Meanwhile, I’ve seen, or more accurately, heard a ghost. “It was you that day.”
His brows pull together in confusion.
“In the church.”
He laughs. “Darlin’, I haven’t attended church services since my grandfather died when I was eleven.”
“I meant in the chapel in the woods.”
His eyes go wide before a slow grin spreads across his face. “That was you?”
I nod. “I thought I’d imagined an echo, or the voice of God.”
A full-blown guffaw bursts out of his mouth, the force of it pushing him back in his chair.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve been compared to the devil himself, but never in my life has someone mistaken me for the good Lord.” He wipes genuine tears from his eyes.
Waiting for him to compose himself, I poke at something pink in my salad. Could be a slice of red grape or watermelon radish. Instead of biting into something and having to spit it out, I taste the chicken. It’s delicious. Next is the dumpling, which is like a savory cloud.
“Good?” He bites into a carrot.
“Amazing.” I give him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“In case you were wondering, the salad has pink apples in it.” He spears one on his fork and holds it closer to my mouth. “You like apples, don’t you?”
I eye him and the sliver with trepidation. “I’ve never heard of them being anything but white on the inside.”
“This is an heirloom variety. Trust me?”
I part my lips and bite into the blush-tinted fruit.
Relieved at the familiar taste, I hum. “Mmm.”
“Amazing, right? It’s from the fallow orchard.”
I throw a sidelong look at his smug satisfaction. “Nicely played.”
With a casual lift of his shoulder, he goes back to eating his food.
I do the same. Every bite is incredible. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“My formal training is from the CIA, not the spy group, The Culinary Institute of America. And before you say it, yes, it’s fancy.”
I pretend to button my lip. “I wouldn’t.”
“Sorry. I’m a little sensitive about my former career. When I returned home, my family gave me a hard time. Even after I explained cooking was similar to any other trade, like being a mechanic, the men asked why I wanted to waste money learning to do what the women folk figured out from their mommas and grannies. Unless grilling or smoking are involved, cooking is considered women’s work.”
“Sounds a little like my family. They’re big on clearly defined gender roles, too.” I give him a sympathetic smile before I change the subject back to safer territory. “Why did you come back here if you were traveling the world as a chef?”
“Most of the travel came after I walked away, a farewell tour to a life I no longer wanted to live.”
“You quit to be a farmer? Isn’t that going in reverse? Table to farm?” I may be the opposite of a foodie, but even I’m aware of the farm-to-table movement.
He rests his spoon on the edge of his bowl, his expression growing serious. “I didn’t have a choice. If I wanted to save my life, I needed to stop living the one I had.”
Whoa. “Sounds drastic.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” He shrugs, and I stop pressing him.
The headline about his drug arrest flashes into my mind. If I ask him about it, he’ll think I was stalking him online. Which I wasn’t. Not really.
Some struggle flickers in his eyes. “My mentor and one of my best friends died.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. In hindsight, I think I always had a sense he’d check out early. Tony was a sober heroin addict. Not recovered, not former, just wiser in that he figured out a way to not use and still wake up every day and get shit done in his life … until one day he made a stupid decision and it all ended. I’m sure you could find all the gory details on the internet if you wanted to.”
I feel my eyes bug out. Does he know I know? Or think he knows I know when really I know nothing?
“I try to avoid the celebrity gossip sites and social media.”
“Then we have that in common too.” His smile is dimmer then it was a few moments ago. “Nothing puts a damper on a great evening like bringing up the dead.” He wipes his mouth on his napkin. “It’s getting late. I should probably get you home since we’re meeting at 7:30.”
“No dessert?” I ask. Realizing the double-meaning, I clarify, “I meant the food.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t prepared.”
For sex? For company? Who doesn’t have a pint of ice cream in their freezer? His statement could mean several things.
“That’s okay.”
“Another time?” He pushes himself away from the table.
“I can do the rest of the dishes.” I stand as well.
“Nah, I’m happy to do them later.”
If we weren’t in the middle of nowhere, I’d offer to request a rideshare to pick me up and save him the hour of driving. Somehow, I don’t think he’d allow it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Odin
Once we’re in the truck, Daphne apologizes again for making me drive her home. I tell her for the third time I don’t mind. Our interlaced fingers rest on the console between us.
“Where’d you grow up?” A casual, innocent get-to-know-you kind of question. I might be out of practice, but I’m pretty sure I can manage to still make polite conversation.
“I’m not from around here.” Her response is oddly curt.
“That part I already know. For one thing, you don’t have the local accent. Second, never heard of any Baums, and I pretty much know every family in Green Valley. Third, I’d remember if you grew up around here.” The last statement is both a compliment and my attempt at flirting. I tell my heart rate to settle.
I’m trying out being a gentleman and I’m not sure if I’m succeeding. Took all my effort not to lift her onto the counter and have sex. She wanted it. I sure as hell wanted it. Yet … we didn’t, because I stopped us. Clearly, I’m an idiot. That line about dessert? Pulled it out of nowhere when I saw rejection creeping into her eyes. I meant the part about savoring her, but I sounded like a pompous chef.
After a long moment of silence, I clear my throat before speaking again. “You didn’t answer my question. I’m excellent at evasion, so I’m an expert at knowing when someone is avoiding talking about something.”
“Does it matter? We moved around a lot, mostly in the northwest before my parents settled in Idaho. I left as soon as I turned eighteen.”
“For college?”
“Sure.” Her voice is flat and she doesn’t add any more to her response.
That’s a strangely vague answer, but I don’t say anything. Sometimes the best way to encourage others to talk is by remaining quiet.
“I guess you could say I ran away. Although, technically an adult can’t be a runaway, can they?”
This information surprises me. As a rule-loving, law-abiding ranger, she doesn’t seem the rebel type.
“You never went back?” My voice lifts with disbelief. “Did your family ever look for you?”
“If I ever left, I would be dead to them. That’s what my father told me.”
“What about your mom?”
“My mother cried, begged me to believe him. She always took his side, never mine.”
“Harsh.” Sounds like an abuse situation. I’m torn between wanting to know more and not wanting to have to drive to Idaho to kick her father’s ass and end up in jail.
“I haven’t seen or spoken to them since.”
“You were on your own at eighteen?”
“Pretty much.”
I didn’t expect to have this in common with the straight-laced ranger. In my head, I’d created a whole narrative about her perfect family life growing up, full of love and support. I should know better. Both assumption and bias have “ass” in
them.
“Were you homeless?” I hate the idea of Daphne alone in the world. As much as my family annoys the ever-loving shit out of me ninety percent of the time, I know at least a couple of them would show up if I needed them.
“In a way. I stayed with a friend. We grew up together and he always said I would have a place with him if I needed one.” Her eyes close for a beat or two before she shakes her head as if clearing away an old memory.
He.
“Are you still close?”
“Yes, but we rarely each other. After I started traveling for seasonal NPS jobs, he moved to San Fransisco, and then New York. He loves cities. I’m happier away from concrete. Did you know people can have an allergy to concrete? I think I’m one of them.”
He.
I assumed the friend had been a girl. Maybe even the woman who was with her at the farmers’ market.
“Boyfriend?” I blurt before I get a hold of my thoughts.
She laughs. “Depends on who you ask.”
Next time someone accuses me of being cryptic, I’m going to introduce them to Daphne. “I guess I’m asking you.”
A small line appears between her eyebrows before she gives me a bland smile. “It was a long time ago. Isaac is off living his life and I’m living mine.”
Daphne’s ability to avoid giving details about herself is impressive—and really annoying. Why do I care if she had a boyfriend in high school or college? She’s right about it being in the past. If I open up this topic, do I really want to talk about my past “relationships”? Hell and no. What’s done is done and better left to fade away into memory, or be forgotten altogether.
“Why does it matter?” She raises a good point.
“I’m curious what teenage Daphne was like. I’m trying to imagine a younger version of you. Were you always this self-assured and determined?”
With a shake of her head, she dismisses my words. “No, not at all. I don’t think I’m either of those things even now.”
“No? Funny how we rarely see ourselves as others do.”
“What was it like growing up in the Smokies? Are you happy to be back?”
The answers to those questions are complicated.
“Have you heard of someone being dirt poor?”
“Of course.”
“Growing up, I used to think the expression was invented for my family. The only thing we owned of value was our land, handed down eight generations over three centuries. Turns out, the expression has something to do with dirt floors in old England. Since some of the older Hill homesteads have dirt floors in their cellars, I think it still applies.”
Soft understanding in her eyes, she squeezes my hand. “We didn’t have much either. I never realized how poor we were until I left home and saw how other people lived. Is your current house from your family?”
“Sure is. Samson Hill used to own property all around these mountains. Most of it wasn’t worth much—too steep or inaccessible for farming—except a few parcels, one of which is where I’m living now.”
“During dinner you mentioned moving back to save yourself. Why not keep traveling?”
“Even with leaving after high school, moving to Atlanta and then New York, traveling the world, I could never fully escape Green Valley. I was sitting on a piazza in a small town in Tuscany, enjoying the cool hours of a summer morning with a cappuccino and a flaky cornetto pastry when Duane and Jessica Winston sat down at the next table.”
“Small world.”
“Has it ever happened to you? Seeing someone from home far away from Idaho?”
She thinks for a moment. “Once or twice.”
“It’s the strangest sensation to have your past show up in your present. I took it as a sign. I’d been traveling for a while when I ran into them. I think they’d just moved there, and we recognized each other the way folks do when they see someone from their hometown in an unfamiliar context. Like identifies like. Seeing their faces and hearing their accents sparked a yearning for the Smokies I hadn’t felt in years. Guess I can partially blame Duane and Jessica for why I moved back.”
“I know there are half a dozen or more of the Winston siblings, but I can’t keep them straight. The sister is married to Dr. Runous the game warden,. Beau’s the one who owns the garage with Cletus, right?”
“He does. You should talk to him about the Highlander. If anyone could bring a vehicle back from a bear attack, it would be them.”
“In my head I’ve put it on a Viking funerary raft and pushed it out to sea. The park is going to use is as a warning to campers.” She rolls her eyes. “Can we not talk about it? I’m still in mourning. Back to Duane and Jessica—were you friends growing up?”
“Not really. As kids we didn’t socialize together. The twins, Beau and Duane, were a few grades ahead of me, and their younger brother Roscoe was a couple years behind. The farm kids didn’t hang around the sons and daughters of the Iron Wraiths.
“In fact, my mother forbid it. There’s poor, and then there are the bikers. Never the two should mix. She made it seem like we were too good for those kids. Ironically, the Hills are considered lower than the bikers on whatever social scale exists in people’s minds. Probably because we keep to ourselves and live on old farms and homesteads tucked into hollers. I think she worried we’d join one of the local gangs, tempted by the glamorous lifestyle of motorcycles and leather jackets.”
“She was right to be worried. I’d be tempted to join a club for the patches alone.
“You should probably avoid temptation.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. No biker bars for me.”
The thought of Daphne at any of the club hangouts makes my blood run cold. Would be like sending a kitten into a den of vipers. Sexism flows through my family’s veins along with the genes for attached earlobes and the ability to roll our tongues. Despite my genetic predisposition, I try to refrain from being a jerk to and about women. Working in kitchens right out of high school and putting myself through culinary school taught me it wasn’t just my family who had issues with women and anyone who wasn’t exactly like us.
“Seriously, please avoid them. They’re all bad news. If you thought I had questionable ethical standards because I was foraging mushrooms, your head would explode if you knew a tenth of the kind of shit the Iron Wraiths have pulled over the years.”
She watches me. “Okay, I promise. The only bikers I’ll interact with are retirees on Harleys in the park. Deal?”
Somehow we’ve arrived back at the ranger station. I barely remember the drive over here.
“I have an idea.” I release her hand to put the truck in park. “How about I pick you up in the morning? Save you some time getting from your cabin to the trailhead.”
“Or you could spend the night.” She whispers so softly I’m not sure if I’m meant to hear the words.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“I’d love to spend the night with you, but I have Patsy and Roman back at the farm. If Patsy doesn’t get her coffee right when she wakes up, watch out.” I give an exaggerated shake of my head. “Woo-e. Total diva.”
“You give her coffee?”
“No, of course not.” I dismiss her wild suggestion by making a funny face.
“You’re weird, Odin Hill.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Before she can speak, I lean forward and capture her mouth with mine. It’s been too long since I kissed her and I need to tide myself over until morning.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daphne
Last night I slept like a rock. How I managed to fall asleep after making out with Odin in his truck is a mystery bigger than … Big Foot. Apparently, pent up sexual frustration knocks me out. I’m guessing this isn’t typical.
I’m up early and waiting for him at the end of the road to the ranger cabins. When I see his truck, my pulse quickens at the memory of our semi-bridled session in the cab. I’m grateful I didn’t try to smuggle my tooth bru
sh in my bra.
I’m definitely not standing out on the main road to avoid encountering a coworker. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Imagine trying to date someone local while you’re at sleepaway summer camp. Not as a camper, obviously, but a counselor. We deserve a shred of privacy in our lives.
Somehow he’s even more handsome than my brain can retain. Freshly showered, his hair is pulled away from his face, exposing his high cheekbones. I never understood how some cheekbones could be higher than others until I met Odin Hill. His are on a whole other plane.
“Morning. I bought you coffee. Creamer and sugar on the side because I don’t know how you take yours.” He holds a familiar bag between his fingers.
“You brought me breakfast from Donner Bakery?”
“Presumptuous of me, but I’ve seen your fridge and cupboards.”
In my excitement, I practically stuff my head into the bag to reveal my edible present. “How did you know these are my favorite?”
“I asked.”
“They remember my order?” I’m both shocked and pleased.
“The joys of living in a small town.” He makes a U-turn.
“Aren’t we going the other direction?” I point behind us.
“We could, but I know a shortcut, which will mean a quicker hike to the grove.”
The scent of cinnamon and sugar intensifies as I peel back the paper from the Ring of Fire muffin. It’s still warm from the oven.
“Are you going to eat that or just cuddle it in your hand while licking your lips?” Odin teases, but his look is intense as he watches me break off a piece and slip it into my mouth.
After slowly savoring the sweet spiciness, I swallow and reluctantly hold out the paper cup. “Want some?”
“And deprive you of something you’re obviously enjoying?”
“I’m offering to share, not give you the rest.” I separate a tiny morsel.
He chuckles, and the lines around his eyes deepen. “Very generous.”
“Sharing is caring.”
“So you only care about me one tiny morsel?” He parts his lips and waits.
Stranger Ranger: An Opposites Attract Romance (Park Ranger Book 2) Page 16