by Abby Knox
“What? Why? I just bought that stupid backpack with you at PDQ!” she had replied.
Brody winced. “REI, Ever. That’s just it. You’re not taking any of this seriously. You need to train for this hike, and you won’t train with me.”
Ever blinked at her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend and wondered what demon in hell or purgatory had possessed him to pick a fight with a plus-sized female who has been waiting way too long for her tiramisu.
Instead of stabbing his hand with a dessert fork right there at the table like she was fantasizing about doing, she took a deep breath and spoke evenly. “Brody, I am seriously busy. I told you my work schedule, and you refuse to work around it.”
He shrugged in exasperation. “Well, your hours are insane at that newspaper, I can’t figure out a workaround.”
“This trip was your idea for me to spend more time outside; you work it out.”
He shook his head and looked away. For a few moments they sat in silence. Ever let it breathe, hoping—yet also dreading—the truth would come spilling out. And oh boy, did it ever.
“Honestly, this is only the tip of the iceberg. With your…fitness level…and lack of training…and how little effort you put in to taking care of yourself, I worry that you won’t make it out of the canyon alive. You’re not ready. You’re out of shape, Ever.”
The truth was out. It lay there like a turd in the middle of the pretty red-checked linen tablecloth.
Ever sucked in her breath. She was going to need a lot of oxygen for this. “My…fitness level? Am I having a stroke, or did I just hear my boyfriend negatively comment on my body?”
Brody put up his hands and averted his eyes. “Ever.”
Nope. He was not about to interrupt. “Dude, I’m your girlfriend. Did you really just say that to me? Look me in the eyes.”
And then he looked up. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean, you’re not conditioned.”
She smiled, leaning into this argument. This was gonna be good. “You mean I’m fat, and I’m going to hold you back.”
He sighed. “Ever.”
He acted as if she was overreacting, and yet he did not contradict the word “fat.”
Ever kept smiling and talking evenly and calmly, even though her feelings were hurt. “That’s funny, Brody. You didn't seem to mind my body conditioning last weekend when you dropped in at what time? Midnight?”
“Ever.” He kept repeating her name, and it was not helping the situation.
“It’s all making sense now,” she said, as the light dawned in her mind. “Dates in the city. Midnight booty calls. It’s because you don’t want to be seen with me in town, where we both live and know everybody.”
The hum of subdued conversations at the neighboring tables suddenly grew quiet as other diners obviously began eavesdropping on a break-up in real time.
“Oh my god, Ever. Come on, calm down.”
Calm down? Oh no, he did not just say that. I have been excruciatingly calm, until now. But now? It is on. It is on like fucking Donkey Kong.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Brody. Instead, tell me this. Did you know last week—when I stupidly agreed to let you give it to me bareback after you said you loved me—that you were going to cancel the trip?”
“Ever.”
She raised her voice. “Keep saying my name. It’s really helping. Keep saying it the way you do when my unconditioned legs are wrapped around you.”
Brody was turning beet red. “Babe, seriously, people are staring at you.”
She looked around. “Great! Hey everyone, do you think this is tight enough?” Ever stood up and mimed drawing a circle around her strike zone and twirled.
A random man’s voice called out sincerely but unhelpfully, “Well, you have a very pretty face!”
“Ugh!” Ever cried. “You, sir, whoever you are, are fired.”
She then heard the random man cry out, “Ouch!” as whatever female companion with him evidently had kicked him hard in the shin.
Shaking her head, she sat back down to pour as much red wine into her glass that would reasonably fit without spilling over, and began to suck it down.
“Ever, you’re hysterical. You know what I meant; don’t twist it around. You know I’m crazy about you, but I’m mainly concerned about your health,” Brody said.
She leaned across the table and hissed. “Get my name out of your mouth, and don’t ever say it again. We're done here.” She chugged the wine, no longer caring what might happen next.
And then, their server swooped with a to-go box labeled “tiramisu,” handed the box to Ever with a sad smile, dropped the check in front of Brody, and flounced away. Ever made a mental note that if she ever quit the newspaper business, she would become a server just so she could pay forward a moment like this.
Back at home after that final date with Brody, Ever had flipped on her streaming TV to binge on some Scandal and eat her dessert in peace. When she’d opened the box, she realized the server had given her not one but two tiramisus. Both hers and Brody’s. Damn. She was going to have to go back to that restaurant and give that girl a major tip. Lord knows Brody wouldn’t have done it. The surprise extra tiramisu actually had her fantasizing about quitting her job and going back to waiting tables. She could low-key give extra desserts to all the women she felt were being mistreated by men. Hell, she would make more in tips than she could make in any given week at the paper, working for her cheap-ass publisher in Middleburg.
Well, Ever thought on this morning as she wrestled with the high-end PDQ (or whatever it was called) backpack one last time, at least she would not have to worry about being embarrassed by Brody’s sad tipping every time they dined out in public anymore. His ass was history. All this time, she’d been bothered by his tipping habits. And now she wondered if he had been equally bothered by her weight this whole time.
What a jackass. She was glad to be done with him. Yep. So glad. It felt like a weight was off her shoulders.
Except now, she was wrestling with the weight of this backpack, and she realized Brody was right.
She was wholly unprepared for this trip down to the bottom of a very real canyon.
But still…fuck him.
Chapter 4
Logan
It was a perfect day to hike and think about how everything had gone wrong.
Logan had run so far from his problems, he'd circled the globe and run right smack dab back into himself.
As the offspring of one of the country’s most powerful financial attorneys, he was not unaware of the fact that he was living a life that was, by most of the world’s standards, unattainable. Logan was getting paid to spend his days monitoring the trails of one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Most of six billion people on this earth didn’t get to travel, didn’t get to hike around the globe trying to find themselves, didn’t fall into their dream job.
“Sooner or later you’ll stop running, and I’ll still be here.” Those were the words his father had said to him the last time they had spoken on the phone. Logan had been about hop on a plane to China for his 30th birthday, and the old man had called with an offer to help his son settle down and take over the family business. Logan had zero interest in law school, zero interest in working in an office, overseeing the removal of people from their farms and homes. At least, that’s what he assumed took place at McBee and Associates.
He wanted to spend his life outside, doing his own thing, on his own terms, with little oversight.
Now here he was. Highly educated, trained in wilderness survival, an experienced tracker and hunter, ridiculously well-traveled, and just as alone at the age of 36 as his widowed father was at 70. Basically, everything he’d ever wished for. The career opposite of old Phillip McBee, financial attorney, but in effect, the same. Proud, accomplished and alone.
As Logan made his way down the cliffside trail, he took a brief break to absorb the sights and sounds of the famous overlook. He did not actually need a break, but this was
one of the best views in the whole canyon, and he never got tired of it. When he had this view in front of him, the entire committee in his head seemed to quiet down. All was well. He was fine.
The serenity of his pause to appreciate Mother Nature only lasted for about 90 seconds, because suddenly another person’s presence cut through the majesty of this incredible vista.
The sound of a visitor’s lone footsteps assaulted and clouded his mind immediately. Based on wilderness experience, he knew right away it was the sound of a female approaching. A woman struggling under the weight of an over-filled backpack and not enough sense to turn back.
He sighed to himself and stayed put, determined not to let some stranger interrupt his moment of clarity.
But…something made him pause anyway. He turned to look, just to check if she was injured or appeared dehydrated and in need of help. His job came first.
What he saw there was so far beyond the scope of his job description, he forgot where he was for a second.
The first thing he saw was her tanned legs, legs whose shape was more typical of a mid-century pin-up model than a young female hiker in 2018. Oh, but there was so much more going on with her that was not typical of his usual crowd of outdoorsy folks. Her designer camouflage short-shorts had a frilly, useless, lacy thing at the hem, accenting her soft, voluptuous thighs. Her midriff top revealed a navel hoop ring that made his testosterone stir up a bit, wondering where else she might have a sexy piercing. The whole outfit spoke of a confidence that made his manhood start to wake up. Her sandy-blonde waves were tied in a top knot at the crown of her head. A part of him wanted to see it loose around her exposed sun-kissed shoulders. She wore huge tortoiseshell sunglasses that hid her eyes. So far, that was the only true disappointment. All he could see of her face was its heart shape, pointy little chin and full, sassy pink lips.
But maybe the cutest thing about her was that when she noticed him, she straightened her posture under the weight of her ill-fitted backpack and sucked in her tummy.
It pierced Logan’s heart a little bit to see that. The fact that any woman, especially this woman, felt shamed enough by her body to adjust her soft appearance around him was too much to handle.
Keep it in your pants, buddy, and do your job.
She spoke first.
“Can you even handle it? Fucking amazing, am I right?”
Her voice could be compared to that of a cute cartoon animal. Like Minnie Mouse with the mouth of a sailor. Her entire demeanor was pure and feminine and joyful beyond reason.
“I work here.”
That's your opening line, Logan? Real charmer, you are.
“Wow, a park ranger! Cool! Then you must be totally overwhelmed by the views every single day. You’re so lucky. All I get to see is the inside of a cubicle, and let me tell you, it doesn't smell particularly great. My crime reporter is a hoarder and I think there’s a flat-cat under his stacks of newspapers.”
Logan did not register anything she had said, but his ears and his libido sure enjoyed the sound of her voice.
“Hello? Flat-cat got your tongue?”
Logan did not get it. “Excuse me?”
“That was a joke. Never mind, Ranger Rick. Here.” She took his hand in hers and he thought for a moment she was making a move on him. His rejoicing was immeasurable for that split second, until he realized what was happening. She pushed her phone into his palm and then dumped her pack on the ground.
“I need you to take a photo of me on the overlook, without me wearing that ridiculous pack. Thanks, buddy, I appreciate it.”
Logan would do whatever this woman asked him to do. He suspected that was the case with any man in his right mind.
Still, he had a responsibility to uphold as a park ranger. “I’m going to have to warn you against climbing up there. It’s a sheer drop right behind that boulder. It’s not safe.”
She gave him a cheeky grin. “I’ll be careful.” Outwardly, he shook his head. Inwardly … it was another kind of shook. When he aimed the camera lens at her, she asked him to count down when he was ready. He cheated. He snapped several of her before she could suck in her tummy, fix her hair, fix her smile. She was perfect the way she was and she didn’t even know it. He wanted her to see what he saw.
Even watching her through the camera, Logan was toast. Either it had been too long since he’d had relations with a woman, or this was fate. Maybe it was both. He cleared his throat. “OK, ready. On three…”
In the phone screen, he saw her turn on her bright smile, stand with one juicy, child-bearing hip jutting out sassily. “Oh, hang on,” she said. She removed her sunglasses and he could finally see the whole picture. Her baby blues. Eyelashes for days. A very sexy arched eyebrow. And…
Oh shit, he thought. Since when have I cared about a thing called child-bearing hips? But there was something primal speaking to him, through her. He didn’t even know her name, but he wanted her to be his and nobody’s else’s as soon as possible. In any other situation, he would never presume to have a shot at this girl. But out here? Yeah…this female had no idea what she was getting herself into. Her pack had not been adjusted properly, and her boots were not broken in yet. Logan was duty bound to not let her out of his sight.
She rolled her shoulders back and stuck out her ample chest for her photo shoot. Game over. You’re dead. Time to go home, kid, ’cause you’re out of quarters and self-control.
All Logan could think of was lifting her down off the overlook boulder, sweeping her down to the ground and passionately mashing himself against every one of her delicious curves under the wide-open desert sky for every passing hiker and mule caravan to see.
This was it. She was it. She was his, and that might as well be the end of the story for him. Now, he only had to figure out how to convince her he was not an extreme dork with a lack of vocabulary, let alone convince her to take him to pleasure town.
Yeah. None of this was in his job description. But it was human nature, calling him to obey. And who was he to resist?
Chapter 5
Ever
Ever blushed as she mounted the boulder. Who was she to make a joke about hoarding? Maybe this park ranger has a sister with hoarding disorder. That was a real thing, and perhaps she had offended him.
He was the last person she wanted to offend. This unbelievably hot, soft- spoken park ranger, with Vin Diesel shoulders and a sweet, Chris Pratt kind of face, might be able to help her get all the way down to Canyon Hollow Ranch without too many mishaps.
What she would never, ever tell him was that she had meant for their meeting to happen. She had spotted him talking to a crowd of hikers at the trailhead that morning. But her brain registered exactly zero percent of what he was saying with that damn gorgeous mouth of his. Sure, sure, something about carrying enough water and easily accessible food. Something about packing light because every ounce adds up, blah, blah, blah. Another speech about how destinations seem closer than they really are in the desert, and the dry air can play tricks on your eyes. Something about switchbacks driving people mad…whatever the hell a “switchback” is. She had heard and read it all on the Internet in the days before she packed for this trip. That was all the training she had done, and now with the trail and wide-open desert in front of her, she was getting a little scared. While sorting through her pack one last time that morning, Ever had heard a still, small voice telling her it was not too late to back out.
You don't have to do this, Ever. You don't have to prove yourself to anyone. Save yourself from effort, and quite possibly from death by sunlight. You are not made for the outdoors.
So, Ever had decided that staying within range of a knowledgeable park ranger would probably save her life on this trip. An added dash of hotness only helped her take that first step onto the actual trail.
The thing was, she did have to do this. She did have something to prove. She had never taken a vacation by herself. She feared the great outdoors, and she was determined to overcome that fear
. She was going to prove to herself and to that asshole ex-boyfriend that she could do difficult things, despite his lack of confidence in her. She was a smart, modern woman, after all. It was time to tackle this fear of nature, even if she had to do it alone.
Besides, she had determined, if she stayed within range of this person, maybe he could give her tips. Render aid. Suck venom out of a rattlesnake bite. The fantasy of those lips on her bare abdomen while she lay under a blue sky with the majestic canyon vista all around them just about made her nipples harden instantly. Although, why she would get a snake bite on her abdomen is anybody’s guess, but a good fantasy is a good fantasy, so she went with it.
Ever had managed to keep her distance from this sexy stranger all morning without him noticing, while still keeping him in her sights. It was sort of like a guided hike, but much cheaper.
Now, standing on the famous lookout boulder, this incredible man was actually holding her phone in his beautiful, experienced hands, looking at her and taking her picture. She felt self-conscious and sucked in her belly, jutted her hip to one side, fidgeted, took off her sunglasses, stuck out her chest, adjusted her chin. Ever did everything she knew how to do to hide her fleshy bits and accent her nicer bits.
Up until now, this park ranger had only been a momentary sex object. But now that she was watching him stare at her image in her phone’s screen, something else was happening.
His face changed when she took off her sunglasses. Was he blushing, or was that a sudden flush from the desert heat? His lips parted slightly and his eyebrows softened. There was a slight hint of a smile. Far different from the seriousness with which he warned the various hikers at the trailhead that morning. Man, she wished she could see his eyes behind those aviator sunglasses he wore.
He snapped the photo and his entire demeanor changed back to officious and intimidating.