Going The Distance (Four Corners Book 3)

by Artemis Anders

  Grizzly chuckled and looked at Hannah’s friends. “She needed it. This girl… stubborn as shit.”

  Teagan and Summer erupted into peals of laughter at that. Hannah chuckled a little.

  Grizzly went on. “Take her home, clean her up, and tell her she ran eighty fucking miles like a champ and to quit feeling sorry for herself.”

  “Will do, Doc,” Teagan said. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, his eyes returning to Hannah again.

  Hannah smiled at Grizzly, too tired to come up with any more clever barbs for the formerly bearded stranger. Just as they turned to leave, Hannah told her friends she’d be out in a second.

  “Yo, Grizzly,” she said. “What’s your real name, just in case I get lost again?” She’d heard the volunteer call his name before, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  He smiled a little. “It’s Cain. Cain Jankowski.”

  “Mine’s Han—”

  “I know what it is. I had to record your race number and the time you dropped out of the race.” His expression showed a bit of compassion.

  “Oh, right.” Hannah glanced down at her numbered bib, pinned to her still. She turned to leave.

  “Hannah.” She turned and faced him again, her eyes meeting his. “If you want to talk more about the race, or about what happens next… stop by any time. You know where to find me.”

  Hannah, surprised by the invitation, only nodded. “Thank you. And thanks for the pep talk, coach.”

  He shrugged. “My pleasure.”

  And Hannah turned and limped out of the medical tent.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah lay on her brown leather couch, her leg propped up on a pillow as the icepack numbed her injured foot. She was still sore all over, and tired. After a good long sleep, and Hannah splurging on a few meals for the three of them, Teagan had returned to Tucson and Summer back to work. She was home all alone, finishing out the vacation days she’d taken.

  The vacation days she’d hoped to spend basking in the glory of her victory and even planning her next goal, not wallowing in how crappy it felt to have to pull out of a race she was trained and ready for, with only twenty percent of the way to go.

  She didn’t under-train, or contract a case of altitude sickness, or face serial vomiting or diarrhea or dehydration. She didn’t get too exhausted or mentally beaten down, and give up. Instead, she got a stress fracture in her foot, one so tiny it shouldn’t even matter.

  But it did matter. It hurt like hell and she could barely walk on it.

  And it was definitely a stress fracture. Her doctor had confirmed it. You couldn’t even see the tiny break on the x-rays, but you could in an MRI. Stress fractures were common in runners, her doc had told her. Hannah shook her head at that; she ran more than most and she’d never had anything of the sort. She’d been running high weekly mileage for years. She’d done marathons, 50-milers, and even one 60-miler. She’d gotten mild tendonitis and a couple of IT-band flareups, but they always went away. She took her calcium and ate her vegetables. Her doctor said nothing other than “it happens.”

  When Hannah got onto her ultrarunning forums, they confirmed that it can happen to anyone, especially when training for such a long race… and especially when overtraining and going too hard in terms of mileage and pace.

  Basically, what Grizzly—Cain—had told her.

  Yep. She’d dug her own hole, and now she would enjoy the pleasure of lying in it. Her foot would take a minimum of six weeks to heal, and possibly more. Until then, she would have to avoid activity that involved putting weight on her injured foot. Especially running.

  That was the worst part of all. Despite having the wherewithal to finish in under thirty hours, not only was she forced to DNF, robbing her of any kind of celebration or bragging rights, but now she couldn’t even do the one thing that would pull her out of her funk and help her forget all about it. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t even hike or backpack or, God help her, do yoga.

  Maybe she should take up drinking. Isn’t that what people did when they were laid up?

  She searched the forums to find out what others in her situation did while recovering from an injury. Apparently, they chilled on the couch, watched movies, spent time with friends or family, or reacquainted themselves with other hobbies. They did all the stuff they’d neglected during their heavy training. But Hannah wasn’t a couch or movie person. Her friends were too far away to visit without taking time off work; except for Summer, who was busy living her own life and probably had gotten her fill of Hannah for a while. And hobbies? She had none, other than running.

  Was that weird? Cain would probably think so.

  She’d thought about him a lot since that fateful morning when he’d helped ease her pain, foot and otherwise. Who the hell was this guy? Was he a mountain man or a doctor? Did he have a practice? What happened to the beard? And how did he know so much about ultrarunning when he didn’t look anything like a runner? Sure, runners came in all shapes and sizes, but he was beefy, like a man who went to the gym or climbed mountains. Plus, if he were a local ultra-runner, she would have seen him on the trails by now.

  She didn’t know what to make of him. He certainly hadn’t made a great first impression with that angry look and bossy way, but then again, she probably hadn’t either in her withered state. Her second impression of him was better—he was still a bossy know-it-all who had no problem giving his opinion, but his bossy know-it-all opinion intrigued her.

  Plus, those big brown eyes.

  And, really, how many burly, know-it-all doctors would let a distraught runner cry on their shoulder over a jacked-up foot and a failed goal? Yeah, that goal was everything to her, but why should he give a shit?

  Hannah, tired of feeling depressed, sat up and stuffed her ice pack back into her freezer. It was time to find out.

  It was a beautiful summer day in the mountains. The sun shone clear and bright, and the sky was the kind of vivid blue one only saw at high altitude. Hannah felt a little better being outside, even if she couldn’t do what she really wanted. And it helped to get out of her sweats and into a pair of jeans, a white tank top, and her favorite comfy flip-flops.

  She traced the route back to Cain’s cabin from memory, noting that it was farther than she remembered. A good five miles or so just to his turnoff, then another half-mile. She’d run that entire distance home, after getting lost and while exhausted and dehydrated. Yes, she made it fine, just like she said she would, but she was beginning to understand why Cain had given her a hard time that night, and why he’d called her stubborn to her friends. Not that she’d admit that to him.

  When she arrived at Cain’s cabin, she pulled up and parked. He had no nearby neighbors, which meant he probably owned all the land around his cabin. Such acreage and privacy was a rarity, even up there. Hannah envied all of it. A black Dodge truck with a topper was parked outside. Maybe he was home, then.

  He’d just told her to stop by, never giving a time frame. She felt strange showing up unannounced, but he’d given her little choice. And what exactly was she going to say? That she was curious about him? Yeah, that would get a few laughs out of him. That she was tired of wallowing in her failure? She could already see the judgment in his eyes at that self-pitying garbage. That there was something about him and what he’d said that intrigued her, even if she didn’t agree with most of it? Um, that would only make him insufferable.

  She sat there in her car for a minute. What if she was interrupting his alone time or, for all she knew, time with his girlfriend? Maybe she should just turn around and let the man be.

  Too late now. Anyone who lived in a remote joint like this one would have heard her car coming long before now. He’d know she was here. She was committed. Hannah decided she would stop by, chat for a few minutes to tell him his diagnosis was correct, and leave him be.

  She got out of her car and limped her way to the small cabin, admiring it now that she could see
it in full daylight. Part of her had hoped to find a log cabin when she was house hunting, but they weren’t common anymore and the ones that were available needed a ton of work. But Cain’s looked like it was in pretty good shape, and it was certainly well-situated among the tall conifers, with what looked like a nice view from the back.

  Before she could raise her hand to knock on the door, it opened. And there stood Cain, in shorts, a t-shirt that hugged his burly muscles… and glasses. As if those big brown eyes had been reading a book.

  A tingle went through her. Hannah was a sucker for men who wore reading glasses, especially when they were big and burly and didn’t look like the reading type.

  He stared at her with those all-knowing eyes. “Look at you, all cleaned up. I barely recognized you.”

  “If you like dirty and stinky, I can go home, not shower for a couple weeks, and come back…”

  Cain smiled a little. He motioned with his head for her to come in.

  His cabin was small, with only one main room and kitchen, and a separate bedroom and bath. A black leather couch graced one wall, a two-person dinette the other, and a wood-burning stove stood in the corner, a pile of wood next to it. It was neat, but there were no personal effects—no pictures, no art, no animal racks to suggest he was a hunter or vintage skis mounted to the walls to suggest he skied. There was a shelf filled with books. She longed to go over and see what books Grizzly found worthy of his limited shelf space.

  “Drink?” he said, taking off his glasses. “I’ve got water and bourbon.”

  Hannah chuckled. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Cain picked up a bottle from his kitchen counter and poured himself just a splash of bourbon. It was a brand she recognized, from a distillery on the Western Slope. “Sit outside?”

  Hannah nodded. Sitting outside sounded perfect, actually. Her home had a porch, but it only faced her street and the other homes in her mountain subdivision. Cain’s place, on the other hand, had a deck in the back. She followed him out to a view of the mountains, with their thick mass of evergreen pines, spruces, and firs, plus some aspen trees sprinkled in for good measure. The sun lay hidden behind a tall tree, allowing them a little shade. They sat down in a couple of patio chairs.

  “How’s that foot?” he asked.

  “Fractured.” She eyed him. “Aren’t you glad you were right?”

  “I knew I was right.”

  She smiled. “Of course you did.”

  He sipped his bourbon, sitting back and putting his feet up on his ottoman. “So. Did you come here to enjoy my deck, or did you want something?”

  Hannah suddenly felt silly for having come. Like she was an intruder in a place she didn’t belong. Maybe this was a bad idea. “You said to drop by anytime, so I did.” She stood up. “But I can come back some other day, if this is a bad time…”

  His expression changed. “This is a good time. Have a seat.”

  Hannah hesitated, then sat back down.

  Cain nudged the ottoman closer to her. “Put your foot up.”

  She sank back into her chair and put her injured foot on the ottoman.

  “So what’s up?” he said. “You look like you have something on your mind.”

  Hannah sighed. “I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not at work. I can’t run. I can’t hike. Everything requires a decent left foot.”

  “What did you do before you found running?”

  “Nothing. I started running at fourteen.”

  Cain nodded, swirling the bourbon in his glass. “Look. I know you’re pissed off, but this setback of yours… it’s good for you.”

  Hannah made a face. “How so?”

  “It gives you a chance to develop other sides of yourself. If you put all your eggs in one basket, the universe will find a way to take it from you.” He sipped his bourbon again.

  “So you’re saying that the universe is mad that I love to run?”

  Cain smiled a little. “Maybe the universe is mad that you use running to prove something, and that you don’t respect your body.”

  Hannah shook her head. “That makes no sense to me. I do respect my body. Running is good for pretty much every bodily system, including the brain. Endurance runners live longer than the average person, and I eat well and don’t even drink that much—”

  “Yeah, and then you ignore your fatigue levels and you stomped all over that foot when it was crying out in pain. Doesn’t sound like respect to me.” Before Hannah could think of a rebuttal, Cain went on. “When you run—not training, just running—what do you think about?”

  She shrugged. “My life. How beautiful it is up here. Not much else, to be honest. I just let my mind rest.”

  “Okay, what about when you were training for the race? What did you think about then?”

  “Same things.”

  “Nothing else? You weren’t thinking about your pace, or your time, or your mileage, or whether you were training hard enough?”

  Hannah sighed. “Okay, yeah. But that’s training. You have to consider those things.”

  “Were you having fun?”

  Hannah thought about that. Did she love running? Yes. Did she love being out there? Of course. Was she committed to the training and its hardships? Absolutely. But did she have fun? She wasn’t sure.

  “Let me put it to you a different way,” Cain went on. “If you didn’t think it would get you a High Peaks finish, would you have done all that?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, there’s your answer. You’re too attached to the goal, not the process. And when that happens, you lose touch with yourself.”

  Hannah stared at Cain, relaxed in his chair and swirling his bourbon. The swirling never stopped, despite his otherwise still and relaxed way. “Where does all this come from? Is this some armchair philosophy from a know-it-all who wants to sound important, or do you actually have experience to back this up? Because you probably know I’m not interested in the former.”

  Cain watched her for a moment. “You don’t have much of a filter, do you?”

  Hannah scoffed. “This, coming from you.” When Cain just looked at her with those dark eyes, she shook her head. Great. Now she’d offended him, too. “Go ahead, Grizzly. Tell me I’m a bitch.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not a bitch. You’re honest.”

  Hannah hesitated at that. “That’s not what most people think.”

  “Most people can’t handle honesty.”

  She stared at him. He didn’t mind her honesty? He didn’t mind the thing most men and her entire family cringed at, wishing she would “put things differently” or “be nicer”?

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

  He gave a nod. “You want an answer to that question, then you’ll need to stay for dinner.”

  Chapter Six

  Hannah wiped down the little cafe table on Cain’s deck. The sun was getting low in the sky, casting tall shadows over the deck. The air was still that evening, the odor of conifer trees and grill smoke filling the air. How different the mountains smelled during the summertime. And it was quiet, even quieter than at her house. She could hear nothing but the gentle wind whistling through the trees and the sound of sizzling steaks on the grill.

  “What do you want to drink?” Cain said, flipping the steaks. “Your options are still water or bourbon.”

  “I’ll get it. What about you?”

  “One of each.”

  Hannah smiled and limped inside. She refilled Cain’s bourbon glass, and then poured herself a little. She wasn’t a bourbon girl, but when she tasted his, she found that it was better than she expected. Plus, it seemed like the right thing for a summer evening on the deck. She then filled two more glasses with water. She needed to stay hydrated. Hydration aided healing, and she needed to heal as soon as possible and get out there again.

  A few minutes later, they sat on Cain’s deck, two perfectly cooked steaks and some grilled vegetables on two white plates. Cain h
eld up his bourbon. Hannah clinked hers with his and took a sip of the smooth libation.

  “Good, huh?” he said, noticing her look of pleasure as he cut his steak. “It’s made on the Western Slope.”

  Hannah nodded. “I’ve been to that distillery. A close friend of mine lives in Junction—correction, lived in Junction. She moved to Red Rim Valley and I haven’t gotten used to that yet.” When Cain didn’t respond, Hannah eyed him while she cut her own juicy steak. “So. Are you going to tell me why you’re so opinionated about running, or…”

  “Not much to tell,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “I used to race ultras, for the same reasons you do. It felt more like work than what it should feel like. After a bad injury and then coming in fourth place in a race I trained years for, I realized I was miserable. So I stopped.”

  “You don’t run anymore?”

  “I run. But I don’t race. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because it didn’t bring out my best side. I was happier just running when I felt like it, and finding happiness in more peaceful things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Backpacking, mostly.” When she nodded, he asked, “You backpack?”

  “I do. During summer and fall. It’s been a while, though. Running has gotten in the way.” She eyed his stubble. “So what’s the story with the beard? You had the full Grizzly Adams going for a minute there.”

  Cain stroked his jaw. “I started a job at the V.A. Hospital this week. They’re not into the whole mountain man look. People want their physicians to look trustworthy.”

  Hannah laughed. “Yeah, you did look a little sinister that night I dropped by to say hello. I don’t know if it was the beard or the angry look in your eye.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t used to getting visitors. And you weren’t much better. You wouldn’t even let me help you.”