Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Ariana sighed. “We haven’t been able to talk to that witness yet,” she admitted. “He says he saw Bigfoot walk out of the forest and get into a truck.”

  “A green Ford,” offered Theresa.

  “The Last Chance is a bar,” said Jake. He seemed amused at them, and Ariana was starting to get annoyed — a little with him, for being so smug about this, but more with her job for making her do this and with Theresa for believing this nonsense.

  “Right,” said Ariana. “Clearly, there are some external factors we’ll have to consider when interviewing this subject.”

  “What is it you need to know about these three areas?” Jake asked.

  “We’ve looked at the maps quite a bit, but we don’t have a good sense of how people move through the park,” Ariana said. She could feel his eyes on her, and she had to admit they made her a little nervous. I have a boyfriend, I have a boyfriend, she thought. “Do people frequent these parts of the park, or are they more difficult to get to?”

  “Well, you can drive right up to the Last Chance,” said Jake.

  “Right,” said Ariana.

  He pointed at the map, tapping one big finger on the red X by the lake. Ariana noted that he had huge, calloused hands, clearly still used to working outside.

  Forest rangers still do a lot of physical labor, she thought.

  She also noted that he didn’t have a wedding ring.

  “This part of the lake, it depends,” he said. “It’s no problem if you’ve got a boat, but it’s long, tough hike from somewhere else. Backpackers love it, though, for the solitude. If you can make it there, it’s real beautiful.”

  “Do you have any kind of backcountry logs?” Ariana asked.

  “In the backcountry,” Jake said.

  Ariana wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  “They’re not at the ranger station,” he explained. “We keep them in a box where the backcountry trails split off the more heavily used ones. When they were at the ranger station they almost never got used.”

  “Do they get used now?”

  Jake shrugged. “More than they did,” he said. “But there’s no way to really double-check who’s going out there. There’s not even a rule that someone in the back country needs to sign in. Most of them just know we’ll find it helpful if they go missing.”

  “I see,” Ariana said.

  Just as she was about to ask something else, the waitress came up.

  “Can I get you all anything?” she asked.

  Arian opened the menu quickly and scanned: the usual diner food. Next to her, Theresa piped up. “Are you still serving breakfast?” she asked.

  “All day, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll have a breakfast burrito and a milkshake.”

  Theresa got a milkshake at every diner they went to. She even had a blog about it: Milkshakes Across America.

  “Can I get a grilled cheese and a side salad?” Ariana asked.

  “Course.” The waitress looked at Jake, and something in her entire demeanor changed, just a little. She leaned a bit on one hip, blinked her eyes a little too much. “The usual for you, darlin’?” she asked.

  “Usual sounds perfect,” Jake said, smiling at the waitress. Ariana noticed the woman bite her lip just a tiny bit.

  I bet every woman in this town has the hots for him, she thought. He’s gotta have some lucky girl at home.

  “Be right back,” the waitress said, and walked away. Ariana thought she noticed her hips swinging just a little more.

  “So, the backcountry,” said Jake.

  “How hard would it be for us to check the logs?” Ariana asked. “It might be useful to see if we could find anyone else and ask them about their experiences.”

  “The logs for this trail—“ he tapped his finger on the X by the lake again, “—are only a couple miles in. You could do it in a long day hike, no problem. But the logs for this one—“ he tapped the X further in, the one Jane had reported, “—you better be prepped to spend the night.”

  Theresa piped up again. “We brought backpacking gear,” she said, leaning across the table. “We’re very prepared.”

  Jake raised one eyebrow. “You take this seriously.”

  “It’s our job,” Ariana said quickly. “The CRF is dedicated to scientifically investigating possible cryptids, so tracking down all leads is part of why we’re here.”

  Jake shook his head. “The jobs people have never cease to amaze me,” he said. “Hell, I just cut down trees until they said I couldn’t any more.”

  “We’ve all gotta do something, right?” Ariana asked.

  “Hunting Bigfoot isn’t too bad of a job,” he conceded. “I bet it’s at least interesting and you meet some exciting people.”

  Ariana laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  The waitress came back over, this time carrying three plates. She set down Jake’s first, then the girls’.

  “Be right back with your milkshake,” she said, and walked away again.

  “That was fast,” said Theresa.

  “It’s always fast here,” said Jake.

  Privately, Ariana wondered if the other patrons got the same excellent level of service that Jake did. She was willing to bet that they didn’t.

  “Help yourself to my fries,” Jake said, and they did. All three munched in silence for a moment, and Ariana spun the map so it was facing her again.

  “So this third sighting, by the backpacker,” she said. “Does that area get a lot of people?”

  “Even less than the lake,” he said.

  “She did say she was on the third day of a five-day hike,” Theresa volunteered. She stole another of Jake’s fries, looking up at him through her lashes. “That’s pretty far in.”

  At least flirt on your own time, Ariana thought.

  “How long would it take someone to hike there, not as part of a big loop?” Ariana asked.

  Jake pulled the map toward himself again, munching fries with one hand. “You really have to go in a loop around the mountains,” he said. “There’s no trails that just go straight up and over, and anyone trying to go cross-country would have be in very good shape, and really know where they were going.” Still looking at the map, he grabbed his burger in two hands and took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Someone could get there in a day, then another day back, but they’d be tired as hell,” he concluded.

  The waitress came back with Theresa’s milkshake and two straws.

  “Just in case you want to share,” she said. Theresa unwrapped one straw and took a long pull from it, the chocolate ice cream rising up the clear tube. She looked over at Jake, then held out the other straw.

  “Want any?” she asked, smiling and twirling the straw in her fingers.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I’m not much of a sweets guy.”

  “Me either,” said Ariana, even though she was well aware she wasn’t being asked. She took another bite of her sandwich. It was pretty good. At least they used real cheese — half the small-town diners in the United States seemed to use American cheese, which just didn’t do it.

  The table was silent for a few moments as all three of them chewed their food, silently regarding the map.

  “So what are you thinking?” Jake finally asked.

  “I’m thinking I’d be interested to see the backpacking logs for that trail,” Ariana said. “Honestly, that’s the only sighting that really interests me.”

  “That lake is hard to get to, though,” said Theresa.

  “Unless you’ve got a boat,” said Ariana.

  “That doesn’t interest you at all?”

  “It was dark, and Nate admitted he only saw something for a split second. If it wasn’t another person out on the lake, it was probably a bear or something.”

  Theresa frowned and drank more of her milkshake.

  “You don’t believe that Bigfoot drives a green Ford?” Jake asked. Ariana glanced up at the map to his handsome face. Smiling, his eyes sparkling, like
he was teasing her.

  He had dimples. She hadn’t noticed the dimples before. For one moment, she was speechless.

  Stop it, you’ve got a boyfriend, she thought.

  “I heard Bigfoot prefers Chevrolet,” she told him, smiling right back. She knew she should keep this strictly business, but she couldn’t help it. Besides, it was totally harmless: he could obviously have his pick of anyone in town. It wasn’t like he’d pick her.

  Jake laughed.

  “We actually haven’t interviewed that subject yet,” she said. “We’re going over there next. I think it’ll be... enlightening.”

  “Who was it?”

  Ariana took a small notebook from her bag and flipped it open.

  “Dustin Tanner?” she said.

  “Oh, Dusty,” said Jake. He leaned back in the booth, his hands behind his head, his flannel shirt stretching across his big chest. “He’s a hoot. Hope you’re ready to hear two hours of tall tales.”

  “Are we ever,” said Theresa, still sipping her milkshake.

  When Darlene came back with the check, Ariana grabbed it before Jake even had a chance.

  “What do I owe you?” he said smoothly. He couldn’t let the girls pay for him. It was unseemly, somehow.

  “It’s on us,” said Ariana. “Or, rather, it’s on the CRF.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. She still held the check, and it was increasingly obvious to Jake that what Ariana wanted, Ariana got.

  “Well, thanks,” Jake said. He looked down at the map, briefly. He knew he had to say something, ask her out, do something that meant he could see her again. “Can I do anything else for you?”

  Why was he suddenly so nervous around this girl?

  “Would we be able to hike to the backcountry log for this spot?” Ariana asked, tapping her finger on the X in the middle of nowhere.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, that’s about six miles in, and they’re rough miles,” he said. “People have a tough time doing that in a day, but it’s an easy overnight trip.”

  “Oh,” said Ariana. She seemed disappointed, and exchanged a look with Theresa.

  “I could lend you backpacking gear from our office, no problem,” offered Jake. “Hell, I’d be happy to take you out there myself.”

  The girls exchanged a look again.

  What’s gotten into you? Thought Jake. You’ve got a job to do, you can’t just take off and go hiking with a cute girl whenever you want.

  “Really?” said the blond with a blue streak in her hair, the one who was sipping the milkshake flirtily.

  “Sure,” he said, only looking at Ariana, the brunette. He couldn’t wait to spend two full days with her, watching her climb a mountain in front of him, her hips swinging as she walked...

  “I’m not sure it’s a good use of our time here,” said Ariana. “We don’t even know if someone signed in.”

  “Come on,” Jake said. His heart thumped. Somehow, he had to figure out a way to see her again. “I’m more than happy to take you.”

  Ariana bit her lip and looked up at him. He wondered if she knew how devastatingly sexy she looked just then.

  “All right,” she said. “Should we come by to pick up gear and plan?”

  “The forest office closes at seven,” he said. “Stop by whenever.”

  “We should go,” said Theresa. “We’re meeting Dustin soon.”

  “Crap, you’re right,” said Ariana. Then, to Jake, she said, “See you later tonight?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  Then he watched her walk out of the diner, get into her car, and drive off to meet Dustin.

  Jake leaned back in the booth and stared off into space. What was it about her? Sitting here, in the diner, he’d felt almost lightheaded just being near her. Sure, she was gorgeous and driven, but so were plenty of women.

  Ariana, though. There was something in particular about her. Jake shook his head, trying to clear it, and then went back to his office where he got no work done.

  6

  Ariana

  “You should give him a call,” Theresa was saying, over in the passenger seat. “I’d let him take me on a hike any day of the week.”

  “I just want to make sure it’s a good use of our time.”

  “I would climb him like a tree,” Theresa said. “Did you see his forearms? Oh my god.”

  Yes. Yes, I did, thought Ariana. I’d also climb him like a — no I wouldn’t, because I have a boyfriend.

  “He was cute,” said Ariana.

  “Ariana,” said Theresa, turning fully in her seat, “We don’t have real jobs. We’re here because our boss is a weird billionaire who wants to find Bigfoot.” She paused for a moment, letting that sink in. “Let’s go camping with the hot ranger.”

  Ariana bit her lip. Boyfriend, boyfriend, she thought. What was it about Jake that made her feel so weird inside? Was it only that he was hot, or was there something else?

  The image of his eyes, boring into her, came to her suddenly, and she felt almost giddy for a moment.

  “Okay,” she said. “We can go camping.”

  Dustin had wanted to meet at the Last Chance, the bar where he’d originally seen Bigfoot. When the girls walked in, an older guy wearing a plaid shirt and drinking a Budweiser waved to them from a booth, and they walked over.

  “You’ve got to be the Bigfoot gals,” he said.

  “That’s us,” said Ariana. Her mind was still half back in the diner, and on the fact that she’d agreed to go camping with Jake, the hot, hunky lumberjack.

  “So, you want to hear my story?” he asked.

  It was a surprisingly long story for an event that hadn’t taken more than thirty seconds. It began the morning of the sighting, when Dustin considered driving down to the river for a few hours, or going fishing in the lake. He’d retired a couple years before and had never married, so his time was his own, as he liked to say frequently.

  Ariana was fervently glad that he’d been scheduled last for their day, because at the rate his story was going, it could take hours.

  In any case, he’d gone to the hardware store to get some sort of hinge to replace a rusty one on his door, gone home to replace it, watched a little of Judge Judy on TV (“I like her ‘cause she don’t take no bullshit,” he said), and then finally decided to head up to the Last Chance for a couple of drinks.

  “Why here?” asked Theresa.

  “It’s real nice,” he said. “They know me, and during happy hour they got one dollar beers.”

  “I see,” said Ariana.

  Finally, they got to the sighting part of the story: three beers in, Dustin had been aimlessly watching the gravel parking lot. The sun was just starting to go down, and suddenly, he saw a very tall, very hairy bipedal animal walk out of the woods, cross the parking lot, do something to the tire of a green Ford truck, and then get in the truck and drive away.

  “It was tall, and hairy, and had long arms that swung like this,” he told the girls, swinging his arms in an exaggerated, cartoonish way.

  “Did you see which way the truck went?”

  “Toward town,” he said.

  “Can you remember anything else?”

  Dustin shrugged. “I was so surprised that I finally saw him, I didn’t think to look for too many details,” he said.

  “Did anyone else see it?”

  “Don’t think so,” he said. “But you know, about ten years ago, Ernest Longmire who passed away just two years ago came across Bigfoot when he was out hunting one day, long before this was all protected...”

  It was only forty-five minutes before the girls got out of there.

  7

  Jake

  Jake was putting the finishing touches on a report when the front door to the station opened. He was the only one still there, just waiting for Ariana and Theresa to show up. He hadn’t been able to pay a lot of attention to the report, but it wasn’t a big deal. The Department of the Interior didn’t expect a lot
from former lumberjacks in terms of grammar and punctuation anyway.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Jake was out of his chair and out of his office before Ariana could take even another step.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Ready to get outfitted?”

  “Sure am,” she said.

  He looked through the door behind her, wondering where the other girl was.

  “Oh, she wanted to take a nap,” Ariana said. “Or at least that’s what she said. I think she’d probably just watching TV in her room.”

  God, she even smelled good, like fresh coffee and lilac and sunshine, all rolled into one.

  “Well, it’s just me here,” Jake said, smiling. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not if you don’t,” she said.

  “Come on back and check out the equipment,” he said. “We’ve got enough to send Napoleon’s army backpacking for a week.”

  He wished they were going backpacking for a week, but he’d have to make do with two days. At least she’d come alone tonight, without that other girl. It would give him a chance.

  Standing, Ariana realized that Jake towered over her by a good eight inches. She wasn’t a small girl — five foot nine in stocking feet — and she was used to looking men in the eye. Jake she had to look up at, though, and she found she didn’t mind in the least. They were alone in the ranger’s office, surrounded by gray cubicles and walls that were floor-to-ceiling window.

  She followed him through the office to a back room. When he flipped on the lights, she realized that all four walls were covered in shelving, top-to-bottom hiking gear.

  “Is that all forest service stuff?” she asked.

  “Only some,” he said. “People leave things with us all the time, or donate it. You’d be surprised how many people come here from Europe on vacation, go backpacking a couple of times, and donate their gear before they fly back.”

  “It’s probably cheaper than baggage fees,” she said. “Though some of this is really nice stuff.”