by Vivian Wood
“I never said that,” I cut in.
He gives me a look. “You didn’t have to. Anyway, you are going to be leading this geologist around. Apparently she—”
“She?” I ask, disgruntled.
“Will you let me get a sentence out? She’s recently graduated as an environmental engineer and we are getting her practically for free for a couple months.”
I suck in a breath. “Let me guess. She hasn’t ever been out in the woods at all and doesn’t know anything about camping.”
Aiden shrugs. “I don’t know, man.”
“You were right. I am mad.” I blow out a breath. “Fuck, man.”
Clambering out of the hammock I just settled in, I stalk off in the direction of the ropes course. Aiden may be my best friend, but that doesn’t make this bad news any less damaging.
I head for the relative safety of the tree line, my thoughts as dark as the rainclouds that are gathering in the sky.
Chapter Three
Rachel
On the drive out to Olympic Park from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, I stare at the trees as they grow more and more dense. The driver takes me west, up through the northeastern part of the park. It soon grows more mountainous, every inch of the landscape bristling with huge pines. It’s obscenely green, as different from Manhattan as could be.
My mind isn’t on the lovely vegetation though. It’s on the phone I’m holding.
“Rachel, you shouldn’t have just left…” Sarah says, sounding piqued.
“I’m really sorry. I know you probably got an earful from my father—”
“It’s not your dad I would worry about,” she interrupts. “It’s your mom and Clay.”
“Clay?” I ask, surprised.
“”Yeah. He was at your parents’ house when I arrived, all red-faced and angry.”
When I told my father via text that I had accepted this summer job with the National Park Service, I swear I thought he was going to blow a gasket or something. Obviously Clay was one of the first people that my father called when I didn’t answer my phone.
It’s unclear how much of the disagreement between Clay and myself that my father knows about. But that doesn’t really matter to either of them. They are both texting and calling me, angry about the fact that I accepted the summer job across the country.
“Yes, heaven forbid I make my own choices somewhere that is just slightly out of their reach. If they didn’t already make me feel so… small, I would tell my father and mother just where to shove it.”
Sarah clicks her tongue.
“Girl… I think you may have gone too far. Like… I don’t know what will happen if you don’t come back within the week.”
I think of the texts and voicemails I’ve gotten over the last three days.
I’m sorry. Come back and we’ll talk it out like adults, Clay texts.
My father, on the other hand, is the master of guilt.
Young lady, you are harming an otherwise bright trajectory over a petty personal squabble. Just because we haven’t determined your career path just yet doesn’t mean you should just take off like this! We didn’t put you through a master’s degree for nothing. An obedient daughter wouldn’t do this…
“They are so full of shit,” I mutter.
“I know, I know. But your father was raving about cutting you off if you don’t come back…” Sarah says, sounding worried. “What would you do without support from them?”
Be free.
It sounds bitter even to myself.
“So my father said. Who even knows how much of that is made up? He lies as easily as he breathes. Everyone in my family is like that in one way or the other.”
“Rachel…”
“I’m just so tired of being a Black!” I grit out. “I just want to know what my life would be like if I was living it on my own terms. I want to stretch my wings and get a taste of freedom before I essentially agree to become my father, okay?”
Sarah sucks in a breath. “I know that you want that, but—"
Shaking my head, I cut her off.
“I’m always wondering how my family will try to control my actions now. My grandparents and my father have made sure that as a Black, I should never want for anything. But at the same time, they haven’t exactly given me a lot of choices either. Since I was a junior in college, the future has been made astoundingly clear for me. I just want to make a few choices of my own. Just to prove I can!”
Sarah is silent for a few seconds. “I know that you feel that way…”
I start listing off things that are expected of me. “I’ve done everything they asked. Finish at the top of my class. Start dating someone handpicked from amongst the corporate ranks. Go to graduate school for something that Civicore would approve of. Leave that program with honors.”
“Why don’t you catch a flight back and we can talk it through? You know I’m always on your side.”
But I’m not finished. “Now that I’m done with all of that, I am to get married and sire a few heirs. And do it all with a saccharine smile.”
She pauses again. “I had no idea that you felt this way.”
“Well, where the Black family stops and Civicore begins I have no idea, but I do have a gut feeling about it all. A cloying sense of doom. It makes me want to run away, as far and as fast as I can. The penthouse apartments, the Mercedes Benzes, the ski trips to our chateau in Switzerland…” I start getting choked up for the thousandth time in three days. “They are a life that was forced on me, not one I chose. When do I get to choose for myself?”
“Oh, honey…” I hear Sarah draw in a breath. “It sounds like maybe you’re right. You do need a vacation. Is there any way I can help from all the way over here?”
I smile, brushing away my tears. “No. I do think I will let you go, though. My driver has certainly heard enough of my drama.”
She chuckles. “Okay. Okay, if you need anything—”
“You’ll be the first person I call,” I assure her.
“Okay. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Clutching my phone, I look out the window at the passing pine trees moving by in a blur. I’m thinking of how the path has been laid out for me, smoothed by so many that have gone before me.
Yes, that is a part of why I’ve run. But only part.
What is the other piece of the puzzle?
The trees have closed in overhead, the road narrowing to a path. The driver slows and turns, passing a sign. I look back and gulp.
Whiskey Bend Base Camp, the brown and white sign says. Olympic Park’s Largest Year Round Camp.
My heart speeds up.
This is it. This is where my adventure is supposed to begin. My summer of freedom.
I will hike. I will go cave diving. I might even have a summer fling if one of the guys at this camp is cute enough. After all, I’ve spent the last five years driving on autopilot. If I’m going to take the wheel back, at least I can have some fun.
We drive down a steep embankment, the driver nudging the gas a little too hard as we near the bottom. I can’t help but stare out the front windshield at the greenery around me, my heart going as quickly as a frightened rabbit. All the hairs on my body stand up, tensing for something unknown.
In the next moment, a man jumps out in front of the hired SUV, causing my driver to slam on the brakes. I lurch forward, my hands hitting the seat in front of me. For a heart-stopping moment, I am honestly worried that we won’t stop in time, that we will plow into the man. But we do, brakes screaming. Every muscle in my entire body tenses as the man manages to pull himself back.
The man pulls himself to his full height, a not inconsiderable stature. His dark head swivels, his dark eyes seeming to zero in on me. God, he looks like my ex, the one that left me with no word. Same muscular build, same piercing blue eyes.
It gives me butterflies, if the butterflies could be made of lead.
I’ve found my summer fling, wi
thout question. That is, assuming that he works here.
He yells something at the driver, motioning to the sign posted just a few feet behind him. It says that the speed limit is only fifteen miles per hour here; we were definitely going at least three times as fast down the hill.
I’m not listening, though. I’m too busy drooling over the guy.
God, how long has it been since I’ve been with a strange man? Especially one that looks like he does?
Never. The answer is never.
Maybe he can be my first.
As the driver waves and pulls off, I can’t stop staring at the man on the side of the road. He looks so much like Grayson Sellwood, except he wears a scowl that Gray never sported. Gray was always sunny, his disposition happy no matter what.
This guy looks like he is the exact opposite, though of course I would be scowling too if I had just almost been run over.
Then we turn the corner. The man disappears from view.
My heart starts beating again, so loud and hard that it rushes through my ears. The driver goes around another turn and then pulls up in a gravel parking lot. Just beyond are a collection of rustic-looking wooden buildings, the largest of them labeled Campbell Mess Hall. In the distance, almost hidden amongst the trees, is a ropes course.
Swallowing thickly, I drag in a breath. The driver is already getting out of the car and unloading my suitcases. Taking a deep breath, I climb out of the dark SUV, running a hand over my white silk top and clingy blue skirt. Looking around at the campsite, at the way the trees form a canopy over most of the area, I’m a little awestruck.
God, it even smells different out here. Like pine trees and rain.
Grabbing my purse from the car, I tuck my phone inside it and walk toward the dining hall. Another familiar face comes loping out, his handsome face flickering from a smile into a look of puzzlement.
I cock my head to the side. “Aiden?”
He looks more than a little surprised, but he seems unable to place me. “Yeah…”
I raise my hand, bringing it up to cover my heart, which is clattering against my ribs. If Aiden is here, then Grayson may be here too. That angry looking man I just saw, the one my driver almost hit?
He didn’t just look like Grayson. He was Grayson.
What.
The.
Hell?
Chapter Four
Grayson
For a minute, as I trail the big black SUV on its way into camp, I feel as if I’ve lost the thread of reality. The feeling of a kind of deja vu floats around me, its hot fingers wrapping themselves about my neck.
I saw her.
Rachel Black.
I saw her, in that moment, staring through the windshield.
From several lifetimes ago, the past reached up and ensnared me, breathing its dust in my ear. The girl who was once mine, the only girl who has ever held my heart… that girl looked at me, her expression as startled as mine.
My heart stutters, threatening to stop.
God, what I wouldn’t give to get one little glimpse of her today. Just to know that she’s still alive.
And then it is over, the SUV moving on as if nothing happened. Leaving me shaking my head and wondering about my sanity. I’ve thought about Rachel endlessly for the past five years. Felt the empty space beside me acutely. Mourned the loss of her.
But this is the first time I have hallucinated her all the way out here in Washington. Blowing out a breath, I start walking around the bend in the road. I’m way off when I first spot her, walking slowly in the other direction.
It’s easy to see why my tired brain confused Rachel for her. She’s more dressed up than I remember, wearing towering high heels and a pink dress. But she also has that same mane of honey blonde hair, so long that it touches the top of her perfect peach shaped ass.
My heart thunders in my chest when she starts to turn around.
Fuck.
She doesn’t just look like Rachel.
With those features, those cheekbones and nose, those full lips, those perfectly arched brows and dusky brown eyes…
She is Rachel.
Rachel is here.
And she looks at me, her lips parting just so, like she’s unsure that I’m real. I take her in, coupled with her surroundings. Rachel just looks so damn good, even though she is out of place standing on the pine needle covered ground, under the shade of the tall canopy of trees.
Even though my heart plummets to my feet as I take her in, I still picture her the last time I was able to touch her.
I can’t help but see her as she was the last time we were together. Burrowed sleepily under my right arm, naked as sin in my bed.
She made sense there. Here though… she seems lost and out of place.
“Grayson?” she asks, her voice hesitant. Then a wave of anger sweeps across her face. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I started moving towards her, drawn in like a moth to a flame. The hostility in her voice stops me in my tracks though. I turn immediately defensive, as if she is asking me to explain my existence.
I’ve spent the last five years barely surviving. The fact that she shows up here and demands anything from me is just unacceptable.
Pulling up to my full height, I move closer to her, scowling.
“Rachel,” I say, her name sounding stilted on my lips.
There is a wounded look in her dark eyes, a pain that I can’t even touch. Did I put it there?
Surely not.
As I open my mouth, without a plan for what I’m going to say, my boss Nate and Aiden walk between us. Nate is blithely unaware of the storm that is gathering. Aiden just looks between Rachel and I, seeming uncertain of what he ought to say.
“Grayson! There you are.” Nate scratches his graying beard. “I see you’ve met Rachel Black. Rachel is going to be interning with us this summer.”
No…
I glance from Rachel to Nate, the word on the tip of my tongue.
Nate just continues with the introductions, blithely unaware of the mounting hostility in the air.
“She’s going to need help mapping out and accessing every single water source we have here in the park.” Nate looks pleased with himself. “That’s where you come in. You don't want to lead tours this summer. I need a ranger to guide Ms. Black…” He raises both of his hands, interweaving his fingers and bridging them together. “It’s a perfect match.”
“No!” I growl.
Rachel looks at me like I am something she just stepped in. “Absolutely not.”
Nate looks confused and a little pissed off. “I’m sorry, is there something I need to know? Because otherwise, a summer intern and a park ranger with an attitude problem do not get a say in how I run my department.”
I fall silent. He’s right, of course, but…
Rachel and I glare at each other. In the lapse in conversation, Aiden clears his throat. “Rachel, why don't we get you settled in to one of the staff cabins?”
She glances at him, her cheeks heating. With one more look at me, she picks up one of her bags. “Sure.”
Aiden helps her grab her bags and they head toward the cabins, stonily silent.
“Grayson, I think we should talk,” Nate says, looking grave.
Shit. My muscles tense. I send one last glare at Rachel’s retreating back and rub my neck. “Okay.”
Nate looks pensive. “Why don't we head to toward the ropes course while we talk? I saw one of the ropes is a little frayed. I want to see if it needs replacing.”
He starts walking there and I am forced to follow him, my mind jammed full of thoughts. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that Rachel is here.
Beautiful, wealthy, spoiled little rich girl Rachel has slammed her way into my life again, completely by accident. What kind of a world does that to me?
When I lost myself, lost my heart and my mind, I almost died. And I lost her too. Rachel’s big brown eyes and alluring smile, the way she looked so serious whe
n she breathed the words I love you…
All of that is back in the smoking ruins of what used to be my life. Thinking about what I gave up that day, what was taken from me…
I swallow around a hard lump of emotion in my throat.
Nate walks up to a low bridge made of ropes, leaning close to inspect it. “Give a hand here, would you?”
Moving to take one of the ropes, I frown down at Nate. He seems to be focused on the bridge, but I know him too well. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to help him while he told me what I was doing wrong. It’s constructive criticism, literally.
Pulling a switchblade off of his belt, Nate pulls at the one of the ropes. It is frayed a little, but because of the fabric Nate doesn’t just cut it and replace it. It’s a manmade material, probably nylon cord. So he can use his knife to cut the frayed bits and not have to worry too much about the rope losing its strength.
He edges his blade along the rope, skimming the first bit of frayed ends off.
“You know that we value you here,” he says, his gaze fixed on the rope. “Right?”
My chest tightens. “Yes.”
He looks up at me, then continues his work. “And you know that I took a chance on you. My superior didn’t want to hire someone with your… dubious record. But I put my foot down and you got a job.” He pauses. “At any other ranger station, you wouldn’t be given as much latitude as you are here.”
“Right now, I need two things and only two things. I need a ranger to lead the group tours and smile. And I need a ranger to take this woman up into the park to survey all the water systems. If I have someone that doesn’t want to do either of those things, I have a problem.”
It takes all of my energy not to make a face. I just stare down at the rope in my hands, scowling.
Nate skims another section. “Is your issue with her personal?”
His question takes me off guard. “Well… no.”
Yes, it absolutely is, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing something like that with Nate.