Page 110 of Shared By the Mountain Men

I chuckled. “Ash took me mountain biking on the ski trails. I can’t imagine going over all those bumps with a fractured leg!”

“That’s because you’re not crazy,” Noah said. “This patient was the kind of guy who calls himselftough. Like it makes him more of a man to keep going. So his leg is fractured, and he gets back on the lift…”

I had to admit: it was nice having a companion after being alone for the past couple of weeks. Noah spent the afternoon telling me about all the weird patients he’d seen since I had resumed my hike. It made the time pass quickly, and before we knew it we were walking into camp for the evening.

“Twenty-two miles?” Noah asked, squinting at his watch. “How about that.”

Noah camped in his own tent in the spot next to mine. “I’m just here to keep you company. That’s all.”

“Good,” I said, but once again I was kind of disappointed that he wasn’t making a move. Now that he was here, I wanted to pick up where we’d left off, with kissing and cuddling and certain activities that werenotsuitable for a public campsite.

I laid on my back in my tent, listening in the night. Waiting to see if he would change his mind, leave his tent, and join mine. I wanted it desperately, to the point that I couldn’t sleep.

But he didn’t make any move.

In fact, his tent was gone when I woke up the next morning. But a new fire was roaring, and it was the massive frame of Ash stirring the embers with a stick.

“Thought I was going to have to wake you,” he said, not taking his eyes off the fire.

“Oh, is that how this is going to be?” I demanded. “You guys take turns hiking with me all the way into Denver?”

His dark eyes met my gaze. “Pancakes will be ready in ten. There’s a line for the camp toilet, if you have to go.”

Ash and I spent the day walking in total silence, but it fit. It was nice—we didn’tneedto fill the silence with talking. We were just together, the two of us, sharing in an activity. Just like the via ferrata or mountain biking.

“Good weather,” Ash said while we boiled water for dinner that night. “Clear skies the past two weeks.”

“Yeah! Only one day with rain, and it only lasted for a few minutes.”

Ash nodded. “Lucky.”

It was the same thing with him: he pitched his own tent, with a new sleeping pad identical to the one he’d loaned me. And when I woke up the next morning, there was no sign that he had ever been there.

And Jack was sitting outside my tent, using a hatchet to whittle at a small piece of wood.

“Aren’t you supposed to be making me breakfast?” I asked.

He blinked and looked up at me. “Why would I make you breakfast?”

“Because the others…” I looked at the dead fire, still doused from the night before. “You didn’t even get a fire going.”

“Fires are for the end of a day of hiking,” he said simply. “No time for that in the morning. You going to get ready or not?”

I rolled my eyes and went through my morning routine. An hour later, everything was packed up on my back and we were walking along the trail, two days outside of Denver.

“The others made me breakfast,” I said after a little while.

“I’m not the others.”

“No, you are not,” I replied.

We hiked for another quiet hour, side by side.

Finally, the words wouldn’t stay inside of me. “You fucked up, Jackie.”

“Only Noah calls me Jackie.”

“I get to call you whatever I want because you fucked up. And I’m not talking about breakfast.”

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