Page 4 of Saved By the Mountain Man Ranger

Darius told me that. Right before he left. "You love dead people more than living ones, Eliza." Said it standing in the doorway of the apartment we'd shared for two years, his bag already packed, his keys already on the counter. "I can't compete with a ghost."

He wasn't wrong. That's the part I can't stop turning over. He wasn't wrong, and I picked the ghost anyway.

When I come back out, Weston is at the stove, stirring something in a pot. The smell of canned soup fills the cabin. Not glamorous. Not complicated. Just hot food for a cold night, made without being asked.

"The storm," I say, sitting back down at the table with my tea. "How long?"

"Three days. Maybe four."

My stomach drops. "Four days?"

"Blizzard warning through Thursday. The pass will be the last thing they plow, if they can plow it at all. Your rental's not going anywhere."

Three to four days. In a one room cabin with a stranger who looks at me the way Weston McCall does. Not with interest exactly. More like assessment. A man cataloging threats, deciding whether I'm one.

"Where do I sleep?"

"You take the bed." He nods toward the hallway. "Couch pulls out."

"I'm not taking your bed."

"You weigh a buck forty soaking wet and you were hypothermic twenty minutes ago. You're taking the bed." He doesn't look up from the soup. "This isn't a negotiation."

Something prickles along the back of my neck. Part irritation, part something warmer I refuse to name. "You always this charming with the people you rescue?"

"I'm not charming." He says it plain as weather. "Soup's ready."

We eat in silence at the small table, our knees almost touching in the tight space. The soup is hot, salty, exactly what my body needs. Warmth spreads from my stomach outward. The shivering finally stops.

He eats the way he does everything else. Methodically. No wasted motion. Broad shoulders filling out his thermal, sleeves pushed up on forearms corded with muscle. Silver threading through dark hair at his temples. Lines around those blue eyes from years of squinting into sun and snow. Late thirties, I'd guess. A face that's spent more time outside than in, built by weather rather than vanity.

"Marcus Farrell," I say, because the silence is getting to me. Because when it's quiet, I notice too much. The width of his hands around the soup bowl. The scar on his left knuckle. "You said you knew who he was."

"Everyone on this mountain knows who he was."

"His mother still lives in Grand Junction. She's seventy three. She calls the ranger station every November on the anniversary of his disappearance."

His spoon stops. Something moves behind his eyes. Brief. Gone before I can read it.

"I know," he says quietly. "I take the call."

The words settle into my chest. Every year. This man picks up the phone for a grieving mother, knowing he has nothing to give her.

"The original search reports have gaps," I say. "Sections that were redacted when I FOIAed them. The cabin you said collapsed in 2011, that was referenced in three separate witness interviews as a possible shelter location, but the search team never formally documented a sweep of it."

"Because it was inaccessible. The drainage floods in November. Nobody could get to it during the initial search window."

"But nobody went back after."

He looks at me. Really looks, the way he did when he was holding my feet. Steady, evaluating, missing nothing. "You've read the full case file."

"Twice. Along with the county coroner's records, the forest service incident reports, and every published interview with the search coordinator." My tea is lukewarm now. I drink it anyway. "I've been working on Marcus Farrell for two years. This isn't a hobby."

"No." He sets his spoon down. "It's an obsession."

The word lands in the center of my chest. Obsession. Darius used the same word. Different tone, same diagnosis.

"It's my job."