I’ll take that as a yes.
The whole drive to the trailhead, I’m perfectly, painfully aware of Hope’s bare thighs on the passenger side of my truck. They look good there.
She looks good beside me, her sunglasses perched on the end of her nose, her fingers drumming on the open window as Bellamy chatters at us from the back seat.
We have the small parking lot to ourselves, which is nice.
As soon as Hope gets Bellamy out of her car seat, she demands to be carried. Hope winces as soon as Bellamy tries to grip her side.
“Can I…” I’m not sure if that’s overstepping, but Hope looks at Bellamy, who immediately reaches for me.
I swing her up onto my shoulders. She grabs two handfuls of my hair like reins and shrieks in delight.
“Ow,” I say mildly.
“Giddyup,” she orders.
“I’ve been called worse things than a horse, I suppose.” I hold on to Bellamy’s ankle with one hand, and offer the other to Hope.
She slides her fingers through mine and squeezes. “Show us your secret canyon.”
The path climbs for fifty metres, but then it drops into the canyon fast. As we descend, the temperature does, too, the air turning damp and pleasantly cool the closer we get to the creek bed that twists and turns before running toward town.
And then we reach the end of the switch in the path.
We turn for the final descent, and Hope gasps.
The canyon walls rise all around us, slabs of pink and grey stone streaked with moss. A pool of water spills from the base of the falls, and on every flat surface, dragonflies cluster, flickers of electric blue darting here and there.
Hope tips her face up, her mouth slightly open, and as she takes in the spectacle, I watch her.
My chest puffs with pride for having brought them here.
“It gets even better,” I say, and my voice is not steady. “We can get closer to the falls.”
We pick our way around the pool on the last stretch of trail, Bellamy narrating every dragonfly she sees.
“Blue one! Blue one! Green one!”
And then the trees open up and there it is.
The falls aren’t huge. Maybe twenty feet of tumbling water. But when you’re standing in front ofthem, they are all you can see. The rest of the world fades away.
“The first time we came here, Cash said it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist.” I squeeze Hope’s hand. “My mom said the canyon was like a refuge, and none of us knew what that word meant. I will never forget that day.”
“Is that why you named the ranch a refuge?”
I nod. “And it’s why we bought the land we did. It’s not easy to get here from there, but our ranch borders onto this park. It shares the same water.”
“Oh, Zane…”
I swallow hard and nod. More secrets I’ve never told anyone else.
“Luna brought us here over and over again that first summer. It was an escape and a source of wonder rolled into one.”
“Because you all needed the rest of the world to not exist…” She sucks in a breath. “I can relate.”
“We can come here as often as you want.”
