by Amberlee Day
Lower Mt. Rainier offered many beautiful hikes. She didn’t know the Cascades as well as she did the Olympics, but she’d been there enough times that she had a favorite hike she wanted to show Peter. By noon they were on the Rampart Ridge Trail, trekking through evergreen forests and enjoying ridgetop vistas. She’d packed a picnic lunch, and Peter was sweet and raved about what a wonderful spread she’d put together—peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches with apples, celery and brownies. Pretty ordinary fare, but he couldn’t have complimented it more if she’d had it catered. Kenzie just shook her head and smiled at him.
Later, while meandering through a field of wildflowers, Peter surprised her by taking her hand and pulling her into his arms. When she looked questioningly in his eyes, the feelings there took her breath away. They’d been talking and laughing and sneaking in kisses all day, but now he simply held her and looked in her eyes. Her heart pounded. He was building up to saying something, she was sure, something she felt in her own heart. She could see Rainier behind him, and felt like this thing growing between them was as solid and exciting as that beautiful mountain.
“Kenzie,” he finally said, and her heart sped up. She rose up on her tiptoes.
“Yes, Peter?”
“I—”
Whatever he was about to say, he was interrupted. “Kenzie!” a voice called from down the trail.
Kenzie plopped flat down on her heals again, and her head dropped onto Peter’s chest. Darn.
She turned toward the voice, where several members of her relay team were hurrying up the trail toward them. After a smile and wave, she turned an apologetic look to Peter.
“Team time,” she whispered. “But this has been a wonderful day.”
He squeezed her arms gently. “It has.”
Patrick Olson hated retirement. One minute he was running a successful logging company, and the next he was sitting home on the couch at ten in the morning, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do with his day.
Not that Peter wasn’t doing a good job. He’d done well bidding fairly on potential jobs, and scheduling things out so that he completed work on time and maintained steady hours for their employees. In fact, Peter was so on top of things that Patrick began to feel like his own contributions weren’t much missed. That wasn’t a great feeling after forty years in the business.
When Peter asked if he’d mind running the show for a couple of days, Patrick said yes in a heartbeat. What he didn’t tell his son was how very alive and excited the opportunity made him feel for the first time in a while.
Peter had everything detailed so Patrick would know just what to do: which areas to cut, where the protected areas were, and what direction he wanted the cut to take. Nothing to really think about, just a plan to follow. Unfortunately, Patrick was more in the mood to make decisions than to follow someone else’s plan, even his son’s.
There wasn’t anything he could do with the protected areas; that was certain. Legally they had to maintain a boundary around both the pond and the eagle’s nest. For the rest of the property, so far Peter had the crew clearing a line across the south and created a cross-line about halfway down the center going northward. That wasn’t unusual, as they often buzzed-in an area to define the cut boundaries, then went back and cleared the centers. What was odd in Peter’s plan was that he seemed to be staying away from that northern border, and that just didn’t make sense.
The senior Olson was mulling this over on Thursday morning when he received a call from the office. A new customer was requesting a short clear job on Monday morning. Patrick looked back at Peter’s plans. If he made a few changes and had the crew work half-day overtime on Saturday, they could slip in the short job on Monday and still be on schedule for Tuesday. That would work.
Patrick scribbled some notes on the plan and called the foreman over.
“Change of plans for the next few days,” Patrick said. “We’re going to go ahead and clear straight to the northern border, then dig in east. When that’s done, we’ll buzz out the middle.”
The foreman scratched his head and frowned. “Are you sure, Mr. Olson? For some reason Peter wanted to do that northern area last.”
Patrick’s retirement-induced grouchiness flared. He flipped the papers front and back. “No reason here why that would be. Get the boys on it. And let them know whoever wants to work Saturday morning, there’s half-a-day overtime pay in it for them. By noon Saturday, we’ll have the bulk of this cut complete.”
Friday and Saturday were a blur, but then Kenzie found that race days usually were. The nice part of this one was just showing up, having fun with her team, and running.
But this year the nicest part by far was having Peter on the team. She worked it out so they were in the same van, which meant most of their breaks were at the same time, too. Of course, much of that time was spent napping where possible, but they also shared moments that were both energized and funny, and tired and silly. Peter had said he wasn’t much of a runner, but he did just fine when it was his turn to go. Kenzie worried about him when one of the three legs he ran was in the dark. She helped him strap on his safety vest and headlamp, kissed him on the nose, and watched him disappear into the darkness. Afterward he said that running in the dark was his new favorite thing, and when they promised to plan a midnight run together sometime, Kenzie thrilled to be making future plans with Peter.
She should have known he was a good runner after making it from her house, through the woods, to the clearing in less than ten minutes. That had been one fast run, and he hadn’t even broken much of a sweat. It was almost as if he was already in the woods somewhere when she texted. But he would have told her if that was the case, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. She was just thankful that Peter arrived when he did, or that horrible claw might have really hurt her.
Kenzie also enjoyed watching Peter with her running team. With Peter joining them, the group was almost half men and half women, and they were all hard-working runners with a purpose who liked having a good time. When the race was finished, they were happy to find that as individuals many had run their personal best time, and as a team they’d definitely beat their own record. To celebrate, the team went out for a victory meal, before Kenzie and Peter said goodbye and loaded into the jeep for the long ride home.
Finally they were alone again, driving toward home. Peter was quiet—but then, so was she. It had been an exhilarating and exhausting two days. But the quiet was companionable, interspersed with moments where they shared stories and observations about the trip.
It was still light when they turned off the highway toward Kenzie’s house, where Peter had left his truck when they headed Thursday morning. Despite all the togetherness and how tired she was, she already felt a longing for Peter to stay, and it wasn’t even time to say goodbye yet.
“I don’t suppose you want to come in for a little while?” she asked. She’d hoped he’d smile at the offer, even if he had to say no. But his expression was much more serious.
“I would like to stay for a while,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for the last few days. Longer than that, really. I’ve just put it off.”
That longing in Kenzie’s stomach soured. This didn’t sound good. Was he going to break up with her? “Okay,” she said, trying to sound light. “You sound so serious.”
Peter took her hand and squeezed it. “It is serious. I take us seriously, Kenzie. What I want to talk to you about is something you won’t want to hear. But let’s wait until we get to your house. I don’t want to start this in the car.”
Kenzie nodded, but she wanted to throw up.
Conversation ended during the final miles. Peter was driving, and when he turned the car onto her road, with still a quarter mile before they would reach her house, Kenzie knew something was wrong. Not with Peter, but with her home. This part of the road wound past another neighbor’s trees, but somehow today their shade had a different quality to them. Somehow they had los
t a degree of their cool darkness.
“Something’s not right,” she told Peter.
“What?”
“I think it’s the trees,” she said, but the cause still wasn’t sinking in.
When they reached the top of the hill and turned onto her own long driveway, where the lane would normally curve into the dark nestle of trees, she could see even from a distance that the sky was empty there, deep blue where there should have been spiky, leafy green.
“No!” Kenzie yelled. “No!”
Peter drove on. When she had a clear view, she barely recognized her own home with its new backdrop. She’d known that part of her property was close to the line and that right behind her house most of the trees weren’t hers, but seeing it this way was too much to take in.
As soon as the jeep stopped, Kenzie jumped out and ran to the backyard. A few dozen trees were all that was left. Beyond that, the land looked like the aftermath of a disaster. Everything was gone, except an occasional maple left behind. A tremendous sense of violation and loss seized her. Kenzie’s beloved forest had disappeared, ripped from the earth. The haunting smell of pine and cedar hung on the air like lost spirits. Unable to take her eyes from the scene, she dropped down to the ground and sobbed.
Chapter Twenty
Peter held Kenzie while she cried, and his eyes too darted across the changes. Familiar with logging, he’d seen more after-cut landscapes than he could count, but this one was different. Kenzie had shown him that this forest was a place she valued, so he was able to see the loss through her eyes. Yes, it would be devastating. It was going to happen eventually, but he didn’t blame her a bit for her grief.
He did wonder, however, why his father had gone against Peter’s written plans and cleared this northern area. There was still a lot of logging to do on the property, and there hadn’t been a need to clear the area near Kenzie so quickly. Of course, it wasn’t done maliciously; Peter knew that. While Patrick Olson knew his son was dating someone, he hadn’t met her and didn’t know she lived at the edge of the Turner land. And that he’d managed to do it all so quickly stunned Peter. He suspected he’d be paying his employees a great deal of overtime next payday.
When the sun started to go down, Peter watched the dramatic new sky change colors behind the little cabin. Kenzie had fallen asleep on his chest, but he didn’t wake her. Between the race and the shock she was spent, and no way would she be ready to find the beauty in a sunset yet.
The sky was almost full dark when he carried her into the house. She woke up enough to blink up at him, but didn’t protest. Peter took her right into her bedroom and tucked her in.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice broken from crying.
Peter planted a lingering kiss on her forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He didn’t want to leave her, but there wasn’t anything he could do. For now, he needed to call his dad before getting some rest himself. Even though the next morning was Sunday, he had to get up early. If he could manage it, Peter wanted to be back before dawn, so that when Kenzie woke up she wouldn’t have to face the new changes alone.
Peter Olson was amazing, Kenzie thought more than once in the following days. She woke up Sunday to find him sitting on her back porch swing, dressed for church and bearing a bouquet of flowers. Together they sat and discussed the eerie changes they could see: the new quality of light, mist rising from somewhere to the southeast, and the unexpected contours in the landscape. Eventually, he went to the kitchen and made them breakfast while she changed and went to church with him—something she hadn’t been planning on when she first woke up and remembered her trees were gone, but somehow talking to Peter made it feel right to go.
She’d taken so many days off the previous week that she had to go in to work Monday. Peter came again that evening after she got home, bringing take-out salads from The Country Gentleman. Her heart wrapped tighter and tighter around him the more he shared his kindness with her. She was especially grateful that he didn’t once suggest that it wasn’t so bad to have the trees gone, or point out that the sunsets were really pretty and the changing skyline enticing to watch. Never immune to something beautiful, Kenzie gradually noticed these things on her own, but she wasn’t ready to be glad that anything good could come of this destruction. Not even close.
The loggers weren’t there Monday, but the rest of the week they returned to work on other areas farther from her house. Kenzie kept busy working and organizing, as always.
When she called her dad to tell him the news, he surprised her and came across the ferry to see for himself. Unfortunately, he didn’t have Peter’s sensitivity, and she had to hear how much he preferred the open view to the closed-in trees. She contemplated telling him to move away from Western Washington if that’s how he felt, but held her tongue. He wasn’t saying it to hurt her. They went out for dinner, and she kept him talking about his work and Phyllis so she didn’t have to hear any more.
Saturday was hiking club. Kenzie, Peter, and Paige had missed so many weeks that they had to check in with Burt to see if he was still on schedule, which he was. Paige seemed to have passed the worst of her morning sickness, but didn’t trust herself to keep up on a hike just yet. Early that morning, Peter and Kenzie loaded into Peter’s pickup and crossed Hood Canal Bridge to the Olympic Peninsula.
And it was a good thing Paige skipped this one, Kenzie thought. Lake of the Angels wasn’t an easy hike. Kenzie warned Peter that it was one of the harder ones she and her mom had done, and he made her smile when he said he didn’t scare away easily. Walking by Peter’s side, with Burt leading the way and the hardier regulars quietly concentrating on some of the steeper parts, Kenzie found her thoughts steadying with each footstep and the even pace she kept.
She was thankful for the darker areas of this hike, where trees rose majestically around her. It was a comfort. Her forest bathing channel wasn’t something she did without passion. As she hiked, she could feel the negativity leave her and a peace settle in that only came on a pine-scented breeze.
And as she hiked, her thoughts revolved around the clear-cut, and around her mom—because she couldn’t not think of her mother while hiking—and Peter, and love found its space again in Kenzie’s heart. That feeling increased every time Peter’s crinkly eyes met hers. One of the things she promised her Forest Bathing viewers was increased happiness and strengthened friendship bonds with fellow bathers. She wished she’d filmed this hike for her channel, because surely those things shone in her eyes today. She felt like she radiated with it.
The farther they hiked up the mountain, the more energized Kenzie became. Peter was keeping up, but at one point they reached an undoubtedly underwhelming pond. Peter frowned at it. “Is that Lake of the Angels?”
Kenzie laughed at his expression, a glorious feeling after a somber week. “No, that is actually called Lake of the False Prophet.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It is, I promise. And you’ll know when we get there. It will be worth it.”
Peter kissed her forehead, his breath labored from their uphill climb. “If you say it is, I trust you.”
When they did finally reach Lake of the Angels, it truly was a magnificent sight. Kenzie enjoyed the awe that came over Peter’s face, and was so glad they could experience it together. She squeezed his hand and focused on the moment. It was definitely worth the effort to get there. An almost reverent feeling came over Kenzie. Peter must have felt something, too. As the others settled down to rest and eat the lunches they’d packed, Peter took Kenzie’s hand and led her to a spot away from the others where they could soak in the lake and surrounding hillsides.
The day glowed with blue skies that shimmered on the lake. There weren’t many trees up this high, but there was no denying the beauty. While they ate their peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches, Peter asked, “How are you holding up?”
She knew he wasn’t talking about the hike. “Bett
er. This has been good for me. I’m never going to like that they cleared my trees, but I’m starting to think I won’t have to move.”
Peter nodded. “That’s good to know.”
Kenzie scooted closer to him. “I haven’t thanked you properly for helping me through the past week.”
“Now I’m curious.” Peter’s arm went around her waist. “What’s a proper thank-you?”
“Well, I’d kiss you right now, but I’m hot and sweaty and probably don’t smell very—” She didn’t have time to finish that thought, as Peter ignored her warning and kissed her soundly. Sweet tenderness erased her protests. When the kiss ended, she leaned her forehead against his and studied his loving eyes. Waves of happiness rolled through her. She really was falling in love with Peter. But …
There was a but. Kenzie knew something was holding her back, keeping her from really opening her heart. A blockade. “Peter, there’s something I have to do.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to confront the loggers.”
He pulled away from her, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. “Why?”
Kenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. Closure? I need to let those men know that what they do can be painful to people. And it doesn’t help the animals any.”
“I think you should do it.” A flash of emotion passed through his eyes. “They’re out for their buck like anybody, but I think they do forget the impact they have on people. That was a special place, Kenzie, and now it’s gone. I can see that. I think you should tell them how much they hurt you.”
Peter’s fervor surprised Kenzie. She hadn’t realized how much the clear-cut had affected him.
“It did hurt,” she said. “It does. But that’s not all I need to say to them. I also need to let them know I understand why they do what they do.”
“For money,” he said.
“Sure. Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll feel looking into the face of someone who makes his living tearing down forests.” Kenzie was surprised that Peter looked as troubled as she felt, maybe even more so. She took his hand. “But it’s like you told me before. Logging needs to be done sometimes. The Turners’ property is designated forestland, and it’s healthier for it to be harvested. At least this Evergreen company is supposed to be responsible. From my messages with Sarah, it sounds like replanting should happen in November. That’s important for sustainable forests, right? Plus it provides jobs, and lots of things are made with wood.”