Page 12 of Working for the Mountain Man

I meant it as a fact, not because of modesty. I fix roads, I keep people from driving off mountains. That’s useful; it’s not heroic, whatever she thinks she saw out there. Writers romanticize things; that’s their job, taking ordinary men and making them into something else on the page.

"For the record," Elsie says, breaking the silence, "I had that slip completely under control."

I inwardly scoff. "No, you didn't."

She releases a harsh breath. "I was recalibrating."

I snort. "You were falling."

"Strategically."

I glance at her and see that she has her chin up, daring me to argue further, and there’s a small, stubborn satisfaction onher face like she’s already decided she has won this regardless of what I say next.

"You need proper boots," I say. "If you're coming to sites again."

"I didn't realize that temporary admin assistants came with a wardrobe critique."

Christ, she’s a riot. "It comes with not breaking your ankle."

"I can buy my own boots, Hugo."

"I didn't say you couldn't."

She looks at me for a second like she is deciding whether to push it further. Thankfully she doesn’t.

"Whitfield and Sons has decent ones," I say. "Doris will set you up, tell her what you need them for, she'll know the right grip."

I see her gape at me out of the corner of my eye. "Are you sending me to the hardware store like I'm a problem you're delegating?"

"I'm sending you to the hardware store because you need boots."

She makes a small sound that sounds as though she's being strangled. I don’t comment, I keep my eyes on the road.

Back at the office, she gets to work fast. She uploads the new bridge photos, cross-references them against the SB-1 log, writes a clean note explaining the supplementary documentation and why the timestamp matters. She does it all without asking me anything, which means either she understood everything I told her at the site, or she’s better at this than she is letting on.

Probably both.

I watch her work for longer than I should, standing near my own desk, pretending to look at a weather report, one that I’ve already read twice this morning.

She has taken over half the desk with sticky notes and labelled folders and a system of color coding that I don’t fullyunderstand, but that appears to be working. The chaos that has lived in this office for two years is getting smaller, piece by piece, under her hands.

I don’t like how impressed I am by it all. I especially don’t like that some part of me wants to ask her to stay late tonight and keep going, not because the grant needs it, even though it does, but because I’m not ready for the office to go quiet again.

"You've got a visitor," Corey says, putting his head through the door. He’s looking at the desk, not at Elsie, with something like awe on his face. "Did she actually finish the south bridge folder?"

"Working on it," Elsie says without looking up.

"Boss, this is a miracle." His face bright with joy.

"Corey," I say.

"What? I said miracle."

"Shoulder readings," I instruct him.

"Going." He disappears.

Elsie’s smiling slightly when I look back at her and I don’t like that Corey was the one that made her smile. God, that's an unreasonable thing to feel and I’ve no idea why I’m affected by her like this.