She lowered her head and, if we’d been back in Colorado, I think she’d have left it there. But then she glanced around at the silent emptiness: we were the only two people for miles. I knew how she felt: the quiet pulled secrets out of you. “Who’d want me, even for one night?” she asked tightly.

She stared at me, challenging me to say something, but I just gaped. This was me, I’m never lost for words with women. But I couldn’t process what she was saying. That’s really how she thinks of herself? And when I didn’t answer, she lowered her head again and marched on.

My arm shot out and blocked her path, my hand closing on her shoulder. I couldn’t find the words but I wasn’t going to let her walk on with that toxic crap in her head. She glanced up at me, her eyes liquid.

I looked her right in the eye. “Anyone.”

She swallowed hard. “But I don’t have big boobs and I’m not confident and I like books, not partying…what is there to like about me?”

My hand tightened on her shoulder. “Everything.”

She stared stubbornly up at me, denying it. But I just gazed down at her, burning straight through, and saw her weaken and then melt. And as the anger and hurt collapsed, I saw her eyes light up with hope.

Now I swallowed. My hand was still on her shoulder. All I had to do was tug her forward for my kiss. And oh God, I wanted to. More than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. My fingers tightened…

But then I thought of the anger in JD’s voice, back in the kitchen. He hadn’t been kidding. If anything happened with Erin, I’d lose him forever.

“Now you listen to me,” I told her. “You. Are. Amazing. And you’re going to be someone’s whole world. Their everything. They’re going to love you without question and fuck you without mercy.”

I stared down into those delicate blue eyes until I was sure she knew that I wished it could be me. She flushed and nodded…and we walked on.

As we continued to climb, the wind picked up, whipping around the side of the peak. We were up above the tree line, now, with nothing to shelter us. The noise rose from a low howl to a piercing shriek that drilled into brains and made it impossible to talk. We hunched our shoulders and pulled our heads in like turtles, sheltering our mouths behind our jacket collars and only exposing them to snatch a breath.