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“Nothing for certain. But I was hiking here last year with a mate, a day just like this, with heavy cloud cover, we could barely see anything. We heard footsteps behind us, but no matter how many times we stopped, they never caught up. I can’t say it was the Gray Man, but we didn’t see anyone else.”
With one last hitch of his eyebrows, he turned and continued up the trail, leaving me rattled by his story. Enclosed by the creeping mist, every footfall and scatter of rock echoed around me. Sometimes the sounds seemed separate from our group as though farther away, but with the thick fog, I couldn’t be sure. It would have been awful to be alone out here in the mists.
Just as I moved to follow Arnav, a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
My heart went into overdrive, and I screamed before I could stop myself. Duncan stood beside me, a surprised grin twitching at his mouth.
“Why would you do that?” I brushed his hand off my shoulder and told my fight or flight response to save the panic for something serious, like an actual flight.
“I am sorry, Molly.” He would have looked more penitent if he toned down that triumphant grin. “It was too good an opportunity to miss.”
Farther along the trail, Lewis, Bea, and Rupert had stopped to stare in our direction.
“I’m fine,” I called. “Just frightened by the big, gray man, here.”
I gestured at Duncan, and my fingers brushed the solid muscle of his arm. My heart rate spiked again, ignoring all my attempts to calm it down.
“Ouch.” He grimaced at my teasing epithet. “I suppose I deserve that.”
“Well, you’re not totally gray.”
“Not really helping.”
I tilted my head, examining him. “More of a salt and pepper. Heavy on the salt.”
He stared me down, thoroughly unimpressed. “Mm hmm. Best quit while you’re ahead.”
“Silver fox?”
One eyebrow ticked up. “I could live with that.” Merriment danced in his eyes. “I really wasn’t expecting a scream.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t punch you.” Although, as exhausted as I already was, pretty sure a punch would have wound up embarrassing me more than the scream.
“Very lucky.”
We carried on with the climb, bringing up the rear of the group.
I still hadn’t pinned down Duncan’s age. The solidness of his body and his general athleticism gave his age more ambiguity than his severe gaze and gray beard originally implied. Still, I couldn’t think of a question indirect enough to get the information I wanted withoutlookinglike I was asking.
“You said you’ve lived in London the last ten years. How long did you live in Edinburgh before that?”
“All my life.”
Swing and a miss.
“And you?” he asked. “Have you been in Seattle long?”
“Same. Born and raised.” I’d gone to college in the city, too, and now lived ten miles from my childhood home. Nobody would ever call Seattle sheltered, but the reminder I hadn’t explored much beyond my own backyard sat uncomfortably in my gut.
The rocks became larger and more difficult to work around the closer we got to the summit. If a path existed, Lewis had left it in favor of a more direct route to the top. It wasn’t steep, but the boulders made for slow going.
I put my weight on one, and the rock rolled enough to throw me off balance. I fell onto my shins and hands, and my mind lit up with a searing stab of pain.
Duncan knelt beside me before I could right myself. He put a hand on my shoulder, assessing me with a piercing gaze. “Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride.”
I shifted to sit and dusted the mud from my hands. Blood welled up in tiny droplets where the skin on my palms had been scraped off. He slipped off his backpack and used his water bottle to wash away the blood and dirt. I could tell he was trying to be gentle, but the cool stream of water still stung my open wounds.
