Page 36 of Bad For Me (Rock Canyon, Idaho 5)

she said.

Everett stood next to her, his wide shoulders covered by a warm jacket. On his head he wore a black beanie with a little brim pulled down over his forehead. He looked like a model for L. L. Bean or Cabela’s.

Except for the scars.

Ratchet kept inching closer to her leg¸ as if leaning on her would somehow show Everett who she really belonged to. Running her hand over the big dog’s head, Callie said, “I like to run, but my trails have little hills and bumps. That thing looks like you could base-jump off it.”

“It’s not as hard as it looks,” Everett said before starting up the hill ahead of her.

Callie stared at his back dubiously but followed after him, asking herself for the hundredth time why she’d thought this was a good idea. Climbing a mountain with a man she hardly knew sounded like the start of a bad made-for-TV movie.

“The view from the top is amazing and totally worth the climb,” Everett called back over his shoulder.

They had only been climbing for twenty minutes, and thanks to her afternoon runs, she was in pretty good shape. Still, the steep grade made her muscles protest slightly. “I hope so.”

“Trust me.”

Give me a reason to. She didn’t say it, but the thought still lingered there. Trusting the wrong person had cost her everything she held dear.

“You’re awfully quiet back there,” Everett said.

Callie stopped and took a few deep breaths as she looked out across the valley. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t even been aware that they’d made it a third of the way up the mountainside.

“Wow.” Staring out across the green and yellow landscape, she felt truly lucky for the first time in years.

Everett came down a few steps to stand next to her, and she resisted the urge to shy away from him. Tristan would never completely leave her alone, not when he’d left his mark on her, but she had to remember that Everett wasn’t Tristan. She couldn’t constantly compare the two, or she was going to make herself crazy.

“We haven’t even reached the top yet.”

“Still, this is pretty impressive,” she said, rolling her shoulders and tilting her head. She needed to shake off the past and just enjoy this. Live again. It was what she wanted, right?

“Come on. If you think this is impressive, the view up there will blow your mind,” he said before picking up the pace again.

She followed behind, a little surprised that he hadn’t mentioned anything about last night or even asked what had made her show up today. “So you do this every Saturday?”

“Just about. In the winter, the trail gets lost in the snow, and in the summer you have to watch for ticks, but right now, it’s pretty much perfect.”

Yuck, ticks? Suddenly, Callie needed to scratch everywhere, as if she could feel tiny legs making their way across her body. “I hate ticks.”

Everett laughed. “Don’t worry; it’s too cold for them right now.”

Callie stopped to scratch the side of her calf anyway.

“What? Did I give you the heebie-jeebies?”

Callie looked up to find that he’d turned around and was watching her with a grin. It amazed her how easily he seemed to smile, especially given all that had happened to him.

“How do you do it?” she asked, surprising herself.

“Do what?”

“Relax.”

Everett seemed stumped for a moment but then said, “I guess I just finally decided not to let my hang-ups destroy me. If I sat around and dwelled on everything that’s wrong with my life, I’d never find the beauty in just being alive.”

Callie stood up, shaking her head. “You make it sound simple.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t mean to trivialize whatever you’re trying to get past,” he said, reaching out for her hand and lacing his gloved fingers with hers. The gesture was sweet and comforting, although she wasn’t quite sure who was comforting whom. “I just mean that I came back a hot mess, and I’m still working through it, eight years later. But I also know that there’s a reason I survived.”

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