Page 92 of Beastly Mountain Man

Caprice buttered a piece of toast and looked toward the windows. The storm had scrubbed the sky clear. Sunlight reflected off the snow hard enough to make the view brighter than it had any right to be, and the trees stood almost still after two days of wind and weather.

“So what exactly are you checking on the road?” she asked.

“The section they finished last. I want to see the shaded curve, make sure the treatment is holding, and drive the grade once before I tell you to take it.”

“You trust the crew, but you’re still checking because you’re the Property Manager responsible for the upper properties.”

“That’s why I’m checking their finished work instead of doing it over.”

Caprice stopped with her coffee halfway to her mouth.

I smiled. “What?”

“That was extremely pointed.”

“I was talking about the road.”

“You were absolutely talking about the road.”

“I usually am when I talk about roads.”

She took a drink, but the smile stayed at the edge of her mouth. “You know what I’ve discovered about you?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You’re dangerous because you almost never give advice. You just continue being reasonable until the other person has no choice but to notice.”

“I can work on being less reasonable if it would make leaving easier.”

“No, unfortunately, I like you this way.”

There was no joke after that.

Caprice ate another bite of toast while Bear got up from the hallway and came to sit beside her chair. He rested his head against her thigh without asking for food.

She rubbed slowly behind his ears.

“I’m going to miss this idiot.”

Bear leaned harder.

“He’s going to miss you too.”

Caprice glanced at me. “You can say that because you’re his person. I’m not accepting any suggestion that he has developed an informed position on my departure.”

“I wasn’t going to claim informed thought. He knows your suitcase came out, he knows you’re moving around more than usual, and he knows the woman who throws his rope is paying attention to a bag instead of him.”

“That is acceptably dog-based.”

Bear nudged her hand.

Caprice gave him another scratch and went back to breakfast.

The packing sounds started again as soon as we finished.

I washed the plates while she returned to the bedroom. Usually, having work to do made things easier for me. A sticking latch, a backed-up drain, an icy path, a load of wood—those had answers. You figured out what the problem was, chose the right tool, and did the work.

There wasn’t anything wrong here.