Page 14 of Saved By the Mountain Man Ranger

The cabin comes into view. His truck is parked out front. Smoke from the chimney. He's home.

My heart is pounding so hard my ribs ache.

The front door opens before I reach the porch. He stands in the doorway. Same thermals. Same boots. But his face is different. Raw. Like he's been standing at that window since I left, watching the road, waiting for something he didn't think he deserved to see.

"Eliza." My name in his mouth. Broken open.

"I'm not here because of the notes." The words come out clear, steady, the most important sentences I've ever spoken. "I'm not here because of Marcus Farrell or the book or the cabin that might still be standing in the drainage. I'm here because I'm in love with you, Weston McCall. I'm in love with a man who lives on a mountain, talks less than anyone I've ever met, and pushes away every person who gets close because a woman who didn't deserve him told him he was too cold to love."

His jaw works. His hands are fists at his sides.

"You're not cold. You're not remote. You're the most present person I've ever been in a room with. You just don't waste it on people who aren't paying attention." My voice cracks now. Tears on my cheeks. Don't care. "I'm paying attention. I've been paying attention since you knelt on a floor to warm my feet."

He moves. Off the porch. Down the steps. Across the gravel. His hands are on my face before I finish breathing, and his mouth is on mine with a desperation that tastes like three days of silence breaking at once.

"I'm sorry." Against my lips. "I'm sorry. I read those notes and I panicked because I didn't know how to believe you'd want to stay. Nobody stays."

"I'm staying."

"Eliza. I've never said this to anyone. Not like this." He pulls back. Those blue eyes are wet. Weston McCall, who doesn't waste words or motion or emotion, is crying in his gravel driveway with his hands on my face. "I love you. I loved you when you argued with me on that trail. I loved you when you spread your case files across my kitchen table. I loved you when you kissed me in my kitchen, and I've been sick since I let you drive away."

"Then don't let me drive away."

"I won't." His forehead drops to mine. "Stay. Here. With me. On this stupid mountain that nobody in their right mind would choose. Stay and chase your ghost. Stay and write your book. Stay and fight with me about the weather and steal my flannel and make me remember what it's like to not eat dinner alone."

"You had me at the soup, Weston."

He laughs. Actually laughs. A rough, surprised sound that shakes his whole chest. Then he lifts me, arms around my waist, my feet leaving the ground, and carries me up the porch steps into the cabin.

Inside, he sets me down, cups my face again. Thumbs wiping tears from my cheeks.

"The cabin in the drainage," I say. "Mabel gave me a survey. The structure might still be there. If it is, Weston, if we can get to it in spring, there could be evidence. Something the original search missed."

"Then we'll go together." He presses his mouth to my forehead. "In spring. When the drainage's passable. You and me."

You and me. Two words from a man who's spent fifteen years saying only I.

"You're not too cold to love." My hands on his chest. His heartbeat under my palms, fast, alive. "You just needed someone stubborn enough to stay until you believed it."

"You're plenty stubborn."

"I know. It's one of my best qualities."

He kisses me again. Slower this time. Deep. The kiss of a man who's decided something and isn't going to change his mind. When he pulls back, those blue eyes are clear. Certain.

"Welcome home, Eliza."

Home. In a one room cabin at nine thousand feet, with a man who smells like cedar and speaks in declarations when he speaks at all.

I've chased a lot of stories. Walked into a lot of cold places looking for the truth.

This is the first time the truth found me first.

Epilogue

WESTON

EIGHT MONTHS LATER