The Country Gentleman

by Amberlee Day

  Peter kissed her hand, a sad smile touching his lips and eyes. “That’s right. I guess I forgot that part. Thanks for the reminder.”

  They finished their lunch in companionable silence. When they got up to head back with Burt and the rest of the club, Kenzie put her hand on Peter’s chest to stop him.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for being here with me.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said.

  “Me neither. But the thing is, I joined this club because I missed hiking with my mom. I’ll always miss her, but getting to hike and run the relay race with you have been the best things I’ve done in a long time.”

  Peter closed the distance between them, their lips a breath a part. “The best thing, huh?”

  “Maybe the second-best thing,” she said, kissing him to prove it.

  Today was the day. Kenzie woke Monday morning to the sounds of machinery, something she’d gotten used to in the past month. From her pillow, she gazed up through her window at the remaining trees behind her house, the ones she was lucky enough to have on her side of the property line. They weren’t all the trees she owned; with the loss of her forest—the Turners’ forest—she tended to forget that most of her five acres lay to the east of her, and that would remain wooded as long as she owned the land. If only the original owners had built the cabin so its views came from that side of the property, this would all be just a bit less hard.

  The clock read six a.m., so Kenzie rolled out of bed and went straight to her closet. What do you wear to confront someone about what they do for a living, even if half your message is acceptance? She wasn’t sure. Kenzie wanted to be taken seriously, so how she presented herself was important. It needed to be something she could hike across the cleared area in, as the loggers were nowhere near her house anymore. She settled on a nicer pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and a reddish-orange cardigan she normally saved for autumn. Peter had suggested she wear orange for safety, so the loggers could see her coming. She fingered the cardigan with a smile, thankful again for Peter’s caring ways.

  The only thing missing was the necklace with her mother’s wedding ring attached. She still hadn’t found the treasured item, and at this point expected it was buried amid the tree rubble. Strange, but losing it in the clearing almost seemed fitting.

  When she was ready, Kenzie left her little house and went into her remaining bit of backwoods. Even here, there was nothing familiar about the trail. The openness and change of light made everything different, but she charged on ahead. Reaching the property line, however, she halted. Close up, the acres looked like a battlefield, with fir, cedar, and maples as the casualties. It took her a few moments of breathing deeply before she was ready to start her hike to talk to the loggers.

  She hadn’t anticipated how much harder walking would be now. There was no way to see where the old trails used to be. In fact, the ground was so thickly littered with tree branches, it made a steady hiking pace impossible. She didn’t give up, though, and tried to find a positive.

  “At least the pine boughs make it smell good,” she said aloud in a forced cheery voice.

  Feeling exposed, she followed the sounds of machinery across the now-treeless ridges and valleys. The closer she came, the more anxious she felt that these men would mock her, or even threaten her. She understood that relationships between loggers and environmentalists were temperamental ones at best.

  When she was within a few hundred feet, she stopped and pulled an orange scarf out of her pocket. No sense risking getting run over or hit with that claw. She continued on with it waving in the air.

  It worked. The truck nearest to her shut off its motor, and a stocky man in a hard hat headed her way. The closer he came, she thought she recognized him as one of the men she saw the day she went in search of her necklace.

  She remembered she didn’t need to wave the flag anymore, and hastily stuffed it in her pocket. The smile she gave him was only as wide as she thought he deserved—and that wasn’t very wide. She still wasn’t ready to like these loggers.

  “What can I do for you, miss?” the middle-aged man asked.

  “Are you the person in charge?” she asked. He shook his head no.

  “You want to talk to him?” he said. “I can take you.”

  He turned away, and she followed. Like everywhere else in the cleared area, she had to concentrate on not tripping over branches, but she glanced up every now and then as they approached where most of the trucks were. Her heart was pounding, wondering how this was going to go. She read the logo on a truck cab as they passed by: Evergreen Logging Company. Dozens of cut trees lay stacked high in the back for transport.

  Don’t feel sad, she reminded herself. This is what they do.

  The logger she was following rounded the back of the truck. He raised his hand to get someone’s attention. “Hey, Peter!” the logger yelled over the noise. “That lady’s here. She wants to talk to you.”

  Kenzie’s feet had already slowed with apprehension, but when she heard the name Peter, she stopped.

  Peter.

  That’s all it took. Just like that, she knew. Loose pieces from the last month suddenly clinked solidly together in Kenzie’s mind. Peter’s knowledge of tree harvests, his early work hours, and why he never took her to see the house he was building. His sorrow at how much the clearing hurt her. I’m sorry, he’d said that day they’d come home to find the trees gone behind her house. I’m sorry.

  He knew she hated loggers. At Lake of the Angels, he encouraged her to tell the loggers how they hurt people. Those loggers aren’t without heart, he’d told her another time. He knew she hated loggers and knew that she would hate him if she knew the truth, that Peter was one of the loggers.

  Oh, Peter!

  She didn’t move for several moments, and he didn’t appear around the truck, either. He was waiting for her, she was sure. Giving her a moment to decide if she wanted to face him or not.

  Kenzie suddenly couldn’t bear to make him wait any longer. She hurried around the front of the truck and stopped. There was Peter in a worn red T-shirt and jeans and with a hard hat on his head; the dirty yellow work gloves he wore hung tensely at his sides, like he wasn’t sure what he’d be doing with them next. She only hesitated for another moment before she stepped toward him.

  But he was faster and met her there. The gloves thudded softly on the ground by her feet, and he searched her eyes before drawing her lightly to his chest. She hadn’t realized she’d started crying until her face touched his shirt.

  Peter’s hands only held her gently, and she loved him even more that he didn’t push, didn’t expect to know how she would feel at this moment. She couldn’t talk yet, so she slid her hands around him and squeezed him close to her. To her relief, he engulfed her in his embrace. His heartbeat thudded against her cheek, and his long exhale told her how hard all of this had been on him, as well.

  When she was ready, Kenzie turned to face him. The anguish in his eyes and the set of his mouth broke her heart. He brushed away her tears. “Kenzie, I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how much. I never meant—”

  She didn’t let him finish but lifted up on her toes, as best she could in her hiking boots, and stopped him with a kiss. In the weeks since their first wonderful kiss at Paige’s barbecue, they’d shared many more, but nothing like this. What started as a token of apologies and forgiveness, ended as a promise. Yes, something had been between them—a loss for Kenzie, a secret for Peter. Now that she’d come and all was known, there was nothing remaining to keep them apart. The feeling filled Kenzie with a joy that she wanted Peter to feel, too.

  “I love you,” she said, placing a hand on his cheek to keep him close. She wanted him to know, now that she was sure. “I’m sorry I was so … daft.”

  “No, you were right,” he said. “What I said was true about logging. It’s my work, and I thought I understood the impact I made. I was wrong. You … you’ve taught me to see the whole picture, Kenzie.
You’ve taught me so much. And I love you more than I could possibly tell you.”

  She could see it in his eyes, though; the earnest, tender feelings there sent happy shivers through her.

  A raindrop fell, hitting her cheek. Strange. She looked up at the sky, blue except for a wisp of cloud strung out overhead. Another drop landed on her forehead.

  Peter’s voice quietly said, “Falling grace.”

  Kenzie nodded, and touched a drop on Peter’s face. “Falling grace.” Kenzie lifted a brow and feigned a light sigh. “I suppose I’m going to be stuck dating a logger now.”

  Peter laughed. “And I’m stuck with a passionate tree-hugger.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she purred.

  This time when Peter kissed Kenzie, the crew—who had apparently gathered to watch at a respectful distance—cheered.

  Peter shook his head at them. “Where’s a nice private forest when you need one?”

  Kenzie laughed, bewildered and so, so happy. That anger she’d carried around had scattered across the landscape, discarded like the carpet of branches and ready for something new.

  She put both hands on Peter’s cheeks, and captured his eyes with hers. “And to think,” she said, “I came here to give the logger a piece of my mind, and ended up giving him my whole heart.”

  He placed one of her hands on his chest, where she could feel that hardy beat. “Then I guess I don’t need this one anymore,” he said. “It’s yours, Kenzie Vega. It’s all yours.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  One Year Later

  “Did you see the email from Burt?” Kenzie asked Peter while she tightened the laces on her shoes. She looked up at the brilliant blue sky, and wondered if she should shed her jacket before they got going. “Hiking club’s starting back up.”

  “Is it? I didn’t see.” He was too busy concentrating on the baby carrier strapped to his chest to look up. At five months, Paige’s baby, Penny, was getting as wiggly and weighty as she was adorable. “What hike are they starting with this year?”

  “Staircase. We should do that one sometime. I think you’d like it.”

  “We should,” he said, still distracted.

  Kenzie moved closer, and smiled at the baby. Penny’s vivid blue eyes and pink nose looked out from Peter’s chest. It was a bright day, and the light made her blink. Kenzie pulled her bonnet forward to block the sun. “Do you need help with that?” she asked Peter.

  “No, I’ve got it.” He stood up a little taller, adjusting his stance. “I told Paige and Josh I knew what I was doing, but this thing’s trickier than it looks.”

  Kenzie put her finger out for the baby to hold, but Penny grabbed Kenzie’s shiny new diamond wedding ring instead. “Whoops! Careful. That’s sharp,” she whispered. She rubbed noses with her sweet niece. “Miss Penny just wants to keep Uncle Peter on his toes,” she said in a singsong voice.

  “Well, it worked.” His voice was rueful. “Next time I’ll know what to do.”

  Kenzie’s heart saddened a bit. “There won’t be many next times for the next two years, if they’re going to be stationed in Hawaii. Unless we go there to see them.”

  “Then I guess we will. For now, we’ll just be glad that they let us have her for a few hours while they get things organized for the move.”

  “Definitely.” Kenzie smiled up at him. “Are you ready?”

  “I am. Lead the way.”

  “No, you and Penny are in front today. I’m filming.”

  Peter nodded and embarked on the path behind their cabin.

  Kenzie took a long breath and raised her camera. She followed, filming Peter’s short journey from their sparse woods into the open area. It had taken a while, but Kenzie no longer felt sad every time she looked outside. Especially now, a year later, when there was so much more to see.

  As they entered the Turners’ land, Kenzie panned the camera to show Peter meandering through two lines of new Douglas fir trees. Two lines that stretched out farther than the eye could see, joined by lines on either side that reached from east to west, north to south. Like orderly little Christmas trees they grew, already as tall as baby Penny’s bare toes kicking out from the carrier.

  Sometimes reaching out to handle a slender sapling or take a huckleberry from its bush, Peter walked straight for a long time as Kenzie filmed him for the Forest Bathing channel. The show was going great, according to Tammy, who still helped her keep up with these things. Viewers adjusted well to Kenzie taking them on different kinds of walks, from barefoot beachfronts to windy mountain ridges. But today was about revisiting, and she and Peter had already decided to walk in the direction of the protected areas by the eagle’s nest and the pristine pond.

  Peter suddenly stopped in front of her. He turned and smiled at the camera before pointing at the distance. Kenzie wasn’t sure what he wanted her to see, but she kept filming. Was it that blue cloud at the base of the horizon? She’d seen it that morning from their bedroom window. Strange it would still be there, especially on an otherwise clear day. But Peter looked at Kenzie and the camera with a proud smile.

  “That’s not a cloud,” he said. “That’s Mt. Rainier.”

  “What?” She shifted to see it better. “We can see Rainier from here? That’s crazy. We’re hours away.”

  “And yet, that’s the mountain.”

  Kenzie squeezed his hand. “Don’t go getting a big head, now. Just because you gave me a mountain.”

  “You don’t like it?” he teased back. “Then we’ll return it. Maybe we’ll exchange it for that trip to Hawaii after all.”

  “Definitely Hawaii. We could even do a forest walk there. When would we go?”

  He shrugged. “How about Christmas? I bet Paige and Josh would be fine having us come.”

  Kenzie pursed her lips. “Hm. I don’t think Christmas would be a good time to go. Not this year, anyway. We’ll be busy.”

  “What am I forgetting?” Peter asked. “Are you running a Candy Cane 5k? Or a Holly-Jolly Half Marathon? Or maybe a Santa Suit Pogo-stick-athon?”

  “Santa Suit Pogo-stick-athon? Hm, that’s a great idea. But no, I wasn’t thinking of anything like that.” Kenzie’s heart relished the gift she was about to give Peter. “It’s something else. I was hoping to tell you over dinner at The Country Gentleman, but … this spot feels better.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Kenzie tugged gently at Penny’s kicking foot. “That when Penny outgrows this thing, we might want to borrow it.”

  Peter wasn’t normally slow, but it took him a minute to get it. She guessed she’d caught him by surprise. He stopped and stared at her, and she detected both terror and delight in those crinkly hazel eyes, even more than when he realized his sister was expecting. Happiness bubbled up while she watched him. Before he could say anything, though, Kenzie asked, “How high do you think these trees will be by the time our baby learns how to walk?”

  Peter grabbed her and kissed her, while Penny wiggled in between. Kenzie held the baby’s fingers with one hand to keep her happy, but met Peter’s delicious, sweet kisses with an equal passion.

  Eventually he remembered her question. “How tall?” His forehead leaned against hers, the terror in his eyes definitely replaced by delight. “As a professional logger, I can guarantee these trees will grow fast enough they’ll always be bigger than a baby is going to grow.”

  “Perfect,” Kenzie said, rubbing his cheeks with her fingers. “Because I plan on teaching our baby to be a forest bather, too.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Baby Penny cooed and babbled, ignoring her aunt and uncle and wiggling to get free. Something shiny had caught her attention, lying at the base of one of the new firs, just peeking out from the tree debris. A necklace threaded through a simple wedding band. Penny only knew it sparkled at her. She would wiggle and reach, and in a moment when the people who loved her were done kissing, they would see it, too, pushing up from the ground like the new for
est coming in, with all its beauty, mystery, and romance.

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