~~~
Night had settled already as Daniel drove back up the winding path on the northeast side of the park towards the road branching towards Chaplin Mesa and the Spruce Tree House. It was rainy and cooler than it had been that last few nights at that time so he’d brought his warmer winter coat. Pulling into the museum parking lot he guessed there were a good thirty cars or so—many more than he would have expected. Most of the plates were from Colorado and Utah though so he imagined it was people from neighboring towns that must come to enjoy the lighting of the dwelling each year.
Candles lit the walkways from the maintenance shop, the chief ranger’s office and the museum. It warmed him to see and for others to be milling about smiling and listening to some light music. The lights and atmosphere reminded him of one Christmas he’d spent in Florida and their evening trip to the decorative Disney shopping center there, despite the increasing cold of the Mesa. Unfortunately, he noticed that most visitors were dressed in formal attire and he’d worn his boots and jeans on the assumption it was an outdoors experience in the cold.
Just as Dan began contemplating returning to the campground from his embarrassment Mrs. Smith walked up to him quickly from a small group.
“Mr. Tremon! I’m so glad you did come. Please, I want you to meet some friends from Texas that just happened to come tonight!”
A slender, elderly, man who was probably a good ten or fifteen years older than the Smiths greeted him.
“Ah, they say it’s a small world, and sure enough we can’t go anywhere without running into Ted and Janine,” he smiled.
So the Smiths had first names, thought Daniel. The elderly couple in that moment became a representation of all then things Daniel had hoped for with his late wife. Perhaps a retirement with a loving partner was still in the works for him, but he did not think so when being honest with himself. He would love to have someone like Rachel in his life, but he somehow also knew he couldn’t try to hold an active young woman to his slowing interests. How could he be justified in taking the ranger out of her to settle down in little old Woodland Hills.
Dan returned the smile and offered handshakes as well. After a short introduction and conversation, the gentleman offered to take Daniel’s name and number and see if one of his contacts back in Dan’s area had any work for him. It was a blessing Dan hadn’t even thought about since leaving home and he has glad then to have made the Smith’s acquaintance on the trip. Maybe, he thought, not everything is messed up. Maybe I even imagined most of that with this shadow thing.
“So…have any of you happened to see Rachel here yet?”
“Of course,” replied Mr. Smith, now Ted if Daniel was to take them literally at their offer to address one another by first names. “She’s in the museum I think trying to stay warm.”
“Great! If you’ll excuse me for a moment.”
Ted continued as Dan moved to walk away, “Son, you might be a bit under-dressed though. Just a warning.”
Both couples smiled as they took sips of their drinks and watched Daniel head into the museum. He was already uncomfortable enough; he didn’t really need Ted driving the point home. But once inside he felt the advice ringing through his head, if only momentarily.
Rachel was standing by the front counter and speaking with a couple, nodding and smiling gently. Her hair was done up so that her neck was exposed. Glistening against her skin was a fairly spectacular pearl and diamond necklace, but even more notably for Dan, her dress was a black, narrow formal gown that exposed her shoulders. It hugged her waist and hips and flowed down nearly to her ankles.
Daniel couldn’t help the moderately stifled guffaw and exclamation under his breath as he approached her. “Holy crap!”
Rachel caught his eye and excused herself from the couple, smile changing from her typical Cheshire grin to a pleasant but thin-lipped one. She walked gracefully and placed her hands folded before her when they met in the middle of the room.
One eyebrow rose as she responded to Daniel’s gape. “What’s wrong with you? Haven’t you ever seen a girl try to look pretty before?”
“Well, bu-shah!...” he struggled. “Of course, but…you’re so…you look terrific! I guess I’m sort of used to the tom-boy ranger.”
She slapped his upper arm playfully, harder than Daniel might have expected from a slender, shorter and very much more feminine figure than his own, laughing with a snort as she did so.
“Look, I’m allowed to be a woman sometimes!”
“Alright, alright! I get it.”
Then Dan stepped back and gazed for a moment trying to take in the vision.
“Wow! I just can’t believe how great you clean up.”
Smiling, Rachel took him by the arm and walked him into one of the adjoining art exhibit rooms.
“Alright. So what about you? Did you forget your tuxedo or do you only own cowboy clothes?”
“Well…” again caught by his embarrassment Daniel tried to explain, but it only came out as a whine about not being told. He concluded with, “So it’s not really my fault.”
“Fair enough,” Rachel replied amicably. “I don’t suppose you have that other jacket you were wearing earlier today?”
“It’s in the truck still I think. Why?”
“Because as pretty as you may think I look, I am freezing my arms off here!”
“Oh! Sure! I’ll go get it for you.”
“I’ll walk with you,” she said as they exited the museum from one of the side doors. “I just don’t really want to put on my ranger gear. Too many park questions from those that know me as it is.”
“Not a problem.” Daniel removed his winter coat and put that around Rachel’s shoulders. “Why don’t you just wear this and I’ll wear the jacket.”
“Thank you.”
They walked quietly to the truck, Rachel putting her arm through his again. Daniel recollected his dates with his late wife nearly two decades earlier and something clicked in recognition. I guess I do know how to be a little bit romantic after all. Guilt at not taking time for it either before or after he and his wife had married before she died so many years earlier made the moment with Rachel a bit less comfortable. But he was still glad to have met Rachel, and wondered if he should clear the air with her, since they may never see each other again after a day or two.
At the truck, Dan pulled out the lighter jacket he tucked behind his seat and put it on. Rachel stood waiting, anticipating they would head back to see the lighted Spruce Tree House path and the dwelling. The rain had held off reasonably well for the last couple hours and had only begun lightly sprinkling since Daniel arrived at the museum. The prospect of putting a holiday glow on the environment seemed to both Rachel and Dan a very good way to end their time there.
But then Rachel noticed the envelope slightly tucked under middle fold-down seat console.
“What is that there?”
“What?” asked Daniel turning his head around awkwardly as he’d been all set to close the door and return to the walking path.
“That envelope there that says, ‘Ranger Rachel’?”
She gave Daniel a cock-eyed look and one of her glamorous smiles, then reached for the envelope, pushing past Dan before he had a chance to react.
“Well…” he stammered. “I haven’t really written anything in it yet…”
“No,” Rachel snickered. “I guess you haven’t really. …What’s this supposed to mean? ‘Glad to see you’?”
“Well…I’m not sure. I think I was mostly going for generic…”
“Definitely that…” Rachel replied still smiling.
“And…uh…inoffensive.”
“Well…you’ve covered those very well. I think it’s what you write in this type of card that really matters.”
Daniel closed the passenger door to the truck and they started walking back to the party and towards the lighted path down the hill from the museum. Rachel pu
t her arm in his once again.
“Ya…that was sort of the intent anyway…”
Rachel turned her head to look up as they walked and continued, “So…what were you going to say?”
“Um…”
Since Daniel was a little reluctant she stopped walking and turned him to face her.
“So…Daniel?”
Dan found himself smiling irresistibly back at her own winning smile.
“Well…I was thinking I’d ask if you’d like to keep in contact after you leave Mesa Verde and I head home.”
Rachel started walking again and pulled him along by the arm.
“So…like…you want to be pen pals or something?”
How stupid it sounds when she’s teasing me about it! Daniel thought. This wasn’t exactly going the way he was hoping. That was part of the reason a moderately anonymous greeting card left with her after their last chance at a face to face interview was possible was part of the original plan. As they kept walking she seemed to sense she made him uncomfortable, try as he might to hide his face reddening.
“You know, I feel like we’ve gotten to know a lot about each other in the last couple days.”
“Ya.”
“Well…if we’re going say some sort of goodbye here I think you should buck up and say it like a man.” She slapped his back a little playfully and snickered again while she did it.
“Oh!” Dan snorted. “I guess…well…that’s not really what I meant here!”
“No?”
“No! I …uh…actually, I really was hoping I could see you again.”
“Really?”
“Of course! I think you’re a pretty neat lady and, … well…I just didn’t want to meet such a person and not have anything come of it.”
Now halfway down the path towards the Spruce Tree House dwelling they could see the rooms lit from within and it did indeed provide a warm glow. It was as if this dwelling, anyway, had life and family flowing through it again.
“I see,” Rachel replied stopping them so they could look at the dwelling. Her smile dimmed somewhat, not unpleasantly but with a sense of complacency. “You wanted to take some pictures didn’t you?”
Dan fumbled, thankful for the distraction and took out his camera, framing and zooming it such as to provide a variety of compositions even from the one position on the hill. Rachel had released her hold on his arm so he could work.
“I guess I should tell you, I’m really, really not interested in a relationship right now.”
Standing up from a photo he was taking from the knee, Dan replied, “Oh! Not a problem! That’s not really what I meant either!”
It was perhaps a little too enthusiastic of a reply, but if Rachel had sensed an overcompensation she was kind enough to let it drop.
“It’s just…I don’t really know what I’m doing for the next little while. And…well…the last boyfriend I had was back in college almost ten years ago and he was pretty much a jerk.”
“Oh! No! Absolutely, I understand!” replied Dan, again over-exuberantly.
“Do you?”
Rachel’s brow was furrowed. Dan pondered it for a moment but then nodded trying to make sure she was comfortable with him still.
“You see,” she continued, wrapping her arm through his once more, “It’s not that I wouldn’t like a relationship with you.”
Daniel swallowed a little harder than he expected. What’s going on here?! He thought. Oh God, please don’t let me mess this up. I don’t want to hurt her. He still didn’t have any predilection towards a deity listening to him, but the emotion was raw enough he wanted to hedge his bets if at all possible.
After a short pause Rachel began again, assuming her audience was too rapt to give any indications himself.
“I think I’d really love to be a very close friend. Would that be okay?”
“Oh, yes! Of course. That’s what I was hoping!”
He didn’t know any more if that really was what he was hoping or if he’d been trying to find more there or not.
“That way, I can still feel like I can look around and grow up some more before I get serious about anything again.”
“OK,” Daniel’s strong vocabulary was back at it again. “I’m totally good with that.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said quietly. Looking at him again to catch his eye, she said more loudly, “I really do mean it! I want to keep you close to me!”
“OK! Sure! Not a problem. I would like that too.”
Daniel felt as though he wasn’t sounding sincere enough. It may have been the fact that he was trying not to push too much in one direction or the other. He found he cared a great deal about Rachel, perhaps as much as his first wife, Natalie, but that he wasn’t sure if that was romantic love or just a familial concern. He knew if they kept in contact there would come a time where he’d need to define that for himself.
“Wait? Did you say you were in college ten years ago?” Dan tried to play off the awkwardness with some humor.
“Yes!” Rachel giggled. “What are you trying to say?”
“Well…you’re definitely not such a kid as I thought you were.”
“So you thought I was a kid, eh?” Yet her smile remained.
“No, no. That’s not what I meant.” He was caught in his bi-polar interest in Rachel yet again.
“Well, I was speaking about my boyfriend, and that was when I was a sophomore.”
“Oh, gotcha,” Daniel replied.
They’d started slowly walking back up the hill together. Apparently a trip into the dwelling itself wasn’t going to happen, but he felt that was okay. He’d taken some truly beautiful pictures and was satisfied.
“AND! I started college when I was seventeen!” Rachel teased.
“Alright, but that all means that I’m actually not old enough to be your father after all.”
Rachel laughed heartedly and replied, “I suppose that makes you feel better then?”
“Most definitely!”
They shared a laugh but it was true. He felt like he could justify his conflicted feelings better now that he knew Rachel was more of a peer than child. At the top of the hill Rachel made motions to part ways. It would seem she’d had her fill of Mesa Verde and was checking out at last.
“Tell you what,” Rachel sparked and flashed her smile again.
The rain drizzling now and a lightning strike out in the distance on the mesa top couldn’t ebb their enjoyment.
“I think you’ve earned at least one good ol’ kiss!”
Daniel was surprised and bent to allow her the angle as she grabbed his shoulder. But she then released her other arm from his and used it to direct his face until she could plant a warm kiss on his right cheek. She held him there for a moment and her lips were soft and kind. Dan was indeed glad he’d shaved that morning even if he hadn’t dressed quite appropriately. Then she released him. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but he was so thoroughly warmed by her touch that he was glad she opted not to make anything more romantic out of it.
“That ought to do, for a good friend, I think,” she said.
“It was wonderful,” Dan replied, standing upright again. “Say! Would you mind if I took a picture of you to remember you before I go?”
“What?! You need a picture?” she teased. But she began setting up a pose for him anyway.
“Ya, you know…I don’t know that many pretty girls that can wear a uniform one day and such a dress the next! I gotta have something to brag about when I get home.”
“Sure, sure. You’re going to tell everyone you’ve got a new girlfriend. Just don’t let me catch you putting this on your nightstand or anything.”
“No, of course not. This is so I can remember you!”
He found he was having a difficult time remembering his wife lately and regretted only having a few photos. Perhaps photos had a way of keeping people alive for him so he didn’t want to miss the oppo
rtunity again.
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