Page 5 of Saved By the Mountain Man Ranger

"Your job brought you to nine thousand feet in October with a rental car, a city jacket, and a hand drawn map. Your job almost got you killed today."

"And your job is rescuing people who make bad decisions. So I guess we're both doing what we're supposed to."

Something flickers across his mouth. Not a smile. Closer to surprise. The expression of a man who doesn't get talked back to often.

"Three days," he says, pushing back from the table. "Stay out of my way and we'll get through it fine."

He clears the bowls without asking for help. Washes them in the small sink while I sit at the table with my cold tea and his flannel on my skin.

Three days. This cabin. This man who smells like cedar and talks in commands. Who held my frozen feet between his hands without hesitation and told me to sit like I was something he needed to keep alive.

My phone has no signal. My laptop is in the car. My research is in the messenger bag I'm clutching like a lifeline.

Three days. I can handle three days.

He turns off the overhead light. The cabin settles into the amber glow of the woodstove, shadows moving across his shoulders as he pulls a blanket from the closet for the couch.

"Goodnight, Ms. Hart."

"Eliza."

He pauses with the blanket in his hands. "Goodnight, Eliza."

My name in his mouth. Low. Careful. Like he's testing whether it belongs there.

I walk down the short hallway to his bedroom. His bed. His pillow. His sheets that will smell like him all night while I lie awake pretending this is just a story I'm chasing.

The door closes behind me. Through the wall, I hear him settle onto the couch. The frame creaks under his weight.

Three days.

I press my face into his pillow. Breathe.

The cedar scent floods my lungs, and every nerve in my body lights up like a fuse being lit from both ends.

Three days is going to be a problem.

Chapter Three

WESTON

She's been awake for an hour before I hear her move.

I know because I've been lying on this couch staring at the ceiling since five, listening to the storm throw itself against the cabin walls. Listening to her breathe through the thin bedroom door. Slow and even, then a shift in the sheets, then nothing. She was awake too. Just lying still. In my bed. In my flannel.

I'm on my feet before the bedroom door opens. Coffee already brewing. Woodstove fed. The routine keeps me sane. Has for fifteen years.

She comes out with her hair wrapped in a scarf, my flannel hanging off one shoulder, those wool socks pulled up to her calves. Her messenger bag is already slung across her body. Six in the morning and the woman is ready to work.

"Coffee?" I hold up a mug without turning around.

"Please. Black."

Good. I don't have cream or sugar. Haven't had a reason to stock either in years.

She takes the mug with both hands, settles at the kitchen table, and opens the messenger bag. Within two minutes she's got a system spread across the surface. File folders with colored tabs. A spiral notebook filled with tight handwriting. Photocopied maps. Printed interview transcripts. A timeline drawn on graph paper in blue ink that stretches almost three feet when she unfolds it.

Organized. Relentless. The work of someone who's spent real time inside a problem and refuses to come out empty.