To avoid killing the mountain man pushing a wheelchair, O’Neal swerved and almost ran her car off the cliff.

She lost her air—like a ball to the stomach—and her chest cramped where the seat belt held her back. All in the same second, shock and adrenaline spurred her to overcorrect, wrench the steering wheel hard to the right, shove her foot to the pedal and nearly crash into the rock face before the brakes finally kicked in.

This would have been bad enough without an audience. With the man there as a witness, it was mortifying.

What the hell was he even doing?

By the time she got her breath under control, she turned with a start to find him bent right beside the car, peering through her window.

“Ma’am? You okay in there?”

She managed a shaky nod.

“You need help?” he yelled to be heard through the glass.

Shaking her head no, she tried to roll the window down, but the car had evidently stalled. After another stunned second, she opened the door and the man was there, appearing efficient—if filthy—as he looked her up and down.

Her lips pushed out a mumbled “I’m fine,” and he stepped back.

“Can you get it to start up again?”

O’Neal blinked for a few seconds before understanding set in.

The car. Start it. Move it out of the road.

She turned the key and nothing happened. Shit. Shit. Shit. She couldn’t afford a tow, much less repairs, right now.

She tried again, hands shaking so hard they jangled her keys like Christmas. Nothing. Close to sobbing, she tried to twist it a third time when the man reached through the open door and laid a warm hand over hers.

“Put it in park.” How could he sound so calm when she’d just nearly killed him? Killed them both! Her jittery eyes flew from the mountainside she’d missed by about two inches, to the hand she couldn’t hold still, to the man telling her things in some foreign tongue.

He pointed at the gearshift.

Park, park. Oh, right! She shoved it up to P and tried again. The car turned over with its normal hiccup, which made her eyes prick up with tears. Getting the old Forester to start was a miracle at the best of times, considering how many miles she’d put on it. And when was the last time she’d had the oil changed?

On a still-shaky breath, O’Neal turned to give the man a smile, really taking him in.

He was big, but she didn't think overly muscular, though it was hard to tell with the thick coat he wore. Her initial impression of dirt, she realized, was actually a dark, dark tan on a sun-creased face. Only the area around his eyes revealed his original fair skin color. His hair was a shaggy black mess and his eyes, set deep in his face, were a flat brown.

“You always drive on the wrong side of the road?” he broke through her perusal.

“No.”

“Get killed doing that on Saint Jacob.” He paused. “Or any mountain, for that matter.”

She drove constantly for work, but the fact was she hated it with a passion. Always had. She hated maintaining this old car and hated the time spent alone on the road. It was a relief when she could bike to work. That hadn’t been feasible this morning when the paper had sent her out here to Mount St. Jacob.

“I’m a terrible driver,” she admitted. What was the point of prevarication?

Apparently the words stunned the man, who let a surprised half smile slip.

“Least you’re honest.” The look lingered and something about it made O’Neal’s pulse pick up. Maybe it was the way it dug those eye creases deeper, or the fresh lines that formed around his mouth, almost like dimples. Mostly, though, it was the way it took his gaze from flat and chilly to warm.

Something about that warmth overwhelmed her; a ghost of a memory flitted by.

“Have we met before?”

“Don’t think so.”

She glanced behind him, to the wheelchair parked on the opposite shoulder of the curved road, its only passenger a worn pack.

“What are you doing out here with that thing?”

After a second or two of confusion, he looked over his shoulder. “Climbing Mount St. Jacob.”

“Pushing a wheelchair.” She cocked her head. “Flying an American flag.”

“Just hiking.” He straightened up and stepped back. “Drive safe now.” The words were a final dismissal. With a quick lift of the hand, he took off, leaving her alone in the darkening afternoon.

Guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.

She put the car into gear and let it roll back onto the road, thankful she hadn’t crashed into the mountain itself.

Slower than normal, she drove around the first curve and then the next, shaking so hard her teeth actually clattered.

It took maybe a dozen hairpin turns before her tremors stopped.

What a day. Starting off with an assignment to cover the much-disputed pre-Thanksgiving week release of wild turkeys into Washington State’s North Puget Sound region—an area where these turkeys weren’t, apparently, meant to live—hadn’t been her idea of a good time. She’d covered it, though, taken pictures, asked questions, gotten the protesters’ story and all that.

The whole thing had the feel of a media stunt planned by some PR person, trying to get more business into the park just before the start of skiing season. They obviously hadn’t banked on the enviro-protesters, though. Or had they? None of this would have attracted an iota of attention if the wildlife people from Bellingham hadn’t gotten pissed about the release and made it into a story.

She could see the headline now: This Thanksgiving, St. Jacob Takes Its Turkey with a Side of Protest. Gobble Gobble.

And now a near-miss on the steep gravel road.

Jesus, sometimes she hated this job.

But that dude, pushing an empty wheelchair up one of America’s highest peaks, a week before Thanksgiving. She knew for a fact that the top of St. Jacob was covered in snow. She’d had to wear her crampons to cover the media portion of the event, after all—not because the turkeys were released up high, but because they’d chosen the ski area for their press party.

What the hell was the guy doing? Where was he going? Judging from his outdoor gear, he’d be spending the night up here. But what was up with the wheelchair? And where did she know him from—because she was sure she’d seen him before.

That man wasn’t just hiking the mountain. Climbers took the more picturesque paths. They didn’t walk up the road pushing a wheelchair and flying the stars and stripes.

There was a story here. She could smell it as it cleared the ringing from her ears and bolstered her adrenaline-drained limbs.

Like an addict after years of self-denial, she turned that car around and raced back up the mountain in search of a fix.

* * *

The headlights hit Kurt’s back, and he got one of those twitches behind his eye. He fought the urge to shove Sebio’s chair to the side and follow it into the underbrush, because that squeezy eyeball itch, in his experience, was never good.

The car slowed to a crawl beside him, and he didn’t bother looking up. It was clearly the blonde from earlier. The rattle in her engine announced her arrival like a set of sleigh bells.

She lowered her passenger window. “Hey.” She paused, but he didn’t look at her. He just kept on walking.

“Mr. Wheelchair Hiker Dude.”

Still, he refused to pay attention, despite the fact that she was cute, in a messy, hippy kind of way. The itch, he thought. Just remember the twitchy eye itch.

“Dude, are you seriously going to ignore me?”

“I might.”

“You just failed.”

He sighed. It was true, dammit. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be an asshole. He just didn’t have it in him. He shoved the eyeball itch to the back of his mind and glanced briefly to the side, still plodding ahead. They had a mountain to climb, after all.

“Help you?”

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.” If he kept his attention ahead, maybe she’d let it go.

“Where?”

“Up.”

“Hm.” He could almost hear her mulling over her options. Or planning her attack. “Why?”

“You ask everyone that?”

“It’s just…the wheelchair. That’s pretty interesting. Right?”

Did she expect him to weigh in on that? He didn’t.

“There must be a story behind it.”

The woman was part of whatever they’d done up here today. There’d been a ton of traffic heading up this morning and back down just a little while ago. She must have lingered longer than the others, because he hadn’t seen another car since she’d almost run him down.

Her driving skills were as bad as advertised, apparently. She seemed to be having a hard time keeping pace in her car and he picked up speed, although he wasn’t sure if it’d hinder or help.

“You seriously not gonna tell me what you’re doing?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m a reporter, from the Daily—”

“Absolutely not.” Resolute now, he pushed even harder up the mountain. The last thing he needed was the media getting involved in his life.

“You’re clearly pushing that chair up for a reason. Why don’t you let me tell people what—”

He stopped, hot and tense, rage too close to the surface, and turned. “Back. Off.” He didn’t quite shout the words, but they were harsh. After shoving the brake down, he stepped to the window and leaned in—possibly more threatening than he intended. But maybe not. “I’m not a sound bite, lady. Got it? This isn’t about entertainment. This is personal, and it’s none of your goddamn business.” He swiped an arm across his face, surprised to see sweat when it was so cold outside. “Please.”

He listened to her breathe for a few seconds. Then, just as he pulled away, she shocked him with a whispered, “Kurt Anderson?”

That sent a not entirely pleasant fizzle down his body, and he examined her more closely. “Do I know you?”

“I’m O’Neal. O’Neal Jones. We went to high school together.”

The eye twitch went crazy. Back up, it screamed. Run away. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You were a couple years older.” There was a smile in her voice when she went on. “I wasn’t a cheerleader or homecoming queen or anything like that. You wouldn’t have noticed me.”

Jesus, he’d been a prick in high school. Big, white, and so full of himself, but he’d recognize this woman—or at least her name—until his dying day. “I know who you are.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

He dredged up an ounce of friendliness, although what he really wanted was to ignore her and continue his trek up the mountain. “Long way from the East Coast, O’Neal.”

She put the car into park as if settling down for a cozy little chat, him standing on the side of a road in the cold, with Sebio’s wheelchair parked just beyond, alone and unattended. His hands missed the rough rasp of the fraying electrical tape he’d wrapped around the handles, and, though his feet hurt, they were happier slapping the pavement than standing still. It was when he stopped moving that everything screamed at him.

“There aren’t a lot of jobs for scrappy young reporters. The Dispatch hired me, so here I am.” Still bent at an awkward angle, her silhouette turned to face forward, where her headlights carved two golden cones into the quickly darkening evening. Shit. Time to set up camp. “What about you? Weren’t you headed off to play football at some fancy college? Notre Dame or something?”

He sucked in a breath, shoving back the disappointment that still welled up at those memories. “Injury. Kept me out after my third year.” It made sense to stop there, but his mouth ran on. “Joined the Corps after that.”

“You didn’t stay in school?”

“Never really my thing.” That felt like a lie, but he ignored it. And, because he wasn’t moving, a memory popped up: Homecoming game, senior year. The whole thing was a jumble, from the second the Mustangs’ linebacker brought him to the ground to squinting at the stadium lights after regaining consciousness. He’d been taken out on a stretcher, rushed to the ER, where he’d spent more time blinking, brain fuzzy and wrong. Everyone left him alone at one point and this kid showed up, out of nowhere, with a cell phone and a pad of paper. Little and tough and blonde, with a big streak of blue in her hair and piercings all over. He hadn’t even realized she was a girl right away. She’d been cute, though.

Until her newspaper piece came out. Jesus, what a load of crap.

“You came to see me at the hospital.”

She didn’t answer right away. Softly then, “Yeah.”

“You wrote that piece, with me as centerfold.”

“Centerfold?”

“All those stats about brain injuries, and then you snapped that pic of me, looking like hell in the hospital bed. I even told you it wasn’t my first concussion.” Christ, what a nightmare. Weird how details came back, like her gravelly little voice. It hadn’t lost that rough nap, even now. “You sure know how to wreck a guy’s life, lady.”

“What’s with the wheelchair, Kurt?”

A minute ago, her persistence would have annoyed him. He wasn’t sure what had changed that. The memory, possibly, of that eager kid, all full of hope and fervor, champing at the bit. Her, but also him. And now… God, he was dog-tired. Too exhausted for this. Not just his muscles and bones, but his…brain. Or blood or something.

He glanced up the long, steep road ahead of him and felt every step, every crunch, every breath he’d need to get to the top. After that…

His eyes cut back to the girl who was now a woman he didn’t recognize.

“It’s not some big story, if that’s what you’re hoping for.” He sounded weary, even to his own ears.

“I’m curious.”

“You’re also a reporter.”

“I’m a reporter because I’m curious, not the other way around.”

“Yeah.” He pushed away from the window and gave her a quick wave. “Gotta get going. Take care.”

“Kurt, wait. Maybe I could…”

The wheelchair handles were cold, but he didn’t take the time to slip his gloves on with this woman after him. Besides, he liked the feel, the way they’d created calluses on his palms and between his fingers, although nowhere near as bad as Sebio’s hands had been.

“Take it easy, O’Neal.”

He flipped up the brake lever and shoved the chair forward, falling back into the familiar rhythm of crunching gravel under its tires.

Take it easy take it easy take it easy take it easy, they spewed with every revolution. He’d said the phrase, though it didn’t mean a thing. Just empty rhythmic sounds, as pointless as turning wheels.

Take it easy? What? Life? No fucking way. Death? Not even that was easy.

He swallowed and pressed forward. About another half mile, he figured, until the picnic area and the trail where he’d camp tonight. Then up, up, up.

He was so close to the end now that it scared the crap out of him. Because after the top of this mountain, he had no idea what he’d do, where he’d go, or—worst of all—who the hell he even was.