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“It’s magnificent. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That’s saying something for someone who grew up here.”

It was her home, but different.

So much so, that Paige moved towards the view like a magnet pulled her in. It was such a foreign feeling she almost didn’t recognize it at first.

“I have to say, as pretty as Banberry is in the summer, it’s never been this colorful. It’s usually an emerald green and makes me feel like I live in Oz or something. But this,” she said, getting choked up, “this is too perfect.” She sniffled, took some of the cooler mountain air deep into her lungs to regain her composure.

Though the entire state was under a drought warning, wildflowers blanketed the hillside, flowers she’d never seen before. Normally during the wet summer months in southern Montana, the mountains that wrangled the valley on all sides resembled a jade jewel, sparkling an iridescent green, the dew lingering past the midday sun, a beauty unique and its own. But now, the lack of moisture had allowed other, more resilient and colorful plants to thrive.

And that wasn’t all.

Voluminous, bulbous clouds built on the edge of the horizon, adding to the majesty. Too jaded to hope for rain, just the presence of clouds thrilled her, sent chills down her spine. God knew how much the valley needed it, how desperately the farms relied on it. She couldn’t wait to head down the path towards her parents’ farm to let her dad know what she saw from her unique viewpoint.

Owen smiled, adding to the stunning view. Damn, he was handsome.

He wasn’t her type at all, but the self-reminder didn’t hold as much weight as it did the first time she’d thought it at Julia’s party. Maybe it was the shirt Owen wore, the tight striations of muscles protruding against the fabric, the roped muscles in his thighs that pressed against his jeans. He was solidly built, that much was obvious.

But his face—with a jawline that screamed younger Brad Pitt, the coffee-au-lait skin that somehow seemed luminescent in the afternoon sun, his eyes like bourbon on ice—sent her stomach reeling towards her throat, made her warm in the most secret of places she wanted him to explore. She gulped, shook her head to bring herself back to the present.

Owen looked out over the valley. “I found this trail by accident a couple weeks before I moved in completely, and it did something to me. Convinced me I’d made the right choice for one thing, but something else as well. I guess it made me think about everything I’d done to get to this point, and how I wouldn’t trade the shit I’ve been through if this,” he said, sweeping his arm at the landscape, “is my new backyard.”

“Brad and I used to call those ‘this-is-why-we-run’ moments.” Her eyes stuck on a tall peak on the north slope, wondering what the view from there would offer. Could they see to the other side of the Elkhorns?

Owen’s brow quirked. It was her turn to laugh.

“We used to run to places like this when we were teenagers. The trails would kick our asses, make us rethink our sanity, but when we got to the top of a peak, or the trail opened up to a lake we hadn’t seen before, we realized we wouldn’t have had those experiences without the pain it took to get there.”

Owen shook his head, took off his cap and ran his hands through his curls again, all the while smiling like she’d let him in on a secret. Her heart sped up again, this time her nerves emanating from another place entirely.

“You nailed it, Connors,” he told her, a grin stretched wide as the valley across his cheeks. “‘This-is-why-we-run.’ I’m gonna steal that,” he told her.

“I hope so,” she replied, her voice softer.

How was it possible she was letting herself fall for this stranger, this guy living in her hometown that she had no intention of staying long in? She cleared her throat, swallowed the wave of lust building in her abdomen. She was smart enough to know it was just a visceral reaction to his attractiveness.

“So, what now?” she asked.

“Does there have to be a next thing? Isn’t this enough for now?”

Paige watched Owen, with his backwards baseball cap advertising a beer she hadn’t heard of, small Shirley Temple curls peeking out of the bottom. He wore a relaxed smile on his face. In fact, he was the epitome of a chill cowboy.

Until he looked at her. He didn’t hesitate or turn away, just stared deep into her eyes.

It was an unspoken challenge, a question that meant more than what the day would bring. His gaze asked her to share all she was, not just what she wanted to put forth for the world to see.

When she broke the connection building between them and returned to the view of the valley below them, his silence asked her why she had to leave at all.

The thing was, she didn’t have an answer. That was the real reason she had to look away—there was nothing in her that could answer his challenge, either by issuing one of her own, or giving him something to cling to. Finally, after long enough of a pause, she gave him the only thing she could.

“It is enough. For now.”

That was the truth. She was happy, content, and oddly enough, hadn’t sensed the pull of the wild enough to even open an internet search for job listings. That had to say something.

Owen nodded.

“Good, then come sit.” He hopped off Justice, leading her to a felled log that looked like it had been used as a bench before by some other brave soul who’d ventured this high up in the range.