Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“You do this a lot?” I ask between shots.
“Different field, same skills,” he says. “Patience. Timing. Reading the subject. Light discipline.”
“Light discipline,” I repeat, pretending to write it on my palm. “And here I was calling it ‘avoid raccoon eyes.’”
He smiles. “That too.”
Major’s shoot is easy—three head tilts, two happy spins, one perfect frame that hits me right in the heart. I show Lucas the screen and he studies it like it’s recon. “You make him look adoptable,” he says.
“He is adoptable. I just translate it.”
He glances from the image to me and back, something like respect brightening his eyes. Heat flutters low in my chest. I am very professional about it. I only blush a little.
By late afternoon my cheeks are wind-kissed, my camera roll is full, and I’ve lost track of time in that alive way that means I did the right thing coming here. Charlotte tugs me into the kitchen for cocoa while the dogs nap in floppy piles. Asher disappears to take a call. Lucas lingers in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, watching the mountains like he expects them to shift.
“So,” Charlotte murmurs, bumping my hip with hers while she stirs cocoa. “Lucas.”
I stare at the whipped cream like it contains answers. “I was going to ask you about that.”
“Quiet, competent, good with creatures,” she says, counting off. “Also: objectively handsome. Try not to lick his biceps.”
“Be serious,” I whisper, then immediately add, “Do not judge me if I trip ‘accidentally’ again.”
She grins. “You’re only here for the weekend.”
“I know.” I swallow, watching him in my peripheral vision. He leans down to scratch Moose’s ears, and Moose groans in bliss. Honestly, same. “Which is perfect for not-complicated, not-messy fun.”
Charlotte hands me a mug. “You don’t do complicated.”
“Rude. Accurate.” I blow on the cocoa and hazard a glance toward the door. He’s looking at me now, like he heard that whole exchange. His mouth tilts.
As dusk slips over the ridge, Asher announces pizza from town. Charlotte cheers. The dogs agree loudly. Lucas offers to pick it up and I blurt, “I can come,” like a middle-schooler choosing a lab partner.
Three sets of eyebrows rise.
I clear my throat. “For, you know, local color. Photo ops. Content.”
“Uh-huh,” Charlotte says, biting back a smile.
“Sure,” Asher says, deadpan generous. “Local color.”
Lucas holds my coat while I jam my arms in the sleeves, because he’s special like that—polite, thoughtful, inconveniently attractive. When our fingers brush, something sparks, and if this was one of my reels I’d add glitter effects.
In the truck, the heater hums and the roads thread dark through the trees. We make small talk—favorite trail snacks, worst travel story (his: a midnight flight on a cargo plane; mine: an Airbnb with a shower that hissed like a snake). The quiet between answers is comfortable, the kind that doesn’t need to be filled with words to prove interest.
“You shoot a lot of rescues?” he asks after a while.
“Any chance I get,” I say. “My followers like all kinds of dogs. I love dogs. If dogs find homes because of it… win-win-win.”
“Good mission,” he says, and he means it. Not a line, not a pat on the head.
“What about you?” I ask. “Back-to-back assignments, or do you get a minute to breathe?”
“Just finished a run,” he says. “Home for a week. Maybe two.”
A week. My brain taps a little calculator: weekend equals 48 hours minus sleep minus pizza equals… bad idea arithmetic. I smile anyway. “Then we’ll put you to work holding reflectors and bribing models.”
“Copy that,” he says, mouth hitching up.
We cross a narrow bridge, lights from the town twinkling ahead like a bowl of stars dumped onto a map. Tomorrow we’ll shoot more, drink too much cocoa, and I’ll pretend I don’t notice the way Lucas watches the world like he’s filed it all by heart.
For tonight: pizza, dogs, and the quiet thrill of maybe. I came to the mountains to breathe. I didn’t plan on the man who catches you before you hit black ice or gets a skittish pup to hold still with a whisper.
I’m only here for the weekend.
But as we roll into town, the crown of the Rockies shining silver in our rearview, I let myself think—just for one reckless heartbeat—that a weekend might be enough to start something.
3
Lucas
I don’t do complicated.
That’s been the guiding principle since I got out—keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it moving. Jobs, miles, the next assignment. Denver is new, and new is good. It means routine. Predictable rotations. Quiet mornings where the mountains look like they were drawn with a pencil and a steady hand.
Then Melanie laughed in my truck on the way to get pizza, and every rule I’ve written for myself got a little fuzzy around the edges.
Back at the cabin, the dogs form a perimeter around the coffee table like a furry security cordon, eyes locked on pepperoni like it’s contraband. Melanie kneels to snap photos of Moose with a slice-shaped plush toy. She makes a high, ridiculous sound that should scare a dog into next week but instead gets Moose to tilt his head and smile like he understands her.