Pause

THE WORLD HAS GONE STILL, poised on the fulcrum of Now. Lindsey takes a deep breath of fir needle resin and listens to the forest hush.

She’s halted at a switchback on the Goat Mountain trail, confronted by the flaring skirts of two giant cedars flanking the trail, making a gateway to the filtered light beyond—a soft green frieze of lacy bleeding-heart, red huckleberry, and backlit vine-maple leaves. She steps through, outstretched fingertips brushing the rough bark on either side. Before her on the steep slope rises another big cedar, this one a hollowed-out husk surviving an old lightning burn. It’s a favorite spot, an intricate sculpture in brown and charred black, scooped and hollowed into a windowed tube and resting impossibly balanced on narrow spikes of intact trunk. Lindsey holds her breath, feeling the slightest breeze might crumble the fragile balance, send the whole thing crashing at her feet. And yet it’s clearly stood this way for decades.

Overhead, a raven chortles.

There’s an answering raven call behind her, full-throated.

Lindsey turns to see Damon stepping through the twin-cedar gateway, face turned up as the hidden raven overhead calls back to him. He smiles and flattens a palm over one of the flaring trunks.

“Wow.” He steps closer behind Lindsey, staring at the hollow burned cedar. “I’d forgotten about that.”

They stand quietly taking it in.

Damon lifts the camera hanging around his neck. “How about a shot of you standing beside it?”

She shakes her head. “Better without me.”

“It needs you at its feet, gives proportion.”

“Oh. All right.” Lindsey moves carefully to avoid crushing the delicate wildflowers. “How about if I crouch down? Less intrusive.”

“Perfect.” He snaps a couple shots, taking his time, and when Lindsey thinks he’s done and she’s relaxed to gaze up at the play of filtered light over cedar bark, he snaps one more. “Nice. If you’ll sign a release, I can use it in one of our hiking features.”

She bites her lip, starts to protest about not being photogenic, then shrugs.

“Look. It’s beautiful.” He gestures her closer, tilts the camera—an expensive-looking digital with a big lens—so she can see the monitor screen. The soft lighting glows over the sinuous lines of the burned sculpturing, casts a warm hue on Lindsey’s uptilted face. He’s caught a very flattering angle on her.

She blinks in surprise. “You’re an artist.”

He brushes her bare shoulder lightly with his fingers. “No. You’re a natural.”

She shivers—from his touch, or just cooling off after the sweaty push up the steep switchbacks? Adjusting her knapsack straps, she moves quickly on up the trail. “Looks like more light breaking through up ahead. We’re almost to the meadow.”

A snowmelt stream gurgles down the slope and across the trail, silencing whatever response Damon might have made behind her. Lindsey can feel the heat in her cheeks, the unspoken vibe between them. He’s been quiet on the trail, after their animated brainstorming session in the car about article ideas, but she can feel his gaze on her back, can’t help noting his appreciative glances at her bare legs and arms when they take a water break.

Damon has surprised her in the forest, the way he’s carried a sort of stillness that meshes with the forest hush. They have a good matching pace and rhythm for hiking, something Lindsey doesn’t find in many companions. She’s grateful he doesn’t feel the need to talk much, can just tilt his head toward something he’s noticed, or catch a movement of hers toward a bird or wildflower. They’ve got a groove going with the trail.

And yet, part of her isn’t fully here, is somewhere else wrestling with the enigma of Newman in her life. She has to remember what she’s learned the hard way: Be watchful for the signs of manipulation. Don’t let herself fall into another Nick scenario of push-pull. Can she ever trust herself to know when a heart connection is true? Trust that core goodness she feels in Newman, past this static of confusion? Do they each need to go off and lick their old wounds a little longer?

Why did he have to pick last night to call? Stir up that wild pitch of arousal one more time, for one more wait-and-see? Just in time to divert her pleasure in Damon’s company, insert his Zender static into this vibe that’s building today, whether it’s flowering into a creative work partnership, a new friendship, the frisson of sexual flirtation or more—and why the hell shouldn’t she enjoy Damon’s appreciation of her female self? Newman’s certainly made his ambivalence clear.

Clearly ambivalent. Now there’s a Zender koan. She can’t help chuckling—better than twisting herself into a pretzel over it all.

She blinks as she steps out of forest shadow into full blazing sunlight, a meadow opening at her feet rampant with crimson fireweed, lavender lupine, and delicate yellow glacier lilies nodding at the edge of a melting snow patch. A stream meanders from under the snow, braiding over the lush, soggy grass—a rainbow carpet shimmering under the incandescent alpine-blue sky.

“Ah!” The intensity of light pierces her heart, breaks it open to gratefulness. Tears sting her eyes.

“Hey.” A soft voice behind her. “You okay?”

She didn’t hear Damon stepping closer on the moist dirt of the trail. She ducks her head, brushes at her eyes, and nods.

He squeezes her shoulder briefly. “Sometimes it’s hard to take, this beauty, eh?” His voice has taken on the slow native cadences, so different from his pace in town. “Almost to the overlook. We can have our lunch there. Take your time.”

He moves around her, up the trail, not pushing her to respond. Again she’s taken by surprise by him. She takes a deep breath, breathing in the shimmering light and color, the pure cleansing air. She smiles, sending out an incoherent Thank you—to what or whom she isn’t sure. Her feet are light on the path as she moves on, higher, deeper, into overarching blue.

Damon’s waiting on the granite knob of the Goat Mountain overlook, shirtless and sprawled out on his back, eyes closed, smiling. Lindsey is smiling, too, as she rounds the last switchback and crosses a lingering snowbank in the alpine meadow. Somehow she’s been released into the joy of the day. She steps forward into a nearly three-sixty panorama of jagged snowy peaks cutting a razor-sharp border into the ultraviolet sky.

“Wow.” She drops her knapsack and stretches.

Vibrant light pulsates over the glaciers and mountain lake almost close enough to touch across the steep valley, a glimpse of the river glittering far below. The intensity of light throbs in her eyes. Shimmers over Damon’s brown skin, a startling contrast of warm, vulnerable flesh against the starkness of black rock, white snow, blue sky.

He opens his eyes, blinks, and sits up. “Man, this is where it’s at.” His white teeth flash as he opens his arms to the view.