5
BROOKLYN
The ankle was bad enough that I shouldn’t have been hiking. But Ridge had wrapped it tight, padded Paisley’s hiking boots so they’d fit better, and offered to carry me over any section I couldn’t manage.
At dawn, we set out.
He showed me everything. The yellow fringed orchid first—growing in a rocky clearing on the south face, exactly where he’d said, delicate and impossible and glowing in the early light. I photographed it from every angle, checked the GPS twice, and felt the same electric thrill Paisley must have felt when Evan showed her the pink lady’s slipper.
Then the fire pink, tucked into a crevice near a waterfall I never would have found alone. Then the Turk’s cap lily, nodding on a stem at the edge of a meadow that took twenty minutes to reach through a rhododendron thicket so dense that Ridge had to hold the branches back with both arms while I ducked through.
Species after species. High-point finds that nobody else on the scavenger hunt could reach because nobody else had a man who knew the mountain like his own body—and had nothingbetter to do than carry a woman with a sprained ankle to every hidden corner of it.
By midmorning, my checklist was full. Every species. Every GPS tag verified. The highest possible score.
Ridge drove me down the mountain in his truck—a mud-crusted pickup that made Evan’s look like a luxury sedan—and dropped me at the Wildwood Valley Inn with a kiss that lasted long enough for Bobbi to see it from the front desk window. I heard the squeal through the glass.
Hartley was waiting in the lobby with a look on her face that combined relief, interrogation, and something softer I recognized as happiness. Not for the scavenger hunt. For me.
“You’re glowing,” she said.
“I fell off a mountain.”
“And you’re glowing? Those don’t usually go together.” She handed me a coffee she’d brought from the Pancake House. “Spill.”
I told her everything. Not the private parts—not the bedroom, not the details that belonged to Ridge and me and the cabin walls. But the rest. The fall, the rescue, the cabin, the dinner, the man who’d been hiding on a mountain for seven months because he couldn’t forgive himself for something that wasn’t his fault. The way he’d looked at me in the lamplight. The way he’d carried me over every rough stretch of trail that morning without being asked, just because he saw I was hurting and decided to make it stop.
“He showed me every rare species on the checklist,” I said. “Every single one. Hartley, I think I’m going to win.”
“I know you’re going to win. I’ve seen your photos.” She paused. “But that’s not what you’re really telling me.”
“No. It’s not.”
She reached across the lobby couch and squeezed my hand. “I’m happy for you, Brooklyn.”
“He lives on a mountain. With only two mugs.”
“Two is enough for two people.”
I laughed at her words. It turned into something closer to tears, and Hartley held my hand through both.
I submitted my scavenger hunt entry that afternoon. Every species documented, every GPS coordinate verified, every photo timestamped. The submission form asked for a brief description of how I’d found each specimen, and I typed the truth.
I got lost. Someone found me. He showed me the mountain.
The results came in that evening, announced from the bandstand at the edge of the festival grounds while the last of the sunset painted the mountains gold and pink. Bobbi read the names in reverse order, dragging it out with the dramatic flair of a woman who organized scavenger hunts specifically so she could stand on a stage and make people sweat.
Paisley’s name came early. Too early. She was near the bottom, her carefully documented but low-altitude finds placing her well below the serious competitors. She’d stuck to marked trails, played it safe, gone for volume over risk—exactly the approach that made sense for someone hiking alone in unfamiliar terrain. The smart approach. The responsible one. It just didn’t win.
I watched her face from across the crowd and saw the moment the disappointment hit—the flash of something raw and desperate that she covered quickly with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Hartley placed somewhere in the middle. Respectable. Solid. She’d done exactly what she’d planned to do—compete sensibly, enjoy the process, walk away with a decent showing. She caught my eye from her spot next to Dash and gave me a nod that said “go get it.”
“And this year’s grand prize winner,” Bobbi said, leaning into the microphone with a grin that suggested she’d known theoutcome before she’d finished counting, “with the highest score in the history of the Wildflower Scavenger Hunt, is Brooklyn Calloway.”
The crowd cheered. Hartley screamed. Paisley hugged me from behind, and I felt the hug last a beat longer than celebration required—felt her hold on the way you hold on when you’re happy for someone else and heartbroken for yourself at the same time.
I hugged her back hard and whispered, “We’ll talk later,” though she probably didn’t hear me over the noise.