A Bridge Between Us

by K. K. Allen

  I focused on Ridge again. He was still standing in the same spot, his jaw set hard like he was grinding his teeth. Is he upset to see me? Perhaps he was angry that he was surrounded by everyone who had bullied him when he’d moved to Telluride.

  With one sweep of my eyes, I could tell that Ridge’s days of being the victim were over. He’d grown in every visible way. His face had lost its boyish softness and was cut like the mountains, with sharp peaks and valleys defining his bold cheekbones, and rugged jaw. He had cliffs for eyebrows and sweet chocolate pools for his eyes. And his quiet nature no longer screamed shy new boy but of a lethal weapon ready to strike at any moment. Time had made him colder, darker, and more on edge than ever before.

  As if seeing Ridge again wasn’t bad enough, Raven’s gaze made my stomach churn. She stared at him, completely oblivious to the rest of us as she practically drooled at his every movement. I’d always suspected that she had a crush on Ridge, but I’d never imagined it would go anywhere. Trip would never have allowed it. But now…

  My gaze flicked to Trip, who sat beside her, studying me. If anyone knew more than Josie, Trip would. He’d probably made a small fortune in high school, watching after me. Trip had slowly made his feelings for me known, despite my deflection of his advances, and for whatever reason, he’d hated Harold Cross’s son with his every waking breath.

  If Trip is busy watching me, then who will watch Raven? I swallowed at the mental image of Ridge and Raven hiking through the emerging wildflowers, snuggling, and giggling the entire way. My heart started to beat faster, and my mind raced with thoughts that didn’t belong in my head. Though it was an awful fantasy, I couldn’t seem to let go of it.

  The last thing I should be thinking about was Raven and Ridge together. But Raven was really pretty, with her long bleached-blond hair that nearly reached her waist, her always-ready smile that could light up a dark room, and her deep-blue eyes that had the potential to hypnotize a wild coyote. And the mental image of them together made my stomach roll.

  If tonight was any indication, the next three days were bound to be torture, as I watched Raven eye fuck Ridge while he gave me the silent treatment. I wouldn’t survive.

  Luckily, tonight would be a short night. With our plans to wake up early to start hiking in the morning, we knew not to get stupid.

  Not long after I arrived, my peers started to excuse themselves from the fire to make their way to their tents. Eventually, the last of our group trailed off, leaving Josie and me with Ridge.

  Josie stood next, without my having to give her a hint. “I’m heading to bed. See you soon?”

  Her look was pointed and held a tinge of warning that I should heed. I nodded and watched her walk off before raising my gaze to Ridge. He’d already been looking at me, waiting. And I hated that something so small could give me so much hope.

  “So, that’s it, huh? Not even a hello?”

  He sat there, stoic, for another minute before blowing out a breath and looking at the sky. “How are you, Camila?”

  His question, while it was a start, only angered me. “I’m great, Ridge.” I could practically feel the sarcasm dripping off my tone. “How about you?”

  His laugh floated on a single breath that twisted into my chest. “I’m doing well.”

  Despite the tension between us, I believed his words. I felt his calmness. He was so perfectly paired with nature. Maybe he’d finally found his home after all. Even in my anger, I could be happy for him, if that was the case. But I didn’t know what to say, so I allowed another minute or two to pass as our eyes shared a conversation our hearts had yet to catch up with.

  “Have you hiked around here before?”

  My chest pounded, not from his question but because he’d asked a question at all and such a casual one. His voice was deep and rich, but the velvety softness that I remembered from our past remained. He could still lull me into a calm just by a simple sentence.

  “No.” I swallowed, hoping to steady my nerves. “I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “That, it is.” He twisted the stick he’d been holding into the dirt. “Especially in the spring. Just wait until you see the stars from up there. There’s nothing like it.”

  My heart beat fast at the mental picture he provoked. In all the years we’d met on the hilltop, never once had we met up at night. I’d always dreamed of looking up at the stars with Ridge. And while I was younger than he was, it didn’t stop me from wanting our first kiss to be among them.

  He stood, ending our conversation, and I couldn’t help but notice just how different his body looked. Even through the flickering flame of the campfire, he was obviously no longer a boy. He was tall, thick with muscle, and had features that made my insides ache. Ridge Cross was becoming a man.

  “It’s dark. Can I walk you?”

  The tent I was staying in with Josie was only a few sites away, but I didn’t care. Ridge had offered, and I would steal every precious moment with him. So I got up, dusted my leggings off, and met him at the dirt walkway. There, I could really see how much Ridge had filled out since I’d last seen him. Who would have known a year and a half would turn such a baby face into a rugged cowboy?

  I led the way down the path slowly, and he matched my pace. “So, this is where you call home now, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Nowhere has ever felt like home to me. You know that, Camila.” He glanced at me. “But I suppose this is the closest I’ve come to feeling settled.”

  I shouldn’t ask questions I wouldn’t like the answers to, but I was a glutton for punishment. “I guess I can see why.” Even in the dark, I could make out the shapes of the mountains and the contrast of each peak as they lay staggered in the distance. “Everything feels bigger than life here. Have you been back to the farm at all?”

  “Nah, I think Harold and I needed a little break.”

  Something about his statement infuriated me to no end. My pulse throbbed in my throat. “Did you need a break from me too?”

  Ridge stopped in his tracks and bowed his head. “Camila…”

  I stopped walking too and turned to face him. “No.” I stepped closer to him so that I was right under his nose, inescapable. “I asked you a question, and I deserve an answer.”

  He gave me a blistering stare. “You want to do this now? Fine, Camila. Let’s do this now. Let’s get it out of the way.”

  “Do what now? I just asked you a question.”

  His jaw ticked. “Get all of your punches out of the way. Tell me how mean I was to leave the farm, leave Telluride… leave you. Make it all about you, and send me groveling on my knees. Go ahead.”

  My jaw dropped. “It was a shitty thing you did, leaving like that. After everything we—I thought I meant more to you than that.”

  He let out a cruel laugh. “Always so dramatic.”

  His words were bite marks on my soul, and I feared the next attack more than I’d feared anything else in my life. Little by little, the small amount of history Ridge and I shared felt like it was crumbling into ash and floating in the wind. Soon, it would be as if it didn’t exist at all.

  “I’m not being dramatic. You left, Ridge. Without even saying goodbye.”

  “And what would have been the point of that?”

  My thoughts stumbled over the hurt in my heart but kept fueling my mouth, anyway. Even the sting behind my eyes didn’t stop me. “Maybe it’s not so much the fact that you left so abruptly. Deep down, I think I knew you wouldn’t last on that farm. But—after Harold tried to run me over with his tractor, you acted like I was nothing to you.”

  He said nothing after that, just stared at me with his dark eyes while pressing his lips together. His mind was churning, but he allowed me a chance to speak.

  “Maybe I meant nothing to you at first, but I’d thought we moved past that. I thought—” I couldn’t say any more, afraid to bring up my feelings for him again.

  A moment of silence passed while his dark eyes scanned over me, like he was finally tak
ing me in. Maybe he was noticing how much I had changed too.

  “You thought what, Camila?” Ridge asked, his tone gentler. “What do you think would have happened if I had stayed? If we had continued our silly little charade of climbing to that hilltop?”

  My pulse raced as I let his question consume me. All the possibilities flooded my mind, and I desperately swam through them, trying to sort out the good from the bad and hold on to one scenario that could have benefited us both. I found none.

  When I looked back at him, defeated, he nodded.

  “Harold would have dragged you right on over to your papa and told him about all the times he knew of you running through our fields. I omitted the truth from Harold to protect you. That night was the first night I realized what our friendship could do if exposed. This feud between our families, it’s bigger than us.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and tried to keep my lip from quivering. “That’s where you and I disagree, Ridge. Nothing is bigger than you and me. Not even a century-old feud. We’re the ones who are supposed to end it. But we can’t do that now, can we? Not with you here.”

  For a time, I’d considered Ridge one of my best friends. He had gotten to know a side of me that no one else knew, not even Josie. I’d trusted him with my silly fantasies of life after gaining the keys to my papa’s kingdom. He knew that I trusted him and that our friendship was important to me. And I never pushed him to say more than he felt the need to say. With Ridge, I found stillness—a calm state where my rampant thoughts grew quiet to make room for so much more. I’d never imagined finding that.

  Ridge hadn’t just stripped me of a friendship. He’d stripped me of my better self when I was with him. And for that, I couldn’t forgive him.

  I took a step back toward my tent and let out a laugh while my insides cried painful tears. “This week should be interesting.” Sarcasm crept back into my voice, and I didn’t even try to stop it. “We can go right back to how it used to be. Pretending we aren’t friends. Only this time, we won’t be pretending.” With another backward step, I smiled. “Good night, Ridge.”

  20

  Ridge

  I still liked to wake up before sunrise, and today was no exception. After peeling my eyes open, I carried my shower bag and a change of clothes to the communal bathhouse, stuck some quarters into the machine, and rinsed myself off. I was used to the routine. A year and a half ago, after packing my bags and driving in a random direction away from Telluride, Ouray had been my first stop. Named after the old Ute Tribe’s chief back in 1876, it seemed like a safe middle ground between the rez and Harold’s Farm. I could get lost without completely losing sight of where I came from.

  One of Harold’s clients we dropped hay off to, Jason Lachey, had a plot of flat land he wasn’t sure what to do with. The plot lay beside the livestock ranch he owned with his brother. The guided tours had been my idea, and he ran with it with my help. I quickly got acquainted with the numerous hiking trails around town and partnered with the mine owners and other businesses to cross-promote to tourists. And it all just evolved from there. For the first time ever, I felt like I finally had a purpose in a way that gave back to the community and the surrounding nature on equal footing. Running a corn farm didn’t fulfill me in that way. I couldn’t imagine ever going back to that farm, but I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that seeing Camila again altered something in me. I’d felt a shift in my heart, though I’d yet to fully grasp its meaning. All I knew was that I wanted to see her again.

  After dressing in a pair of charcoal hiking pants and a light-gray thermal shirt, I slipped on my hiking boots and a red knit cap. When I stepped back outside, the cool air stung a little, but the sun would warm us considerably during our trek up the mountain. The plan was to take twelve campers on a hike on the Blue Lakes trail, starting with the lower Blue Lakes, past the middle lake to Upper Blue Lake, then finally to Blue Lakes Pass—camping in between destinations.

  My job that week was to guide the group and help them camp safely in the wilderness. Jason would hang back at base camp, like he preferred, to watch over the other campers who were just there to party.

  I stopped by each campsite to tap on the tents and remind everyone that we would be leaving in an hour. When I got to Camila’s tent, I hesitated for a second before climbing the two steps to get to the top of the deck. After sucking in my next breath, I placed my fist on a wood plank above my head. I was about to knock when the tent doors fluttered open, and out walked Camila.

  She was a storm, always bringing unpredictable weather with her. A person never knew how to prepare for her presence. I could never get a grasp on it. It seemed not much had changed, even with time and distance between us.

  Her hair was a disheveled mess that bounced around her shoulders in loose curls. Her eyes, while still filled with sleep, looked hopeful as she gazed at the new light of day.

  She was oblivious to me as she pushed her hands above her head and stretched, revealing an inch of caramel skin around her navel. Even though I’d seen her the night before, nothing prepared me for what daylight revealed. Camila might not have been a little girl anymore, but she was still in high school. I shouldn’t have been looking at her the way I was, noticing her beauty, or the way her pajama pants hung below her soft stomach.

  Her boyish shape seemed to have filled out, complete with a deep curve of her hips that accentuated her small waist and perfectly formed backside. She was wearing a thin white tank top that had me averting my eyes the moment I noticed her hard nipples staring back at me. Clearly, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and I cursed myself for noticing.

  I didn’t normally think so vulgarly about a woman. I’d seen all shapes and sizes come through the base camp, and I appreciated them all just fine. But no one could light a candle to Camila. She’d always been strong and feisty, keeping up with the boys just as well as any. But now… I swallowed back my thoughts, which were so carelessly rolling through my mind like an approaching storm.

  Feeling suddenly stalkerish, I cleared my throat to let her know I was there.

  Her lids widened as she snapped her head around. Our eyes met, and I was instantaneously transported back in time, to a place I swore I would never go again. I was right back in that cornfield, swimming in a sea of green and specks of gold. Memories of chasing her through tall stalks of our future harvest overwhelmed me like a flash flood, drowning me before I even had a chance.

  How has Camila Grace Bell always had that effect on me? I laughed while trying desperately to hold back my affection for a girl two years younger than me. I combatted feelings that felt like more than friendship or lust, and I harbored guilt for years for thoughts and feelings I couldn’t control. Even that morning, my thoughts were dangerous and wrong.

  “Good morning,” she said, not masking her surprise at the sight of me at her tent.

  A ping-pong match started in my chest from just the sound of her voice, and I didn’t know how to stop it. “Just coming by to give everyone a wake-up call.” I dared another look at her, which was a mistake.

  “Oh,” she said slowly, her eyes dimming some. “I see.”

  Ignoring the guilt that was compiling in all the empty spaces of my head and heart, I continued, “We’re heading to the trailhead in an hour.”

  Something flickered in her expression before everything hardened. “Great.” She stepped past me. “Then I have time for a shower.”

  She walked away, toward the bathhouse, and I couldn’t stop watching her leave.

  My favorite part of leading various hikes was the reactions of our guests as we navigated the incline between Mount Sneffels and Wolcott Mountain. Bear sightings were frequent, the wildflowers were aplenty, and the crystal-blue lakes made the hike one of the most scenic and rewarding one could possibly experience in their lifetime.

  While I guided the tour, that didn’t always mean that I led it. A few of the more ambitious hikers always liked to walk a little faster than the rest of the pack, w
hich was fine by me. My job was to give everyone stopping points so that we didn’t get too spread out, and ensure that the stragglers didn’t get too far behind. Camila, of course, had taken the lead. Trip, unsurprisingly, was right behind her, while Trip’s sister, Raven, was trying desperately to keep up with me.

  Josie and the rest of the hikers were taking up the tail of our group as we ascended over the craggy peaks and endless mountain valleys. I wouldn’t alter anyone’s pace, though, even if I did want to secretly corner Camila somewhere on an uncharted path and take a truly good look at her. But to be attracted to a girl still in high school—a Bell, no less—was wrong, and I would keep reminding myself of that.

  I’d left Telluride for a reason. It had been a decision I’d been weighing, but after everything that had happened and everything I’d learned that night, I couldn’t stay. But seeing Camila again reminded me just how innocent she was in all of it and that the ticking time bomb hadn’t just started. It had been ticking since I’d first met the feisty vineyard girl, and it was getting louder, threatening to go off when none of us were ready.

  Though it was mean of me to purposely try to out-walk Raven, when it came to the steeper inclines, she slowed down slightly, and I picked up the pace. I’d never had anything against Raven. She was nice, pretty, and sweet. But she also reeked of a desperation I didn’t understand. I’d never gotten to know her the way I had with Camila. I wouldn’t even have considered Raven and me friends, but she seemed to have some other ideas about us.

  I took the crumbling rock stairs two at a time and reached the next section of flat land to find Camila in the distance. She was at the first jaw-dropping scenic point, standing right at the tip of a cliff that overlooked an open valley with wildflowers surrounding us. Only she would find comfort at the edge of a steep ravine.