“Are you going to take me into the woods to murder me before everyone else wakes up?”
“No.” He grins. “Come on. You gotta hurry up, and don’t forget your camera and headlamp.”
“Okay,” I agree as curiosity and excitement make my pulse quicken. I unzip my bag and climb out as he leaves the tent. It takes me less than five minutes to get dressed in a pair of leggings, a long sweater with my vest over it, boots, and my knit cap. When I get outside, I find Tanner waiting for me with a thermos in one hand.
“Come on, sunshine,” he whispers again, holding out his hand for me to take, and the moment our palms connect, a tingle travels down my spine and my stomach flutters.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly as we walk through the woods with the canopy of trees above us, making it seem darker than it is.
“You’ll see when we get there.” He gives my fingers a squeeze, and we walk in comfortable silence until I notice that the trees off in the distance open up. As we get closer, I hear the sound of running water and can see the yellow sky above the range. “I found this place during the first trip I guided, and since then, I’ve been back at least a dozen times,” he says quietly as we step out of the trees and onto the bank of a rocky shore at the bottom of a small waterfall that is shooting out the side of the mountain. “I thought you’d like to get some pictures.”
I hold my breath as I take in the beauty all around me, then tip my head back. The sun is coming up, and the stars are fighting to keep their place in the sky for just a little while longer, creating a picture that feels ethereal.
“This is beautiful.”
“It is,” Tanner says softly, and I turn to find him watching me. When I shiver, not from cold but from the look in his eyes, he holds out the thermos he’s been carrying. “I got us some cocoa, but we’ll have to share the cup.”
I nod and walk to where he is, then take a seat next to him on a large log that’s been half hollowed out.
“Thank you for bringing me here.” I take the mug of cocoa from his grasp when he hands it to me and blow across the hot liquid, watching steam disappear into the cool morning air. “I’ve seen lots of pictures of places just like this, pictures that I thought were photoshopped. It’s unbelievable to me that I’m sitting here in the middle of perfection and I know that it’s real.”
“Have you traveled a lot?”
“No, I . . . I think I’ve gotten a little too comfortable in my safe little bubble. But after this trip I want to change that.”
“There’s lots of life to experience.”
“I’m realizing that,” I say; then he leans in close to me.
“Don’t make a sound or any sudden movement,” he whispers, and my heart stops before it starts to pound as I imagine the grizzly from yesterday walking toward us. “Look to your left, downstream about fifty feet.”
I slowly turn my head, and that’s when I spot a group of elk working their way across the water, with the male in front sporting a huge set of antlers.
“Hold this, please.” I hand him the cup so I can lift my camera. As I power it on, the noise it makes seems louder than normal, and the elk all freeze and look in our direction.
“Hurry, they’re gonna run,” Tanner warns with a smile in his voice, so I quickly lift my camera and hold down the shutter button as they begin to take off into the woods.
When they all disappear, I slide through the photos I just took and pout when I find that all but a couple are just a blur of movement. “I need a quieter camera.”
“Let me see.”
I hand it over and watch him go into my settings to change all of them to silent before he slides through the pictures, reaching the final one of the elk and pressing the button again, which causes the reel to return to the first picture I ever took with my camera. It’s one of my ex with a goofy smile on his boyishly handsome face. Stiffening, I fight the urge to snatch my camera from Tanner’s grasp and toss it into the water, not because seeing Galvin is upsetting but because I don’t want Tanner and my not-so-distant past to meet.
“Your ex?”
“Yeah” is all I can seem to get out as his silence makes me squirm.
“What happened between you two?” he asks, handing my camera to me, and I quickly turn it off and let it fall back against my chest.
“I’m not sure.” I take the hot cocoa back and take a sip as I look out at the landscape, and I’m thankful for his silence as I pull up the courage to tell him the truth. “Like any couple, we had our share of problems; we broke up a few times but always got back together . . .” I let out a breath. “I knew when he told me that he wanted to end things this time that it was for good, even though he didn’t give me a reason.”