“The grump,” she said and immediately winced. “Sorry. Evelyn at the bookstore said you'd warn me about the trails and to take everything seriously and that you were —” she waved her pencil around “— um, particular about things.”
“And she called me a grump,” I said. Figured. Evelyn was always trying to get me to come to events that were happening in town. Truth was, I didn’t have the patience for small talk. I’d rather spend my free time in my workshop or fishing down at the creek with nothing but the wind and the trees as company. And maybe Biscuit if I didn’t disown the damn dog after this.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” Soleil offered with a smile. As her lips curled, her whole face lit up. “I mean, who could stay grumpy in a place like this?”
I stared at her for a long beat while I tried to summon the willpower to look away. There was something about the curvyblonde who talked to flowers like they were people that tugged at something buried deep inside my chest.
“You should get your bags out of the car,” I said. “I'll bring the supplies in. The bears are real.”
She got to her feet, brushing dirt off her jeans. She was shorter than I expected. The top of her head didn’t even reach my shoulder.
“Thank you… for the help… and the bear warning… and…sorry. I'm not usually this scattered, I just spent twenty hours on the road, and I saw a glacier lily, and I haven't drawn one from life in —”
“Soleil. The car.”
“Right.” She turned around and started emptying the front seat. First, a stack of notebooks, then a duffel.
I unloaded the kitchen supplies from my truck and watched her in my peripheral vision because I'd been raised to not stare at women and because I didn't trust whatever my face was doing. Or my hands. I'd already clocked her body twice. I wasn't going to do it again.
She talked the entire time. Not to me. To the dog, mostly. To herself sometimes. To the flower she'd been drawing when I pulled up, which she stopped beside on her way to the cabin door with an armload of duffels.
“I'll be back,” she told it.
I'd lived on this ridge for nine years. I'd rented these cabins for seven. I had never, not once, watched anyone say “I'll be back” to a wildflower.
Biscuit followed her into the cabin. He didn't even look at me on the way. Just went up the porch steps while I stood in the open doorway with a box of coffee filters and dish soap and a roll of paper towels and watched my dog disappear into the bedroom where she was dropping bags. He hopped up on the bed, turned in a circle, and lay down.
“You're done,” I told him. “We're done.”
Soleil came out of the bathroom holding a toothbrush. “Is he okay there? I don't mind. I love dogs.”
“He shouldn’t be on the bed.”
“Treyton.” She said my name like she'd been saying it for years. “He's fine. Look at him.”
He was, in fact, fine. He was extremely fine. He'd been a stray when I picked him up off the side of the highway outside Durango a few years ago and he'd never once beenextremely fineabout anything until thirty seconds ago when a curvy stranger with hazel eyes had scratched behind his ears.
I set the box on the counter. “Coffee filters are in here. There's a starter pack with sugar, salt, and the basics. You can pick up anything else you need in town. Mae at the Switchback Café does breakfast all day.”
“Mae at the Switchback. Got it.”
I kept going. The sooner I relayed all the information, the sooner I could get on with my day. “Trails on this side of the property are marked. Look for the wooden posts with green tops. There's a map inside the front door. Don't go up past the second ridge marker. The runoff's bad this year. You'll end up in the creek before you see it coming.”
“Okay.”
“If you see a moose, don't —”
“Don't run. Don't approach. Back away slowly and don't break eye contact.” She'd come out of the kitchen and was leaning on the doorframe watching me. The toothbrush was still in her hand. “I used to visit my grandparents in Vermont. I know about moose.”
“This isn't Vermont.”
“No,” she said. “It's much prettier here.”
I had to look away from her then. I didn't know why and I didn't want to try to figure it out. I set the paper towels next tothe coffee filters and went back to my truck for the last of the supplies.
When I came in, she was kneeling by the front wheel of the SUV again. The sketchbook was open on her thigh.
“Soleil.”
