Preston
The fresh air of the outdoors and the feel of my boots on dirt never failed to relax me and ground me in the moment.
Usually.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d put myself at the front of the pack, following just behind Mason, who led with the excitement and energy of youth. Summit bounded behind the kid, eager to be on another hike.
Jess was all the way at the back behind Chase, Tilley, and Becky, but she still felt too close.
I forced myself not to check on her. I didn’t need to draw any more attention to the hangover she was very obviously trying to ignore. Tilley was already chomping at the bit for a nugget of gossip she could run with. I wasn’t about to feed anything more to her. Especially if it involved me in any way.
Jess had her cap pulled low, her sunglasses firmly in place as if she were trying to disappear. She moved carefully, deliberate with each step to avoid tripping. I’d seen it before on plenty of hangover hikers over the years. It was more common than one might think.
But what I couldn’t figure out was whether she remembered what she’d said to me or whether she had any memory of our dance, or of me taking her home.
I did.
Every single second of it. Every word she’d said to me replayed on a loop in my head. Her apology about the flowers. Her admission that she didn’t love him. That I waseasier.That daisies were her favorite.
Drunk or not, those weren’t the kind of words you said if you felt nothing.
The way she felt in my arms when we danced. Her bare skin under my hands.
The way her voice had softened, and her lips curled into a smile when she said my name.
But she’d been drunk.
I needed to remember that, because it mattered.
And she was still getting married.
To someone else. To a future I had no right to touch.
And thatreallymattered.
No matter how much I was starting to wish it didn’t.
The trail narrowed as we moved farther into the forest, the trees closing in around us.
In front of me, Mason surged ahead. The kid had really come out of his shell since joining my group.
“Mom,” he called over his shoulder. “There’s a good spot up here. I can show you that food hang we practiced.”
Summit let out a bark of excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Every youth I helped build a love for the great outdoors was a win in my books.
Becky smiled and hurried to catch up to her son. Chase followed behind them, curious about the hang. I slowed my pace enough that Tilley fell into step beside me for a moment.
“Does your family still have that little cabin out here?” she asked, surprising me.
“We do. I’m the only one who ever really goes that far out these days, but it’s there.”
She asked me a few more questions about it, getting me talking. I hadn’t even noticed how much we’d slowed until Jess caught up with us.
“I’m going to hang back,” Tilley announced. “You kids go on ahead.”
I saw the smile she gave me and the little wiggle of her brows. Tilley Beckett was always looking for a good story, or a little gossip she could turn into a good story.
As much as I’d tried to avoid it, she seemed to already know everything that happened in this town. No doubt she’d caught wind of us dancing the night before and was trying to suss out whether there was anything more to it than an innocent dance between friends.
