Chapter One
Jade
“I hate you for making me do this,” Everly hissed.
“Me?” I whisper-yelled. “This was your idea, remember? I wanted to spend a weekend glamping. But no. You thought a hike would be a more memorable experience.”
She wasn’t wrong. We’d definitely remember this trip.
If we survived.
Her entire body trembled by my side. “Do you think they’ll come closer?”
“I don’t know.” I gripped her hand, clutching it as we huddled together on the trail.
Across from us, about fifty feet down the trail, stood a bison the size of a tank. He’d been farther away five minutes ago, but with every passing second, he inched closer, nuzzling the grass with his snout before taking another step in our direction. His charcoal horns tapered to piercing points, and his black, beady eyes seemed glued to our every move.
The bull snorted, causing both of us to flinch.
The minute we’d come upon the herd in this meadow, we’d nonchalantly retreated on the trail, but for every backward step we took, the animals—this one in particular—took three forward.
Everly unclipped the canister holstered to her belt. “Does bear spray work on bison?”
“I don’t know.” But if that thing came within firing range, we’d both unleash until either he killed us or we turned him into bison jerky—pepper spray flavored. “Come on.”
We eased back another foot, this time not drawing any movement from the beast. One foot became ten, then twenty. When the animal turned, whipping his tail over his ass in a silent fuck off, Everly and I slumped against each other in relief.
We were standing in the middle of an open plain in Yellowstone National Park. The path we were on was bordered by tall green grasses that stood above our knees and swayed in the slight summer breeze.
Everly and I had spent hours and hours doing research on trails after she’d convinced me to hike. This particular path wound through the Hayden Valley, and the online descriptions had promised an experience unique to the Yellowstone Plateau. If you wanted to see the heart of the park, this was the hike to take.
We’d been hiking since sunrise, traversing meadows and passing wide sections of pinewoods. Lunch had been by a small lake. Through it all, we’d enjoyed seeing the park’s wildlife from a safe distance. Birds squawked as they flew overhead. Deer and elk stared at us cautiously before bounding away in the opposite direction. They gave us a wide berth and we returned the favor.
That was, until we’d rounded a bend, emerging from behind one of the trail’s many plateaus and found ourselves much, much too close to the bison.
“At least it wasn’t a bear,” I said, doing a quick sweep of the area, making sure there wasn’t a grizzly in sight. “So what do we do? They’re blocking the trail.”
The only way forward was through the bison, and one close encounter was enough for my lifetime.
“Should we turn around? Head back to the trailhead?”
“We’ll never make it back to the car before dark.”
If my watch was correct, we’d hiked almost seventeen miles today and only had three to go until we reached the end. Three puny miles. Easy, if not for the blockade.
“Remember what I said about bison being majestic?” I asked. “I changed my mind.”
Until thirty minutes ago, I’d loved the animals. I’d bought a bison stuffy at the gift shop at Old Faithful yesterday. But given their sheer size, if one of the ogres decided to play chase the human, we’d be trampled and stomped to death in seconds.
“I don’t want one of those faces to be the last thing I see,” I said.
“What about bears? I don’t want to be bear food either. At least in the daytime, we can see them coming. I don’t want to be stranded out here in the middle of the night.”
“Shit,” I hissed.
Though the bison had taken us by surprise, we’d been prepared for bears. Everly and I were both packing three cans of bear spray and we’d been hyper bear aware with every mile.
If my choice was grizzly or buffalo, I’d take my chances with the bison. “We have to wait for them to move off the trail.”
We could try to walk around them but neither of us knew the area and the last thing we needed was to get lost. Like the park ranger had reminded us three times yesterday when we’d told him we were hiking Mary Mountain—stay on the trail.
So here we were. Stuck.
Beyond us, the grasslands spread for miles, eventually meeting the mountain foothills. The open wilderness had lots of space to run.
And not a damn place to hide.
Today’s journey had been one of the most exhilarating and terrifying experiences of my life.
Maybe fate had intervened and brought us here. I was about to embark on a new phase in my life, and remembering this hike would help me keep things in perspective. If I could face down a one-ton bison and not pee my pants, I could move across the country and build a new life, no sweat.
We stood there, watching the animals meander through the meadow with no care for our urgency. The sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky, and though we were hours from sunset, eventually the light would fade and we’d become a tasty temptation for a passing grizzly bear.
Or a pack of wolves.
My stomach turned.
“They aren’t leaving,” Everly said.
“Nope.”
The bison herd clustered along the stretch of trail ahead, eating and leaving their shit pies where we’d planned to walk. I’d almost stepped in a ripe one earlier, which should have been my first warning to turn back, but I’d been too busy appreciating the landscape and keeping an eye out for carnivores.
“How fast do you think we can walk slash run seventeen miles?” I asked.
“Fast.” Everly nodded. “Really, really fast.”
“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Amen.” We both spun around, ready to bolt, but froze when we saw something else on our path.
Not a bear—thank God—but a man.
“Uh . . . how long has he been behind us?”
“This is the first time I’ve noticed him,” Everly said. “I glanced back to look for bears but that was a while ago.”
“Maybe he’s a park ranger.”
“Or a serial killer following two idiot women from Nashville and he’s going to drag us back to his lair and turn us into human stew.”
“Eww.” I cringed. “Thanks for the visual.”
“Sorry. I’ve been watching a lot of Criminal Minds.”
The man’s long legs ate up the distance between us. His thighs bulged beneath his faded jeans with every stride. If he’d hiked the past seventeen miles at that speed, it was no wonder we hadn’t noticed him behind us.
He wore a backpack like ours, but the straps seemed tiny on his broad shoulders, and they stretched the navy cotton of his T-shirt tight across his muscled chest and flat stomach. The baseball cap on his head shaded his eyes from view, though even from a distance, the strong line of his jaw and the straight bridge of his nose were evident.
Neither Everly nor I spoke as we watched the man get closer, his features becoming clearer with every step.