“We’re here,” Cole smiles broadly at the foot of the hill his cabin is built into.

“What? I don’t get it,” I look around.

“You’ll see,” he smirks and grabs my hand, tugging me up the hill with him. We scramble to the top of the fifteen foot climb and my jaw drops open.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Cole looks pretty proud of himself. His blue eyes sparkling as he spreads a blanket out over the flattened top sheltering his cabin.

I soak in the incredible view feeling like I just climbed Everest and am looking down from the top of the world.

“It’s amazing,” I whisper. “What’s that for?” I point to a small, ankle high barrier made from wood and strung across the edge overlapping his house, like a tiny fence for gnomes.

“Ahhh, well since I have drinks up here, I made this. It’s kinda like when you were a kid and had a rail across the top bunk bed, you know? I didn’t want to fall asleep up here and wake up with a broken leg when I rolled off the side. It’s quite a drop to the front door.”

“And an even further one down there,” I nod at the cliff only twenty feet from his cabin entrance.

“Yeah, if I ever get drunk enough that I fall off that, I won’t need to worry about my liver. I’ll be dead,” he laughs.

This grassy clearing on his roof is so tranquil. It’s easy to see why Cole likes to spend his downtime here.

I watch him as he pulls a long swig of amber alcohol into his mouth, making it disappear from the bottle into his belly while I sit on the blanket beside him. I’ve never been much of a drinker, most of my Friday nights on campus were spent in the library studying, not doing shots. My scholarship meant too much to me to squander it being a party girl.

At least that’s what I told myself.

The truth is, I wouldn’t know how to handle myself at a party. I’ve always been so nervous around guys, and a girl with an anxious snort and pit stains is not what I think most dudes are into. I think I mostly saved myself from sitting in corners with houseplants and watching from the sidelines. If college kids have houseplants. Probably not. The point is, I spent too much of my life observing everyone else live their lives. I’ve always wistfully watched them cut loose and have fun, while I enviously wished I had the guts to do the same.

Enough is enough.

“Can I have some of that?” I nod toward his bottle of whiskey nestled beside his leg. Cole looks down like he’s not sure if there’s something else I could be talking about instead of the booze. He looks from side to side before pointing down at the alcohol and twisting his face up.

“This?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” I try to act nonchalant, like I drink all the time and it’s no big thing.

“You didn’t strike me as someone who’d enjoy straight whiskey, but sure, knock yourself out,” he holds it out to me skeptically.

I unscrew the cap and peer over at the look of amusement pasted to Cole’s face. Something about his smirk makes me dig my heels in and I take a huge mouthful of burning fire, struggling to swallow it without coughing. I try to keep my face straight as the flames burn a path down my throat. I can feel the heat reach my stomach and spread out.

Cole laughs at me and the fire in my belly is nothing compared to the angry heat spreading across my cheeks.

“What’s so funny?” I sulk.

“Nothing, you just didn’t look like you really enjoyed that,” he looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheeks, but I can still see his smile.

I squint my eyes at him and pull the bottle back up to my lips, tossing another swig. This time the edge is toned down and when it hits my belly, my head feels fuzzy, like I took too much NyQuil.

“All right there tiger, save some for the rest of us,” Cole grasps the bottle from my hand, screwing the lid back on and stashes it next to him.

“I told you I was fine,” I giggle unconvincingly.

“Yep, you’re a regular booze hound. Probably drink me right under the table if we had one up here,” he shakes his head and pulls out his notebook.

“Can I see your drawings?” I try to look inside the cracked cover of his journal. Normally I wouldn’t be so bold, but the booze is making me loosen up a bit.

“Sure, go to town,” he tosses it over in my lap and I open the first few pages until I see a drawing.

It’s the waterfall he brought me to, even though it’s only in pencil, I can almost see the sparkling drops splashing off the water. “That’s beautiful,” I trace my fingers over the page. Cole doesn’t answer, he just watches me as I flip the page and look at an intricate drawing of a log house. It looks so cozy and inviting, I feel like I can see myself walking in by the large, wooden front door and making myself at home. “Where is this?” I pull my eyes away from his work and meet his.

“It doesn’t exist. When I first came out here, that was my dream,” he nods at the page. “Maybe I’ll make it a reality now that I have to move further in.” He opens the bottle and takes another small sip before handing it to me. This time, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, I’m not so tightly wound up and I just take a small swig too.

“It looks amazing,” I hand him back his book and the bottle. “So, what’s the deal? Were you some kind of artist before all this happened? You obviously have talent,” my tongue feels a bit thick, but it doesn’t stop me from prying. I want to know everything about Cole. I want to ask him his entire life story. I want to learn his favorite foods, where he’s lived, what his family is like. However, I know I’ll never have time to learn it all. Not before he dumps me back in Whitehorse and disappears into the Yukon wild. I might not have all the time I want with him, but I’m going to make the most of what time I do have.

“No, definitely not an artist,” he shakes his head emphatically and leans back against one of the two trees this hill is nestled between.

“So then, what did you do? You know, out there,” I wave my hand vaguely.

“Guess,” his lips twist up into another smirk, a playful one this time, not at my expense.

I lean back on my hands and shamelessly soak him in from his shaggy hair to his legs. Well, I almost make it as far as his legs, but something between them distracts me. “You don’t look like a salesman,” I think out loud.

“You got that right,” his eyes twinkle and my heart beats a little faster.

“A carpenter?” After living in the cabin he built with his own hands, it seems most likely.

“Nope,” he’s enjoying this.

“Umm, I’m gonna say you were a man in uniform.” From the way his eyes grow wider, I know I’ve hit the nail on the head. “A paramedic!” I say too excitedly.

“What? Paramedic? Why?” His dark eyebrows furrow together.

“I don’t know, I guess because of how well you took care of my ankle. I could see you helping people that way for a living,” I reason.

“No, you were right about the uniform, but not a paramedic. I was in the US military. A sniper,” his voice is flat.

“Really?” My heart begins to flutter in my chest. “So, you did the exact opposite of saving lives then, huh? You killed people?” I whisper my question like we’re in the middle of a bustling, city coffee shop and I’m worried about what the people at the next table might overhear.

Cole shrugs and opens the bottle again, taking another drink. “It’s all perspective,” he answers, holding it out for me.

I take it from his hands and don’t hesitate this time in taking another drink. The burning sensation is completely gone now, but the warmth in my belly seems to be spreading through my limbs. “How so?”

“Well, I had to take out guys who were directly responsible for the deaths of many Americans. Sometimes they were behind terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of people at a time. So, I took them out, and yes, ended their lives, but how many got to live as a result?”

I pass the bottle back to him and mull over his words. He’s not wrong, of course, I guess I just wasn’t thinking of the bigger picture.

“Sometimes the only option is to kill,” he says softly and gulps another mouthful of the amber liquid.

“Hey, so if you were a sniper, why didn’t you kill Trent that way?” the question slides off the end of my tongue before I really have a chance to think it through.

I shouldn’t have asked.

As storm clouds brew in Cole’s eyes, I wish I had never mentioned him at all. I literally bite my tongue until it hurts.

“For one,” his voice is so cold that my forearms break out in gooseflesh, “it would be beyond irresponsible for me to kill him that way in a city. You never know what could go wrong or who could get hurt.” Cole’s scruffy jaw juts out angrily. “And for two, I wanted to see the fucker’s face when I ended his pathetic life,” he clamps his mouth shut and frowns down at his hands.