But she couldn’t take this anymore. Stuck inside all day, no way to stop people coming in and out of the den, no way to ensure privacy, not able to do anything for herself. She couldn’t get up without her mother asking what she needed and offering to get it for her. She couldn’t leave the house without someone agreeing to drive her where she wanted to go.
She needed this. She would go to the park, appreciate the beautiful scenery, breathe the crisp air, and come home. And then what could her mother do? Arrest her? Make her life miserable? She was already miserable.
But she could do this one thing.
And maybe she’d see Mr. Park Ranger Miller.
Teri shook that thought away. This wasn’t about meeting a man. This was about herself, and no one else.
After all, if there was one thing she didn’t need, it was another person in her life to be concerned about her.
Still, when she closed her eyes, she could see his smile. And when she fell asleep, she heard his laugh in her dreams.
***
Zach and Joel got ready for work together in comfortable silence on Tuesday. They didn’t always work the same shift, but Zach preferred it when they did; he appreciated having someone else moving around the house with him, eating breakfast together, walking out the door side-by-side.
Zach was more of a homebody than Joel was. Joel liked being outdoors as much as possible, in the middle of nowhere, ranging far and wide through the mountains. Zach loved nature as much as the next guy, but he liked having a home base to come back to, and he liked spending time working on his house, making it his own.
Zach sometimes felt a little guilty that they lived together, because he knew that it was more his preferences than Joel’s that had dictated that. Joel would be happy in a cabin in the middle of the woods, probably happier than in a town.
But he’d assured Zach several times that he wanted this too, that they should settle in together. That they were changing everything else about their lives, they might as well keep their living situation the same, too. And Joel got plenty of room to roam at work every day.
“Can’t wait to get out there on the mountains today,” Joel said, unconsciously echoing Zach’s thoughts. “Cal says camping season’s apparently starting early this year; the tourists are out in force and he wants me and Grey up there making sure everyone’s safe.”
“No one better,” said Zach, and then couldn’t help but add, “Take care of each other out there. It’s still cold as hell when you get up on the mountainside. Just because it’s March doesn’t mean you can’t freeze to death.”
“Don’t go turning mother hen on me,” Joel warned. “You know I’ll be as careful as I need to be. And when’s the last time a snow leopard froze to death, seriously?”
Zach held up his hands. “I know, I know. Can’t help myself.”
Zach worried too much about Joel, he knew. Zach was five years older, and had been just eighteen when their dad died, leaving them alone in the world. He’d raised his little brother from a sarcastic thirteen-year-old boy into a solidly responsible twenty-two-year-old man, and he tried hard to remember that. But sometimes the memory of the thirteen-year-old kid who cried silently at night because he missed his parents took over, and Zach found himself double-checking that Joel was really safe and happy and doing okay.
Joel thought it was incredibly irritating. Which was fair. It probably was.
But Zach was still glad that Joel was going out with Grey. Grey Landin was one of the most capable rangers at the Park, and he’d take care of Joel.
Probably without even making it look like he was taking care of him, which was where Zach tended to fall down on the job.
Joel shrugged on his jacket and bent to pull on his boots. “What about you?”
“Visitor’s center.”
“Aww, that sucks.” Joel made a face.
“I don’t mind.” Zach didn’t mind at all, honestly. He liked people, he liked spending time answering people’s questions about the Park, telling kids about the cool stuff they were going to see, explaining safety guidelines and sanitation rules. It was calming and satisfying work.
“But tourists!” Joel stood up, heading for the door. “Demanding, clueless tourists.”
“Better than demanding, clueless customers.”
Zach had worked mostly retail and food service when Joel was a teenager, and gotten used to dealing with entitled asshole customers. Park tourists could occasionally get high-handed, but most of them were just excited to be somewhere as magnificent as Glacier. It didn’t even compare to retail.
Joel shook his head. “Give me the mountains any day.”
“Lucky it worked out like this, then.”
Probably more than lucky. Cal, the head ranger, had a good eye for people; he’d figured out real quick that Joel was happiest out in the wilderness and Zach liked a little human contact if he could swing it. They’d both had to do a rotation of all the standard assignments when they’d first been hired, but now that it had been a couple of months, Zach thought Cal was settling them into what would eventually be their usual day’s work.