Page 89 of No Hope of Rescue

I hadn’t asked for the ring. It took my mom a moment to hear what I said: I wanted to marry Riley. It only took her another moment before she twisted the single diamond off her finger.

Tears shone in her eyes—rare for Mom. “This is for you,” she said, pressing it in my palm. “This is for her. I am so happy for both of you right now.”

It never occurred to me to argue with her. Mom knows what Riley means to me.

“Is this . . . ?” Riley says, fingering the ring.

For a moment, I can’t speak. Then I remember I have to. Words from my childhood return with a meaning I now understand.

“You are the love of my life, Riley Delgado. Marry me.”

Epilogue

Riley Delgado

The wedding isn’t planned—it’s probably a year off still—but I don’t care. We want something small and intimate, and right now it’s summer. Brock and I are off work, having just finished a grueling week in the mountains finding two campers who left the trail, decided to walk without a compass or camp, and did not understand how nature works.

She can be beautiful but unforgiving, leave you breathless and in awe, but she is indifferent. You need to respect her.

Yesterday, I was sitting up at the cabin, fingers interlaced with Brock’s, simply happy to have family around me, glad to have a place to belong, and almost in shock as to how this all happened.

How did this happen?

I left home at seventeen and always felt I did things backward. But it was worth it. If being with someone who values me, respects me, and loves me for my strengths and my weaknesses is the result of “doing things backward,” then that works.

This morning, I drive Brock to a small lake at the foot of Wiley Hill near Bryce for a picnic. He immediately goes out for a swim. It’s two hours later, and I’m starting to get hungry again, but I’m loving the feeling of the sun on my stomach and being stretched out on a hard slab of sunbaked granite.

I’m half-asleep when very cold drops of water drip onto my very hot skin.

“What are you doing?” I struggle up quickly and try to push him away. Instead of standing back, he kneels and pushes me back down and then lies beside me, placing his cold, wet lips on my warm mouth.

I feel goosebumps on his arm, and he continues to drip water on my shoulders and belly.

The effect is delicious.

When he pulls away, he stares down into my eyes, the blue sky high above his head. How did I get this lucky?

I rattle off our checked to-do list to remind both of us why we’re here: “We have T-shirts, the logo on the new Bell is finished, we landed a contract with a seven-town spread, and—and,” I repeat, “we are now fully bonded. Could life be better?” I smile as he tries to kiss my mouth after I deliver the list of good news.

I end up with the “better” swallowed in my throat as his mouth closes over mine.

“We need to get naked,” he says, pulling back.

“Oh no, no, no.” I wag a finger at him. Every time he’s tried to do this, a camper, a kid, a couple—someone shows up within ten minutes.

“There’s no one here.”

“So you say.” I manage to reach a sitting position. Now he rolls onto his back, one arm supporting his head.

“I want to fuck you right here. Outdoors. Where nature intended fucking.”

His stomach is a ripped six-pack from all the clearing and climbing we’ve been doing on our days off. I run a hand down the middle and splay my fingers within the folds of muscle. A rumble rises from his throat. I stitch my fingers through a black swirl of hair where his stomach flattens above the waist of his blue trunks.

“You’re playing with fire,” he says and grabs my wrist.

“Really?”

“Really.”