Yet there she was, just cresting the one-year mark, and there were more blank boxes than check marks in the column.
Avery scanned the street for again for passersby. With the streets empty, she suppressed the urge to jump up and down because that kind of motion in the harness would end badly, and instead reached over the side to play with the latch and—
“Look at that?”
With one toggle the latch came undone, two and Avery had the lid propped open and was staring at handy dandy screwdriver sitting on the top, as if waiting for a stranger in need to happen by.
She was a stranger, and she was in need, and when she happened by no one was there, which meant no one would know she borrowed the tool for a second or two.
Palms sweating and heart racing, Avery did one last quick scan of the area, then snatched the screwdriver and quickly stuck the flat edge between the opening of the carabiner. With a calculated twist she wedged open the two metal clasps and—
“Shit. Shitshitshit!”
The tip of the screwdriver launched itself up into the air only to come down and land near the storm drain. Avery scrambled to catch it before it rolled out of sight, but her short legs combined with the restrictive harness made retrieval without diving head first into the greater Sierra sewage system impossible, leaving her stuck in a harness and holding a stolen tool.
She couldn’t leave without coming clean and a promise to at least replace his screwdriver, but she couldn’t stay too long either because Nelson headed for home around sunset. And if she didn’t catch him tonight, her adventure would have to wait until Monday.
And Avery was tired of waiting, so with the first hints of orange peeking over the mountains, she pulled out her brightest lipstick—stiletto red with a gloss luminous enough to be seen from space that she’d bought when she’d decided to start living bold. Propping her knee on the hood of the car, she gripped the windshield wiper for leverage and pulled herself up.
Perched on top of his hood on all fours, she took a bold breath and ever so carefully scrawled across the front windshield: I OWE YOU A SCREW—
Damn it! Her lipstick, warm from the day’s heat, broke and rolled down below the wipers and out of sight. She leaned forward and slipped her fingers inside the crevice to get it, thunking her forehead against the windshield when she realized it was just out of reach.
“Either you were going to write in your ex’s phone number or this is my lucky day.”
Avery slowly turned her head, and what she saw sent her heart to her toes. Leaning against a lamppost, looking relaxed and incredibly dangerous in a pair of battered hiking boots, low-slung cargo pants with a million and one pockets holding a million and one surprises, and enough stubble to tell her it was five o’clock, stood a mountain of hard muscles and pure testosterone—wearing a Sequoia Lake Lodge ball cap.
She reread what she’d written and felt her face flush.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” she said, because it was so much worse. Two seconds into living loud and she was caught defacing the truck of a man who, although she had never seen him before, she could tell by the well-worn but well-kept Gore-Tex mountaineering boots, wasn’t a weekend warrior.
But a Sequoia Lodge member—and a serious climber. That he found amusement in her situation told her he knew she wasn’t.
“I figure you’re either testing out a new lip color or making a declaration, in which case you might as well save us both some time and just give me your number.”
“My mother warned me about giving my number to handsome strangers. She said they either call or they don’t, but either way you’re in for a world of hurt.”
“Handsome stranger, huh?” He pushed off the lamppost and approached the truck, his hand extended. She ignored it under the pretense of looking for her lipstick. “Easy fix. Name’s Ty.”
Just that. Ty. With a shrug. As though Mountain Man was too badass for anything more than a couple letters thrown together—and big enough to get away with it.
In her experience, big, badass men who pretended to be bulletproof were the first to take cover the second that whole through sickness and in health part came into play. Unfortunately, big, badass men who dropped five hundred bucks on a pair of hiking boots also tended to drop serious cash on adrenaline-pumping excursions, which meant she needed to appear somewhat neighborly.
And normal.
Eyes making direct and unwavering contact, she said, “I’m Avery. Avery Morgan.”
“Well, Avery Morgan, if you aren’t making an offer, then my guess is you mistook the hood of my truck for a mountain.” He chuckled, and she found herself smiling back.