"Really. As if you hadn't been flirting with her, too." She crossed her arms across her chest.

Kristine tensed visibly. "Chatting. There's a difference. I already told you that I'm not here this summer to get distracted."

"Then why are you here?"

Kristine's expression opened to pure innocence. "To get my coat."

Her quip took Gloria aback. She wasn't used to being the one playing catch-up in a conversation. She stepped inside and grabbed the coat from the small closet by the door, remembering that Kristine had said the same thing about no distractions when she'd dropped her off after the campfire. She had felt Kristine's interest that night before she deflected. Trying to figure out Kristine's position, she handed the coat to her and said, "Not to find out if the rumor is true?"

The garment was suddenly engrossing to Kristine.

"Ah, so you do care." She waited for Kristine to say something.

Kristine finally looked up. "I know I shouldn't. It's just that...Ocean's a good kid, but..."

"She's definitely a kid." Gloria stepped toward Kristine leaning forward to put her lips close to Kristine's ear. "I thought I'd made it pretty clear who I was interested in," she whispered, relishing the shiver that ran through Kristine.

"And I told you, I can't." Kristine whispered back, her breath tickling the hairs on Gloria's neck.

She straightened. "Then why leave your coat?"

"It's what friends do."

"Friends?" Gloria stepped away. "You don't even know me."

"My second year of college, there was this girl who sat down behind me in ag cla.s.s. I'd never seen her before, but when she pa.s.sed my chair, we made eye contact, and I just knew we'd be friends. I got the same read from you."

"Did you sleep with her?"

Kristine hid behind her hat again.

"Thought so."

"And now we're not friends anymore," Kristine said, regret in her voice.

"And that's what you want?"

"I don't have many that walk on two feet."

Gloria considered the woman in front of her. She'd never met anyone who intrigued her more. She'd been looking to escape from Ocean's place, but here she realized she'd done her best to extend conversation with Kristine. "What the h.e.l.l. Maybe a friend is what I need," she said, remembering Meg and how homesick she'd been feeling. Maybe instead of distracting herself with a pa.s.sionate fling, she'd sort through the loneliness that had crept up on her like a cool, damp fogbank.

Kristine's smile looked so relieved that Gloria hugged her, just a gosh, you're silly, of course I'll be your friend kind of a hug, but one that surprised her with an intense zing. Her mind might have accepted Kristine's proposition, but her body certainly had not received the memo, humming appreciatively wherever their bodies were in contact. She fought the temptation to run her arms down Kristine's sides, stepping away instead. "I have to warn you...just because we're friends doesn't mean I'm not attracted to you."

"That's a warning?"

"If you keep dressing like that, I can't guarantee I won't flirt with you."

Kristine c.o.c.ked her eyebrow. "Friends can flirt."

"Just making sure you're up to it."

"Bring it on," Kristine laughed. "I can handle it."

"You have a few days to prepare yourself. I'm headed down to Fish Creek tomorrow morning."

"Oh." Kristine sounded disappointed. "Bear hunting?"

"Yeah. Depending on what I find, I'll be down there from three days to a week."

Kristine looked over her shoulder in the direction of the valley as if she could get a reading on how long Gloria would be away. "I'll keep an eye out for you, then."

"Sounds good."

"You have good stuff to read down there?"

"I've stocked up on lesbian s.m.u.t."

Kristine rewarded her with her radiant laugh. "I look forward to your book report when you come back." She was still chuckling as she climbed into the cab of her truck. She pulled the door closed by the base of the open window and smacked the door.

Gloria smiled to herself as the country music faded, replaying bits of their conversation. Shaking the memory of their brief hug from her mind, she thought about what made talking to Kristine so much fun. Conversations usually fell at two extremes-a.n.a.lytical shoptalk or time-killing chatter. With her insights and wit, Kristine fit in neither category. She also enjoyed how honest and straightforward Kristine was, that she had no desire to play games and could come right out and say what she thought. Her eyes found the postcard she'd bought before having dinner with Ocean. While she couldn't imagine hiking down to Fish Creek with Ocean, she almost wished for Kristine's company on the trail in the morning.

Chapter Eleven.

Kristine was going to kill Gabe. That was all there was to it. Once again, she reined in Boomerang's brisk walk, the one that would have them at Clark Lakes in two hours. She pulled her camera from the saddlebag. The light wasn't great under the canopy, and if she'd had the pack mules, she could have dismounted to try out her beanbag-based tripod. But she was stuck with the guests, and was forced to shoot from the saddle. The section of the trail before they left the woods had always had a magical feeling for her. She got some decent angles of a tree that had sprouted out of a rock and was making its crooked way toward the light. She also wanted to capture the eerie quiet of a mountain spring, a small pool with no tributary, the water seeping up out of some deep creva.s.se, the majesty of the light cascading through the canopy.

"Give that horse a kick," she hollered to the dumpy man riding behind her. She should have remembered the outpost trips included guests, rather than carefree days of working with stock.

"I don't want to hurt him," he whined.

"Oh, believe me, you won't," she hollered, though if he'd been closer, she would have been tempted to hurt the rider.

"Is mine a donkey? Is that why he's so slow?" he asked, finally catching up, panting like he'd been the one doing the work.

"You're on a mule, and they travel plenty fast. You just have to remind him who is boss."

"Why did I get stuck with a mule when my friends got horses?"

"Be thankful you have the mule. If we could afford it, everyone would ride mules. They offer a much more comfortable ride."

"So why not breed mules?"

Kristine took a deep breath regretting that she'd initiated the conversation. "Mules are a sterile cross between a horse and a donkey. Because they cannot breed, they are more costly."

"So why not pack horses?"

"Mules are much smarter," she said and because he did not seem to be reaching his limit on questions, she launched into the difference between a mule and a hinny and how offspring take after the mother which is why the cross that included a mare was favored so much of the time. She prattled on about the breeding program she and her father ran explaining the intricacies of their decisions.

At the rest stop, she tended to the stock as she let the riders stretch their legs and complain about how much they ached. Instead of gathering with the guests enjoying the view of Shadow Lake across the valley created by the San Joaquin River, its magnificent waterfall cascading down the rock face to meet the river, she sat cross-legged just off the trail and waited for her brother. She held the shutter down, capturing a quick sequence of him approaching with the party's five mules, ears all askew, packed up neat and tidy and cruising behind him. The guests waved happily, and he tipped his hat, ever the country gentleman. He'd be zipping along at a good clip while she would be stuck reminding her six riders to keep their horses' heads out of the gra.s.s and flowers. She gave him a withering look and started planning how to make him pay for taking the choice job.

As she tightened girths on the dude horses, she considered riding at the pace she knew would save her back and her spirits. She wasn't eighteen anymore. What did she care if the horses had to jog or canter to catch up? When had anyone fallen from a trotting horse? She thought hard and could count the number of times her guests had been able to go faster than a walk on the trail. All were times the guests had purposely hung back in order to play cowboy, getting their horses to trot on the trail. Those were the triumphs of her past. Now she had bigger things like where her life was headed after this summer to worry about. She sighed and returned to the task of mounting up the guests.

Back onto the trail, Mr. Chatterbox behind her started in immediately with his game of a thousand questions. She answered questions about the pack outfit, about the mules, the horses, the mountains. Ten years ago, she would have felt like the master guide, batting back every question, a fountain of information and entertainment. Today, she wished he would be quiet. She could use the time to think without the guest's constant chatter.

At the lakes, Gabe had long since finished unloading their gear. She appreciated that he was meticulous and had wound and tied off the fifty-foot long lashropes they used to secure the packs to the animals unlike some packers who flung them aside to get knotted up. When they arrived, she saw that he'd folded and stowed the tarps into the now empty pannier bags. He helped the riders dismount, removed the horses' bridles and tied up the stirrups, so they would not catch on anything on the way back. Maybe she wouldn't kill him, she decided as they sorted the animals into two strings, tying them nose to rump with a tail-tie to keep the animals from trying to pa.s.s each other along the trail. They tied the horses to each other first and put the mules at the end because they were more reliable about going around the steep and often tricky switchbacks without taking a shortcut from one level to another.

As she and Gabe mounted up for the ride home, she saw Mr. Chatterbox discuss when Gabe or Kristine would be back to pick them up and hand Gabe a tip. Because the strong man has done all the work of the day. She seethed. She waved to the group and wished them well before glaring at her brother and spurring her horse toward home. Let moneybags eat dust, she thought somewhat testily.

"You know we'll split," he hollered to her on the High Trail.

"Fine," Kristine called back. "Whatever. But you get the guests next time. You can try out being Mr. Entertainment for four hours."

"I thought maybe you'd stopped for a burger on the way in."

Kristine urged Boomerang to extend his stride, putting more distance between herself and her brother. She'd done enough talking for the day. He'd have to keep himself company. Tough for him if he'd been lonely on the ride up.

For the first time that day, she looked around her and remembered one of the big motivators for accepting Gabe's request to come back. The office s.p.a.ce couldn't be beat. A ceiling of c.u.mulus clouds chilled her when they obscured the sun. The steady beat of hooves on the trail and the rhythm of Boomerang beneath her brought a song to her heart. She started to hum, then to sing, her mood salvaged from the work of the morning. These were the moments she treasured in the backcountry where she had asked so many difficult questions of the world around her and felt the answers in her core.

These trails had led her to her confidence. Out here it was she, not her father, who was the expert. How often had she heard, "Thank goodness the guide knows the way..." How often had she hidden her fears of the lightning and thunder, so her guests didn't worry about their safety? Enough times that she truly wasn't afraid anymore. She had met those physical challenges and become stronger for it.

And it was the wilderness that had made her unafraid of her s.e.xuality. The vastness of the land around her seemed to quiet the conflict she had about her desires. These mountains had shaped her ident.i.ty, and she returned this time to ask again for direction. She knew that the longer she stayed at her father's ranch in Quincy, the less likely she was going to ever leave the tiny mountain town. That she excelled at the management side of her father's business only served to strengthen her father's argument that she was meant to take over the ranch someday, especially when it came to their breeding program. As she had proven talking to Mr. Chatterbox, she had an eye for good crosses, and their mules were some of the most sought after in the state, and she was certainly proud of her involvement in training the animals. She had found that to be the highlight of her last six months working the mule farm with her father.

In fact, it was the reward that she felt working with the young mules from the ground and then the saddle that had distracted her for this long. Gabe's pulling her away for the summer reminded her that she did want more from life. She would not be content staying in her small hometown selling homemade cards. She longed to explore and capture new places and people through the lens of her camera.

She thought of Gloria's position as a call-in expert. Kristine felt a twinge of jealousy for the independent, accomplished woman. She'd always been drawn to confident women, so in the past, she would definitely have pursued Gloria. But on reflection, she realized that for too long she had been following rather than setting her own life agenda.

This idea made her think of one of the first backcountry trips she'd been on when she had just started working for Leo. The packer had drawn a map for her in the dirt before she'd left the base.

She'd crossed a creek and was faced with a fork, but couldn't remember if she was supposed to head right or left. The trails were completely new to her, and the horse she'd been riding had been new that summer as well. She'd headed left and had only gone three or four minutes down the trail when her mule, carrying her duffel, sleeping bag and a load of trash from the trip, stopped, nearly jerking her out of the saddle. She'd looked hard at that mule and asked if she'd gone the wrong direction. His head swung around, pointing those long, radar-like ears in the opposite direction. She'd listened to him, and thank goodness, because he'd been right.

In that instance, she'd been smart to follow the mule. But in her life, she was coming to understand that it wasn't always best to accept someone else's notion of what was best for her, although she more often than not had done so. For instance, she recognized the parallel of her graduate program. In that case, she'd spent years fighting against her father's plan for her only to turn and bend to her father's will again when she settled back at his ranch. Kristine could tell in the way Gloria had presented her research that she had a strong innate sense of direction that Kristine felt she lacked herself. Getting involved with someone so driven might be problematic since Kristine felt herself caught at a crossroads again. She didn't want to step off the path her father considered best just to find herself walking on another path behind Gloria. In setting a firm line of friendship with Gloria, Kristine resolved to walk her own path, one she chose for herself.

Gloria was certainly a temptation with an appeal that went far beyond her confidence alone. Her hair swept up in a ponytail highlighted her strong jawline that contrasted with her mouth, seeming always about to smile. That inviting mouth and bright blue eyes might have spelled trouble, but their brief hug had made Kristine feel confident that they could be friends, and she was glad that Gloria had agreed.

The two strings dropped the five hundred feet down into the outpost yard, the trail snaking back and forth in a tight switchback down the mountain. Content to be through with the day's work, the siblings worked in harmony to put up their stock, stripping the horses and mules of their saddles which they stowed in the sheds. They cleared the pack docks of tarps, panniers and lashropes, leaving everything in order for the next day. Kristine watched her brother work and knew that this was home for him, that wherever the season took him, his life was in the mountains. For him, the trails were livelihood, not metaphor.

In that moment, she felt satisfied with her decision to join Gabe at the Aspens. While her father did his best to dissuade Kristine from returning to the Lodge, her mother offered cautious support as if she could sense what Kristine wrestled with after her brother had called to ask her to help him run the Aspens. Ultimately her opportunity to put things right with Gabe had tipped her into coming back. "You ever want more than this?" she asked, elbows resting on the top rail of the dude corral after they'd turned out and fed the stock.

"Maybe," he said. A broad grin spread across his handsome face.

Kristine squinted at him. "Do not..." she warned him.

"After I'm finished sowing..."

"No, not the wild oats! I know you feel like you want to play the field, but do you have to..." Though she shoved her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly, she still saw his lips move as he continued the sentence. "C'mon. I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you."

"I could tell by the way you had your fingers in your ears. Real grown up."

"Dad wants you back in Quincy after you graduate this year."

"Yeah. And I'll settle there. But you know I'm no good at the broodmares and starting colts. There's a reason you did the ag degree, and I'm in business. Between the two of us, he's got the ranch covered."

The sounds of the night surrounded them, the chomping of thirty animals on sweet alfalfa, hooves stomping flies away. This was the chorus she'd listened to her whole life.

Gabe broke the silence. "And what's so bad about running the ranch with your awesome brother?"

"Nothing at all. After work, we'll go line dancing. It'd be such fun to pick up chicks together."

"Hey, at least one of us has some luck in that category. We could help each other out. Or more specifically, you could send girls my way, let them know why I'm such a catch."

"You are a catch. You know that, right?"

"Catch and release is what I am," he said with uncharacteristic glumness.

"At least you actually have a chance of finding an eligible girl in Quincy. Can you imagine if we did both end up back on the ranch?"

"I could see us double dating," he said, hopefulness in his voice.

"Yeah, that wouldn't be weird at all," she said, needing to change the direction of their conversation. "And pretty soon, the one-screen theater in town might show an independent film."

"We're not that far from Reno, you know," Gabe reminded her.

"Ugh. Gabe. It doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a herd of sheep."

"Exactly! I'll sow my oats, you go find some goats. Dad will totally understand. Great chat, sis."

Though Kristine hung her head at the remark, inwardly she was thankful to hear his characteristic glibness return. "For that, you cook tonight, my friend."

"You know I cook by driving the truck down to the Lodge."

Kristine wondered if Gloria was back from her trip. She could be at the store getting supplies or having dinner in the cafe. Maybe she'd run into her by the washing machines. She chided herself for slipping back into such musings. "No. You owe me more than Jorge's chili dogs. You're taking me up the mountain for something good in Mammoth."

Chapter Twelve.