown out the warmth of her touch tracking down his spine, vertebra by vertebra.
He couldn’t fall for her. Wouldn’t.
She stepped back, retrieving her laptop. “I’m ordering X-rays. Can you wait for the tech? It’ll be about an hour.”
An hour of quiet shut-eye sounded perfect—as long as she stopped touching him. Leaving sounded better. “Sure.”
She nodded, disappeared toward the front desk. Alone again. Preferred state.
He lay back and closed his eyes.
An hour later, X-rays confirmed what he already knew—structurally sound, temporarily sore. Felt a little like the state of his life.
But he’d discovered a bigger problem.
Meg had stopped being just morning coffee.
Attachment was dangerous territory. Nimue knew better. Yet her pencil kept tracing Liam’s features across the page—a fusion of the broken man from that Swiss newspaper and the ranger who’d interrogated her about those photos. Two versions of the same haunted soul.
She let herself study his intense eyes in the sketch. Three days ago, he’d yanked her back from the trail’s edge. The memory of his arms locking around her, his face draining white, his pulse hammering against her ear—it all crashed back with vivid clarity.
She couldn’t seem to escape him.
He’d shown up to run this morning with the same haunted expression. They hadn’t talked about it, just dropped into a regular rhythm. Then as soon as they were back, he returned to his truck and was gone. It shouldn’t matter. But it did.
She slammed her sketchbook shut, the sound sharp in the quiet of the bus. She pressed her palms against her eyes, fighting for focus. Keep him safe. Don’t get attached. Simple marching orders from Emberly.
Except Nimue wasn’t the superhero her sister was, never had been.
And she could still feel Liam’s hands on her arms, saving her from—
A knock rattled her camper door.
She’d been so deep in her head that she hadn’t heard an engine, footsteps, anything. Her gaze shot to the grab bag at the bus’s far end, hands beginning their familiar tremor.
Pull it together, girl. The Bratva didn’t knock.
She peered through the blinds.
Liam stood silhouetted against the fading light—dark hair tousled, ranger uniform replaced by faded jeans, and a gray tee that hugged his broad shoulders.
His hands stayed buried in his pockets, head down, looking less like the confident ranger she’d run with and more like someone carrying invisible weight.
Her hand reached for the door handle, then froze.
Letting him in meant risk—not just from Russian assassins, but also from what he was becoming to her. Connection. The thing she’d craved her whole life and couldn’t afford until Teresa was neutralized.