Page 31 of Working for the Mountain Man

I came to Forge Creek with a dead manuscript and a hero named Callum who had the emotional depth of wet cardboard. I couldn’t write a convincing man because I’d stopped trusting my own judgement about what a good one looked like.

Now the book is finished, and everyone who reads it is going to know exactly who inspired him, even if Hugo keeps pretending otherwise.

Somehow, I did it. Barely, but still. It counts.

Now, three months later, the book is edited, polished, and ready for publication. The dedication is the only part I’ve kept messing with. I’ve written it, deleted it, rewritten it, and stared at it like it might magically sort itself out.

It hasn’t.

Rude, honestly.

The sticky notes on the wall around the monitor are three layers deep in some places. His flannel is over the back of my chair, my cold coffee has been here since nine this morning, and it is now past one. Outside the window, the ridge is starting to show green at the lower edge, the last of the snow retreating up toward the peaks.

My boots are by his front door, my books are on his shelves, and my mail comes here now. I don’t remember a time that I’ve ever felt so content, so happy, but with Hugo it’s effortless and beautiful.

I hear his truck in the driveway, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing.

"Elsie," he calls out.

"Office," I call back, with a smile on my face, something that’s a permanent fixture these days.

He comes to the office and stops, filling the doorframe; he’s in his work jacket. There’s mud on his boots, the radio clipped to his jacket, and his hard hat tucked under his arm. He looks at me and then immediately at the coffee cup, takes two steps toward the desk and he picks it up.

"This is cold."

"I’ve been busy."

"It's growing something."

He takes it and comes back two minutes later with a fresh one, sets it beside the laptop and doesn't say anything, just presses a kiss to my head.

“I finished the proof,” I say.

He looks at the screen, then at me and smiles. “Good.”

I roll my eyes at the tone. “You sound like I filed a bridge inspection.”

He shrugs. “It’s important.”

My brows furrow. “The bridge inspection?”

“The book,” he says simply.

Oh, that’s worse, somehow, because Hugo says it like it’s obvious, like my work matters to him because it matters to me.

Daniel used to ask how the writing was going the way people ask about weather. As a filler conversation, Hugo has never once asked how the writing was going; he asks when it is due, whether I need quiet, whether the desk chair is the right height. He fixed a drafty seal on the window because I mentioned once that cold air made it hard to concentrate.

I never had to explain what my work was worth, he just treated it like it was.

"Corey pre-ordered it," I say.

Hugo's expression does not change, but something behind his eyes does. "He did?"

"Doris has had a pre-order in since February, Marlene keeps asking me if the hero is based on a real person, and Darnell asked if the bridge documentation scenes were accurate."

"Darnell read it?"

"He read the preview chapters; he said the culvert details were solid."