Chapter 6
Mindfulness Is Not Working
JULIETTE
Nick brought me back to the ridge a little after two.
The jeep rolled to a stop beside the deck, the engine ticking as it cooled—a rhythmic, metallic contraction under the afternoon heat. Dust drifted across the track, lazy and gold, settling into the scrub like it had nowhere else to be.
Nick stepped out first.
His attention moved before his feet did.
He swept the ridge line again, the fence, and the tangled tree shadows between the suites.
There was nothing hurried about him, but there was nothing loose, either.
He operated like a man who expected the landscape to argue with him and had already planned his rebuttal.
Then he looked at me.
I opened my door before he reached the handle. The fabric pulled across the hard line of his shoulder as he leaned against the frame.
“Home in one piece,” he said. The sound skipped my ears entirely and landed somewhere behind my ribs.
I stepped down. The heat of the engine wafted up, but the heat coming off him made concentration briefly unrealistic.
“Dinner’s at seven. I’ll be back at six-fifty.”
Not a suggestion. A schedule. My corporate instincts twitched, but my attention snagged on the way his eyes lingered on my mouth for a fraction of a second too long.
“Is attendance mandatory, Mercer?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll file it as a strongly worded suggestion.”
The corner of his mouth moved. Barely. It was the kind of expression that made me wonder what it would take to turn that twitch into a full-blown smile.
Or a growl.
I turned toward the deck before I started analyzing the "why" behind my own sudden lack of oxygen.
The boards creaked under my boots as I crossed to the canvas entrance.
The panel shifted against the timber frame, a soft canvas scrape swallowed by the heavy afternoon air. Behind me, the jeep stayed put.
I didn't have to look back to know he was still there. The jeep engine stayed quiet behind me. No door slammed. No gravel moved.
Operational nuisance, I thought, while my pulse quietly betrayed me.
I moved through the canvas entrance into the cool dimness of the suite. The air held the clean weight of linen, warmed timber, and the faint resin of scrub beyond the deck. I set my notebook on the desk, but my feet carried me back to the open panel.
Nick remained beside the jeep, motionless. His gaze moved in slow circuits—ridge, fence, path. One hand rested lightly on the hood, fingers tapping once against the metal. Maybe it was habit, or perhaps a deep-seated need to keep the world in its place.
When the circuit ended, his gaze lifted.
We held eye contact through the opening. A single beat where the professional veneer slipped just enough to show the man underneath. He tipped his chin once—a silent acknowledgment—then climbed back in. Dust followed the vehicle into the trees until he was gone.
The quiet that followed wasn’t empty. It had opinions.
None of them helpful.
The canvas panels stood open, letting the valley’s breath push inside. It was sharp with crushed scrub and the scent of wild things. Far below, two antelope grazed on the slope. They were models of efficiency, heads down, constant motion, no wasted energy.
I watched them, my fingers tracing the edge of my notebook, until standing there felt less like thinking and more like stalling.
A reset, then.
The shower ran until the last of the grit was gone.
Hot water beat against my neck, dissolving the morning’s grit into the drain. The bush had a way of attaching itself to you—skin, hair, the very back of your throat. But the ranger proved harder to rinse away.
The memory of his body angling between mine and twelve thousand pounds of irritated elephant.
The solid line of his arm brushing mine every time he shifted.
The way he occupied space. Every shift of his weight, every quiet adjustment of his stance—it was control without a word spoken. I’ve spent my professional life observing men who shout to be heard.
Nick Mercer just stands still and the world listens.
There was a confusing, almost feral relief in that. For once, I wasn't the one who had to make sure the ceiling didn't collapse.
Steam rose past the privacy walls and thinned into the open air as I rinsed my hair slowly. When I finally stepped out, the interior had begun to cool as the day softened.
I wrapped a towel around my hair and pulled on a fitted tank and linen shorts. My phone connected to the lodge Wi-Fi after a brief negotiation with the router, and the Sister Chat thread exploded.
RAYANN: Did you pet the wildlife yet?
brYNN: Forget petting. Has she served the wildlife with a cease and desist?
RAYANN: Brynn.
SUMMER: Have you evaluated the financial viability of the wildlife?
I leaned back, watching the light turn honey-colored on the floor.
ME: None of you are helpful.
ANNIE: Send a picture of a Secretary Bird. I want to see if it’s more organized than Summer.
EMME: Please tell me you’re wearing bug spray. The kind that dissolves paint.
RAYANN: Did you meet the ranger?
ME: Yes.
brYNN: Is he hot?
ME: Why do you always ask if they're hot?
RAYANN: That means yes.
ME: He's a professional performing a specialized service in a high-risk environment.
brYNN: So he’s a god. Got it.
EMME: Is he armed? Does he look like he knows CPR?
ME: An elephant attempted to murder me earlier.
The screen scrolled so fast it blurred.
brYNN: EXPLAIN.
ME: Situation resolved. The ranger intervened.
RAYANN: So the hot ranger saved you from a killer elephant. This is literally a movie.
I set the phone face down and took a deep breath.
brYNN: I KNEW IT. DID YOU PUNCH IT?
EMME: JULIETTE. ARE YOU BLEEDING?
SUMMER: Is there a force majeure clause in your travel insurance?
ANNIE: Was it a bull or a matriarch? Context matters, Jules.
brYNN: Local hero saves ice queen from five-ton wrecking ball. I’ve seen this movie. There’s usually a waterfall scene.
EMME: Please don't go near any waterfalls.
ME: I am not an ice queen. I am a pragmatist.
brYNN: Same wardrobe, different throne.
ME: And there are no waterfalls. It’s a drought season.
ME: I am ending this conversation.
brYNN: Send a picture of the ranger. For "safety" auditing.
Pragmatist, I repeated to myself. A solid, professional word. With edges. It did not account for the inconvenient pull in my gut every time a stupidly attractive man with a British-ish accent I’d known for forty-eight hours stepped between me and danger.
The vanity mirror held my reflection in unforgiving detail.
My hair was still damp, my skin flushed from the heat and the adrenaline.
Back in Maris Key, I was a series of sharp lines and strategic silences.
Here, the dust blurred the edges of everything my sisters and I had built together over the past five years.
I reached for the only form of escape I trusted.
My book—The Crimson Crown, the newest fantasy epic and my only real vice—came off the nightstand. The spine cracked as I settled against the headboard.
The dragon did not burn the village.
It landed in the square, lowered its head, and bowed to the girl everyone else had come to hang.
Smart girl. Keep the dragon.
Time passed in the way it only does when you’re waiting for something—or someone. Outside, the valley was turning a deepening purple. The sun hadn't quite disappeared, but it was low enough that the shadows of the Tamboti trees looked like long, long shadows stretching toward the ridge.
My watch read 5:45 PM. The Ranger-in-Chief would return in an hour.
I was supposed to be practicing the “mindful breathing” Annie had highlighted in the retreat materials—some nonsense about centering the soul—but my lungs were still catching on the lingering mix of woodsmoke and sun-crisped leaves from the morning.
My sisters had sent me here to prevent what Summer described as a “total systems failure,” claiming my cortisol levels were high enough to power downtown Maris Key.
The goal was restoration.
Unfortunately, the only thing currently being restored was my pulse every time the man entered my line of sight.
The suite gave me just enough room to pace, the horizon visible through the open canvas while my mind replayed the morning.
I was supposed to be staring at the view until my brain shut off.
Instead my brain kept returning to the way his field pants fit his frame with an authority that probably violated several international treaties.
I’d packed my vibrator as a contingency plan for this forced relaxation experiment.
At this rate I might not need it.
Just the memory of the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing had my pulse doing things that were extremely unhelpful for mindfulness.
He was a difficult man to read, but the pattern was there—written in the way he held a door and the absolute lack of apology for the space he occupied.
I really need to stop wondering what’s under that uniform.
I dragged my attention back to the page.
The dragon had just torched the village square when the light in the room shifted. I reached for the lamp on the nightstand, my fingers finding the switch just as the canopy lights gave a weak flicker.
One. Two.
Then total darkness.
I sat frozen. The bush was never actually silent, but without the hum of the AC and the low vibration of the power lines, the ridge felt exposed.
The book lowered slowly. The quiet had condensed into something sharper. The switch beside the door did nothing.
I opened the door and stepped onto the deck. The boards creaked underfoot. The other bush suites were black silhouettes against a bruising purple sky. The line that had hummed all afternoon was dead. Generator issue.
Below the deck, the grass moved.
I stilled. It wasn't the wind. It was weight. Brush shifted near the stairs, a heavy, rhythmic sound. I remained where I was. Stillness had its advantages in the boardroom. Apparently on a ridge too.
A shape moved through the shadows below the railing. Too large for a rabbit, too quiet for a person. The scent reached me then, hot hide, damp fur, and a musky sharpness that didn’t belong to prey.
A twig snapped. Closer.
I straightened, realizing my phone was inside on the desk.
I backed through the open door, eyes locked on the railing until my fingers found the desk behind me.
The phone slid under my palm. One bar of signal.
I hit the contact for the Ranger Station.
Static filled the line, then a voice. “Ranger station.”
“This is Juliette Wilder,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “The ridge appears to have lost power.”
“We’re aware, ma’am. Maintenance is checking the line.”
Something scraped against the wooden stairs outside—a slow, heavy rasp of claws against timber.
“I’m also hearing movement outside the canvas,” I said.
The man’s voice sharpened. “What kind of movement?”
“Uncertain. Large.”
Another voice cut across the background. Lower. Gritty. A voice I’d know anywhere now.
“Which suite?”
A brief, muffled exchange followed, then the line crackled with a new kind of energy.
“Juliette.”
My hand tightened on the phone. “Nick?”
“Get the canvas openings closed and latched. Stay clear of the openings. I’m on my way.”
The line went dead.
My pulse kicked hard against my ribs.
I looked down at my linen shorts and the thin tank top. If he was coming to rescue me from a predator, I should have been barricading the entrance. Instead, I was staring at the doorway and realizing I wasn't wearing a bra.
I am about to die, and my last coherent thought is about nipple placement.