Page 54 of Shared By the Mountain Men

“A ride’s for fun. Everyone drinking beer and having a good time.”

“It’s you and some of your friends?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone else who does it. Everyone else is a stranger.”

“How many? Six? Seven?”

“Thirty-five thousand,” he replied.

I would have assumed he was joking, but Ash definitely wasn’t the kind of man to make jokes.

“Holy shit!”

“It’s a big ride,” he said. “Seven days long. A big party.”

“Nice,” I replied, suddenly feeling a lot more comfortable around Ash. I’d asked a somewhat personal question, and he’d answered it without throwing me off the ski lift.

It was that level of comfort that led me to make a mistake.

“Thanks for saving me on the via ferrata,” I said.

“The safety line saved you,” he replied.

“But you pulled me back up to the route. I want you to know I appreciate it.”

He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with the compliment.

“I fell because you freaked me out,” I went on. “You told me you were in prison.”

Ash stared straight ahead as the ski lift steadily climbed.

“Was it true?” I asked. “You were in prison?”

He slowly turned his head to face me, dark eyes unreadable. He nodded once.

That should have been my warning, but I pushed ahead anyway. “That’s wild. I’ve never known anyone who went to prison. Do you… do you mind if I ask what you did?”

We were nearing the top of the lift, so Ash raised the safety bar and then climbed out when we reached the platform. We collected our bikes, then walked them out toward the trails where the other bikers were gathered.

“Lesson’s over,” he practically growled at me.

Then he slammed his visor down, threw a leg over his bike, and went shooting down one of the difficult trails alone.

26

Melissa

“You’re an idiot, Melissa,” I grumbled to myself while taking the easy route down by myself. “He was clearly uncomfortable talking about prison, and you had to keep pushing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

I passed one rider who had pulled off to the side, who was looking at me like I was a weirdo for talking to myself. Whatever. I didn’t care what some stranger thought.

When I reached the bottom, Ash was nowhere to be found. The guy behind the desk in the office apologized to me and claimed Ash had a family emergency, and offered me a voucher for another lesson. I accepted it, although I didn’t really care about learning how to mountain bike. I’d only done this to try to get closer to Ash.

Riding down the mountain was significantly easier than going up it. I would have enjoyed it, if not for the sting of embarrassment that wouldn’t go away.

It lingered even after I’d gotten back to my cabin, showered, and eaten a burrito for dinner. I felt alittlebetter after two glasses of wine from a bottle purchased from the camp’s general store, but it only masked my guilt rather than banishing it.

I was bored. I didn’t feel like reading my book, and Noah was working late at the clinic. I glanced out my window hoping to see Jack around the camp, but he was nowhere to be found. Overall, it was a pretty quiet night.

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