Page 8 of Mountain Man's Summer Drift
“Probably.”
He set the burger down. “I’d like to show you something. After lunch. If you’ve got the time.”
“What is it?”
“A spot on the river. Not on a trip route. Just somewhere I go.”
I looked at him across the table. I watched the way he was holding very still, like a man who’d decided to ask something and was patiently waiting.
I’d spent years saying no to things.
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded once.
We ate.
3
ROSS
She’d said yes.
I paid the check. West watched me hand him a couple of bills and didn’t make change. He never made change for me. It was an ongoing argument we weren’t having.
I held the door for her on the way out. The bell above it dinged twice—once when we went through, once when it bounced back.
The lot was hot. The truck would be hotter. I cranked the windows down on my side and then went around and opened her door before she could reach for the handle. She stepped up into the cab and looked at me sideways like she wasn’t sure what to do with being treated this way.
I wasn’t sure what to do with it either. I hadn’t opened a door for a woman in a decade. I’d just done it twice in an hour.
I shut the door and walked around to my side and got in.
“Where’s the spot?” she asked.
“About fifteen minutes from here.”
“Up the river or down?”
“Down.”
She nodded. I pulled out of the lot. The road south of town opened up faster than the road north. Fewer curves. More straightaway. We crossed the bridge, and the river slid from my side of the truck to hers. She watched it through the open window without saying anything for a couple of miles.
“Why this spot?” she asked.
“It’s quiet. The trips don’t pass it. The road only goes there if you know it’s there.”
“How’d you find it?”
“Wells showed me. First week I was on the crew. He’s one of my business partners.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Six. Bishop runs the business side. Wells does logistics. Flint runs the rescue side—he’s our safety guy. Cade handles equipment. Kyron does long trips. I do the runs.”
“What does that mean?”
“Errands. Deliveries. Inventories. The stuff that has to get done that nobody else has time for.”
