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Cole’s door closed and suddenly he was opening hers. “Come on, tough girl.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she snapped.
“Absolutely not. Your whimpers of terror were the toughest I’ve ever heard.”
“Screw you,” she muttered, ignoring his hand to jump down from the truck.
“You’re cute when you’re grumpy.”
“You know, nobody knows I’m with you. I could kill you out here and just walk away.”
“You could kill me out here and then wander around in the woods until you died of exposure.”
Grace crossed her arms and tried to frown at his smile. “I could take your truck.”
“You’d never make it back to the road. That’s a ten percent grade on gravel around a curve.”
He had a good point. She’d be stuck here if she killed him, so she shrugged. “Did you want to show me something?”
His lips parted, but his gaze slid to the side and he shook his head. “Come on. The trail’s this way.”
He started walking, so she followed. It was that simple. She wasn’t going to stand around waiting for a bear to attack or some of those weird pronghorns to wander up. Cole held branches out of her way and occasionally told her to watch her step. Then the path opened up and they were standing on a bluff.
Grace skidded to a halt with a sharp gasp. The whole world looked spread out before her. Or at least the only part of the world she’d ever want to see.
Rocks tumbled away into treetops. The trees rose up from a steep cliff face that went down and down and
down until it disappeared into a dark green jumble of pines. And at the very bottom a silver river cut a path through the earth, tracing its way out into the distance. Far below, she could see a waterfall. Past that, another. And then the river disappeared into the V-shaped valley.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
“You like it?” Cole asked.
“What kind of question is that?”
He laughed and turned to gaze out over the valley with her. “Some people don’t care about things like this.”
“Some people are idiots.”
“True enough.”
“It’s incredible.” The word seemed wholly inadequate, but she couldn’t think of something that captured the miracle of this view.
They stood in silence for a long time, and Grace tried to absorb as much of it as she could. The beauty, yes. But the peace, as well. And the wonder. It had been a long time since she’d felt wonder. But standing before this expanse, she felt like a child, as if there were millions of things she couldn’t know and never would. It was a relief from the feeling that she’d seen everything already and found that none of it was very good.
“Do you think there’s anyone out there?” she whispered.
“People? Sure. There are a couple of campgrounds by the river. Fly fishermen stay there. And people who hate the crowds at the bigger parks.”
“It feels like we’re totally alone. It feels like not one person has ever been here before.”
“Yeah.” She felt him turn to look at her. “It sounds like you like that.”
“I do. I’ve never seen a place like this before.”
“Never?”
She shook her head and had to swallow a lump in her throat. It wasn’t sorrow or even something as simple as joy. It was more like that relief again. The feeling that she was small. Tiny. Minuscule. And all the stupid things she’d done, and all the mistakes and all the pain didn’t mean anything at all. It was all too small to matter.
