Epilogue
DANE
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
The March corporate group is the best one yet.
Four women from a tech company in San Jose who showed up in actual hiking boots, packed appropriate layers, listened to my trail briefings without interrupting, and didn't once mention CrossFit.
One of them asked intelligent questions about water filtration.
Another identified three bird species by call before I could.
Noelle organized the whole thing.
She built a website for Wilder Backcountry Outfitting in October using skills from her previous life that she says are "finally being used for good instead of billable evil.
" Client inquiries tripled within six weeks.
By December she'd restructured my booking system, created a liability waiver that would hold up in federal court, and negotiated a bulk discount on propane that saved me four hundred dollars a month.
"You were leaving money on the table," she told me over dinner the night she finished the website. "Literally everywhere. Your pricing was criminal."
"My pricing was fine."
"Your pricing was what a man who doesn't talk to people would charge because he doesn't know what his skills are worth." She'd pointed her fork at me. "You're worth more, Dane. The backcountry is worth more. Let me fix it."
So I let her fix it. Turns out a woman who built a federal whistleblower case against a four-hundred-million-dollar fraud operation can also build a hell of a small business.
The tech group hikes out on day three with sunburned noses, tired legs, and a combined tip that makes me cough. The quiet one, the birder, shakes my hand at the trailhead.
"Your wife's a genius, by the way. That intake form she designed? Best client experience I've had for any adventure company."
"She'll be happy to hear that."
"Is she your wife?"
"Not yet."
The ring has been in my pack for three weeks.
Small diamond, simple setting. Holly Pearce at Sweet Peaks helped me figure out the size by tracing one of Noelle's rings onto a napkin when Noelle wasn't looking.
Took the napkin to the jewelry store in Whisper Vale.
The woman behind the counter held it up, squinted, said "Noelle Sharpe?
" and when I nodded, she smiled. "About time. "
Small towns.
The drive back up the mountain takes forty minutes.
Spring is coming early this year, snowmelt running fast in the creeks, willows going green along the banks.
My truck smells like pine sap. Always has.
Now it also smells like the vanilla hand cream Noelle keeps in the glove box because Nevada air cracks her knuckles.
Eight months. She's been here eight months. The guest cabin sits empty now because she moved into mine in September after waking up there for the fifth morning in a row, walking across the hundred yards of grass to my porch, looking at me over coffee, saying "This is stupid."
"What's stupid?"
"Having two cabins when I sleep in yours every night."
So she moved in. Brought her two suitcases, her flash drive (now irrelevant since the FBI has all the evidence), three new pairs of hiking boots that actually fit, and a French press because my percolator "makes coffee that tastes like regret."
The flash drive story ended in November.
Agent Suarez called on the satellite phone, which Noelle answered because she'd taken over all communications by then.
Raymond Schultz pleaded guilty to twelve counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.
Her former firm's senior partners were indicted on separate charges.
The man who showed up at her apartment building at two in the morning was identified as a private security contractor employed by Schultz's legal team. He's cooperating with prosecutors.
Noelle hung up the satellite phone, sat on the porch, stared at the mountain for ten minutes without speaking. Then she looked at me.
"It's done."
"How do you feel?"
"Like I can stop checking the rearview mirror."
That night she slept without dreaming. No midnight starts, no rigid body against mine. Just her breathing, slow, deep, steady, with Hatchet braying from the paddock at something that was probably a rabbit.
The cabin looks different now. Her touch is everywhere.
Mugs organized by size. Spice rack alphabetized.
Bookshelf rearranged by genre instead of my system, which was "wherever they fit.
" Wildflowers in a jar on the kitchen windowsill she refreshes every week.
Legal pads stacked on the counter because the woman still thinks on paper.
She's on the porch when I pull up. Bare feet, my flannel, coffee mug in both hands. Hatchet is in the paddock watching her with his approval bray queued up.
But something is off.
Her posture is too straight. Not rigid, not the old Connecticut body armor she showed up with eight months ago. Just careful. Deliberate. She's holding something besides the coffee.
"Good group?" she asks as I climb out.
"Best one. The birder wants to come back in June."
"Told you the intake form would work."
"You told me a lot of things. Most of them were right."
The corner of her mouth lifts. But her eyes are looking everywhere but at me.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." She sets her coffee on the porch railing. Holds up the other thing in her hand.
White plastic stick. Small window. Two pink lines.
The mountain goes quiet. Hatchet stops chewing. The creek behind the property stops running. My heart does something it's never done before, which is try to leave my body through my throat.
"Seven weeks." Her voice is steady. Her chin is up. Those gray-green eyes are locked on mine, searching for the reaction that will tell her everything. "Doc Morrison confirmed this morning. Patty Cole was at the pharmacy when I bought the test. So the whole town probably knows by now."
My boots are on the porch steps. Then the porch. Then in front of her. My hands are on her face, thumbs on her cheekbones, tilting her head up.
"Say something," she whispers.
"Marry me."
Her eyes go wide. "That's not what I expected you to say first."
"The ring's been in my pack for three weeks. I was gonna do it at the ridge this weekend." My thumbs trace her jaw. My voice doesn't sound like mine. Rough. Cracked at the edges. "Marry me, Noelle."
"You're proposing because I'm pregnant?"
"I'm proposing because the ring's been burning a hole in my pack since February. You being pregnant just means I'm not waiting until Saturday."
Her laugh is wet. Surprised. The same raw, free sound she made the night she told me she loved me, the night I said it took me three days.
"Yes."
"Yeah?"
"Yes, you impossible man. Yes."
My mouth finds hers. Slow, deep, my hands in her hair, her fists in my henley, pulling me down. She tastes like coffee from the French press. When I pull back, her cheeks are wet. Mine might be too. Hard to tell. Don't care.
"Dane."
"Yeah."
"The ring. Can I see it?"
Right. The ring. In my pack. In the truck. Where I left it because I was going to do this on Saturday at the ridge with a sunset and a speech I'd been working on for a week.
"Hold on."
The walk to the truck takes ten seconds. The walk back takes five because I'm half running. She's laughing on the porch, wiping her eyes with my flannel sleeve.
The box is small. The diamond catches the afternoon light. She holds out her left hand. It's steady. No shaking. Not anymore.
The ring fits.
"Holly got the size right," I say.
"Holly was in on this?"
"Holly, Patty Cole, the woman at the jewelry store, and probably Parker because nothing happens in this town without Parker knowing."
She stares at her hand. At the ring. At me.
"Eight months ago I got off a bus with two suitcases and a flash drive."
"And a smile that was costing you something."
Her eyes snap to mine. Wet. Bright. Real. "You noticed that?"
"First thing."
Hatchet brays from the paddock. The approval bray. Full, resonant, unmistakable.
"He approves," she says.
"He approved before I did. Took me three days. Took him thirty seconds."
She laughs. Pulls me down by the henley. Kisses me again on the porch of the cabin I built for one person, which now holds two. Soon three.
The satellite phone rings inside. Probably a booking. Probably a corporate group wanting to pay me money to yell at them about their footwear.
Noelle pulls back. "You should get that."
"It can wait."
"Dane. It could be a client."
"She reorganized my toolbox, built my website, fixed my pricing, alphabetized my spices, and she's carrying my kid." My forehead rests against hers. "The client can wait."
Her smile reaches her eyes. All the way. No controlled wattage. No calibration. Just her.
"Five a.m. tomorrow?" she asks.
"Four fifty-eight. Since you're an overachiever."
Hatchet brays again. Approval. Loud, certain, final.
And for the first time in thirty-six years, my cabin sounds like home.