Page 115 of Tangled up in You

She strained to listen, every sound grating across her nervous system.

After a moment there was another noise, something large moving fast, but away from them.

The men stood listening even after Jesse couldn’t hear it.

“Are we okay?” she finally asked.

“Yeah,” Mark said, finally relaxing and holstering his sidearm.

“How do you do this alone?” she asked. “I’d be terrified!” Fuck, she was terrifiednow.

“I usually sleep in one of the backcountry cabins,” he said. “When I can’t, I sleep very lightly when I’m alone, and I’m never alone in areas closed for bear management. On good nights when I can’t sleep in a cabin, I don’t even pitch my tent. Plus, the animals will warn me. I have at least one horse and one or two pack horses or mules.”

“Will we be near any cabins?” she asked.

“Depends.”

Her brain wasn’t engaged enough to process that. “Depends how? Either we will or won’t.”

“We might be able to reach one of them if the snow isn’t too deep on that trail. Otherwise, we won’t attempt it. And it won’t be until we’re at the last site. We’d add several days to our trip ifwe tried to sleep in one every night, and still have to spend nights camping.”

“Oh.”

“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” Chris said. “We’ll keep watch. It probably won’t return.”

She was going to argue that she didn’t think she’d be able to go back to sleep, but then she yawned. “Good idea.”

The next morning she awoke before dawn again. Mark was up and starting a pot of coffee.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning. No more bear?”

He shook his head. “No more bear.”

Chris emerged from their tent, his brown hair mussed. “Hey,” he sleepily said, stretching before walking over to join them. He dropped a kiss on the top of Mark’s head when he accepted a mug of coffee from him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Then both men froze and looked at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Mark said. “Didn’t mean to PDA you.”

“I don’t mind. You guys are adorable.”

Chris lightly swatted Mark’s shoulder. “She thinks we’re adorable.”

Mark smirked. “You wouldn’t think we’re so adorable if you shared a tent with us for the next few days. Not exactly bathing weather.”

“I think we’ll all be a little aromatic,” she said. “And I have extra waterless cloths, if you get to the point you want to cry uncle.”

“Look at the lady being all prepared,” Chris joked. “Like she knows us or something.”

“That’d be self-preservation on her part,” Mark snarked.

By day four,Jesse was tired but she understood what the men had meant about her loosening up. Her body was acclimating to the altitude and the exertion. They’d spotted signs of bears—scratch marks on trees and fresh scat—but hadn’t seen any. Mark called in a dead elk they spotted in the distance, their attention drawn by ravens fussing at each other as they scavenged. When she asked if he wanted to examine it, he snorted.

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