Page 34 of Last Chance Cowboy
She looked away, and then he reached out and gripped her chin. Turned her face toward him. She was in shock, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. All she could do was stare at him.
At those forest green eyes.
Then her eyes dipped down to his mouth.
And it was like that galvanized him, made him realize what he had done. He jerked his hand away.
“You look upset,” he said.
Her skin still burned where he had touched her.
“I’m not upset,” she said. “I’m just feeling a little bit rattled still. That a little hike has turned into such a big deal.”
“Hey, it’s the kind of thing that happens. More often than you would think. That’s why I’m actually such a proponent of being prepared. When I got back from serving overseas, I started doing some search and rescue work. Volunteer.”
“Oh,” she said. The idea of being able to do that, of having that kind of capability, that kind of… Determination, bravery, and a set of skills made her somewhat envious.
There was no reason she couldn’t learn something like that. She was twenty-four. She had her whole life ahead of her. She could learn all kinds of skills. Do all kinds of things.
This was why this was supposed to be the beginning. The open door.
She didn’t need to envy somebody like Zane, who was so confident and competent at what they did. She needed to get more confident in herself. Competent at whatever it was she wanted to do. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to do things.
But a lot of things for her were like that horse bite. She hadn’t fully realized that until now.
The wilderness had bitten her on the shoulder, and now she felt wary of it.
“So you saw a lot of people end up in situations like mine?”
“And a lot worse. The wilderness is unpredictable. Things happen. Trees fall, unexpected storms come up, trails erode.”
“So, why go out in nature?”
“Because things can happen anywhere. They can happen in the wilderness, they can happen when you’re driving down the highway, they can happen when you’re walking down a city street, they can happen when you’re on a military operation overseas. They can happen in your own home.”
“Okay, you’re giving me anxiety now.”
“No. It shouldn’t give you anxiety. But it should make you understand that life is going to come at you no matter whereyou are. So you can be hiding away from it, or you can be out in it.”
It was such a strange philosophy, coming from a man that she found to be a hermit. But then, she supposed he wasn’t talking about social things. He was talking about doing things. About hiking and wilderness adventuring, and the lake. She could give that to him. He did much more of that than she did, since she did none of it.
He was right, also.
Anything could happen to you anywhere. Her mom had been homebound for the last couple of years of her life.
She blinked back tears, suddenly overcome by emotion.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I think… I think I was hoping I would get out here and outrun a lot of my grief. But it followed me. Goddammit.”
“Grief is a bitch like that,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment. She wanted to know what he meant by that. She wanted to know what his experience was with grief.
Except, she also felt like she didn’t have the right to ask about it. Because he wasn’t offering up any information. Maybe he had lost his mom or dad. Or both. He was older than she was, though her parents had been older parents for her age. So it was definitely possible that his parents were younger than hers. Nobody had ever mentioned Zane’s family, though, and that made her curious.
“I guess maybe it’s like healing your ankle.”
