Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Tyler went to find Martin after five minutes. He gave him that long to reasonably find the water and wash the plates, but anything more than that, and he began to imagine Martin had fallen into the water or broken his leg or something worse. Being good at imagining the worst kept him safe, but he’d only had himself to look after before. Now he had another person working with him in a remote space, where anything could happen.

Martin intrigued him. All those soft curls tumbling to brush his shoulders, and bangs long enough to hide his eyes if needed. Which was often. There was something about the man that Tyler needed to know more about. Maybe it was the silence or the odd glances he would give Tyler that spoke of vulnerability and shyness. Then there had been the tension in him when they’d stood close checking images from the drone. Martin clearly hadn’t wanted to stand there, but was it because Tyler was doing his thing of boring someone to death, or was it something else?

He didn’t have to look too hard to see the wariness in Martin; it was right on the surface in every micro-expression, in every casual step away from Tyler to give them distance, and that fascinated him as if Martin was a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Martin wasn’t a cowboy. He hauled things. That was how he’d explained himself, but there was more to him, intelligence in his eyes as he looked at the images, and Tyler wondered if questions were on the tip of his tongue.

Wishful thinking that the sexy guy with the curls and the gorgeous green eyes would actually be interested in geology.

“Fuck my life,” the words drifted his way, the curse loud, the pain in each word obvious. Martin was perched on a large drop stone, his feet dangling above the fast-flowing water in the shallow creek. The light of Tyler’s flashlight illuminated the path, and he was relieved that Martin didn’t seem injured.

“Hey,” Tyler said when he grew closer.

“Hey,” Martin answered but didn’t move from his perch.

“You’re sitting on a drop stone, like the ones I talked about before.” He was trying for light conversation.

“Right,” Martin said.

“May I join you?” Tyler didn’t wait for an answer at first, but as he went to sit next to Martin, he hesitated. If only he could get a handle on him, then he might know a way to break all these silences. “Is that okay?” he asked again.

“I was just leaving,” Martin said and hopped down off the rock, collecting the plates and heading back to the camp. Tyler went after him, jogging a little to catch up, his flashlight bobbling a line of light that kept his steps on even ground.

“Wait up, Martin,” he called, and after a moment’s pause Martin stopped walking and turned to face him. Tyler dropped the beam of his flashlight so it was directed at Martin’s feet rather than his face.

“Yes?” he asked, but it wasn’t angry; it was an exasperated sound.

“I talk too much. I like company. We need a safe word.”

“A what now?” Martin said and took a step away, stumbling a little and righting himself.

“No, not in a sex way, I didn’t mean like that.” He let out an exasperated huff. “I didn’t explain it well. What I mean is, if I’m talking too much, just say the safe word, and I’ll back off. Say bananas or something. Don’t worry. I’ll listen and stop. My mom always said I could talk the hind legs off a?—”

“Banana,” Martin muttered.

“Oh, is that you practicing, or you mean I should stop?—”

“Banana.”

They stood in the dark, and Tyler had no idea what to say next when abruptly, Martin snorted a laugh. “Bed,” he said and turned back in the direction of the tents. Tyler was too wired to get into his tent, and certainly there would be no sleep just yet. He’d remembered to pack his Kindle, but he was more interested in the most recent seismic readings from Yellowstone. There was always seismic activity in Montana, which had been the premise for the investigations that had brought him here to this point on Crooked Tree. It had interested him to see a seismic belt form far from an active plate tectonic boundary, and that was based on a global assessment. The original systems built to track seismic activity hadn’t considered a monitoring station this far out until Tyler had followed his instincts and provided proof of what was needed right here to deal with the unpredictability of earthquakes.

He moved his iPad to the entrance to his tent and sat on the seat to flick to the most recent bare-earth Lidar images of his location. The land surface was portrayed in detail, and he traced the line of the active seismic fault with the potential to trigger a magnitude 6.5 to 7.5 earthquake. Every expert had imagined this area was relatively immune to large earthquakes; everyone knew the fault existed, but the best available evidence was that it was not active, and no earthquakes had been traced to this point. Until Tyler’s research.

He’d begged, cajoled, blackmailed, and finally persuaded the right people that a new monitoring station be added to the network covering Western Montana, and a long and frustrating year later he was here to do the work.

Excitement spurred him on to look at more data, and only when he yawned and realized it was nearly ten, that the fire had died out, and the cold had frozen inside him, did he move away from the flap. Then he went back out to check the fire was truly out and that everything was secure in the Jeep, and finally he crawled into his sleeping bag off the ground on the small cot. He wore so many layers that it was difficult to roll over, so he stayed where he was, staring at the roof of his tent, and as he drifted to sleep, thoughts of work and earthquakes and rocks slipped away until only his attraction to the enigmatic Martin remained in his mind.