She stands too. We're three feet apart across the corner of the table and I'm suddenly very aware that the lodge feels smaller than it did five minutes ago. The firelight catches the strawberryin her hair and turns it copper. Her freckles are darker after a day in mountain sun.
"I've been trapped in worse," she says. "A cyclone shelter in Bangladesh with forty strangers and no water for nine hours. A landslide zone in Nepal where we couldn't move for two days. An ice storm in the Rockies that knocked out my vehicle and I walked six miles to the nearest road." She takes a step closer. "I don't scare easily, Cory. And I don't run from weather."
Something about the way she saysrunsnags. A tiny catch in her voice, barely perceptible, like the word has a second meaning she didn't intend to reveal.
"Then you stay," I say. "My rules. My schedule. You follow instructions without argument."
"Absolutely." That mouth twitches again. The ghost of a smile she won't let land. "When they're worth following."
I turn away from her before I do something I'll regret, like tell her that the way she looks in firelight is making it very hard to remember why having her on my mountain is a bad idea.
"Briefing at oh six hundred," I say on my way out. "Don't be late."
The cold air outside slaps the heat out of my face. I stand on the lodge porch for a full minute, breathing the mountain, letting it recalibrate me. The stars are still visible, but the western edge of the sky has gone black where the storm front is building. By tomorrow afternoon, everything above eight thousand feet is going to disappear under snow.
I walk to my cabin in the dark, navigating by memory and muscle. The trail from the lodge climbs steeply through the pines for a quarter mile before leveling out at my ridgeline. My cabin sits at 9,800 feet, the highest structure on the property, positioned for maximum sight lines in every direction.
I built it the way I build everything. To withstand whatever comes.
Inside, I light the woodstove and sit at my desk. The radio crackles with NOAA updates confirming what I already know. The system is strengthening. Winds gusting to fifty at elevation. Visibility dropping to near zero during peak snowfall. Temperature plummeting into the single digits.
I pull up the Channel 16 thread on my phone. Cal's team has been monitoring from Tidehaven.
The latest message from Rhea:NOAA upgraded the advisory. Your girl's staying, I take it?
I type:She's not my girl. She's a journalist who doesn't know when to leave.
Cal responds:That's what they all say, brother. Battened down?
Always.
Another message from Rhea:She's good people, Cory. Steady under pressure. I wouldn't have sent her your way otherwise.
I stare at the screen. Rhea Alvarez doesn't vouch for people lightly. She ran intel for the Navy for twelve years and she reads people the way I read terrain, down to the fault lines.
I type back:Copy.Then I put the phone away.
Morning comes at oh four thirty because that's when morning comes for me. I don't set alarms. My body simply refuses to stay unconscious past the hour when every military day of my life began. I do my check: weather radio first. The storm timeline has held. Heavy snow beginning between thirteen and fourteen hundred hours. I have eight hours to get the Denver group moving and prepare the property for shutdown.
I dress, pack my day kit, and head down to the lodge. The sky is still dark but the air has changed. There's a pressure drop you can feel in your sinuses, and the wind has shifted tothe northwest, which means the front is closer than the models predicted.
The lodge is empty and dark. I start coffee and begin prepping. Storm shutters for the student cabins. Generator check. Fuel reserves. Water reserves. Food inventory.
By the time Tuck arrives at oh five thirty, I've already completed the exterior inspection.
"Denver group loaded and ready to roll by oh seven," he reports. "I'll caravan them down. Roads are clear right now."
"Get them off the mountain and then get yourself home. Don't try to come back up. The switchbacks will ice before the snow hits."
Tuck nods. Then he gives me a look I don't care for. "So it's just going to be you and the writer. Alone. On a mountain. During a blizzard."
"Your observation skills are exceptional."
"I'm just saying, if you need..."
"I need you to get eight civilians off my mountain safely. That's what I need."
He holds up both hands. "Yes, sir."
