“Something like that. So now you know my story. What’s yours?”
Walker shrugged and rose from the table, grabbing his bowl. He took it to the sink. The old pipes clanked as he rinsed it out. “Years ago my family settled here, and I grew up here. I played on this mountain, and over the years, I saw my fair share of people get hurt or go missing on the unforgivable hill.”
He turned, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “One of my brothers got lost in these woods when I was just a kid, and from that day on, I swore I’d know every inch of this mountain so that if anyone ever got lost again, I could find them.”
“You sound like a good brother,” she offered with a smile.
“I wasn’t. I was the reason he got lost.”
“How? Were you playing a trick on him or something?” she asked.
He shook his head. His brows creased as if he were lost in memory. “Something like that, and then he got all turned around.”
He crossed the room and stoked the fire and threw more logs onto the burning embers.
“So, we’re more alike than I thought,” she said.
“How do you figure?”
“Each of us is trying to prove ourselves. Me to my dad and the people that believed his lies, and you, never getting close enough to hurt anyone again.”
