Happy Trail (Park Ranger Book 1)

by Smartypants Romance

  As she opens the door, a blast of air flings it out of her hand and slams the wood against the wall. Snow blows through the doorway, swirling across the threshold before melting on the planks of the floor.

  Snowbird appears shaken yet remains upright. I’m by her side in a few seconds.

  “You okay?” I touch her shoulder.

  “Wow. It’s bad out there.” More snow scatters across our feet. The light from her headlamp illuminates the blizzard beyond the porch.

  Still barefoot, I step outside, regretting my decision when my feet come in contact with the icy surface. “Forecast said snow, but I didn’t expect whiteout conditions.”

  Thick inches of snow coat the ground and tree branches, giving a soft glow to the woods.

  “I promise not to wander far. You don’t have to stand out here freezing while waiting for me.” She navigates around me and down the porch steps. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Stay where you can see the cabin,” I warn her. Disobeying her suggestions that I retreat inside, I only step across the threshold to avoid getting snow on my toes. “Damn, it’s cold.”

  My breath exhales into frozen clouds around my head. Caught up in our random conversations and distracted by eating, I’ve forgotten to check in with anyone. It isn’t too late.

  Locating my radio next to my pack, I attempt to reach the station.

  “This is 350.” The channel I typically use is quiet.

  “350 for 324. Over.” No one responds to my call.

  Guy did say the tower got struck by lightning, and it’s possible they’re having power outages from the wind or are out responding to actual emergencies. Reminding myself to check back later, I resume my sentry post near the front door.

  Through the static of white snow against the inky black of the woods, I catch a glimpse of a headlamp bobbing through the snow. Relief courses through me.

  At the sound of her boots clomping on the porch, I swing the door open to let her back inside.

  “What an experience.” She stomps her boots to clear them of snow and shakes off her jacket. “Do not recommend unless you’re a fan of cryogenic tanks and ice bars.”

  “Not familiar with either of those things.” I lay her jacket out next to mine.

  “You’re not missing anything. People paying to be cold when you can stand out there and get the same results—nuts.” She rubs her hands together. “Brr. If I were a man, I’d pee in the sink.”

  I choke on my own spit. “You say whatever comes into your head, don’t you? No filter.”

  She blinks up at me, amusement curving her wide mouth. “You should’ve met me six months ago. My filter had a filter. I was triple-filtered and rarely said what was on my mind.”

  “What changed?” I lift my eyebrows, letting my mouth shift into a smirk.

  “The better question is what didn’t.” Her fingers toy with the wet tips of her hair. “Five months of walking. Figuring out how to survive on my own. Being away from my friends and family. Doing something completely out of character to prove to myself I can. Somewhere back in Maine, I discovered I was all out of fucks. Must have lost my last one climbing the White Mountains.” With a laugh, she makes a dramatic bow.

  It’s been a long time since a woman has intrigued me and it’s possible she might be completely crazy, but I’m curious to know more about her.

  “Why did you decide to thru-hike? You said there’s a story.”

  “Isn’t there always?” She gives the same answer as before. “No one wakes up one morning and says, ‘Self, let’s start a 2,200-mile walk today.’”

  “That’s not really an answer. What’s your why?”

  “Why did you become a park ranger?” She deflects.

  “I’ll tell you—after you answer my question. I’m willing to bribe you with cookies to find out more.” I locate my food stash and reveal my bait.

  “I forgot all about the cookies. Those don’t look like oatmeal raisin.” She reaches for the bag and I lift it over my head.

  “They’re double chocolate. Brownie base with milk chocolate chips.” To tempt her, I wave them in front of her face. “And they’re delicious.”

  She sighs, resigned. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Let’s start there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Olive

  I really don’t want to get into the details of how I ended up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere Tennessee—nowhere North Carolina? I’m honestly still not sure what state I’m in. Maybe it doesn’t matter. To quote Alice, I knew who I was when I woke up this morning, but now I’m not sure.

  Yet I find myself opening up to Ranger Jay.

  Could be his training or personality that makes him a good listener, the kind who remains quietly engaged, doesn’t interrupt, and asks the right questions.

  Could be because he’s willing to share his cookies.

  Pop-Tarts are fine for a quick snack on the trail, but they sure as hell aren’t freshly baked cookies. A lot about me has changed since May, but obviously, I’m still easily swayed by sugary bribes.

  Is chocolate worth spilling my secrets to a stranger? Past me says no. Current me points out I have nothing to lose. She also reminds me he’s an exceedingly handsome man. Not sure why his looks should matter in my decision-making process, but I agree.

  Jay’s too good-looking to be hiding out in the backcountry. His high cheekbones and almond-shaped green eyes are wasted on wild boar and bears. I doubt there’s a skunk alive who could appreciate the Cupid’s bow shape of his mouth or the mole behind his left ear, right below his hairline. Not even wild ponies would understand the perfection of his messy waves. He probably doesn’t realize or care he’s handsome enough to be a model, and not catalog. We’re talking Tom Ford or Gucci building a campaign around the angles of his face.

  This type of thinking leads me down a dangerous path, one involving fantasies of the naked variety.

  Nothing is going to happen with this nice ranger. As much as it feels like we’re the last two people alive, we’re not. Tomorrow the snow will melt and we’ll go our separate ways.

  Present me, the one who lost her filter and her fucks back in New England pipes up to remind me this is a perfect set up for a one-night stand. No strings, just wild sex with a handsome, sexy stranger.

  Old me, the one who still has a shred of dignity and decorum, chimes in to remind me I haven’t showered in … I try to count the days … a very long time and we’re in a murder cabin, one which may or may not have been exposed to the bubonic plague.

  With a shudder, I decide to spill the tea about myself.

  “Where should I begin?” I ask him, sitting cross-legged with my back against the crate.

  “Like you said, no one wakes up one morning and decides to walk for five months. Start there.” He reclines on top of his sleep pad and bag, using his bent arms as a pillow.

  “The quick and dirty is my boyfriend decided to do it and asked me to come along.” Knowing how lame the reason sounds, I attempt to shrug it off. “So I did.”

  “Just dropped everything, quit your job, and took off?” He lifts his head to meet my eyes. “What did you do to train?”

  “I set up training hikes and walks around the city with backpacks full of canned goods,” I reluctantly admit, not feeling the pride I once did for coming up with the idea.

  He scratches his ear, and I swear he hides a smile behind his arm. “How’d that work out for you?”

  “Those first couple of days sucked. Hard. Clearly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Nothing prepared me for the reality of hiking.” I grimace. “And we weren’t even camping most nights.”

  “Slackpacking?” There’s no judgment in his voice, which I appreciate.

  “The slackiest.” I leave out the details lest he think I’m a spoiled princess. “At least at the beginning in New Jersey.”

  He squints a bit. “You didn’t start in Maine and hike southbound?”

/>   I shake my head. “Believe it or not, before May, I wasn’t very outdoorsy. If we’d started out climbing mountains in snow and ice, fording half-frozen rivers, and slogging through knee-deep mud, I would’ve quit the first week, probably the first day if not the first hour.”

  He laughs at my exaggeration. “Tell me more.”

  “You know all of it. I’m the girl who’s hiked for almost five months because she followed a guy.”

  He lifts himself up to rest on his elbows. “Where is he now?”

  “We broke up, so I have no idea.” Shifting my attention to the fire, I deliberately avoid his attentive gaze.

  “I’m sorry. It happens a lot. Thru-hiking is one of the most challenging things someone can do, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Takes a toll on the best relationships. Come spring when the NoBo hikers come through, the rangers have a pool about how many breakups we’ll witness or hear about on the trail. We’ve nicknamed April ‘Heartbreak Month.’”

  My brows scrunch together. “You gossip about the hikers?”

  “Pfft. Not all of you.” His lips curl into a lazy smile. “Only the ones who cause drama and make their personal issues our business. We’re here to keep the peace and protect. Doesn’t only extend to wildlife. Most of the time we’re dealing with human problems, and those include interpersonal relations.”

  He sounds like he’s quoting a human resources pamphlet.

  Sitting up straight, he bends his knees. “I suspect there’s more to your story than you followed a guy into the woods, he dumped you, and you never went home.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell.” I sneak a glance at him.

  Jay raises an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  He remains silent, waiting for me to continue.

  “Talking about exes is bad form.” Watching the flames, I lift the poker to jab at one of the burning logs.

  “I asked. I wouldn’t have if I weren’t interested,” he says, soft, and encouraging, his voice makes me want to confess every secret.

  “Never talk about your exes on a date.” I clamp my mouth shut hoping he didn’t hear me. Oh filter, where art thou?

  Sneaking a peek at him over my shoulder, I catch him wide-eyed with confused surprise but not the horrified disgust I anticipated.

  Instead of moving my sleeping bag to the porch to hide, I decide to go all in on clarifying my faux pas. With more words. This might not be my best decision.

  “Not that this is a date. I don’t think it is—a date. Of course not, because this clearly isn’t romantic. You know what I mean.” I press my lips together to stop the flow of embarrassing verbiage.

  “No, being trapped in an abandoned moonshiner’s cabin definitely is not a first date, at least not one I ever want to go on. No offense.” He looks sheepish for a second or two. “So feel free to talk about this ex who convinced you to hike the AT.”

  Trapped.

  The word stings.

  I duck my chin and wrinkle my nose. “Are you sure?”

  “I can guarantee this tale is more interesting than anything I have to share. There’s nothing else to do but talk while we’re stuck here.”

  Nothing? I want to ask.

  Boundaries, Olive, boundaries.

  “Okay. You’ll need a little background information.”

  “It’s always a good idea to begin a story at the beginning,” he encourages.

  “Right. So Tye is a popular social media influencer …”

  “A what?” His confused expression tells me he has zero idea what I’m talking about.

  “An Instagram star with over three million followers. In case you didn’t know, that’s a big deal.”

  “Okay.” He chuckles. “This is his job? Posting pictures?”

  I nod. “And videos. There’s more to it behind the scenes. He works with brands, sharing their products with his followers. There are multiple revenue streams for influencers: affiliate commissions, sponsorships, paid promotions. He makes good money. Very good.” I stop myself from saying more. There’s no way a park ranger makes six figures.

  Jay bobs his chin. “Interesting.”

  “Don’t worry, my parents don’t understand it either, or approve, which of course made him more appealing in the beginning. I’m such a cliché.” I roll my eyes at my lameness.

  “My sister went through a bad boy phase in high school. The more broken and toxic, the more she liked them.” He resumes his reclined position. “I don’t get the appeal, but you’re apparently not alone.”

  No, you probably don’t because you’re a nice guy. I manage to keep this thought to myself.

  “Besides the rebellion aspect, I liked that he made his own money sharing his life and adventures with other people. No desk job or corporate ladder meant freedom, which always appealed to me. Doing your own thing isn’t common in my world.”

  Nor is being open with strangers about my life and failures, but here we are.

  “I get that. Family expectations can be a heavy burden,” he says, his eyes closed.

  I like how he’s trying to empathize with me, even if he has no idea what an understatement his words are.

  “Is the ex why you have the most expensive gear on the market?” he asks.

  “Is it? I have no idea what any of it costs. He was in charge of getting all the equipment. All I know is it was gifted to us.”

  Staring up at the ceiling, he laughs. “Yeah. Ridiculously overpriced if you ask me, but top quality. When I saw your pack, I pegged you for a spoiled rich girl.”

  “Maybe I am.” I’m testing the water with him. When people find out about my family, they typically react one of three ways. They kiss my ass, hoping to leverage knowing me for their own gain. They hate me, thinking they already know me because of something they’ve read or heard about me or my family. Or, they act like decent humans who don’t prejudge me based on my last name. Sadly, the third option is the rarest.

  Without lifting his head, he studies me. His finger draws a lazy circle on his chest. My attention wanders to where his t-shirt has scrunched up, exposing a narrow strip of pale olive skin and a thin trail of darker brown hair disappearing below his belt.

  “Nah, I’ve met a lot of entitled people. Too many.” He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “You’re not one of them.”

  My lips curve into a smile. “Thank you.”

  He’s wrong, of course, but I still enjoy the compliment.

  “So you were with the influencer boyfriend to piss off your parents and get free stuff?”

  Laughing, I shake my head. “No, I thought I loved him. The free stuff was a bonus. Nice but not expected. We had more in common. Both grew up in New York. Our families are friends and we traveled in the same circles. On paper, we make, I mean, made perfect sense.”

  He frowns. “Where were you when he broke up with you?”

  Again, I dodge the details and the embarrassing truth of the viral video. I still have his expensive ring buried in the bottom of my pack.

  “In the Berkshires near Mount Greylock.”

  “What a tool.” Jay doesn’t hide his disgust.

  It makes me like him more.

  “He dumps you and then what happens? Bear ate him? Attacked by leeches? Because he sounds like someone who needs his ass kicked by karma. Or some wildlife.” He grumbles something else under his breath, too quiet for me to hear.

  I’d love to witness any of the scenarios he’s imagining. “For someone whose actual job is to stop bear violence, you seem to be advocating for it pretty strongly in this case.”

  “Fine,” he drawls. “It doesn’t have to be a bear. I’m fine with a wild boar. Karma takes too long.”

  “Maybe it’s already gotten him.” I can always hope. “I haven’t seen or spoken to him since June. After we broke up, we went our separate ways. In hindsight, we weren’t a good match. We had different priorities. Tye was only interested in the photo ops and bragging.”

  All true but not the whole truth.

  “And
you?” he asks, voice soft.

  “Me?” I echo, distracted by his long fingers resting across his ribs.

  “You managed to get yourself to the Great Smokies. What’s the rest of the story?”

  “Oh, right. How did I get here? I decided I could go home, mope about the breakup for the rest of the summer, or I could keep walking. I chose the latter, mostly fueled by spite and avoidance. When I got to Katahdin, I felt like a fraud. I was a poser, only half of a thru-hiker. So I went back to where I started and headed south.”

  He nods approvingly. “So you’re a flip-flopper. No shame. You’re still walking the miles. Probably smarter to split the trail and avoid the crowds.”

  For some reason, his approval matters. I grin at him. “This is why I need to get through the Smokies and into Georgia. I’m committed to finishing in two weeks. Otherwise, I’ll add the AT to the long list of things I’ve started and never completed.”

  “Schedules are for meetings. Everyone hikes their own hike. Whether you make it to Springer Mountain next week or next month or next year, I have faith you’ll get there eventually.” He holds up his palm for a high five.

  Smiling after slapping his hand, I nod. “I know, I know. It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

  “Sounds like something hiker trash would say.” He covers his head with a bent elbow, protecting himself from an assault that never comes.

  “I used to think hiker trash was an insult. I know it’s a slur against hikers, but I’m reclaiming it as a badge of honor. When we were slackpackers, I felt like a fraud, pretending to be something I wasn’t. Now I can proudly say it’s an honor to be considered hiker trash. Those are my people you’re talking about.”

  He scratches his beard. “Own it, Snowbird.”

  I roll my wrist and give him a small bow. “I do.”

  In return, he nods. “How’d you get your trail name?”

  “Same as everyone else. One day someone called me Snow and it stuck.”

  “Why Snow?” His brow furrows. “Like Snow White?”

  “I’m not sure. T-Rex gave me the name, something to do with how naïve I was about everything. Could be he thought I was a delicate snowflake. The name evolved when I switched to southbound.”