I locked my bedroom door and slumped back against it.

What the hell had I gotten myself into? A three-day backpacking trip…alone…with Ramsey Badd? What the fuck was I thinking? God. My stupid ego, my stupid mouth, my stupid temper.

Three days in the middle of the fucking woods, eating beans out of a can, shitting in a hole in the ground I’d dug myself, getting devoured by mosquitoes, and sleeping in a tent.

Alone.

With Ramsey.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

There was no backing out now, though. Ego and pride had gotten me into this, and ego and pride wouldn’t let me back out. Ego and pride would also be what kept me going when I wanted to give up.

I shucked my blouse and fancy lace pushup bra, and then my skirt. Yes, damn the man: I was commando under the skirt.

And aching from the threat of his touch. All but dripping with arousal at his presence, his heat, his mammoth muscles and the shaggy beard with its woodsy scent, and those bright virulent blue eyes. Could he smell me? Is that how he knew I was commando under the skirt?

I sometimes thought he was part animal, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he had the scenting ability of a bear or wolf.

I slid on a pair of baby-blue cotton boy short underwear, wriggled into a sports bra, and then stepped into a pair of jeans. God, they felt weird. I hadn’t worn jeans in years—not since I got the job with Angelique Leveaux, owner of Couture Ketchikan. Once she hired me, she gave me a hefty discount on her clothes so I could afford to look the part. And, after that, I just got addicted to the feel of silk and lace and cashmere, the knowledge that I looked expensive and successful. I enjoyed dressing nicely—yes, for myself…and, I had to admit at least to myself, because I did enjoy the way it felt to be admired, desired.

I buttoned the jeans, wiggling my hips and tugging them up higher. Ugh. Who wears these things? Stiff, rough, and so…so…casual. I shoved my hands in the various pockets to smooth out the lines, and then checked myself out in my mirror, twisting this way and that. Okay, well…fine—I looked pretty hot. The jeans fit me great, cupping my butt and giving it a lift, making it look nice and round and taut and firm. My thighs were strong, my calves slender. Flat across the front, a nice bell-shape to the hips. Okay, okay…I could get into this.

A soft, swift knock on my door was followed by Juneau and Kitty both entering—and they opened the door wide enough that Ram, standing in the hallway, got a nice little glimpse of me in jeans and a sports bra. His eyes widened, his brows raised, and his chest swelled—he looked me over head to toe twice before Kitty closed the door behind her.

“Um, hi?” I said, grabbing a retro Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt from the pile.

Kitty and Juneau stood against the door, staring in confusion at the array of supplies.

“What’s going on, Izzy?” Kitty asked, her voice hesitant and wary. “What is all this?”

I shrugged into the shirt and frowned at myself in the mirror; the ensemble needed something. But what? Ah! I grabbed a thick brown leather belt from the floor of my closet and threaded it through the belt loops, loosely buckling it and then tucking just the front edge of my T-shirt in behind the buckle. There…much better. Still something missing, though. Hmmmm. I cast a glance around my room, ignoring Kitty’s question.

I spied the solution to my fashion conundrum on the top shelf of my closet. Sitting long forgotten, half buried under a pile of old purses was an old, faded Tennessee Titans ball cap of my father’s. I’d brought it with me when I’d run away all those years ago, and had long since forgotten it. When I was a little girl, he’d worn that hat every Saturday. He’d wake up, make Mom and me breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast—and then put on that hat and mow the lawn. And then, when he was done with the lawn, he and I would ride bikes to a local ice cream stand.

I went to the closet and took the hat down, and I couldn’t resist sniffing it—it still smelled like him: grass clippings and gasoline and old sweat. The room was silent as I gently adjusted the snapback tighter, threaded my ponytail through the opening, and settled the hat on my head.

I don’t think I’d ever worn a ball cap in my life; it felt strange.

And strangely right.

I let out a long, slow, sad sigh.

Juneau looked truly, genuinely worried. “Izzy, talk to us. What’s going on?”

I rarely showed emotion like that, rarely gave away any clues as to the past I’d left behind; I had to cover my slipup.

I gestured at the gear on my floor and bed. “What’s it look like? I’m going hiking.” I kept my voice brusque and breezy.

Kitty and Juneau traded glances.

“Um…say what?” Kitty asked. “Hiking?”

“Yes, hiking.” I sat on the edge of my bed and put on a pair of thick socks with padded heels and soles designed specifically for hiking, and then began lacing up my new boots. “Surely you’ve heard of it. Apparently you just sort of…go walking in the woods or something.”

Another long glance between Kitty and Juneau.

“Izzy—you’ve never once gone hiking in the years we’ve known you.” Juneau eyed my outfit. “I don’t think I’ve even seen you wear jeans and a T-shirt, much less a hat.”

“Because I haven’t…not for a long time, at least.” I eyed them. “Don’t make a big deal out of this, please.”

Kitty just blinked at me. “Izzy. Izz. Isadora. Honey.” She put her hands on my shoulders. “You don’t hike.”

“First time for everything,” I said.

Juneau moved to my other side. “How long is this hike?”

“Three days,” I mumbled.

“THREE DAYS?” they both asked in very loud unison.

“Yes,” I hissed. “Now stop being weird.”

They exchanged yet another meaningful look.

“And…you’re going with Ramsey?” Kitty asked.

I nodded.

“Alone?”

I nodded again.

“Just you and him? Alone, for three days? Hiking together?”

I nodded a third time.

Kitty bit her lip. “Um, honey?”

I groaned, tipping my head back. “What?”

“There’s no tent here,” she said, gesturing at the pile of gear.

“Nope.”

Kitty’s eyes lifted. “So…you’re sharing a tent with him?”

“It’ll be totally platonic.” I knew I was lying to her and myself, but hell, I had to keep up appearances at this point. “It’s fine.”

Juneau was snickering, now. “Izz, honey, have you ever been in a tent?”

“Nope.”

“A sleeping bag?”

“Nope.”

She was restraining her laughter. “You realize the tent he has is probably barely big enough for two people? As in, it’ll be a tight fit for him because he’s a Badd and he’s fucking enormous.” She bit her lip to hold back another burst of laughter. “There will be absolutely nothing platonic about the sleeping arrangements in that tent, trust me.”

I rolled my eyes. “When was the last time you went hiking or camping, Juneau?”

She stared. “Izz—I’m Native Alaskan, sweetheart. I grew up in the bush. I didn’t have running water or electricity for the first ten years of my life. I slept in a tent in the summer and in a camper in the winter and, more often than not, I didn’t even sleep in the tent, I just wrapped up in a blanket on the ground.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” I said.

She shrugged. “We all have our secrets, I guess.”

Kitty was fiddling with different pieces of equipment. “One question, Izzy.”

I had my boots on and laced, and I stood up. “Okay?”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did you manage to get yourself into this?”

I sighed. “Because I’m a big fat idiot, that’s how. Because I have a huge ego and a temper, and that GUY OUT THERE—” I shouted this so Ram would hear, “makes me mad…crazy even. He doesn’t think I can do this.” I eyed them. “You two don’t think I can do this. And that, my dear disbelieving best friends, is why I am doing this. To prove him, and you, and everyone, wrong. I am not a spoiled city girl.”

“I—” Kitty started, and then bit her lip. “Okay. But Izzy, it’s not that I don’t think you can, I’m just surprised…you’ve never shown the least bit of interest in nature, or being outdoors, or anything of the sort. And this just seems a little…”

“Rash?” Juneau said.

I shrugged. “It’s totally rash, reckless, and idiotic. But I’m not backing out now. I just spent over five hundred dollars on this gear, and I’m going to use it.” I stomp a foot in irritation. “That was my Longchamp purse fund, goddammit.”

“He’s getting to you,” Kitty said.

I nodded. “Yes, he is.”

Juneau and Kitty pulled me in for a group hug, and then let me go.

“Well, if nothing else, at least we know Ram won’t let anything happen to you,” Juneau said.

“Why do we know that?” I asked.

“Because Ramsey Badd strikes me as the most capable outdoorsman in the entire extended Badd clan,” she said. “From what Remington says about him, Ramsey would live in a hut in the woods like a mountain man hermit if he didn’t have his brothers to keep him close.”

Kitty nodded. “You’re in the best possible hands.”

I stared at her, wondering if she meant that as a double entendre. And, judging by the delayed snorts and guffaws, she didn’t mean it and was only catching on from my glare.

“Not like that,” she protested. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“But that’s also true,” Juneau said, snickering.

“Shut up,” I snarled. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

Juneau patted me on the head. “Ohhhh sweetheart. Keep telling yourself that.” She went to my bedside table, opened the top drawer, and pulled out my small pink silk drawstring bag full of…umm, personal supplies—my clitoral stimulator, lube, and condoms. She wrapped the bag inside a T-shirt, which then blended in with the rest of my supplies. “Just in case.”

Kitty examined my stock of condoms. “Um, problem, Izz.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And that would be…what?”

“These condoms are going to be too small.”

Juneau took a look, and winced. “Oooh, yeah. Way too small.”

I frowned. “Oh, knock it off.”

She held up a square foil packet. “Izz—these are not going to fit Ramsey Badd.”

I huffed. “So? It doesn’t matter. He’s not going need it. Nothing is going to happen.”

Kitty held me by the shoulders again. “Isadora Styles, quit lying to yourself.” She tossed the condom back in my drawer. “I know you messed around with him, so I know you know regular condoms aren’t going to fit. He’s a magnum and you damn well know it.”

I wiped my face with both hands; if I let myself go back and remember, he was rather incredibly well-endowed. As in, huge.

“I don’t need condoms,” I snapped. “We’re not going to fuck.”

Juneau wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. “Sure, I believe you. But just please, please…bring some just in case?”

I groaned, rubbing my face with both hands again, and then went to my bedside table. I tugged open the bottom drawer, rifled through to the bottom, and pulled out the string of magnums I’d stuffed down in there after the last guy, well-endowed enough to use them, had been here. I unrolled the T-shirt, loosened the opening of my bag of goodies, stuffed the string of magnum condoms into the bag, re-cinched it, and rerolled it in the T-shirt.

“There. Just in case.” I rolled my eyes at them. “But nothing is going to happen. I don’t even like him. He’s arrogant and annoying and disgusting.”

“Yep,” Kitty said. “And sexy, and charming, and funny, and weirdly addicting.”

“Shut up. He is none of those things.”

“Which is why you’re going on a three-day hike with him,” Juneau said, a sly grin on her face.

A knock on the door startled us all. “Izzy—time to go. You ready to pack yet?”

I shooed Kitty and Izzy. “Enough of the intervention. I’ll be fine.”

“There’s no quitting once you’re out there,” Juneau said, “so just…be really, really sure you’re ready for this. There’s no shame in not going.”

“Yes, there is,” I grumped. “I’m not quitting. I don’t quit. Now go away—I have to pack.”

Kitty and Juneau exited my room, leaving my door open.

“All yours, champ,” Juneau said, patting Ram on the chest. “Be nice, okay?”

Ramsey eyed her curiously. “Okay…sure. The nicest.” He entered my room, glancing at me as Kitty and Juneau vanished into the living room. “What was that about?”

I shrugged. “Just them being weird.”

His gaze went to my open bedside table drawers—the top drawer being open is an issue, because the number of dildos and vibrators is, frankly, embarrassing.

He blinked, and covered a grin with a hand. “Looking for something in particular in there?”

I turned away, refusing to let him see me blush. “Yeah. Phone charger.”

“In your dildo drawer?”

I reached into the open drawer and lifted out the three extension outlets built into the drawer, one of which did indeed have a cell phone charger plugged into it. “Yep. See?”

I unplugged the charger and tossed it on my bed, and slammed the drawers shut, hoping that was the end of it.

Alas, it wasn’t.

“Nice try, but, uh…you know there’s nowhere to plug that in out in the forest, right?” He grinned. “And also, there’s no signal even if you did have a fully charged phone.”

I sighed. “Whatever.”

He held out a hand. “Phone.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Give me your phone.”

Warily, I took my phone from my purse and handed it to him. He powered it off, stuffed it back into my purse, and then reached into my purse and withdrew my wallet.

“ID in here?”

I nodded. “Yeah…why?”

He opened my wallet, found my ID, slid it out, withdrew my debit card and a wad of cash and tossed the wallet back into my purse. Then, he moved to stand in front of me and shoved the ID, debit card, and cash into my hip pocket, his fingers barely making contact with any part of me except the outer edge of the pocket.

“There,” he said. “That’s all you need to bring. Leave the purse, leave the phone, leave it all. This shit is just for emergencies—I doubt you’ll even look at it the whole time we’re gone, but it’s always good to be prepared for emergencies.”

“What kind of emergencies?”

He shrugged. “I dunno—anything is possible. We could get separated and you may need to find a ride home. One of us could be injured and we’d need identification at the hospital. I could be attacked by a bear and hideously mangled and they’d need to ID me.”

“That’s not funny,” I snapped.

He chuckled. “It is, a little. There are bears out there so there’s a decent likelihood we’ll see one, but I know how to handle them.”

I rolled my eyes at his braggadocio. “You know how to handle bears.”

He nodded seriously. “Absolutely.”

“And you snuggle them and dance with them, too, I imagine?”

“Yep. I’m a bear dancing and snuggling expert.” He chuckled. “I just mean I know what to do if we encounter a bear, Izzy, that’s all.”

“And that would be what?”

“Make noise, and don’t try to run.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “Basically. We keep our food up out of reach or in a locker at night, and we make sure we don’t surprise them. If they hear us, they’ll run before we even see them. Usually. They don’t like people. What they say is cliché but true: they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“Have you ever encountered a bear?” I asked.

He shrugged and nodded. “Sure, several times. Only one close call, though.”

“Why don’t you run? And what was the close call?”

“Your brain bounces around a lot, you know that? So, I was up in the Sierra Nevadas in the early spring on a two-week hike. I was way, way up near the peak of…god, I don’t remember which mountain now, just that I was up high and coming around a bend in the trail—although where I was, it wasn’t really a trail so much as an old deer track I’d found. Anyway, I came around a pretty blind corner and there were these two little cubs right on the track, eating berries off a bush. I was less than twenty feet away from them, and they just stood up on their little legs and stared at me, making that funny snuffling noise bears make.”

“Awww. Were they as cute as I want to imagine baby bears being?” I asked.

He laughed. “Oh man, probably at least ten times cuter in person. The problem was, their mama came out of the woods right behind me.”

“Oh, shit.”

He laughed even harder. “Yeah, that’s a real oh-shit moment, let me tell you. A seven-foot-tall angry mama grizzly bear standing on her hind legs, snarling at you? Yeah.”

“Oh my god, what’d you do?” I asked, laughing myself now.

“Pissed my pants,” he said, still laughing. “No lie, I actually did pee a little. And then I started shouting. She took a swipe at me, got me with a claw right here.” He lifted his T-shirt and showed me a long, thin, ropy scar running from his left nipple straight down to his hipbone. “Gave me that. I whipped out my bear spray, still yelling as loud as I could, and sprayed her with it. She made an awful goddamn amount of noise, but she took off with her cubs behind her, growling the whole way. If she’d gotten any more of that claw on me, I’d have been split open like a sack of sausages. As it was, I got a really bad infection from the bacteria on her claw. By the time I made it back to civilization, I was sick as a dog.”

“Bacteria on her claw?”

“Oh yeah, bears are omnivores, you know, so they’ll eat carrion if they have to, which means their teeth and claws almost always have all kinds of nasty shit on them that’ll infect you if they get ahold of you.” He let his shirt fall, hiding his deliciously ripped abs. “Reason you don’t run from bears is because they’re faster’n fuck. Big as they are, you’d think they’d be slow, but they’re not. Even the biggest, fattest, slowest bear can easily outrun a human. You run, they’ll think you’re prey and take off after you, and they will get you. You make noise; they’ll get scared and run off. Even that mama grizzly that pawed at me was just protecting her cubs. I don’t hold it against her. Plus, I got a cool story and a badass scar out of it.”

“So you’ve actually survived a bear attack?” I asked, trying not to be impressed and failing.

“Nah, I wouldn’t call it an attack. It was more of a warning, like ‘hey, asshole, get away from my babies or I’ll really fuck you up.’ I’d accidentally gotten between her and them, which is why she went after me in the first place.” He grinned. “But, if calling it a bear attack will win me more points, then yeah, it was a bear attack.”

I rolled my eyes. “There are no points. I don’t play the ratings game.”

“No?”

I shook my head. “Nope. It’s pass or fail with me.”

He sat down on the floor and began gathering items. “Time to pack. Even distribution of weight is vital, so packing everything in here is kind of an art and a science at the same time.” He began putting things into the pack, and I watched carefully, quickly picking up on the method. He glanced at me as he packed. “So. What’s the criteria for pass or fail?”

I snorted. “Ha—wouldn’t you like to know?”

He was quiet a moment, continuing to pack gear into my backpack. Finally, before he began packing my clothing in near the top, he glanced at me.

“Yeah, I would.” There was no humor in his voice, which was unnerving, somehow.

I fought the temptation to answer the question straight—that would be stupid and dangerous, and courting drama I didn’t need. So, instead, I opted for snark.

“It’s pretty simple—don’t be an obnoxious, arrogant asshole.” I sat on the floor beside him and took the backpack from him. “Move aside, you big lunk. I don’t want your grubby paws on my unmentionables.”

He laughed, but it sounded a little forced, and he slid aside to let me pack my own clothes—which was good, because the T-shirt that had my emergency sex kit wrapped up in it was right on top, and he’d have felt it and gotten curious. With my clothes packed, all that was left were a few items that Ram strapped down to the outside. And then there was only a compass and a small box I hadn’t noticed him add to the pile of gear.

I picked it up. “What’s this?” I asked, opening it. Inside was a Browning folding knife, the handle made of pink camo, the blade four inches of shiny metal. “I thought you said I didn’t need a knife.”

He shrugged. “I said you didn’t need a Bowie knife.” He tapped the knife on his belt, which was basically like a small sword. “You go hiking, you should have at least a little knife. They always end up being useful.”

“Ah.” I folded the knife and slid it into the black scabbard or whatever it was called. “So, should I put it on my belt?”

He rolled a shoulder. “Sure. Easier to get to when you need it.” He nudged the compass toward me, which also came with a case that could be attached to a belt. “That too. If you have a good knife, some fishing line, and a compass, you can survive in the wild indefinitely.”

I unstrapped my belt a few loops, slid the knife and compass on, and rethreaded and re-buckled it. “I see. I don’t know how to use a compass, though.”

He slapped his knees as he stood up. “I’ll teach you.” He indicated my backpack with a toe. “Try that on.”

I got to my feet and hefted the bag…or tried to. “Holy fuck, that’s heavy!”

He chuckled. “Yep. It won’t feel as heavy once you get it on, though.”

I tried again to lift it and put it on like I would a normal backpack, but it was just too heavy. I eyed him with annoyance. “Am I missing something?”

He jutted his chin at the bed. “Get it up onto the bed, back up to it, squat and buckle it on, and then stand up.”

I did as he suggested, and did manage to get it on and stand up with it. “It’s still heavy.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Yep. But remember, you are carrying three-days worth of supplies on your back.”

I refused to complain any more, or even let myself voice out loud the thought that was running through my head: how the hell am I going to survive carrying this thing around for three days? I’m going to die.

I glanced at Ram. “How the hell do you carry two weeks worth of supplies, if three days is this heavy?”

He stood in front of me and adjusted straps so the pack settled lower on my back, and then tightened the hip belt so the weight sat on my hips more and my shoulders less, and just like that, it felt magically lighter.

“Well, for one thing, I’m stronger than you, and I just mean that as a simple statement of fact, not as a brag or some kind of macho posturing bullshit.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a monster, Ram—of course you’re stronger than me.”

He smirked as he fiddled with other straps—he was close to me, so close I could smell him: a woodsy pine scent from his beard, and that indefinable deeper, muskier scent of man. “Well, you get kind of easily offended by shit like that, so I was covering my bases.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You think I’m easily offended?”

He chortled. “Um, yeah, babe. You’ve called me an asshole at least twenty times since we got here.”

“That’s a ridiculous exaggeration.”

“Well duh. My point is, you get offended easily. Just facts.”

“Kitty!” I shouted.

“Yeah?” she shouted back from the living room.

“Am I easily offended?”

“Yeah!”

“Shut up,” I groused to Ram. “That offends me.”

He laughed, stepping back. “There. How’s that feel?”

It was still heavy, but somehow the weight seemed easier to carry. I wiggled side to side, forward and back, hopping up and down—I was amazed to find that nothing jangled or jounced, which I’d been expecting.

“Really good,” I said. “Still heavy, but manageable.”

He nodded. “Good.” His eyes, blue as the Caribbean and the summer sky and sapphires, locked onto mine. “So, then. You ready to head out? Trail’s waiting, babe.”

I let out a breath, and then nodded. “I’m ready.” I laughed. “Or, as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.” I shot him a snarky look. “And stop calling me babe.”

“Sure thing, darlin’.”

I huffed. “Don’t be annoying.”

He exited my room, and I followed; we stopped at the front door and I waved at Kitty and Juneau. They both had the day off together, a rarity, and so they were spending it bingeing on a true crime docuseries on Netflix.

Kitty was the first to jump up and hustle across the room to hug me. “Be safe, okay?”

“I will.” I jabbed a thumb in Ram’s direction. “Or at least, I’m counting on him to do that for me.”

“It’s a nice easy trail,” Ram said, his voice calm and reassuring. “Not quite a walk in the park, but it’s not like I’m taking her up to the Garden of the Gods or something.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A park way up in the Rockies in Colorado. It can be pretty challenging.”

Juneau hugged me next. “Have fun.”

I laughed. “I’m probably going to die.”

Ram snorted. “It’s a little hike, ya’ll. Relax.”

Kitty laughed and patted him on the chest. “You don’t know Izzy.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “You shut up.”

She kissed my cheek. “Love you!” she said in a cutesy sing-song.

Ram glanced at his wristwatch—a giant digital thing that looked like it was capable of summoning Optimus Prime. “Time to go. I’m gettin’ antsy.” He grabbed my arm and hauled me out the door. “I’ll have her back in three days, safe and sound.”

I called over my shoulder as he guided me to the stairs. “If I’m not back in three days, send in the National Guard!”

Ram just laughed, and then we began descending the stairs to the ground level. And that, my friends, was the first warning sign of the amount of trouble I’d talked myself into: just going down two flights of stairs wearing that backpack, I had sweat on my forehead and I was out of breath.

I refused to play into the “clueless city girl trying to be outdoorsy” trope, so I wiped the sweat off my forehead before Ram could see it, and forced myself to breathe slowly.

We got to his truck and I unclipped my backpack. Ram took it from me and easily swung it up one handed into the bed of his truck, climbing up onto the wheel and leaning in to strap it down. And ooooh baby, that man’s ass—come to mama. Tight as a drum, hard a rock, and round as a pair of cannonballs. I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching out and grabbing it.

With my bag secured, he hopped down and turned to face me, a happy smile on his face. “Let’s get the fuck out here, yeah?”

I laughed at the eagerness radiating from every line, pore, and syllable. “You are really geeked about this, ain'tcha?”

He held open the passenger door, and I climbed up and in. “You have no idea.”

It was only after he circled the hood and slid behind the wheel that I realized every single time we’d approached his truck today, he’d opened my door, waiting until I was in and buckled, and closed it behind me. It was so natural and simple that I hadn’t even noticed.

I eyed him as he started the engine, put it in gear, and checked traffic before pulling out. It was kind of eye-opening, actually. Come to think of it, he opened every single door for me, always waiting until I’d gone through first.

He arched an eyebrow at me. “What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

He turned on the radio, and an old Western song was playing—“Ghost Riders in the Sky” by Gene Autry.

My heart clenched, seized.

Ram glanced at me and moved to change it; my hand shot out and clamped down on his wrist to stop him.

“Leave it, please,” I whispered.

He frowned, slowly dropping his hand, and we listened to the song until it ended.

I was lost in thoughts and memories for a long time, as other old classic Western songs played.

“That one had some memory on it, huh?” Ram asked after a while.

I shrugged. “I suppose.”

He nudged the volume a little louder as a Johnny Cash song came on. “Didn’t take you for a country-western kinda girl.”

I shrugged again. “I’m not. My dad is. Or he used to be, at least.”

He eyed me sideways. “Used to be? He pass on?”

I shrugged a third time. “Yeah.”

Ram laughed. “Okay, so you don’t want to talk about it. Got it.”

I sighed. “Ram…”

He turned the volume up again. “It’s cool. No big deal. You don’t want to talk, I ain’t gonna push it.”

Somehow, though, I felt words bubbling up, explanations, stories—words long suppressed, pushed down, held in, even from Kitty and Juneau.

I stared out the window, looking at the big blue sky and watching as the rugged terrain replaced the pretty town. “I used to be super close to my dad. Mom and Dad and I were all close, but Daddy and I were…it was special. Weekends were our time together. He worked long, long days during the week as the head of neurology at the hospital, but on the weekends, he was all mine. He mowed the lawn every Saturday morning, and he would always wear this hat—” I touched the brim of the hat I was wearing, “and then we would ride bikes to get ice cream. Sometimes we’d go to the movie theater afterwards, or to the park. He took me to see movies a little girl probably shouldn’t have seen, but it was my special time with him. He had a slick little Mercedes convertible he drove to work, but on the weekends, he drove me around in this ancient old beat up pickup that had belonged to his grandfather. He always left it on the same station—I don’t think that radio station had changed in, oh, fifty years. It was a country and western station, and they played all those old songs, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, all those old classics, and Daddy would sing along as he drove me around. That song just…it reminded me of those weekends.”

Ram was quiet for a while. “That sounds…pretty special.”

I smiled at him. “It was.”

I waited, expecting him to push past it, but he didn’t. He seemed lost in his own thoughts or memories.

I wanted to know what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to seem too eager, or overly interested, so I elbowed him. “Hey, where’d you go?”

He shifted one shoulder, a bare hint of movement, his face impassive. “I can’t quite say I grew up without a parent because my dad was around but, for the most part, my brothers and I basically raised ourselves. Dad was a workaholic and an alcoholic. He spent all his money on booze, so he was either at work, at a bar, or passed out at home. My earliest memory of him is him sitting in a cracked plastic chair outside our trailer, a fifth of Jack in one hand, a can of Busch in the other—with a whole case of Busch on the ground nearby. I remember him sitting there drinking from one and then the other until he passed out, puke dribbling out of his mouth and down his shirt. So, your memory of driving around with your pop listening to Gene Autry? Kinda jealous.”

I blinked. “Wow. I…wow. That’s…I don’t even know what to say.”

He forced a laugh. “Sorry, I guess I just shit all over your nice memory, huh?”

“Yeah, you did,” I said, laughing. “It’s okay, though. The rest of that story kind of shits on itself.”

“Oh? How so?”

I shook my head. “It’s the kind of thing we can talk about late at night, half asleep, when I can pretend I never told you.”

“That great, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sarcastic bark of laughter. “Really, really awesome.”

We passed a good half an hour in silence, the road climbing higher into the mountains, the old classic western songs floating and wavering in the air between us, woven around the palpable tension between Ram and me. We finally pulled into a wide open dirt parking lot with a handful of cars parked here and there, and a short, fat-bodied shuttle bus idling off to one side, several mountain bikes secured to the rack on the front. An older man stood outside the folding doors, smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone; he was tall and lean, with a lank gray ponytail and an impressive Fu Manchu mustache, wearing dirty blue jeans and a red-and-gray-checkered flannel shirt.

Ram parked his truck in a corner of the lot, shut the engine down, and climbed out, locking the doors after I slid down from the cab. He unstrapped both of our backpacks and carried them over to the shuttle.

I frowned in confusion. “Wait, what? Why are we getting on a bus?”

Ram stepped up onto the bus and found seats for us behind a young hipster couple. The guy wore his greasy hair in a topknot, and the girl wore a tank top, stretching her arms over her head in a way that showed she wasn’t wearing a bra and had probably never shaved her armpits. I sat next to Ram, trying not to feel out of place; the others on the bus included a trio of college-aged guys wearing what seemed to my inexpert eyes to be very expensive gear and chatting in a language that may have been German, a pair of women about my age talking shit about their husbands, and a single middle-aged male looking morose and lonely.

The guy with the cigarette and Fu Manchu crushed the butt with his boot heel, ended his call, and climbed in behind the wheel. “All right, ya’ll. Looks like this is it for this trip. Tallyho!”

He closed the doors, put the bus in gear, and we trundled with a belch of diesel exhaust back onto the highway.

Ram leaned over to me, murmuring in a low tone. “We’ll leave the truck here and take this shuttle to the trailhead—that way, when we’re done, we can just hop in the truck and head home for a big ol’ fancy dinner.”

“Oh,” I said. “I guess that makes sense.”

We chatted about random things on the drive from the trail terminus to the trailhead, our low voices blending with the murmured conversations of the others around us. By the time we got to the trailhead, Ram was visibly antsy and agitated, his knees bouncing a mile a minute, his fingers restlessly plucking at his clothes and fiddling with his hat and adjusting his sunglasses. When we finally reached the trailhead parking lot and the bus grumbled to a stop, he let out an audible sigh.

“Fuckin’ finally,” he muttered under his breath. “Fuckin’ dying in this fuckin’ deathtrap.”

I laughed. “Deathtrap? This is actually a very nice bus, you know.”

He was the first off the bus, and I had to hop into motion quickly to keep up even though he had both of our packs in his hands, which he carried as if they weighed nothing.

Annoying butthead.

I trotted after him as he loped with his seventy-million-foot-long legs across the wide dirt parking lot toward the edge of the forest, where there were a few wooden benches, an information sign with brochures advertising various local attractions and services, and a map of the trail. Everyone else on the bus had unhooked mountain bikes from the front of the bus and had set out already, except for the one older guy, who had shouldered a huge pack, leaned forward with hunched shoulders, and marched onto the trail with a grim resolve on his face.

I caught up to Ram as he set our bags on a bench. “I hope you don’t plan on actually running the whole way,” I grumbled.

He smirked at me. “Oh, I didn’t mention that? We’re jogging the trail.”

“Not funny.”

He rolled his shoulders, the muscles straining against his T-shirt, which was white, emblazoned with an “International Finals Rodeo” logo, advertising a rodeo event in Oklahoma City some ten or so years ago. “Who’s kidding?”

I glared at him. “You said hike, not run.”

He tapped the brim of his hat. “The training for smokejumping makes this look like a tea party. We’d kit out in full gear with eighty-pound packs and be expected to run uphill through mountains at a six-minute mile pace.”

He had to be kidding. “Bullshit.”

He arched an eyebrow at me. “You really think so?” He raised his arms and flexed like a bodybuilder, and the way his muscles bulged and rippled left my eye twitching, my thighs quivering, and my pussy dripping. “You don’t get a body like this on a treadmill, sweetheart.”

“Arrogant prick,” I muttered.

He just laughed, clearly not taking me seriously anymore. “It’s not bullshit, though. We’d go on six-, eight-, ten-, and twelve-mile runs at a pace most pro runners would be jealous of, and we’d do it in the mountains in full gear.”

I shook my head. “That’s nuts. I hate running in just shorts and a sports bra on a flat road.”

He smirked, tightening and retying his laces. “Yeah, well, I don’t risk smacking myself in the face like you do.”

I whacked him across the chest with the back of my hand. “Shut up, pervert.” I eyed him. “You’re not really gonna make me run, are you?” I asked, unable to hide the unease in my voice.

His laugh was annoyingly chipper. “Relax, Izz. We’re gonna take this at a nice slow stroll.” He hefted his pack onto his back, buckled it in place and adjusted the straps, indicating my pack. “Strap up, buttercup. Time to hit the trail.”

I backed up against the pack, slid my arms into the straps and stood up, buckling the hip belt, adjusting the straps. I stared at the narrow opening in the forest, nerves rifling through me.

Not for the first time, I asked myself what I’d been thinking, why I’d been so stupid as to talk myself into this.

Could I do this? I’d never been hiking in my life. I’d never once slept in a tent, or even an RV for that matter—what was it they called that? Glamping? I exercise, sure, but in a heated and air-conditioned gym, with my special sweat towels and my podcasts.

That narrow sliver of shadow-wreathed darkness between tree trunks…that was a foreign world.

Ram nudged me, smiling. “Hey, you ready?”

I inhaled deeply, held it, and then let it out, glancing up at him. I nodded once, resolutely. “Yes. Let’s go.”

He grinned, and in the year-and-some I’d known him, I’d never seen him this visibly happy about anything. “All right, then.” He set out toward the opening in the forest, and I followed him, a few steps behind. He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Yo, Izz—this is gonna be fun. I promise.”

“I wish I could believe you,” I muttered, low enough he didn’t hear me.

If his eyes weren’t so dang pretty, if his beard wasn’t so endearingly shaggy, if his grin wasn’t so panty-meltingly sexy, if his body wasn’t so gorgeously perfect, I’d have turned around.

But, this was Ramsey Badd, and I was a sucker for hot men.

Yes, I was only doing this because of a sexy guy. Stupid, I know. Shallow, I know.

I didn’t even like him.

Problem: that little lie I’d been telling myself was beginning to wear thin, even in my own mind.

I entered the forest right behind Ram. It was dark and cool and quiet under the boughs of towering pines; the only sounds were the occasional chirp and warble of birds, and the sighing of the trees.

And the thunder of my own heart.