“No,” I murmured, “you make everything complicated.”
We stared at each other, suspended in the kind of stillness that only happened on trails.
Then someone from the group called back, “Hey! Are you two good?”
Sienna stepped away so fast she nearly tripped.
“Yes!” she called, her voice an octave too high. “Totally fine! Just talking about… rocks!”
I bit back a laugh.
She shot me a look over her shoulder, and one thing was painfully clear
I could walk a thousand miles of trail and still never get enough of her.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sienna
A week passed in the way early spring always moved in Buttercup Lake—slow, uneven, teasing. One morning, there’d be frost on the windows; the next, sunlight streamed in so brightly it felt like nature had forgotten it lived in the Midwest at all.
By the time Friday arrived, winter had retreated for real, and spring was officially out to play.
Sunshine, birdsong, mud, the whole deal roared to our corner of the world to announce the real spring.
I stepped out of Cottage Seven, stretching my arms wide and letting the warm air settle over me. The trees around the lodge were dusted with early buds—tiny pink blurs of color against branches that had been bare for too long. Fresh earth scented the breeze. Water dripped rhythmically from melting patches of snow in the shadowed corners.
It was beautiful.
It was hopeful.
It felt like the season was nudging me forward without asking permission.
And honestly? That’s exactly what I needed.
I had a full schedule today of gear checks, trail condition updates, packing my kit, and final prep before tomorrow morning, when I’d be leading a group on my own.
It would be my first solo overnight of the season, and normally I would’ve been buzzing with anticipation. Instead… I found myself thinking about Carson.
A lot.
More than a lot.
Every time the breeze caught just right, it reminded me of that hike last week—him tracking the group with that steady, impossible calm, the heat that flickered in his eyes when we stood too close, the way his teasing voice scraped the edges of something inside me I didn’t have a name for yet. And every single time I started thinking too deeply about it, I had to physically shake my head like I was removing a cobweb.
But today? Today was all business.
I walked toward the gear shed, boots crunching in the gravel. My pack was already half prepped; I just needed the water filter and a new rope since the last one decided to fray on me at the worst possible moment.
The mid-morning air was warm enough that tiny beads of sweat dotted the back of my neck. I tucked my hair into a messy bun and pushed open the shed door—
—and immediately froze.
The entire gear shed had transformed.
No, seriously.
This wasn’t organizing. This was magic.
