Can an unexpected night of stargazing with a lovely artist heal my broken heart and mend my painful past?
High atop a San Juan Mountain peak near Ouray, Colorado, I live in an isolated cabin, kissing the sky at nearly 9,000 feet. It’s a formidable spot. Frigid in the spring, cold in the summer, and downright bone-numbing during the area’s brutal winters.
No place on the planet brings me closer to my first love—the nighttime sky—or further from everything I long to forget as a military veteran and wounded warrior. I spend my time naming and chasing comets, stars, and planets, leading the life of a reclusive mountain man astronomer. Until an unexpected stranger shatters the peace of my isolated existence.
A wilderness watercolorist, Luna Solace couldn’t be more different than me—warm and talkative, bubbly and sunshiny, and desperate for help. My grumpy silence and morose glares don’t faze her. Neither do the scars I wear on my body and soul. What scares and thrills me? A promise in her eyes, rivaling the otherworldly beauty of celestial bodies.