I walked into the living room. “I hope you don’t mind—” He wasn’t there. “Bridger?” I called, wondering if I’d been ditched again. I looked out the front window. His SUV was still there.
“Back here.” I followed the sound of his voice to my bedroom. He was perched on the edge of the sewing table holding a photograph, studying it with a frown on his face.
It was the picture of me in my “prom dress.” I’d torn up and thrown away the one with both of us before I’d decided to forgive him. I snatched the photo from his hands and forced down a surge of anger. And humiliation.
“I’m sorry how that night turned out. I wish things would have worked out differently,” he said, studying me.
“Not me,” I snapped, tossing the picture back onto the dresser. “Things worked out just how they should have.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, standing.
“I got to see the real you. You saved me from liking you as more than a friend.” At least, it should have. But I liked Bridger more every day.
One black eyebrow slowly lifted. He stepped up to me and leaned in so close I could feel his exhaled breath on my face. His eyes lingered on my lips before looking into mine. I turned around, my heart hammering and my lips burning, and strode out of the house. Bridger followed.
“So, where should we go to eat?” he asked as we got into his SUV.
“I haven’t thought ahead that far,” I admitted. Because my brain was too full of Bridger.
“I’ll choose then, since you’re providing the food.” Bridger started the engine. We drove through town and ended up on a sparsely populated road. The houses we passed, while few and far between, were growing nicer and bigger by the minute. Then the biggest house I have ever seen came into view on the left side of the road, surrounded by a tall stone fence. I stared at it as we drove past, trying to take in all the details.
“That house is huge!” I craned my neck to get one last look at it.
Bridger peered at me out of the corner of his eye. “You know, you should never judge a person by his house.”
“Yeah. I know.”
The paved road turned to dirt, and we entered uninhabited wilderness. About two miles up the dirt we were surrounded by dry, dusty mountains. There was a strange feel to the area, as if it should be teeming with life, yet it was silent and still.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s the old mine. No one ever comes up here anymore,” Bridger replied. “I know a perfect spot for a picnic.”
We circled around to the back side of a mountain and he stopped the car. I stepped out, looked around, and a smile washed over my face. The air smelled of dust and juniper and sunlight. The dry land was dotted with patches of green and shadowed in places by scraggly junipers and ponderosa pines. The trill of birds filled the air and wind rustled the trees. And that was it. Absolutely no human noise.
“How did you ever find this place?” I asked.
“I go biking up here all the time,” Bridger explained. “And that”—he motioned to a tall hill of brown dirt where a red flag, faded and threadbare, flapped in the wind—“that is Evening Hill.”
With the grocery bag picnic in one hand, Bridger grabbed my hand with his other and began pulling me up the dirt hill behind him.
“Why do you call it Evening Hill?” I asked, trying my best not to let the loose dirt spill into my shoes.
“Because if you sit here at sunset, you can actually see the evening descend over the world. See, look.” He pulled me to a stop at the top of the hill.
“Oh.” I could see for miles and miles. The sky stretched overhead brighter and bluer than I had ever seen it. A juniper-filled valley expanded out before us, ringed by distant purple mountains. There were no signs of humanity in that valley, no roads, no houses, no power lines.
“When a storm’s coming, you can see lightning on the horizon before you see a single cloud,” he added. He dropped my hand and casually draped his arm over my shoulders.
His arm felt good there, like I fit perfectly beneath it, like I should wrap my arms around his waist and lean against his chest. The view forgotten, I searched his face, trying to see what he was thinking. His face was turned to the horizon, alive with memories.
“I’ve been all over the world, but nowhere is as beautiful as the New Mexico desert,” Bridger said quietly. Finally, he looked down at me and dropped his arm to his side. “Hungry?”
“Very.”
We sat cross-legged, side by side, atop Evening Hill. I handed him his lunch and opened my yogurt.
“An apple and yogurt? What happened to the homemade chili and corn bread?” Bridger asked.
“I figured this would be easier to eat on a picnic. No dirty dishes.”
“You realize this doesn’t count as a meal, right?” He bit into his apple.
“Why not?” I replied, wondering if I should be offended.
“Because it’s a snack. I’ll be hungry five minutes after I eat this. But there’s this place I want to take you. The food is awesome. You game?”
“What? Right now?”
“No, not right now. Around dinner time, preferably. Do you have plans?”
I looked away from him, at the beautiful view. My tongue felt tied in a knot and my brain zoomed through excuses I could give to turn him down.
“What? You already have a date tonight?”
“It’s not that.”
“Well, then, why don’t you want to go?”
Because I like being with you too much and that’s going to lead to a broken heart. Mine, specifically. “I don’t want to date you,” I said. “But don’t get me wrong, you’re pretty cool to hang out with and all. Only, I don’t want a boyfriend or anything. Just a friend.”
He studied me for a long minute. “Good. I’m not supposed to date local girls. Family rule.”
He stood before I had a chance to ask him why.
“I want to show you something else,” he said, gathering up our lunch trash from the ground. I took a bite of my apple and followed him down the hill, past the car, and over to the base of the mountain. A breeze, cold and mysterious as an autumn night, blew the hair away from my neck.
“Did you feel that?” I gasped, holding my hands out in front of me. “There’s cold air right here.”
Bridger smiled and pointed to a dark, jagged gash running from the base of the mountain all the way to the road. Gnarled tree roots jutted out of the side of the gash, dangling down into the darkness. I wanted a better look, so I took a step closer, but he grabbed my wrist.
“Whoa! Don’t go any closer. The ground has caved in there, falling into the ancient mine shaft. This whole area is riddled with them.” He bent and picked up a small rock, then threw it into the black shaft. I strained to hear it land and looked at him when it didn’t. He put his finger to his lips. Then, unexpectedly, a hollow thud echoed up out of the sunken earth.
“That is so deep,” I whispered. “What would happen if I fell in?”
“Best-case scenario, if you weren’t lucky enough to grab hold of one of those tree roots, you’d crash to the bottom, break your neck, and die. Worst case, you’d trigger a rockslide and we’d both fall in, be buried under a ton of earth, and search and rescue would have to come and try to save us. We’d probably still die, but slowly and painfully. So be careful.” He tugged me a pace farther away from the mine shaft. “The whole mountain is covered with places where the earth is caving into the mine. If this wasn’t private property, I have no doubt something would be done to seal the mine and the collapsing shafts. Come here. I’ll show you another.”
We walked along the dirt road, the mountain to our right and the open valley to our left. We hadn’t taken a hundred steps when Bridger took my hand in his and pulled me into a clump of scraggly trees. Before I saw the gaping hole, the cool air touched my arms and face, and then I was looking down into blackness. We stopped a good five feet from the edge. I picked up a rock and threw it, counting in my head while I waited for it to land. I counted to six before the hollow thud reached my ears.
“That’s more than half a mile deep.” I breathed, remembering a math lesson on measuring distance with sound. Picking up an entire handful of rocks, I chucked them down the mine shaft. They scattered, eventually sounding like the thud of fat raindrops landing in mud. I smiled and looked up to see Bridger’s reaction. He was staring at me, studying me with serious eyes.
“So, are you going to save me from eating alone again tonight, or am I going to be turned down? I’m not used to being rejected when I ask someone out. And it doesn’t have to be a date. We’ll go as friends,” he said, stepping so close I could smell him. He looked right into my eyes.
“Um, well,” I stammered. He took my hands in his and my heart seemed to turn into a hummingbird’s frantic wings.
“I can see your answer in your eyes.” He dropped one of my hands and we strolled back out to the road. “Do you want to go home first? To freshen up, or anything?”
I was still wearing the grimy clothes I’d weeded and manured the garden in. “I need to shower and put on something nicer,” I answered, trying to figure out how he had gotten me to consent.
17
Later that afternoon, I climbed into Bridger’s SUV and my face started to burn. He wore dark gray dress pants, a pale blue button-up shirt, and glossy black shoes. I had on torn jeans, a purple cotton tank top, and Jenny Sue’s worn running shoes. My damp hair was loose around my shoulders, and I had put on makeup after I’d showered, yet I felt put to shame beside him. A dandelion compared to a rose.
“Do you mind if we stop by my place for a minute?” Bridger asked as we pulled away from Mrs. Carpenter’s house.
“Whatever.” I rolled down my window and stuck my arm out into the breeze.
We drove through town and started up the road to the abandoned mine. “You live up here?” I asked.
