“People like Elliott understand two basic languages—money and liability. I spoke to him in both.”
She smiles, a real one that reaches her eyes. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
“Drink your tea.” I give a slight nod to the steaming cup. “And rest that ankle today. I’ll have Carlos bring you food throughout the day.”
As I turn to gather my gear, she catches my sleeve. “Finn?”
I pause.
“Be careful out there.” Something in her tone makes me look back. The mask is gone again, revealing something softer.
“I’m always careful.”
Outside, I take a moment to breathe in the mountain air, centering myself. The interaction has left me oddly unsettled. Which version of Lena is real? The determined woman who’s hiked miles on a sprained ankle without complaint? The vulnerable one who’s shared a fragment of memory about her grandmother? Or the calculated performer who can switch personalities to please a producer? Maybe all of them. Maybe none.
As I organize the day’s expedition, I plan what edible plants to show her when I return. Things that might trigger more memories of her grandmother’s cooking. Plants that might bridge the gap between Lena Kensington, Hollywood actress, and Magdalena Reyes-Johnson, the woman she keeps hidden.
I’m not sure why it matters to me so much. But somehow, it does.
Chapter Eight
LENA
Solitude isa shock after days of constant company. The Forest Service cabin suddenly feels vast and empty, with only Carlos and me rattling around in it while the others are out there, facing who-knows-what on the trail. I’ve spent the morning on the narrow bench, my foot propped on a folded sleeping bag, watching dust motes dance in the shafts of sunlight that stream through the cabin’s single window.
Carlos proves to be what Finn promised—unobtrusive. He moves around the cabin, now and then filming when I change my willow compress or sip the bitter tea, but mostly he stays focused on capturing time-lapse footage of clouds rolling past the window. Unlike Elliott, he never asks me to “look more pained” or “emphasize the struggle.” The silence between us is comfortable rather than awkward.
“Finn left instructions for lunch,” Carlos says around noon, the first full sentence he’s spoken all day. He sets about heating water on the woodstove, adding packets from his pack with careful precision. The resulting meal is ... technically edible. Dehydrated vegetable-like substances and some kind of mystery meat that has me seriously re-evaluating every lifechoice that led me here. I eat by rote, more out of obligation than hunger.
“Not as good as when Finn makes it,” I say without thinking.
Carlos nods. “He adds things. Plants from outside.”
I glance toward the window. Beyond the glass lies a world of green I’ve been trudging through for days, seeing but not truly looking. A world my grandmother understood—plants that healed, nourished, protected. Knowledge I buried, along with my real name.
“Has the swelling gone down?” Carlos asks.
I rotate my foot. The willow poultice has worked better than I expected. The purple has faded, and I can move it with only moderate discomfort. “It’s better,” I admit. “His plant medicine works.”
Carlos gives a knowing nod. “Finn knows things. Old things.”
His simple words land harder than I expect. Finn knows things—more than survival skills or backcountry shortcuts. He moves through the world with a quiet kind of certainty, like he’s reading a map I can’t see. Like he understands things I’ve never learned to name.
As afternoon bleeds into evening, every creak of the cabin door makes me startle, half-expecting the steady rhythm of his boots. The silence that follows each time is a hollow thud in my chest. Missing him—actually missing that maddening, unexpectedly thoughtful mountain man—feels like stepping onto uneven ground I didn’t know was there.
Three days ago, he was the grumpy guide I had to tolerate. Now I catch myself wondering what he’d say about the clouds stacking over the ridge, or which impossible-to-pronounce plant he’d point out with that maddening confidence.
When Carlos hands me dinner—another foil-packed science experiment—it’s not the blandness that gets me. It’swhat’s missing. The low hum of Finn’s voice, the dry commentary, the way he made everything—somehow—feel like a story worth telling.
The stories that came with each meal, making even trail food connected to this place.
Night falls, the temperature dropping with the sun. Carlos banks the fire in the woodstove before retreating to his sleeping bag in the far corner. The cabin settles into creaks and whispers. I lie awake in the darkness, wondering where Finn is sleeping tonight. If he’s looking at the same stars I can see through the small cabin window. If he’s thought of me at all today. The idea that I want him to think of me sends a dangerous little thrill through me. This isn’t in the script. Finn Hollister isn’t supposed to matter. He’s a temporary guide through a temporary experience—a means to rehabilitate my image, nothing more. And yet ... the memory of his hands gently wrapping my injury lingers. The quiet confidence in his voice when he stood up to Elliott. The way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he almost smiles. I pull his borrowed jacket tighter around me, breathing in the scent of pine and something uniquely him.
Sleep comes, and my dreams are filled with willows bending in the wind and strong hands guiding mine toward healing.
Morning arrives on a breeze of golden light and birdsong, the kind of scene that would look great on a postcard but forgets to mention the lack of indoor plumbing. I wake more rested than I have in days. The pain still hums beneath the surface, but at least it isn’t screaming. I manage the wobbly shuffle to the outhouse without waking Carlos, using the cabin wall like a patient dance partner. He helped me the day before—bless him, and also never again—so the fact that I can pee without supervision is like a personal triumph. An unglamorous one, but I’ll take it.
Back inside, I remove the willow poultice, marveling at how much of the swelling has subsided. The herbs have drawn out most of the inflammation, leaving only a dull ache. The trip to the outhouse confirms what I suspected—it’s healing, though each step still sends a warning twinge up my leg.
