Page 35 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“I lived in Germany,” Beck says. “This isn't ancient.”

“Fine. Montana old.”

The trail climbs steadily once we leave the main cluster of buildings, rockier, less maintained, weeds and scrub reclaiming ground that hasn't seen regular foot traffic in decades. Old mining debris scattered here and there, peeking out from overgrown weeds. Rusted equipment nobody bothered hauling out. Timber framing collapsed into itself. The mine entrance, when we reach it, is gated shut, iron bars sunk into rock, keeping curious hikers and unstable tunnels appropriately separated.

“Probably for the best,” Beck says, peering through the bars into the dark. “I don't love the idea of a hundred-year-old tunnel.”

“You jump out of airplanes for a living.”

“Different kind of risk. I know what a parachute's going to do. I don't know what that tunnel's going to do.”

We follow the trail a little farther, up toward a rocky overlook that gives a decent view back down over Silver Bell and the valley beyond it. The path gets steep enough that Beck goes ahead of me over one rough section, then turns and offers a hand.

I could manage without it. I take it anyway.

He pulls me up easily, and lets go once I'm steady.

A little farther on, the trail narrows again, loose rock underfoot. He reaches back a second time. I take his hand again without thinking about it. He gets me past the rough patch, and this time, once we're both on solid ground, neither of us lets go right away.

His hand is rough in the way hands get from years of tools and ropes and gear, calluses along his palm. I'm aware of every point where his skin touches mine, and my heart rate has picked up in a way that has nothing to do with the incline. Just before he lets go, his thumb brushes once across the back of my hand. It's brief. It's probably nothing. I spend the next several minutes trying to decide if it was.

The overlook, when we reach it, is worth the climb. Silver Bell spreads out below, small and quiet, the whole valley stretching gold and green beyond it. We sit on a flat rock, close enough our arms brush.

“You come here a lot?” Beck asks.

“Every summer, at least once. Reid and I used to sneak up here as kids and pretend we were finding the mine's hidden treasure.”

“Find any?”

“An old boot. Reid was convinced it belonged to a ghost.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I was nine. Of course I believed him.”

He laughs. I like the sound of it out here, no crowd, no music, just the two of us and the wind moving through the grass below.

We talk for a while. Nothing important. Something Nolan said yesterday that still doesn't make sense. Whether Trevor actually knows anything about Silver Bell's history or is just confident enough nobody questions him. The quiet of a place like this, abandoned but not entirely empty, still holding onto whatever it used to be.

Eventually the conversation runs out. Not because there's nothing left to say but because something else has started taking up the space where words usually go. Beck's looking at me. I'm looking at him. Neither of us moves to fill the silence. It stretches out, comfortable but charged at the same time, the wind the only thing still talking.

I reach up to brush hair out of my face.

Beck's looks at me differently. “Hold still,” he says. “You just wiped dirt on your cheek.”

I hold still, though it's harder than it sounds, this close to him, close enough to see the small scar through one eyebrow I've never noticed before.

He reaches over, thumb brushing gently along my cheekbone, clearing away whatever I'd smeared there. His hand doesn't pull back. It stays, warm against my jaw, his thumb resting just below my cheekbone like he forgot what he was supposed to be doing with it. I stop thinking about the dirt.

His eyes move from mine to my lips and back again, like he's asking permission without using any words at all. My heart is doing something complicated and fast, and I don’t try to slow it down. I know what's about to happen. I have every opportunity to move away. I don't.

Beck leans in slowly, giving me time to change my mind, and then he kisses me. It's soft. Careful. Barely a kiss at all. More like a question he's asking with his mouth instead of his voice. Then it's over, and we're just looking at each other, close enough I can still feel his breath.

Did we really just do that?

He doesn’t look like he regrets it. I know I don’t.

He kisses me again, and this one isn't a question. His other hand comes up to frame my face, thumbs brushing along my jaw, and I forget, for a while, that we're sitting on a rock above a ghost town. I forget anyone else exists at all. It's just Beck, and the warmth of his hands, and the fact that I've been waiting for this a lot longer than I let myself admit.