by Amberlee Day
Kenzie moved closer. “I suppose it was my Caesar salad. That’s always a hit at potluck.”
Peter took her other hand in his. “The salad was delicious, but I don’t think it’s what I’m going to remember about today.”
Freeing one hand, she ran her fingers lightly around the back of Peter’s neck. His arms went around her waist in response, sending all kind of electricity shooting through her. She swallowed and looked up at him through her eyelashes. She couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten so lucky to be standing here with this sweet, sexy man. “I suppose it’s the forest bathing you’ll remember,” she said, teasing. “Once you watch one, they do tend to stick in your mind.”
He pulled her even closer, and the fluttering feelings he incited made her catch her breath. At any second he might kiss her again, and the suspense made her jittery with anticipation. “Nope, that’s not it either,” he said, his eyes capturing hers. “I think it had something to do with this.”
And finally he kissed her, lightly at first, and then with more intensity. Kenzie hadn’t imagined it; kissing Peter was like nothing she’d experienced. His lips pressed hers with that same wonderful quality he carried in his laughter and his twinkling eyes. As if they were in sync with one another in a world where everyone else moved to a different beat, and she forgot the neighbors and Paige and anything else but Peter. She inhaled the spicy scent of him with an intense desire to absorb everything that was Peter.
When the kiss ended, Peter ran his fingers along her jawline, and she shivered happily. “I’m definitely not going to forget that,” he said.
Kenzie gave him an impish smile and slid into her seat, trying to look less shaky than she was. “Good. I wouldn’t want to think we have to start out again tomorrow as strangers.”
Peter’s eyes opened wider. “Do I get to see you tomorrow, then?”
“Maybe. If you’re very good. I’ll text you.”
“I’ll text back—you can count on it.”
Kenzie had rolled down her window, and as she drove away, called, “I will.”
Peter had also said goodbye to Paige when he walked Kenzie out. By the time he got in his truck to leave, however, a text came in from his sister.
Paige: Acreage near Settler’s Point? find out where, ASAP. Before you get yourself in trouble.
Peter didn’t bother answering but started his motor. Paige was right, but Peter wasn’t going to taint his amazing first kisses with Kenzie by making her sad. How do you tell the girl who loves forests so much she runs a MyHeartChannel show about them that she’s dating the owner of a timber harvesting company? Especially when he’s clearing somewhere on her corner of the peninsula.
He’d think of a way to tell her, soon. Maybe tomorrow.
Chapter Twelve
Monday morning at four a.m., something woke Kenzie from a beautiful dream. In her dream, Peter was there, and they were riding bikes through the forest, somehow sneaking in delicious kisses along the way. A particularly dense area blocked out the sun, but they could see enough to ride between the ferns and over tree roots. When the way ahead grew darker, a sudden light shone brightly in their eyes. She put up a hand to keep the light out.
“Peter,” she asked in her dream, “what is that? Is it a dragon?”
He held her hand but said nothing to reassure her. The dream made her uncomfortable, so she forced herself awake.
Kenzie blink-blinked, trying to get oriented. She was in her bedroom; there was her picture of her family on the wall. She couldn’t figure out why she could see it in the dark, though.
Light shone in her window; that was why she could see. Headlights from a car, the way it moved. Who would come to her house in the middle of the night, though? It didn’t make sense.
Realization that something was really wrong hit Kenzie like a pan of cold water, and she sat straight up in bed, terrified. Startled, Agatha Christie meowed and jumped down from the bed.
Her bedroom in the cabin was at the back of the house, facing the woods! Solid woods. The 300 acres of trees, most of them belonging to Mr. Turner, had no roads, no place for cars to drive. Those couldn’t be headlights shining in her bedroom. From that direction, there were only acres and acres of trees. It was impossible.
Going to the window to look, Kenzie slapped her arm to make sure she wasn’t still dreaming. They weren’t close to the house, but where only she and forest animals had ventured on rugged trails for years, truck lights were bright enough to cut through the dark. Truck lights!
But how? There were no roads, not even wide trails. Kenzie’s heart pounded. It was like watching a horror film, and for a few moments she just blinked.
When the adrenaline hit again, Kenzie ran, in bare feet, through to the kitchen and out the back door. She ran across the dewy grass, slipping and scrambling back up, stopping right to the edge of the forest. She wasn’t well. Her breathing wasn’t coming out right, and her stomach churned. A mist had fallen and hovered in the forest, and the lights ran across it like an intruder in a church. The violation was tangible.
In all the years she’d lived here, she’d never even come across a trespasser going through the Turners’ property. That someone could be driving there now was simply impossible.
And the noise! Through the forest, she could hear it. Machinery: trucks, big ones, and something else. Ripping, crunching, horrible sounds. Something out there was cutting into Kenzie’s precious forest. The animals, the cedar trees sitting in their bare circles of ground, the ferns, the birds’ nests. She couldn’t take it in. Not knowing what else to do, Kenzie screamed.
She couldn’t find help. Scrolling through her phone, she didn’t actually have any contact info for the Turners. She kept up with Sarah on Facebook, so she sent her a desperate message.
Someone is cutting trees on your grandfather’s property! I can’t tell how many, but it’s a lot. They must have cut enough to make a road to get close enough I can see them from here. I don’t know what to do to stop it.
She checked every few minutes to see if the message had been read, but it hadn’t. By five o’clock there was enough daylight that the headlights didn’t stand out as much, but she could still hear them. She couldn’t not hear them. She’d determined there were at least two vehicles out there, going up and down on the bumpy terrain. Growing more desperate, she finally called the police. They asked if she was the landowner, or if she’d contacted them.
“No, I can’t get hold of them.”
“If it’s forestland, they may just be harvesting,” the dispatcher said.
“No, they wouldn’t do that,” Kenzie said. “I know the owner.”
“But you haven’t spoken to them?”
Kenzie felt like throwing the phone. “No, not for a lot of years. But they know I’m here, and they would let me know if they were cutting trees down. It doesn’t make sense. Can’t you just send someone?”
But the dispatcher would not. He said to contact the owners, or the appropriate county agency to see if there was a permit.
“But that will take hours! And they must have cut so many already.”
“That’s all I can do, miss. I’m sorry. I hate to see trees come down, too.”
But they weren’t just trees, Kenzie thought. Those woods were a place, a landmark that only changed with the seasons. Cutting a road in would not only make an ugly scar, but would forever alter something Kenzie held sacred. She couldn’t let that happen.
At seven a.m., Kenzie called her dad. He agreed with the emergency dispatcher. “Nathan Turner likely decided to harvest his land, Kenzie, and didn’t think to consult you first.”
His harsh words stung her, and for the first time in her desperate morning, Kenzie felt tears burn her eyes.
When she didn’t respond, his tone softened. “Listen, I know what those woods meant to you.”
“Mean to me. Not past tense, Dad. They’re still here.”
He paused. “We don’t know Nathan’s intentions, Kenzie. When you hear bac
k from Sarah, you’ll know.”
As he wasn’t any help, their conversation was short.
At eight a.m. when the county offices opened, Kenzie was on the phone with someone in the community development department. She still hadn’t heard from Sarah. After half an hour on the phone, during which she paced from the tree line to the kitchen and back again numerous times, that someone came back with an answer.
“I’m sorry, miss. It looks like there’s a permit on file for Evergreen Logging. They are permitted to harvest. Looks like a clear-cut.”
Kenzie ended the call, dropped down onto the back porch steps, and sobbed.
Chapter Thirteen
When Peter texted Kenzie during his break at ten, he figured she didn’t answer because she was busy. When he texted again at noon after his last truck was fully loaded and sawmill bound, he told himself she was probably in a meeting. By three when he hadn’t heard back from her, he really started to worry.
Was it because he kissed her? Things seemed fine between them when they said goodbye at Paige’s yesterday. More than fine.
Or at least, he thought so. Nothing he could think of explained not hearing from her. He examined each detail of the previous day when he stopped by his office to go over some paperwork, and afterward while he ran to the market to pick up milk and apples. He just couldn’t understand it.
Finally, at five o’clock, she answered, and his relief was quickly replaced by a different concern.
Kenzie: Sorry, Peter. Bad day.
Peter: Busy, or actually bad?
Kenzie: Very bad.
Peter: Are you okay?
Kenzie: No. Not hurt or sick.
Peter: Where? I’m coming.
Kenzie: I’m home. I think.
Peter didn’t understand, but he asked for her address and she gave it. He didn’t recognize the street name, but when he plugged the address into his phone and the map popped up, his stomach turned.
“Oh, no,” he groaned, covering his eyes. He was pretty sure he knew what was wrong with Kenzie.
Driving up to Kenzie’s cabin was like entering a nature preserve. The driveway—likely an easement on her northern neighbors’ property, from the looks of his map—took about a minute to drive. The lane ran between two lines of midsized cedars with ferns planted just far enough out for the rain to reach them. No messy blackberry undergrowth, just clean, dried cedar fronds.
When the drive curved in toward Kenzie’s house, Peter could see why she loved it so much. It wasn’t a large cabin, but sturdily built with natural wood, a metal roof, and a long covered front porch. The cabin looked even smaller dwarfed by the surrounding forest of leafy maple, spiky Douglas fir, and more cedar. This truly was a little cabin tucked serenely into a beautiful wood.
As he parked next to Kenzie’s Cherokee, Peter tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn’t budge. He knocked on the door, but eventually found Kenzie asleep on her back porch swing, a large orange cat nestled at her feet. Kenzie looked like she’d been crying. He let her sleep and walked back to the tree line. In one area he detected lighter spots dividing the dark undercover of woods, likely caused by the sky he and his crew opened up that morning. Not discernible from the house yet, but it would be. He pulled out his phone again to check the map. Yes, the way Kenzie’s property lay, only about thirty feet of the woods behind her house were hers. The rest were scheduled to come down. He’d known there were some houses bordering the forestland, but he never dreamed one would belong to the girl he was beginning to fall in love with.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
Peter jumped. Kenzie was awake, and standing at his elbow, looking into the woods. He tucked his phone into his back pocket. “The woods?” he asked. “They are. I can see why you love them so much.”
Peter’s heart sank when he saw she was crying. She wore a blanket around her shoulders, and her hair was piled in a bun so messy she’d probably slept with it that way. She still looked beautiful. Peter wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“They’re cutting down my forest,” she sniffed through her tears. “I can’t stop them.”
Peter just held her closer, rubbing her back and letting her cry. Knowing he’d caused her pain ate at him like the mosquitoes that had begun to appear. How did he miss this? He knew Kenzie well enough to kiss her, but he hadn’t bothered to find out where she lived? A stupid mistake.
It was a long time before she was cried out and turned swollen red eyes up at him. The devastation on Kenzie’s face made him wince. The guilt hurt.
“Peter,” she said, “you know what woke me this morning?”
She told him about seeing headlights, and he could guess just what time it was. She told him how it felt. The devastation, worry for the wildlife, the senseless waste of it all. And while she told him, her pain bored into him. Nothing about the situation was fair, and his stomach churned knowing that she still didn’t know it was the man she turned to for comfort who was causing her pain. They were just getting to know one another, discovering this wonderful new thing between them, and now his work and her love for this forest threatened to separate them.
As she spoke, he became uncomfortably aware of something else: the resentment that automatically bubbled up in his chest when he came across someone with a single view of logging. He did his best to squelch the feeling. What room did he have to be critical? None. He swallowed the irritation down, and that didn’t help his stomach any.
When the story of her shock and subsequent day of grief had subsided, she rested her head on his shoulder. Peter wasn’t ready to tell her the truth and didn’t think she was ready either. But an antsy need to do something wouldn’t be ignored.
“Show me,” he blurted out.
“What?”
“Show me your woods. Show me why you love it. Especially if it’s going to be gone soon. I want to see it.”
A sad but determined smile crossed her face, and that touched his heart. “Okay,” she said. “Let me put on some shoes.”
While her shock and grief weighed heavily in her very bones, Kenzie felt a glimmer of gratitude as she laced her trail shoes. What a good man Peter Olson was! He came to her when he knew she was sad, and didn’t run away screaming when he saw what a mess she was.
And he said just the right thing. Well, the best legal thing. What she really wanted to hear was, Let’s go beat up those loggers and set their trucks on fire, but that wouldn’t be right.
Walking through her woods was the perfect thing to do. She didn’t want to see what had already been logged, but she did want to be in the woods. Peter waited at the tree line, hands in pockets, looking squarely into the trees. Her heart lifted to see him. Good man, and one whose kisses made her happy, fluttery lovestruck. Seeing him in her own backyard, ready to show him her forest, he’d never looked more attractive.
My forest …
She pushed the hopeless thoughts from her head as much as she could for now, and when she reached him she put her arm through his. “Ready?”
He smiled. “Let’s do this.”
Kenzie was happier than she would have guessed walking into her woods with Peter. Much of the time the trail was wide enough to walk side by side, but when it wasn’t, Kenzie took the lead. Early evening in June, and the sun still shone through the treetops, casting leafy shadows on the ground. She breathed deeply, absorbing the fresh air and trying to do as she said in her videos, let it reach her soul.
She didn’t talk, but walked at a satisfying pace, not wanting to rush. She hoped he was experiencing the woods as she did, and didn’t want to interrupt.
About ten minutes into the walk, Peter spoke with a note of surprise. “This is beautiful.”
The trail had opened up to the pond Kenzie loved so much. It sat in a low spot surrounded by ferns and a variety of trees, including an extra-large cedar. Several fallen logs lay at the edges and across the pond, but all were old enough to sport thic
k moss and baby ferns that grew along their top sides.
“It is, isn’t it?” Kenzie said. “When it’s been raining more, the water’s much higher. Occasionally in the summer, it dries out completely.”
“Where do the frogs go then?”
Kenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know where they’ll go at all when …”
She swallowed the sadness that welled up in her. Enough tears. She just needed to let this soak in, and not think too much more about it today.
“I would think this spot would qualify as wetland,” he said.
A flicker of hope welled up in Kenzie. “It does? Does that mean we can stop the logging?”
She couldn’t read Peter’s expression, but he didn’t laugh, which she appreciated. “No, but it does mean the logging can’t happen right here, and there will be a buffer around it. Is this near the edge of your neighbor’s property?”
Kenzie looked around. “I think? Since these lands run into tribal lands, I have a hard time telling.”
Peter pulled out his phone. “Can I take your picture here?”
Kenzie’s heart fluttered. How is he still single? “Yes, that would be great.” When he was finished, she asked, “How about both of us?”
He smiled. “Great idea.”
Peter put his arm around her, her cheekbone resting on his jawline, and he held the phone out. She hoped when the picture was taken he’d think of kissing her again—she was thinking about it, that was for sure—but he stepped away and tapped at his phone.
“How is it?” she asked.
He didn’t answer at first, but smiled up at her when he put the phone away. “Perfect. At least the shorter one of us is perfect.”