Chapter 20
Before the Morning
JULIETTE
The lodge changed once the departure board appeared.
Twelve hours.
The winery tour had run long, stretching into late afternoon with tastings that turned into a five-course pairing.
Nick had driven the group back as the sun dropped toward the ridge, his hands steady on the wheel, his attention split between the road and something he wasn't saying.
We'd spent the day in the kind of proximity that felt like a rehearsal for a life neither of us had planned.
The ride back had been quiet. The other guests dozed or scrolled through photos. I watched the landscape blur past the window and tried to remember the last time I'd spent an entire day with someone without checking my phone.
Now evening settled over the lodge in the practical language of departure. Guests confirmed morning transfers. The bar restocked for a final round. Somewhere behind the kitchen, luggage carts rattled across the gravel.
"Ms. Wilder?" The lodge manager appeared at my elbow, tablet in hand. "Just confirming your seven o'clock pickup. Ranger Mercer will be at your suite at six forty-five. Do you need any assistance with your bags this evening?"
"I'll manage. Thank you."
She made a note, smiled, and moved on to the next name on her list.
Excellent. My final evening now had a timestamp and a shuttle confirmation, but still zero actionable intelligence on what came next.
Nick stood near the fire pit at the far end of the terrace, his back to the group.
Firelight moved across his shoulders while his attention stayed on the tree line, steady and methodical, the same scan I’d seen every evening for a week.
But tonight his shoulders sat higher, his weight tipped toward the dark beyond the terrace.
He'd checked my transfer time twice since we'd returned. Both times casually, both times unnecessary. The second time, he'd asked the manager directly, within earshot, as if confirming a security protocol instead of the exact hour my name came off his schedule.
I didn’t call him on it. The second confirmation had told me enough.
Dinner was a communal affair at the long table overlooking the valley. The chef had outdone himself with kudu shoulder braised in red wine, caramelized root vegetables, and a dark chocolate torte no one had room for but everyone finished.
Graham held court at the far end, clearly drafting the LinkedIn post that would follow this. "Transformative," he kept saying. "Absolutely transformative. You can't put a price on perspective like this."
His invoice would suggest otherwise.
Cufflink complained about the transfer logistics—something about the shuttle timing conflicting with his connecting flight.
Owen offered a meditation technique for managing airport anxiety that made me want to throw my fork at his head.
Naomi said very little, though her attention kept returning to the fire pit, where Nick stood just outside the lantern light.
Alina caught my eye across the table, her wine glass lifted in a subtle salute. "You look like a woman who's already on the plane," she said.
"Just running the numbers," I said, though the only number I was currently tracking was the cooling distance between me and the fire pit.
"Mm." Her smile was small and surgical. "I'm sure the numbers are very cooperative."
I didn't answer. At the edge of the terrace, Nick stepped away from the group, his hand going to his pocket. The glow of a phone screen lit his face for a moment before he turned his back to the table.
The conversation continued around me. Graham transitioned to a story about a corporate retreat in Patagonia, at Luc’s lodge. Of course. The high-end travel world wasn’t small. It was a velvet-roped cul-de-sac, and my future brother-in-law had built one of its preferred exits from civilization.
Cufflink ordered another Johnnie Walker Blue, because even his coping mechanisms came with brand recognition. Owen said something about "integrating the experience into daily practice" that made Alina's eyebrow twitch.
I watched Nick.
He stood with the phone pressed to his ear, his free hand braced against the wooden railing.
His posture had eased. One shoulder lowered.
His hand stayed braced on the railing, but the grip had changed.
He nodded at something the caller said. Laughed, once, low and quiet.
Then his voice dropped too low for the table, the cadence gentler than anything I’d heard from him all week.
My hand stopped halfway to my wine.
He spoke for another few minutes, too far away for me to catch the words, but not far enough to miss the shift in his voice. The low, clipped efficiency he used with the rangers was gone. His free hand flexed once against the railing before going still.
Then he ended the call and stood there, phone still in hand, staring at the dark.
When he finally turned back toward the terrace, his eyes found mine immediately, direct and unguarded for half a second. Then his jaw set, and Ranger Mercer returned.
He tucked the phone away and stepped back into the firelight.
Conversation kept moving around us, polished and oblivious.
Nick said nothing, but his jaw stayed tight after the phone disappeared.
When the evening finally loosened and chairs began scraping against the stone, Nick was already at the edge of the terrace, waiting.
The drive to my suite was silent.
Nick took the long route, the one that curved past the watering hole before climbing toward the ridge.
The headlights carved pale tunnels through the dark, illuminating dust motes and the occasional flash of eyes in the brush.
Neither of us spoke. The engine filled the jeep with a low, steady sound.
He parked at the deck and cut the engine. It ticked once, then the ridge swallowed the sound.
“You sounded different with her,” I said.
His hand stilled on the steering wheel. "She's my daughter."
"That wasn't an accusation."
"No." He turned his head, his profile sharp against the faint light from the suite. "But it was an observation."
"Yes."
The quiet stretched. An owl called somewhere in the trees—a low, repetitive note that echoed across the clearing.
"High school’s been rough," he said finally. "New school. New people. Her mother’s boyfriend moved in last month." He released the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat. "She doesn’t say much about it. Just calls more. Asks questions she already knows the answers to."
"She wants to hear your voice."
He looked out through the windshield. "She asked me where her old softball glove was."
"Did she need it?"
"No." His jaw shifted. "She quit two years ago."
The quiet settled hard between us.
"I still knew where it was."
"You don't have to make that sound smaller for me," I said.
He looked at me then, long enough that my fingers tightened around the door handle.
"I know."
Neither of us moved. The jeep ticked softly around us, cooling in the dark. Above the deck, one lamp burned inside my suite, turning the canvas warm against the black ridge.
Seven hours until pickup.
I stepped onto the deck first. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, one hand resting on the rail, giving me room to decide whether he followed. Then I turned back, and whatever question remained between us answered itself.
The suite was dark except for the single lamp I'd left on by the bed. Nick followed me inside and stopped at the edge of the open panel, his shoulders cutting into the lamplight while his attention moved over the ridge. I poured two glasses of whiskey from the decanter on the sideboard.
I handed him one. Our fingers brushed. Neither of us pulled away.
"Seven hours," I said.
"I know."
"And then what?"
He didn't answer immediately. He drank, set the glass down, and turned to face me. The lamp threw shadows across his face, sharpening the angles, deepening the lines around his eyes.
"I don't know," he said. "I've been asking myself that question all day."
"Any conclusions?"
"None that help." I looked away before he could read the one that did.
I set my glass beside his. The space between us had collapsed to inches, close enough to feel the heat radiating through his shirt, close enough to notice the dark scrape of stubble along his jaw.
"I'm not good at this," I said. "I run a company built on forecasts and measurable outcomes. This—" I gestured between us. "—doesn't fit any model I know how to build."
"No." His hand came up, fingers tracing the line of my jaw. "It doesn't."
"So what do we do?"
His thumb brushed my lower lip. "Right now? We stop talking about tomorrow."
He kissed me slowly, keeping one hand at my jaw. He didn't rush. He was as methodical with his mouth as he was with a topography map, and just as effective.
His mouth moved over mine slowly enough to undo me by degrees, and whatever I’d meant to say next vanished into the heat of him.
My hand closed in the fabric of his shirt as his fingers tightened at my waist, then slid to my hips, pulling me closer with a pressure that felt less like a demand than a question.
I answered by reaching for the buttons of his shirt.
We made it to the bed in stages, his shirt dropped beside the tied-back canvas and my clothes slipping to the floor at the foot of the mattress.
When he finally pressed me into the sheets, his weight settling over me, the muscle in his jaw ticked once.
His hand flexed against the mattress beside my shoulder before going still.
"Don't make this easy," he said, his voice rough against my ear.
"I wasn't planning to."
He laughed, low and surprised, and then his mouth found mine again. The room narrowed to lamplight, canvas shifting in the night air, his hand braced beside my head while the last of our restraint came apart without either of us naming it.
By the time the lamp burned low, the ridge had gone quiet around us. I lay with my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat slow. His hand moved over my shoulder in absent passes, the room quiet except for the canvas shifting in the night air.
"I'm going to remember this," he said quietly.
I lifted my head. "That sounds like a goodbye."
"It sounds like the truth."
His phone lit on the nightstand. His thumb moved toward the screen, then stopped as the radio cracked once beside it, brief and sharp enough to change the room.
The hand on my shoulder went still. His breathing changed first, flattening into something controlled. For one second, he didn’t move. His fingers pressed once against my skin, hard enough that I knew he was already leaving before he sat up.
“What is it?”
He was already reaching for his shirt. He didn’t look at me. He looked through the wall.
“Perimeter.”
The word was quiet. Final.
He pulled the shirt over his head, the lamplight catching only the hard line of his cheekbone. “Front panel. Side canvas. Lamp low.” His eyes held mine. “If someone comes up those steps and it isn’t me, you do not make yourself visible.”
“Nick—”
“I mean it, Juliette.” He crossed to the entrance, pausing with one hand on the frame.
The man who’d just been in my bed was gone.
The Ranger was back, and he didn't have room for anything else.
His hand came to my jaw, brief and hard, not quite a touch and not quite a goodbye. “This is what I do. Let me do it.”
The canvas flap fell behind him, too soft a sound for the way the room suddenly felt empty. The engine turned over thirty seconds later, then faded into the dark.
The departure board was still in the lobby, counting down my final hours. But for the first time in my life, I wasn't the one in control of the schedule.