WILD RIVALS

Sunshine and a Grudge

Jonah Reyes had exactly one rule he never broke: never let them see you sweat.

It had gotten him through two sponsorship deals, one nasty divorce that wasn't even his, and about four hundred five-star reviews that all said some version of "made us feel safe without making us feel babied." It was also, if he was honest with himself, the only thing standing between him and the version of himself that had frozen on a ridge two years ago and cost a client three fingers to frostbite.

He didn't think about that. Not on a job. Not today, definitely, with Mara Vance ten feet ahead of him setting a pace that suggested she thought the mountain owed her an apology.

"You're walking like the trail insulted your mother," he said.

"I'm walking like someone who wants us at the first camp before dark."

"We've got six hours of daylight."

"We've got six hours of daylight if nothing goes wrong." She didn't turn around. "Something's going to go wrong."

He almost laughed. Almost. Because that was the thing about Mara Vance that nobody at the guides' conferences ever seemed to get — she wasn't wrong, exactly. She was just no fun about being right.

He caught up anyway, matched her stride, watched her jaw tighten the way it did whenever he got within conversational distance. Three years of running into her at industry events, and he still didn't fully understand why she hated him quite this much. He had theories. None of them made him feel great.

Behind them, the Hendersons and the other three couples were stretched out along the trail in that first-day formation everyone fell into — too much energy, too many photos, no idea yet how their legs would feel tomorrow. Jonah had watched a hundred groups do the same thing. He liked this part. The part before anyone got scared.

"So," he said, "who taught you to hike like you're being chased?"

"My dad."

"Good teacher?"

"The best." Something closed in her voice when she said it, quick, like a door somewhere down a long hallway. He filed it away without meaning to. He was good at that — noticing the things people didn't want noticed. Bad habit, in his line of work. Useful one, too.

"Mine taught me the opposite," he said. "Enjoy it or don't bother going."

"Explains a lot."

"It explains the four hundred five-star reviews, sure."

That got something out of her — not a laugh, nothing that generous, but a small huff of air through her nose that on anyone else he'd have called amusement. He decided to count it as a win.

They crested the first ridge an hour later, the whole valley opening up below them in that way that always made even the most jaded client go quiet for a second. Jonah stopped to let people get their photos. Mara didn't, which meant she was already twenty feet ahead again by the time he turned around, scanning something on the trail he couldn't see.

"What," he said, jogging to catch up.

"Runoff." She pointed at a dark seam cutting across the path a hundred feet ahead, water still moving through it from last night's rain. "That wasn't there three weeks ago."

"So we go around it."

"So we go around it slowly, because that slope's been sitting wet all night and I don't know what's under it." She was already pulling rope from her pack, the kind of unhurried, methodical movement he recognized from watching her at exactly one previous job, years ago, before either of them had companies with their names on the side of a van. She'd been good then too. Good enough that he'd noticed.

"You always carry rope for a day hike?"

"I always carry rope."

"Of course you do."

She glanced at him then, actually looked at him, like she was deciding whether his tone was mockery or something else. He wasn't entirely sure himself.

"You think I'm overcautious," she said. It wasn't a question.

"I think you're thorough." He held her gaze a beat longer than the conversation strictly needed. "There's a difference. I used to think it was the same thing."

Something flickered across her face — surprise, maybe, that he'd said something without a joke wrapped around it. She recovered fast, turned back to the rope, started rigging a line across the wet slope like she hadn't heard him at all.

But she didn't argue. And Jonah, watching her work, found himself thinking that maybe this trip wasn't going to be quite the disaster he'd been dreading in the parking lot that morning.

Then, from somewhere behind them, one of the Henderson kids — not a kid, actually, a grown man on his own honeymoon-adjacent trip, but acting like one — yelled something that made every guide's stomach drop on instinct.

"Hey, is that guy supposed to be that far off the trail?"

Jonah turned. Mara turned faster.

Fifty feet down the slope, past the edge of anything either of them had roped off, one of the anniversary husbands was standing on a rock that had no business holding his weight, phone raised, trying to get the perfect shot of the valley below.

"Don't move," Mara called out, already moving herself.

The rock shifted under his feet.

Nobody had checked the forecast closely enough that morning. Nobody had checked the ground closely enough either, and now it was too late to do anything but run