Chapter 19 Logan
Nineteen
Logan
Within a minute of our post-coital bliss, Sierra hurries back to her room. No cuddling, no intimacy.
I feel rejected. Hurt.
I tell myself I knew that would happen, but my heart feels like a helium balloon that has just been popped.
Patience, I remind myself. Today’s just day one.
And the days do follow. I forgot how much I miss and enjoy sex. I was making it too serious, and I could see perhaps that was another reason that Charlotte and I didn’t work. Sierra makes it so fun and effortless with her playful teasing and wicked smiles.
Even with Seth as a roommate, we quickly find it easier to sneak around in my own home than it was when I lived with my parents. And we both take advantage of the easy access. She sneaks into my room each night, and we make love until the early morning.
But she never stays over, and it hurts every time she leaves.
After one particularly late, heavy night, we both fall asleep by accident.
When I wake up, her face is the first thing I see.
It’s jarring, like waking up from a particularly lucid nightmare.
After so much searching, giving up, grieving, finding out she was alive, accepting she was never mine to keep, only to open my eyes and…
Oh. There you are.
It takes my brain a moment to register that it isn’t just a dream. But once it does, I’m filled with euphoria. Peace. Now that I’ve experienced this, I never want to wake up to any other sight. I can’t let her go again.
I have to find a way, not just to get her to fall in love with me, but with Sagebrush and the life that we can have here together.
And thus, Operation Triple-S (Seduce Sierra to Stay) is born.
I spend the next hour developing Operation Triple-S, about what would make Sierra happy.
Even though it’s been years since we were together, I feel I know her so well, and I am going to use that to my advantage.
First part, the easy wins. Excitement, adventure.
Sex. I would show her how much fun I can provide her.
Then there are the deeper needs, which will be a little trickier and take longer to accomplish. But once I snare her with these, she’ll realize that Sagebrush is the best place for her, with me.
First, romantic love. My wooing will have to be subtle—not my strong suit—but I can make that happen.
Second, though she’d deny it, she needs a family connection. I remember how much she loved spending time with my mom, how envious she’d get of my sibling relationships growing up. I can persuade her to reconnect with my family to fulfill that need.
Third, community. She talks so much about how much she wishes she fit better with the climbing community, and I remember all the affection she used to have for Sagebrush and the people here before she ran away.
I know that’s what she’s been searching for, even if she doesn’t realize that.
It might take a little bullying, but once she sees that people don’t view her the way she fears they do, she’ll let her guard down with them again.
For the first part of Operation Triple-S, I go for an easy win. Adventure. And that leads to one of the best perks of being with me.
“Let’s go caving,” I tell her when she finally opens her eyes and blinks blearily at me.
Her eyes widen. “Oh, no, did I sleep over? Sorry about that.”
I don’t justify that with a response. My heart twinges when she immediately pulls away from me to stretch. I resist the urge to pull her back to me.
“Don’t we have to work today?” she yawns.
“You’re now an employee of Compass Mountain Tours. You should have the whole experience.” I grin. “Well, apart from being locked in overnight.”
“That’s the platinum employee-level experience,” she says solemnly. “Hopefully, someday the others can reach my level.”
“If they’re lucky,” I agree. “So what do you say? There are no deep caving tours scheduled today, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
“I get my own private tour?” she says with a teasing smile.
“Yep, I’m all yours.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“So do I.” Too much.
Sierra doesn’t have much in terms of a proper caving outfit, so I lend her some of my clothes.
“How do I look?” she asks with a silly grin when she reappears from her room.
She looks a little like a kid playing dress-up, the oversized cargo pants cuffed and baggy around her ankles, the seat of the pants ballooning around her hips.
She’s tucked the shirt into her waistband, cinched tight with her belt, but there are still thick pleats around her waist.
“You look…cute,” I decide.
She gives me a mock look of outrage. “Not stylish? I was hoping to start a new fashion trend.”
I click my tongue. “Maybe stick to what you know.”
She gasps and slaps my chest playfully, and I catch her hand in mine. I can’t help pulling her toward me for a long, lingering kiss.
“Don’t get distracted,” she murmurs against my lips. “You promised me a caving adventure.”
I drive us to Compass Mountain, where we stop briefly by the office to grab some helmets, headlamps, and gloves. Then we head to Blackstone Cave.
I unlock the gate and make a big show of zipping the keys into my pocket.
Sierra grins at me. “Not looking for another overnight stay, huh?”
“As much fun as it was, we’d be much more comfortable having a sleepover in my bed at home. In fact, let’s do that later.”
She laughs, not taking the bait.
I lead her past the Cathedral and into the side passage that leads down into the belly of the earth.
That familiar excitement rushes through me as the air around us cools and becomes humid, and the damp cave smell envelops us.
It feels like we’re stepping into a snow globe, nestled in a private, sheltered world of our own as a flurry of dust motes floats around us in the shine of the headlights.
She follows me closely, never hesitating.
I can see the admiration in her gaze for some of the stunts I pull, and I can feel it reflected in her.
As I hoped, Sierra takes to caving, crawling down steep, rocky slopes, ducking past knife-edged stalactites, shimmying up chimney routes, and belaying down a wall without hesitation.
Her laughter echoes faintly as she trips and slides in the thick mud that coats the way.
I do my best to keep my grin hidden as I gesture behind us, pitch-black except for the pinpoints of light from our headlamps. “We’re headed to the next section now, A Hug from Nonna. You’ll see in a second why it’s called that. No one will squeeze you tighter than Nonna, right?”
I lead the way, squeezing through the narrow passage in front of us before dropping down to crawl on my belly.
The cold mud sticks thickly to my clothing.
It feels like dipping myself in a huge vat of cold peanut butter.
I can’t help showing off as I squeeze through the narrowest part of a Hug from Nonna, where we usually don’t take visitors this deep in because it’s such a tight space.
The rock scrapes along my helmet and back as I wriggle into the tiny opening at the end.
“Watch your head!” I call back. “This section isn’t long, then we’ll be able to stand again in the next passage.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs as she crawls after me. “This is crazy. People rag on climbers for living dangerously, but this is so much worse! It’s like selecting your own grave and hopping straight into it. How are you not terrified of getting stuck?”
There’s a loud rip. “Oh no! I just gave myself that fate,” she moans. “Logan! Wait, my pants are stuck.”
I turn around and slither back to her. The oversized pants have torn all the way down the back of one thigh, with a loose strip of material knotted around a jutting rock. She giggles helplessly as I try to untangle her.
“There are easier ways to strip me and tie me up,” she says. “You didn’t have to go to these lengths, Logan.”
“But would that be nearly as fun?” I ask. “I doubt it.”
Eventually, I tear it free and tuck the loose end into the rip so she doesn’t get snagged again.
“Want to keep going?” I ask.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but hell yes. Lead the way.”
We reach the top of a section called Slip ’N’ Slide.
It’s a long, narrow, muddy chute that I dive headfirst into without hesitation.
Most customers chicken out and go feet-first, but to my delight, Sierra follows my lead.
She dives in after me, sliding down with a long scream until the chute gently bottoms out.
I help her up. Her whole front is caked in mud, and there’s a streak on her temple that I try, and fail, to wipe off, only smearing it around. She’s laughing, though, her eyes dancing with excitement. I knew she’d love it.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“What do I think? This is insane,” she says, panting. “How does anyone decide to explore a cave for the first time? You said you mapped this out yourself? You’re so brave!”
“Not by myself,” I say. “I hired professional cave cartographers to help me explore and map out the cave system.”
“And they’ve mapped the whole thing? No other hidden passageways?”
“Not that we could find.”
Sierra wipes mud off her jaw with the back of her arm and beams at me. Her smile is so blindingly beautiful to me that I have to look away.
“Um, so,” I say, trying to get my bearings. “This is usually the part of the tour where I educate people about rock formations.”
She gestures at me. “Go for it. This will be helpful for trivia night.”
I put on my best tour guide voice. “Now, who knows the difference between stalactites and stalagmites?”
“Stalactites grow down and stalagmites grow up?” Sierra guesses.
“Yep! And they continue to grow, sometimes until they merge and form a solid column. See, many people think of caves as dark, lifeless tombs,” I say, giving her a look.
She gives an innocent look back like, who me?
I laugh softly and continue. “But there’s a whole living world down here that humans rarely get to see. Water drips, air flows, creatures make their home in the dark. In a way, rock formations are alive too, transforming drip by drip, ever-changing over the course of millennia.”
“That’s a poetic way to look at it,” Sierra says, her lips curving up sweetly.
“Caves are poetry,” I agree. “My brothers and sister think I like spending all my time crawling around in cave muck—which who wouldn’t? It’s fun—but I also get the chance to see the earth through this rare lens. Humans have barely scratched the surface of what is possible in caves.”
“Not literally scratched the surface,” Sierra says. “It’s crazy what you said about the oils on our hands.”
“Yep, keep your gloves on. One touch from a human hand damages the rock formations forever, stopping them from ever growing again.” I hesitate, then add, a little self-consciously, “This is usually the part where I talk about how it’s a good metaphor for the damage humans can cause to the environment.
Careless mistakes, no matter how small or unintentional, can cause permanent stagnation. ”
Her expression is unreadable as she quips, “That’s true for not only the environment.
” She shakes her head. “This is awesome, Logan. It’s like a big underground playground.
” She wipes again at her pants, but it’s useless.
“I can’t see Emily doing this, but do your brothers really not come down here to roll around in the mud with you? ”
“Yeah, they come sometimes too.” I hesitate. “But they know this is my world.”
Her eyes soften as she absorbs how important this place is to me. She leans forward to kiss me, but our helmets clack together with a hollow thunk.
“Oof! Cockblocked by a helmet,” she says.
I snort. “Congrats, that’s probably the first time anyone has ever uttered that phrase.”
“Don’t be so sure. People are really into some kinky stuff.” Giggling, she tilts my head back and kisses me gently. Then she turns and examines the small passage. “I’m ready for more. What’s next? A cave-dwelling troll?”
“No, but there’s an ancient skeleton you can push down a well to summon orcs.”
“You’re so weird,” she says fondly.
“Seth would have gotten that joke,” I grumble. “He would have thought it was hilarious.”
“I have no doubt about that. Tell you what, I’ll remember it so I can tell him that one later. Get some roommate brownie points.”
I start to protest the blatant theft of my genius quip, but then I stop. Seth will not be happy once he realizes that we’re sleeping together. Any little bit to win him over to Sierra is a good thing.
“Sure, good idea,” I say instead. “This is actually as far as we can go safely. Let’s turn around and head back up.”
When we return to the top, Sierra puts her arms around me. I help her remove her helmet, then indulge in a slow, sweet kiss.
“Thank you for sharing your world with me,” she murmurs against my lips.
“You can come with me any time,” I say sincerely. “This can be your world too, baby.”
She doesn’t answer, but her eyes are bright.