“Oh, my goodness, aren’t you asweetheart.”
He’d managed to fluster her again.
He’d actually managed to fluster himself a little. Somehow he’d forgotten the sort of pleasure that could be had in making someone happy for no reason at all.
He frankly couldn’t think of the last time anyone else had tried to make him happy for no reason at all.
She took the bouquet and buried her nose in them. “It wasjustwhat the room was missing.”
It was theonlything the room was missing, more specifically.
“My thoughts exactly,” he said.
She naturally located a vase shaped like an angel. It was sporting wings.
He begrudgingly allowed that theywere, as Britt suggested, kind of pretty.
He was two steps toward the stairs, on his way to hunt down a cookie, when Rosemary said, “You just missed meeting Cherisse and Kevin, your neighbors. They came in from a hike and went back up to their room.”
He froze mid-step. Closed his eyes. Swore silently.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stay trapped in that purple room with Kevin and Cherisse boffing noisily away all afternoon.
He pivoted smoothly.
“You got some trail maps down here, Rosemary? I’m in the mood for a hike.”
She licked the tip of her finger and swiped a turquoise flyer from a stack next to the pink ones. “I sure do, hon, and this has all the best routes and landmarks marked. The Eternity Oak, now that’s worth seeing.” She laid it on the counter and pointed to an illustration. “Big beautiful old live oak they say was just a baby when the Maidu Indians lived in these hills. Legend has it that if you carve your initials and your sweetie’s initials into it,nothingcan ever sunder your union—you’ll be bound to that person for life, for better or for worse. So you better be damned sure about that person before you do it. People around here take that oak seriously. You won’t find too many initials on it.”
“Hell. Do you use that story to scare the kiddies on Halloween?”
Being bound to the wrong person for life sounded like the worst kind of purgatory. Given how long it might take to find out that person wasreallywrong. Say, something like five years.
“I take it you’re not a romantic, Mr.McCord?”
“Let’s just say I have a healthy sense of self-preservation,” he said dryly.
“Well, we all need that, too, don’t we? Oh, hon, there are a few awful stories around here about what happens if you don’t get the right name up there. And they say the oak grows over your initials if your love is destined to die.”
“Damn.” He was impressed. “That is one brutal tree.”
“I don’t make the legends up, I just repeat ’em. Now, you got yourself a black belt, hon. I know because I read it on Wikipedia. Won’t work against a bear but any random crazy hill folk might be startled if you start in on them that way, so you stay on the trail.”
“I’ll be ready for random crazy hill folk. Icomefrom random crazy hill folk.”
“I believe you, hon, but you also don’t want to go too far and make a wrong turn up at Coyote Creek settlement, because some folks have been known to grow”—she lowered her voice to a whisper and held her hand against the side of her mouth—“marijuana...way, way up in those hills and, well, let’s just say they’re enthusiastic about their privacy.”
“Gotcha.”
“But you’re pretty safe with any number of these options. If you keep to the Grubstake Trail, you can follow that on up to Whiskey Creek or Whiplash Ridge. You take the South Route, there’s a good trail about a mile from Rustler’s Ridge along Sassy Hooker Crossing, right on up to Full Moon Falls, and you’ll pass the Eternity Oak on the way there.”
“Those miners sure were colorful fellas.” Sassy Hooker Crossing, for some reason, made him think of lady peanuts. Just as colorful.
“They were at that.”
“I like falls.”
“Well, that’s your route, then. And you’ll like these falls. They are theprettiestthing ever. Now, if you’re a country boy, I don’t need to tell you what to do if you encounter a snake that rattles, or a bear or a mountain lion or coyote.”
