Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  Just relax and try to have a good time. Wasn’t that the point of this? Couldn’t I just let myself enjoy this weekend?

  “We’re kind of similar, you know,” I said. “I was always a pretty good kid, too. I didn’t really do anything that I wasn’t supposed to. Well, not according to my mom, but she has some very rigid ideas about what constitutes a successful life.”

  “She doesn’t think you’re successful?”

  “No, not really. She doesn’t get the whole Internet thing; she doesn’t understand how someone could make so much money from posting pictures online.”

  “Can’t totally fault her for that. I myself don’t quite understand it.”

  “It’s certainly not the direction I thought my life would take. I’m not the most computer-savvy person.”

  “But you have good taste. And that taste translates well online.”

  It made me unbelievably happy to hear him say that. He wasn’t the first person to say something like that to me, but it pleased me no end that it had come from him. I tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach.

  The butterflies eventually settled down, though they didn’t disappear completely. I just felt at ease, and inexplicably happy here with Ben, as we drove further north. The trees got taller, closer together; there were fewer buildings and houses. While it was true I never had been much of an outdoor type of girl, there was no denying how beautiful it was up here, how the air smelled different—cleaner, more refreshing, better for you. It felt like we were going somewhere magical, somewhere that no one else had been before. I knew this wasn’t true, but I liked thinking that, liked that it felt so remote.

  “Here we are,” Ben said as he turned down a long, winding, dirt-packed driveway. “Home sweet home. Or maybe, more accurately, home away from home.”

  The cabin was a one-story, Craftsman-style dwelling with a porch that stretched the length of the front interior and then wrapped around one side. It was cedar-shingled, with a gently sloping roof, and a Dutch door that was painted a deep cranberry color. And towering above the cabin, protecting it, it seemed, were the biggest trees I had ever encountered.

  “This place is incredible,” I said, tilting my head all the way back, trying to catch a glimpse of the tops of the trees. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a redwood tree in person before.”

  “I do love these trees,” Ben said, glancing up. “They’re like Mother Earth’s air conditioner. The only problem I have with them is they block the night sky, and especially out here, when you’re away from all the light pollution of the city, you can really see some stars. Luckily, there’s a little meadow at the back of the property that is absolutely perfect for stargazing.”

  It all sounded so dreamy and romantic that I almost wanted to pinch myself to make sure I was really awake and experiencing this. Except for the fact that I was up here, at this dreamy and romantic place, with someone I really liked who was not my boyfriend. But... was that really going to be a problem? Aside from the fact that we wouldn’t be getting physical with each other, wasn’t it maybe actually better that he and I weren’t romantically involved? Because then we could both just enjoy each other’s company without having to worry about the stress of hooking up. Because no matter how much you liked someone, or how into each other you were, there was always at least a little bit of stress. Or anxiety, or uncertainty, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. Because Ben and I weren’t going to be hooking up, there was no need to worry about him seeing me naked and wondering what he would think. Even with Elliott, who I knew had been very into me, I’d felt self-conscious when we first got naked in front of each other. I had continued to feel self-conscious even when it was clear that he was very much enjoying how I looked, how I felt. And then of course I’d start to scold myself for thinking those thoughts in the first place. I mean, what was my problem, anyway? Shouldn’t I just be enjoying it? There were a million and one things that could run through your head when you got naked with someone, and not all of them might be the sorts of things you’d want to be thinking about. In my case, it seemed like it was the majority of thoughts. Eventually, I’d be able to get into it, but there was always that battle to get there.

  Which was something that I wouldn’t even have to worry about if there was no chance that sex was going to happen anyway.

  “Come on inside,” Ben said, straightening. I followed suit, feeling a vertebrae in my lower back crack pleasantly. A slightly scrubbed, astringent smell on the warm breeze that slipped its way through my hair brought me back to the present moment, into that happiness, away from any needling thoughts over anxiety about the sex Ben and I were not going to have.

  The interior was charmingly rustic. Wooden planks and thick, exposed beams everywhere. The floors, the wall, the ceiling. No need to ever consider painting a single wall—the wood had character. There were dark knots and whorls that you knew told a story, but maybe not one that you would ever be privy to. Like it was a secret, but not a bad one, not necessarily.

  Despite the fact this was a place that Ben shared with his ex-girlfriend—even if they never were here at the same time anymore—I did not feel any negativity or weird vibes. There was no real trace of her—her presence wasn’t easily felt. Sure, I could probably go rummage in the bathroom, and in the cabinet above the sink find a disposable Bic razor blade, pink; or maybe some flowery, sweet-smelling body wash or shampoo, something a guy like Ben would never use. Or maybe even a half-used box of tampons.

  “One thing Camille and I were able to agree on about this place,” Ben said, “was that we wouldn’t keep a lot of personal stuff here. We’d treat it more like an Airbnb rather than a second residence.”

  It was as if he could read my mind. Could he? I liked thinking that, until I remembered what I’d been thinking only a few minutes earlier: how great it was not to have to deal with that anxiety about having sex because that wasn’t going to happen. Shit. I looked at him nervously, but he seemed more concerned with whether or not I was going to get offended because Camille still came here.

  “I think you guys have done an excellent job,” I said.

  He gave me the grand tour, which didn’t take long because the place was very small. One bedroom, which I didn’t realize until after the tour was over—but it wasn’t like he made some grand announcement indicating that. So when he showed me the bedroom, the one bedroom, I poked my head in and looked around, saw the windows on both the south and west walls, the king-sized bed, the skylight. I gave an appropriate response, which was to smile and say how nice the room was—I did not realize this was the only bedroom on the tour; I thought there might be another one behind a door that turned out to be a linen closet.

  But we could deal with the sleeping logistics later. What did it matter, since nothing was going to happen between us anyway?

  Ben went out to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “We definitely don’t keep a lot of food here. I do like to forage for what I can around here. Go fishing. But... I have a feeling that there’s going to be a few things you might want to have around. We can go raid the garden for dinner tonight, but there’s probably something else that you might need.”

  “Oh...” I said. “Um...” I knew there had to be something that I’d really be wanting, but my mind suddenly seemed perfectly blank. But I needed to say something. “Toilet paper?”

  He stared at me for a second, and then a smile broke out onto his face. “We’ve got toilet paper here,” he said. “We’re not that primitive. But... I don’t know how well it would do sautéed with a bunch of olive oil and garlic.”

  A similar smile came onto my face. “I know,” I said. “I didn’t mean that I eat toilet paper. I don’t even know why I said that, other than being out in the woods like this makes me feel like I must be camping, even though I’ve never been camping before.” I tried to scowl but just ended up laughing. “I told you—I’m not an outdoorsy type of girl! But you can’t hold that against me. I’m game to try anything.”

>   For a moment, neither of us said anything, just looked at each other, like we were both trying to figure out whether there was some sort of innuendo with what I’d just said. I mean, there wasn’t. But was he wondering that?

  “I’m happy to hear you say that,” he said, and he broke the gaze first, though he still had the smile on his face as his eyes traveled back to the meager contents of the fridge. “Okay,” he said, “for example, we do have excellent coffee here. Whole beans where I grind only enough for that day’s serving. So it’s always fresh and very good. But I drink it black. We do have sugar in the pantry, but no milk. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “I do like cream in my coffee,” I said. “Actually, I’m not sure I’d be able to drink it black.”

  He closed the fridge with a slight flourish. “I figured there would be at least one thing. And when we get to the store, you’ll probably be able to remember others. Come on, why don’t we go do that now and then we can just come back here and relax.”

  Was it weird that we were about to get back into the car when we’d really just arrived? Was I imagining that he seemed a little flustered, or like he needed an immediate change of scenery?

  “I just like to know I have any driving that I have to do out of the way,” Ben called over his shoulder. It really was seeming more and more likely that he could, in fact, hear my thoughts. “I know we just got out of the car. The grocery store’s not far, though. And it’s a really nice drive.”

  That was the thing—I really felt like it didn’t even matter what we were doing—I would’ve been perfectly happy doing anything at all; it didn’t matter what.

  ***

  I did take a few pictures when we went back outside, because the evening light was so perfect, and then some more as we drove, though I wasn’t planning to post any of them online; I just wanted to have the memories for myself. But there must’ve been something about the light up here, or just the beautiful scenery, because every photo I took came out perfectly—no editing, no special filter needed.

  I did think of a few more things that I wanted at the grocery store, along with the cream—a bar of dark chocolate and almonds, some plums, and some yogurt-covered raisins. Nothing that I really needed, but they looked good and would be nice to have around if I felt like snacking.

  We were going to the checkout aisle when I saw a guy walking in our direction, pushing a shopping cart full of canned goods and gallon jugs of water. It wasn’t what was in his cart, though, that made me notice him—it was his lilting gait, with a slight pull to the right. His hair was grayer than I remembered it, but still thick, long, pulled back into a ponytail. As we neared, he looked right at me, but didn’t say anything right away. Maybe he didn’t recognize me.

  “Red? I thought that was you.”

  It was Graham, Elliott’s father. He lived in Cazadero, which was a small, unincorporated area not far from Guerneville, where Ben’s cabin was. The last time I had left San Francisco, actually, had probably been with Elliott to visit his dad. I’d known Graham for a while, and had always gotten along with him, but in recent years he had become more and more of a survivalist prepper. There was nothing wrong with that, but he had become increasingly paranoid and sometimes talked like he was a little bit crazy. Clearly, nothing much had changed in the time since I had last seen him.

  “Hi, Graham,” I said as he stopped the shopping cart in front of us. “Doing a little grocery shopping?”

  “Word on the street was this place was having a big sale on water, so, yeah, I had to come stock up. Can never be too prepared.” He looked at Ben suspiciously. “Who’s this?”

  “This is my friend, Ben.”

  Ben held out his hand, which Graham looked at warily but then shook. “Graham,” he said. “You from around here?”

  “I’ve got a place not far from here, but I live in the city.”

  Graham gave him a dismissive look. “Another city dweller. Just what this world needs. Well, when the shit goes down, you’ll all be coming crawling to my door, but if you think for a second that—”

  “Actually, Graham,” I said, “Ben is a very accomplished outdoorsman.” Accomplished outdoorsman? What the hell did that even mean? But it sounded good, and it seemed to appease Graham a little.

  “You hunt?”

  “A little bit. Mostly bowhunting.”

  Now Graham looked a little impressed. “Bowhunting, yeah?”

  “I haven’t hunted in a while. But I have an uncle who owns a bunch of land a little further north from here and he’s got a huge amount of wild hogs, so we’d go out and hunt sometimes. Prefer that to a gun.”

  “I love my Sendero,” Graham said. I didn’t know but assumed he was talking about a gun; he had an extensive gun collection and liked nothing more than to educate people about everything related to guns. Aside from the fact that he thought the apocalypse was going to happen sometime in the near future, I had always considered Graham a responsible gun owner, because he knew so much about them and respected their power. He’d taken Elliott and me out target shooting once, in the backyard, and neither of us had been very good, but I knew that the weapon I held in my hand was something I needed to respect.

  “Listen,” Graham was saying to Ben, “you ever want to come out my way, we could go hunting. It’d be nice to have someone to go with again. My son was never really interested in that sort of thing. Well, he might’ve had some interest, but he was never any good, and he’s the sort of person who’s not going to continue doing something if he isn’t good at it.” Graham was looking at me as he said this, and I couldn’t help but wonder what, if anything, Elliott had told him about the end of our relationship.

  “I’m pretty busy, but I might have to take you up on that offer sometime,” Ben said.

  Graham nodded. “We could go bear hunting. A whole bunch of different things that we could do.”

  I stood there, marveling at the complete one-eighty in Graham’s treatment of Ben. It was like he had been able to suss out the fact that Ben was really a lot like him, and so that made him worthy of respect.

  Finally, they wrapped up the conversation, and I said bye to Graham, then Ben and I went and checked out. “An old friend of yours?” Ben asked, once Graham was out of earshot.

  “That’s my ex-boyfriend’s father,” I said. “That guy, Elliott, I mentioned? That’s his dad. I knew he lived up this way but I didn’t think we’d run into him. I’m sure he didn’t expect to run into me. He’s gotten... he’s gotten a little more eccentric as he’s aged.”

  “He seems like an interesting person, that’s for sure. I liked the guy, though. There’s a lot of real interesting characters up here.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said, glancing toward the direction in which Graham had disappeared. Definitely not the person I thought we were going to run into out here, but the interaction hadn’t gone that badly, at least.

  “So,” Ben said as we strolled out into the parking lot. “You ready for some outdoor adventures?”

  Chapter 13

  Ben

  Teagan was trying to be a good sport, but I could tell that she felt out of place, being away from the city. After we returned from the grocery store, I took her on a short hike. There was a walking trail you could get to from my property, and that would eventually lead you to the Russian River. The shoes she’d brought were not entirely appropriate for hiking, so we took it slow and didn’t veer off to the right at the fork in the trail, which would take us over more serious terrain.

  There was something magical about being out as dusk transformed to night, probably a remnant of nostalgia from childhood. There were fireflies and crickets, and the wind rustled the tree branches above us. I wanted nothing more than to reach over and take her hand, but I didn’t move because I didn’t want to break the magic of the moment.

  Though I had kept the walk short, it was fully dark by the time we got back. Teagan’s cheeks were slightly flushed and she had a huge smile on her face.

 
“That felt like such an adventure!” she said. “I loved it.”

  “You hungry? We can go grab some stuff from the garden.”

  I had a small south-facing plot that got enough dappled sunlight to allow certain things to grow. I had worked over the years to build up the quality of the soil, using my own compost and a worm tea from the neighbor at the end of the road. I brought a flashlight and wire egg basket, and Teagan followed me out to the garden. We picked some baby romaine and butterhead lettuce leaves, along with a cucumber, some grape tomatoes, and a few sugar snap peas.

  “This looks better than something you’d get at the farmers’ market,” Teagan said when we’d returned back inside. She stood at the sink, filling the basin with cold water, while I chopped up some walnuts. “I always thought it would be cool to have a big garden, but I know it’s a lot of work.”

  “It is,” I said. “And it’s harder when you’re not around as much as you’d like to be. If I was up here all the time, I could probably spend all day out in the garden and really get it to produce, but it’s really doing pretty well, considering the small amount of time I put into it. But I like to be able to just go out back and find enough for dinner, know that it’s healthy and hasn’t been sprayed with chemicals. And it tastes better than anything you’ll find in any store.”

  I mixed up some fresh vinaigrette while Teagan washed the lettuce and then peeled the cucumber, and then she helped arrange everything on two plates. I added the walnuts, some goat cheese, and the vinaigrette, and we took our plates and sat out on the deck.

  Having Teagan up here with me made me realize how lonely I’d been since my breakup with Camille. I had always enjoyed spending time by myself, so sometimes it was hard to recognize when those feelings of loneliness would flare up, but especially now that we were sitting here together, I understood how much I had been missing having someone to hang out with like this. The fact that she was a client and we shouldn’t be doing this lurked at the edges of my consciousness, but I pushed it away. We had just set new parameters, was all. We would respect those new parameters, by not getting physical. We could enjoy each other’s company—it was as simple as that.