I touch Joe’s shoulder, which—statingobjectively,notobjectifyingly—is as hard as the rocks around us, and point at the carving. “Look how old that one is. I wonder where JP and SH are now.”
“JP passed away about twelve years ago, and SH—” he looks at his watch, “is probably on her way to the resort right now to start bossing around the massage therapists.” He smiles. “Those are my parents, Joseph Pratt and Sarah Hansen, now Sarah Pratt. They grew up here and fell in love as Freshmen in high school. That’s when my dad did that.” He gestures to their initials. “I try not to think about them in this place, to be honest,” he says with a cringe.
“But it’s so sweet!” I swat his solid arm. I’ll have a bruise on the back of my hand from that.
“Maybe it’s sweet when it’s not your parents. Plus, marking up these walls is pretty frowned-upon by earth lovers and the Bureau of Land Management. This Navajo sandstone is ancient. You can get a pretty hefty fine for carving it these days. Probably good for you to know, in case you ever spot a guest doing it.”
“I guess that makes sense. Something about it makes me happy, though. I love knowing that people had good times here.”
He grins. “Plenty of people have had good times here.” His eyebrows wag.
I wonder if Joe ever brought a girl here for somethingbesidesgarbage duty, and an unjustifiable wave of envy washes over me. “Haveyouhad good times here?” I thought I said it with a teasing tone, but the jealousy in my tone rings out as loud and blatant as a fog horn.Oh no. That came out of my idiot mouth.
I’m also scanning the cave walls for a “JP” attached to another set of initials, not that I care. I definitelydon’twant to dart away and hide in the bushes like one of those lizards I saw on the way in here. Maybe he didn’t notice?
His crooked grin dashes that hope, but he ignores my question, which fills me with both relief and burning curiosity. He sits on a boulder that looks like it tumbled straight down from the wall behind him and pats the rock next to him.
“Let’s rest for a minute before we head back.”
I sit as close as I can without making it weird, thoroughly enjoying our proximity and the way I feel heat coming off of him from our hike. A break sounds good to me, and not because the hike was all that grueling—I do more intense workouts every day at home, only in a less picturesque setting. I’m just happy for some alone time with the most handsome man I’ve ever met. Sue me.
“You’ve lived here your whole life?”
He nods. “I went to California for college and spent a few years doing service work for my church in Ecuador, but other than that I’ve been here.” His eyes scan the height of the cave room to the crack of robin’s egg blue sky above us. “Can you blame me? I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Well, I guess that settles the ‘Do you want to get married and live happily ever after with our two point five children in La Jolla?’ question, but it brings to mind a whole bunch more. I ask him about his time in college, his church, Ecuador, and his family. I find out that he studied geology in college because it interested him, but thathe has run his parent’s resort since he graduated. He has four sisters who all live nearby, three of whom also work at the resort. I had already met Sunny, of course, but he tells me all about the other three—Sage, Willow, and Marigold, who they all call Goldie. I also find out that Sunny’s full name is Sunflower, but she has sworn the family to secrecy. I decide that nugget of blackmail material will come in handy later.
“So, your sisters are Sunflower, Marigold, Willow, and Sage, and you’reJoe?” With his physique he could’ve been named Boulder, or Mountain, or Mighty Oak (I’ll admit nature names are not my forte), and his parents went withJoe?
He laughs, despite the fact that he’s probably dealt with this line of questioning more than once in his life. “My mom is pretty into the earth and all things natural. She won on the girls’ names. My dad chose mine, and I’m named after him. My mom had something very different in mind. They made it my middle name.”
“Oh, you can’t hold out on me now.”
He’s blushing again. I think he blushes more than I do. “No way.”
“Is it Mountain? Boulder?” I use up my best guesses first and he shakes his head with a laugh. “Mighty Oak?”
“Yes, Joseph Mighty Oak Pratt. You guessed it, so you can stop guessing now. Please.”
He’s smiling as he pulls me up from our spot on the boulder and we start our hike back. His hand is rough around mine and I’m dying to hang onto it as we walk, but I’m sure that hand holding is a no-no between bosses and employees. Right? Right.
“Rocky?” I guess.
“Nope.”
“Canyon?”
“No. You're persistent, and a terrible guesser.”
We go back and forth that way for most of the hike back, and when I roll up next to his Bronco on my way out, I crank down my window.
“Fjord?”
This one makes him laugh hard and he’s shaking his head in my rear view mirror as I drive away.
The next morning, my phone’s muffled ringing wakes me out of a deep sleep. It’s mostly dark, but there’s a dim glow on the horizon outside the van windows. I stumble to the glove box and fumble around with the buttons to stop the noise. It’s an unprogrammed number with a 435 area code, which I recognize as a Utah number.
“Hello?” My eyes are already closed and I’m partially asleep when I slide back into my sleeping bag.
