Page 2 of Ensnared By the Mountain Man

Every box is labeled in her daughter’s handwriting. Winter clothes. Books. More books. Stuff from closet (ask Mom). Half of them are heavier than they look, and Linda keeps apologizing for her shoulder while she points at the next one.

“That stack by the workbench. Those can go too.”

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand and nod. My arms are sore and my lower back is starting to protest, but Linda’s standing in the doorway with her arm in a sling and guilt all over her face, so I smile and grab the next box.

“I really appreciate this, Morgan. I know you’re busy.”

“It’s no problem,” I say. Because that’s what I say. To everyone. About everything.

And the thing is, it’s not a problem. Not really. The boxes are heavy, but they’re manageable, and Linda’s grateful, and it feels good to help someone.

It always feels good in the moment. The resentment doesn’t hit until later, when I’m home alone with a sore back and a missed afternoon and that quiet voice in my head asking when someone’s going to show up at my door and say, “Sit down. I’ve got this.”

I load the last box. Linda hugs me with her good arm and insists on sending me home with a bag of apples from her tree out back.

“The trail behind the house connects to the ridge path,” she says, handing me the bag. “Beautiful this time of day if you’ve never walked it. Goes right down to the main road.”

I look at my car. Then I look at the tree line behind Linda’s property, where a narrow trail cuts between the pines. It’s barely 3:30, and the light is golden and warm, and the air smells like pine and dust and the first edge of evening. I have nothing waiting for me at home except a bath I’m too tired to draw and a book I’ll fall asleep on by page three.

When is the last time I did something just because I wanted to?

“I think I will,” I say.

The first twenty minutes are perfect. The trail is shaded and quiet, and my legs find a rhythm that loosens the ache in my back. I can hear birds and the distant sound of water somewhere below the ridge, and the trees are thick enough to block the sun in patches. Where the light comes through, it turns everything green and gold.

I don’t think about the bakery. I don’t think about Linda’s boxes or Mrs. Kimball’s cat or Dave Thacker’s weather reports. I just walk.

The trail forks, and I go right because it looks like it drops toward the road. That’s my first mistake. The second one is not checking my phone for a map. I have service, probably, but it doesn’t occur to me until the trail gets narrow and rocky and starts climbing instead of dropping. The ground is loose under my sneakers. Not hiking boots. Sneakers. Because I didn’t plan this. I didn’t plan any of this.

The temperature shifts so gradually, I almost don’t notice. The golden light thins out, and the air goes from cool to cold, and the shadows between the trees get longer and darker, and suddenly, the birds have stopped.

I check my phone. It’s 4:45. I’ve been walking for over an hour, and I have no idea where I am.

Okay. Think. I can turn around and go back the way I came, except the fork was a while ago, and I’m not sure I’d recognize it going the other direction. The trail has gotten steep enough that going back up feels harder than going forward.

Forward, then.

I pick up my pace, and that’s when my foot catches a root hidden under the loose rock. My ankle rolls hard to the left and the pain is immediate, hot and sharp. I go down on one knee with a gasp that echoes off the trees.

I stay there for a second, breathing, assessing. My ankle throbs when I try to rotate it. Not broken, I don’t think, but it’s already swelling against the side of my shoe, and when I stand, the weight on it sends a spike of pain up my calf that makes my eyes water.

I can walk on it. Barely.

I look down the trail and then behind me. Nothing but trees in both directions. The temperature is still dropping, and I’m wearing a T-shirt and jeans because I dressed for carrying boxes in a garage, not for hiking a mountain I don’t know at dusk.

This is what saying yes gets you.

The thought lands hard, and I push it away because now is not the time for a revelation about my inability to prioritize myself. Now is the time to keep moving, find the road, get home, and have an emotional breakdown later in the privacy of my apartment where no one needs anything from me.

I take a step. Then another. Each one sends a pulse of pain through my ankle, and I grit my teeth and keep going because what else am I going to do. Sit down on a rock and wait for someone to find me? No one even knows I’m up here.

2

ELIAS

My shift ends at six, and I’m in the truck by 6:04 because four minutes is about as long as I can stand the post-shift small talk.

The guys at the station are fine. Good firefighters, decent people. They stopped trying to invite me out for beers about three months in, which is faster than most crews I’ve worked with. I appreciate that more than they’ll ever know.