Page 10 of Marked By the Mountain Man
The truck is just ahead, parked crooked between two dying aspens. I shove her inside, then circle to the driver’s side, sighing a breath of relief when we’re both safe.
Wildlife is nothing to fuck with up here. The later the season, the more desperate the animal, and there’s no doubt this rogue grizzly is desperate.
Juniper stares out the window, eyes wide, lips parted. “I think we woke something up.”
I start the engine, eyes scanning the tree line. “Let me guess. The bear was possessed… by a ghost who’s mad we took his parking spot.”
She doesn’t seem amused by my joke, but this is serious shit. Hell, part of me thinks she’d have stayed and put her life at risk to see what that bear’s ghost had to say.
I shake my head. “It’s a coincidence. You’re chasing shadows, Juniper. That bear’s real. His teeth are real. And if we’d stayed, we’d berealdead.”
She turns to me, eyes wide and serious. “You didn’t feel it?”
I grip the wheel tighter. “I felt fear. That’s what happens when a massive predator sniffs the air like you’re dinner.”
“Seriously, I think there’s a spirit using the bear,” she says, voice low but steady. “He’s trying to warn us.”
I scoff, the truck idling. “You ever consider maybe the bear’s just a bear?”
She leans toward me defiantly. “You ever consider thatyourreality isn’t the only one that matters?”
I glance at her, jaw tight. “I deal in what I can see, what I can shoot, what I can survive.”
She doesn’t blink. “And what about what you feel?”
“I don’t need to feel. Feelings aren’t real. Feelings are static meant to confuse you. The sooner you realize that, the faster you’ll see how ridiculous all this ghost stuff is.”
She stares at me, her eyes burning. “You think it’s ridiculous that I want to feel like my parents are still out there somewhere? That my dad is with my mom someplace and they’re still in love? You think that’s static?”
Fuck! I keep stepping into this shit! Why didn’t I see this? Of course she’s hunting ghosts to feel close to her parents!
I shake my head and stare down at the wheel before glancing back at her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I…” I don’t know what to say.
“Why are you like this? What happened? What made you stop feeling, or were you always this way?”
I stare at her. “What’s the point? What feeling have you ever had in your life that felt good? Not simply for a minute, but long term.”
She doesn’t answer right away. She just looks at me like she’s trying to decide whether to fight me or forgive me, then she says, “Love. Even when it hurt, even when it ended, it was still… everything.”
I scoff. “Love is the worst of them all. It has you believing in shit you can’t control, and when it’s gone, you’re bleeding in places no one can see.”
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. “Maybe bleeding means it mattered,” she says, voice low.
Her hand finds my collar and her lips crash into mine, warm and urgent, like she’s trying to prove something, like she’s daring me to feel. Her fingers tighten in the fabric of my shirt, pulling me closer, and for a second, the world narrows to the heat between us.
I don’t move for a moment, frozen with my thoughts, but it ends as quickly as it started. She pulls away leaving my heart pounding and the taste of berries on my lips. “Did you feel that?”
I reach up, fingers brushing her jaw. “Yeah,” I say, “I do.”
She exhales, her breath shaky, like she’s been holding it since the creek. And I know, in this moment, we’re both haunted, just not by the same things.
Chapter Five
Juniper
My friend Lana picks up on the first ring. “I didn’t hear from you last night.”
“I know, sorry. I fell asleep early and,” I sigh, “this has been the strangest twenty-four hours of my life. I show up, and he’s a total ass. Turns out he was friends with my dad, I have this weird dream about him, I’m all turned on, I masturbate, he storms in, we get chased by a grizzly bear that I’m pretty sure is a spirit, then he said he had no feelings, so I kissed him. Who does that?”
