by Nicole Helm
Chapter Five
Sam led Hayley out of his cabin and into the clearing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so damn off-kilter. He’d adjusted plenty of women’s packs before. Even women who had been openly flirting with him. Though the more he’d let himself look like a yeti as well as act like one, the less that happened.
But Hayley wasn’t one of those women. Hayley was Brandon and Will’s half sister.
Sam wanted to growl, but all he could do was walk across his yard to the little trail that would lead them through the high-altitude forest, across a few gullies, and then over to the rock outcropping that would give them a vast view of the valley Gracely was settled into.
It was a beautiful view. A beautiful hike. It was usually relaxing. Because he did this trail for fun or to clear his mind. He never did it with people.
“The hike to the overlook is two miles, and then we’ll hike the two miles back. The length of time will depend on your pace. The more you hike, the more you’ll get accustomed to figuring out what pace equals what time. Because you’ll be guiding people with different ability levels, the time is never going to be the same, but it’s important that you get a good grasp of time so you’re never caught out after dark.”
“You don’t do any night hikes? I would think that would be really pretty. On a clear night, the stars and moon. Gracely at night is so beautiful, I can only imagine what it’s like up here.”
“It’s awe-inspiring.” He could feel her surprise at his, perhaps, fanciful description of it, but why did she think he lived up here? Aside from enjoying his solitude, it was one of the most beautiful places in the world.
“We occasionally offer night hikes. Typically they’re not well attended, because we don’t have a lot of hikers who want to go for a night hike and not camp. I do overnight backpacking hikes when we have interested groups, and there are the occasional straight-up camping trips Brandon usually heads up.”
“Is there a rhyme or reason to how you guys split up the excursions?”
“It’s a mix of things. Personal preference and personal skill. Will tends to take the groups that are celebrating something, Brandon takes a lot of groups participating in team-building exercises.”
“And what do you take?”
“What do you care what I take? Shouldn’t you be more curious about what your brothers are doing?”
“They’re my half brothers who I don’t even know. Who I don’t even feel comfortable speaking to yet. I’m here with you. So, I’m curious what groups you lead.”
“I tend to take the more skilled people, the harder overnight excursions with people who don’t require a lot of instruction.”
“And yet you’re instructing me.”
“Because you won’t talk to the ones who are better at it.”
“Touché.”
Sam sighed. He didn’t want to spar with this woman. He didn’t want to talk. But he was here to instruct her, and if they could stay on topic, that would make everything better.
“Are you familiar with the flora and fauna at this elevation?” he asked.
“Not particularly.”
So, as they walked, he lectured on the trees and brush. He spewed every possible fact or bit of information he could think of. Anything to keep her from asking more questions that required him to reveal pieces of himself. Because Hayley Winthrop was not his problem.
They hiked in silence once he’d exhausted his lecturing, and though Hayley moved at a much slower pace than he did, she kept up better than he’d assumed she would. She’d need to get stronger, but her endurance—especially at the high altitude—was solid.
She didn’t chitchat, which he appreciated. It wasn’t an awkward silence either, not with the physical exertion. When he glanced at Hayley she was looking around, taking in her surroundings.
She seemed less like the shy, timid thing who’d stuttered in his cabin not that long ago, and he appreciated that as well. He didn’t know what on earth to do with fragile, especially the shy sort.
They reached the point where the trees thinned enough to begin to see the rock outcropping ahead of them. The sky was a vibrant blue now, and though the air was still cool, he would be peeling off his sweatshirt once they reached the top.
“We’ll have to climb a little bit, but it’s pretty easy. All the warnings about the various hikes are in the consent forms people have to sign, but it’s still a good idea to pay attention to your group. Sometimes people lie or overestimate their abilities, and while we’re not liable for any injuries, it’s not good business either.”
“So, what do you do when you notice someone who’s not up to it?”
He reached the series of boulders they would need to climb to get to the overlook. “I help them.” He took a step onto the first rock then held out a hand to her.
She frowned. “Was that an elaborate way of insinuating I’m overestimating my abilities if I think I can climb this on my own?”
It hadn’t been, but that was just about his conversational luck. “I’m sure you’re capable.” Which he meant, but it somehow came out sounding patronizing.
Her frown dug deeper, those hazel eyes of her flashing with something like temper. A temper she clearly wasn’t comfortable with because she didn’t direct it at him. She directed it at the rocks.
Which she climbed, if a little clumsily, clearly needing no help from him. He stayed to the side and behind her, just in case of a stumble, but it proved to be unnecessary as they reached the top.
She glanced down where they’d climbed, hands on her hips, as if she’d just vanquished some mythical dragon.
I’m still here, so not yet.
Sam shook that thought away and took the last few steps to the overlook. It was his favorite vista in this area. It showed off a little of everything if you knew where to look.
The most prominent visual was the valley, from a different angle than you could see from the Mile High offices. Instead of straight down into town and straight back up to the mountains on the other side, this gave a more vertical view. You could look down the road, see the way the shoved-together storefronts bracketed Main Street, the way the mountains on either side rose up like imposing armies of jagged, snowy peaks.
And beyond. In the forefront below was Solace Falls and the mirror-like lake it fed into. You could see the canoe shed Mile High kept at the rocky beach, and if you stood to the west of the overlook, you could make out the roof of the Mile High Adventures headquarters. If you moved all the way to the east of it, you could see the highway out of Gracely, and the shadowy ghosts of mountains far off.
The view encompassed almost all this area had to offer, and it never failed to soothe the anxieties that were nearly constantly worming around in his gut. The fears and the guilt. All that pain and darkness, assuaged by a view of a world that could be beautiful and harsh, vast and bright, mean and sweet.
Sam stood to the west side. He preferred to look at the lake or the way Main Street cut through the valley and the way its little road tributaries curved out, around, and up the mountains. He didn’t care to look back toward Denver and a life he’d left behind.
But Hayley didn’t stand in any one place or look at any one thing. She roamed from one end of the rock overlook to the other, those sharp, observant eyes of hers seeming to catch on every little detail, file it away, then move on to the next.
She absorbed, she paid attention, and when she finally stood still—it wasn’t too far from where he was standing, this favorite vantage point of his.
She stood where he’d stood too many times to count, and looked out on what he’d looked out on so often, and she breathed.
Slowly in, slowly out, a mesmerizing move because it wasn’t just breathing. Not that involuntary bodily function. It was the spiritual kind, done by only a few people he’d brought to places like this.
The few people were the ones who came back, the regulars, the ones who got it. The way she looked, and breathed, and felt, it a
ll meant he wasn’t getting rid of her anytime soon.
Damn it all to hell.
* * *
Hayley couldn’t explain the way her chest and lungs tightened painfully in her chest. She couldn’t explain how looking at a pretty landscape had brought tears to her eyes. None of her reaction to this beautiful view made any sense to her.
But she reacted nonetheless. Because seeing the valley spread out below, from way up here, seeing waterfalls and that big blue sky and just how vast it all was . . .
It welled up inside of her, like a wave, like she could drown in it. This feeling of . . . newness. Like all this fresh air could give her a fresh start. Like the sun shining down on Gracely was some sign of things to come, bright, warm, wonderful and beautiful things to come.
She inhaled deeply again. Every breath seemed to infuse her with this lightness, and a belief this really could be a starting point. This could be the change she’d been trying so desperately and failing to enact in her adult life. Hell, in her whole life.
She’d wanted something different. Something that felt like belonging and strength, and though she didn’t have those things—this view did. In a world this big, she didn’t need to belong. Looking at the determined, imposing mountains, and then all the little buildings planted in their shadows, how could she not feel some sense of that strength?
“Everything seems so different up here,” she said, her voice more like a whisper. Because she was so awed, it seemed strange to speak, let alone to the dark presence next to her. But she had to.
“It is,” he said, so certainly. As if things were just different from this altitude, from this vantage point. As if he had all the confidence in the world that being up here could change things.
She glanced at him, this hairy, awkward force of a man nearly bursting with some kind of dark energy. She found she wasn’t nearly so much intimidated by it as she was curious. And curiosity had always been a part of her nervousness.
But she didn’t want nerves, and she wasn’t certain the odd jittering feeling along her skin was nerves per se. It was a different kind of nerves than she was used to. Because everything was different here? Or was it something else?
This could be the place where everything is new. Where you decide to change, and you do it. Where you become that strong woman you’ve always envied.
She swallowed and looked back at the beautiful landscape in front of her. The myriad of greens and blues and grays and browns. A land that had been here since the beginning of time; hundreds of years ago people had settled in the shadows of these mountains and found healing.
She wanted that. That was what she was searching for. A healing of all those emotional scars she kept hidden deep down inside of her. Hurts she never brought to light, and never spoke about.
“Do you believe in the legend?” she asked. When she’d first started working at the Gracely Café, Patty had spoken of it fervently, convinced it would save her business. Hayley had been taken in by the older woman’s belief that something so magical and mystical could be real. Her practical family never would have entertained such talk, which Hayley supposed was half of why she loved the legend. Half of why she wanted to believe in it.
But Patty’s confidence had waned as it became clearer and clearer she could not save Gracely Café. Hayley had held on to the belief something could change, until that very last day. Patty had closed the café, and the next morning it hadn’t opened, and Hayley no longer had a job.
It had been hard to believe in healing and magic after that, but here it was again. That need to believe rushing through her and into all those little spaces of hope inside her.
She didn’t expect Sam to believe in the legend, but she couldn’t help herself from asking anyway.
“I’ve lived here nearly five years now.”
He didn’t say anything else. There were a few minutes of silence before Hayley realized he wasn’t going to say anything else.
“Is that your way of saying no?” When she glanced at him over her shoulder again, his lips, which were very nearly hidden by the curly mass of beard, curved.
Something in Hayley’s stomach jittered. It felt like nerves, and yet she didn’t understand why his smile should make her nervous. Why it would make her heart beat unsteadily in her chest. Why she would want to memorize the alluring curve.
“Yes,” he replied simply.
“Not even a hint of a chance of the possibility that it’s true?”
His eyes traced the horizon, from east to west and then back again. When his harsh blue gaze landed on her, she had to swallow down the odd reaction in her body. A sort of tingling, my-foot-just-fell-asleep feeling.
“No, I don’t believe in magic. Do you?”
It was Hayley’s turn to look back out at the horizon, to trace the way the mountains rolled and grappled upward, reaching for the sky and the sun. “I didn’t think I did. This feels like magic here though.”
“That I can understand,” he said, his voice so soft she almost believed there could be some gentleness in the man. Almost.
“You can?”
“If there is magic, if there is a legend, and those are big ifs, but in that very big if of a possibility, it would have to stem from right here.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him, standing there telling her he didn’t believe in magic or legends, and yet that sounded like a little bit of belief. Or a little bit of possibility. At the very least, he understood what it was to stand here and be felled a little by the beauty of it all. And that very nearly made him seem human. Gentle and human.
She couldn’t decide if thinking these things, feeling these things about him would be beneficial or dangerous to learning this job, but she was glad she could find some humanity in him, instead of being intimidated or scared by him.
“Ready to head back?”
“Could we stay? Just for a few more minutes?” She needed a few more minutes to breathe this in, and then she thought maybe she could be brave. Maybe she could be strong. With this moment inside of her, maybe she could be everything she had always been scared to be.
Sam didn’t say anything, but he inclined his head in assent.
So, Hayley took a seat on the cool rock of the overlook. She crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knees. She took in the scene around her, above her, below her. She breathed deep, and she let it out. She tried to soak up the feeling, so she would always remember it.
“What do you feel when you look at it all?” It was a question she had never asked anyone before. What do you feel . . . ? So often she was afraid of what other people might feel, of how she might be expected to react to those feelings. Hers were so big, so powerful, so damn confusing, she was scared of anyone else’s.
But Sam was a curiosity, and a stranger, and she thought maybe she could practice with him. This stern, introverted, odd specimen of a man.
He was quiet for long enough that she thought he might not answer her. Or even acknowledge her question. But after awhile, he let out a gusty sigh. “I didn’t think you were going to be chatty.”
“I’m not usually.”
“Nor am I, so why don’t we keep it that way?”
“Because I’m trying to change. Because I’m trying to . . . grow. I don’t want to be the person I have been. Do you?” Was he satisfied with his hairy, burly self and his grumpy, off-putting attitude?
She looked over at him, expecting his gaze to be on the valley or the sky, but it was on her. Direct, blue, and a little intimidating. But she held that stare because in this space, she could be strong, and she could stand up to whatever the dark force inside of Sam was.
“No, but not all of us have a choice.” His voice was gruff and final, and almost before he’d even finished the sentence he started taking long strides back to the path. “Come on now. More crap to learn.”
Hayley stared after him, and then at the valley below her. Slowly, she got to her feet, and she smiled, because for the first time in her life, she thoug
ht she might actually have the upper hand.
Chapter Six
Sam had led Hayley back down the trail, offering no opportunities for talking about magic or the legend. Every time she had opened her mouth, he’d immediately started talking about hiking form and how to judge if a person needed to stop for water to avoid altitude sickness.
He’d been beyond irritated with himself. For getting caught up in her reaction to the view, in getting conned into magic talk. But most of all, for getting caught in a conversation about change. About not wanting to be the person he was.
He’d spent the rest of the day, a fitful night of sleep, and his entire morning routine unable to stop thinking about those words.
I don’t want to be the person I have been. Do you?
It was a question he’d been asked before. In their particularly irritating moments, Will and Brandon would occasionally poke. Would occasionally ask why or if he didn’t want more.
But it was a stupid question to linger on. An impossible one. Because it wasn’t possible. He couldn’t change what had happened, he couldn’t go back in time to fix it. Abby was dead. The end.
He dragged ass to Mile High Adventures the next day, feeling as though he had a hangover. Fuzzy headed, nauseated, and it was all that damn Hayley Winthrop’s fault. Which was, in turn, Brandon and Will’s fault.
They’d better stay out of his way today. Sam needed to talk to Lilly about getting Hayley her employment paperwork, and he had a full slate of excursions. He would throw himself into those, into pushing his body up rock walls, and down again.
Then, maybe he would find that old control. The ability to push it all down, beneath the surface, beneath everything. Why was that so damn hard lately?
He got out of his Jeep and walked stiffly into the headquarters of a business he had willingly entered into because he’d actually thought Will and Brandon were right. That realizing a dream they’d had before Abby’s death might make that soul-eating grief bearable. Livable.