Page 18 of Hunted By the Mountain Man

"Anna's idea," I admit. "She figured out how to use our satellite communications for video counseling. Now we can maintain support connections with alumni anywhere in North America."

"It's about building lasting community," Anna adds, accepting Benny back and settling him in his high chair. "The retreat experience is just the beginning. Real healing happens in ongoing relationships."

I watch her explain the program's philosophy to Sarah, noting the easy confidence with which she discusses therapeuticapproaches she's learned alongside me. Anna Rice-Manning is no longer just the forensic accountant who stumbled into my life. She's my partner in every sense—business, parenting, healing work.

"Mama," Amber tugs on Anna's shirt. "Can we have campfire songs tonight?"

"If Daddy thinks the group would enjoy that."

I look around at the faces surrounding our outdoor lunch—veterans in various stages of healing, spouses learning to hope again, children playing without the shadows I remember from my own PTSD years.

"I think that sounds perfect," I say, meaning every word.

As the afternoon progresses into evening, I find myself on the porch of our main cabin, watching Anna put the children to bed while retreat participants gather around the fire pit for informal conversation. The scene is so perfectly domestic, so far from the violence and isolation that once defined my life, that it still occasionally feels like someone else's dream.

"Contemplating your empire?" Anna asks, emerging from the cabin and settling beside me on the porch swing I built during her second pregnancy.

"Contemplating how lucky I am," I correct, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "Five years ago, I thought my life was over. Now..."

"Now you're helping dozens of veterans reclaim theirs." She curls against my side with the easy intimacy of long marriage. "I'm proud of you, Cole Manning."

"We," I correct. "We're helping them. This only works because you're here."

"Flatterer." But she's smiling as she says it.

From the fire pit, someone starts playing guitar while Amber's promised campfire songs begin. Benny sleeps peacefully in hiscrib upstairs, and around us, the mountain night settles with familiar comfort.

"Any regrets?" I ask, a question that's become our anniversary tradition.

"About choosing this life? Never." Anna tilts her face up to mine. "About trusting a grumpy mountain man who saved me from more than just hypothermia? Not even for a second."

I kiss her then, soft and sweet and full of five years' worth of love and gratitude. When we break apart, she's smiling with the same radiant joy that first captivated me in this very spot.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks.

"The future. Our kids growing up here, learning to love these mountains the way we do. Maybe expanding the program, building a proper conference center." I squeeze her closer. "Growing old together in the place where we found each other."

"Sounds perfect," Anna murmurs against my throat. "Though you realize Amber's already planning to be a mountain rescue pilot when she grows up?"

"God help us all."

Her laughter mingles with the campfire songs and the eternal whisper of wind through pine trees. Somewhere in the forest, an owl calls to its mate, and the mountains that once sheltered my isolation now guard our family's happiness.

Anna came to my wilderness running from death.

She stayed for love.

And together, we've built a life that transforms other people's pain into purpose, their isolation into community, their despair into hope.

The mountains are no longer my hiding place.

They're our home.