Then I get on my knees and excavate the back of the closet.
The boots are there, behind the winter bin, exactly where I left them after the spring I decided to become a person who hikes. I wore them a handful of times, enough trail walks to soften the leather and teach them my feet, before the school year swallowed the project the way the school year swallows everything. They're dusty. I sit on my bedroom floor and wipe them clean with an old T-shirt, and something about it feels ceremonial. Armor polishing, if armor came from a sporting goods sale.
Two days. No plan, no map, no town watching. Just Finn, and me, and whatever he's been building in that handsome head of his since he asked about my boots.
I set them by the front door, side by side, pointed out.
Then I go finish packing with a big, stupid grin on my face.
CHAPTER 25
FINN
The old Jeep hasn't been packed this carefully since Dad ran wine deliveries out of it two decades ago.
I've got the tent, the good sleeping bags zipped into one wide double, the camp stove, the lantern, the first-aid kit I've never once needed yet never once traveled without. The big cooler, loaded. Two bottles from our family vault, wrapped in a towel like contraband.
And in the back seat, still wearing tags, a full set of women's gear I had special-delivered from one of my regional flagship stores in Huntington at six this morning. Shell jacket, wool base layers, a headlamp, gloves. I run a company that outfits strangers for the wilderness every day of the year. This is the first time I've packed it for somebody whose comfort and cold hands I plan to take personally.
Bear spray goes in the door pocket. Not because we'll need it. I hope we won't need it.
Colton comes around the equipment barn with a spool of fence wire on his shoulder, sets it in the utility cart, and starts sorting staples into a coffee can like a man with nowhere to be. Other than in my business, that is.
"Two weeks is a long time for you to be hanging around," he says, not looking up.
"What about it?"
A handful of staples rattles into the can. "Longest you've been home since Dad's funeral."
I glance over at him. "Somebody has to supervise the trellis wire."
Nothing. That's the thing about Colton. Evan comes at me with exhibits and a closing argument—things a man can at least fight back on. Colton just asks his question then stands there sorting hardware while my jokes die of exposure on the driveway between us.
"It's a beautiful property," I try. "I'm rediscovering my roots."
The staples rattle. The vines rustle. Somewhere around the back of the house, my mother's kitchen window is open, which means this conversation has an audience whether I can see it or not.
"Is she why you're still here?" Colton says.
He asks it the way he asks whether the north block needs water. No wind-up, no verdict in it, eyes on the coffee can, and the question goes in underhand and lands dead center anyway.
Because yes. Obviously yes. And somewhere on a drafting table in Denver there's a resort with my name all over it and an opportunity window sliding shut over the whole thing, while I'm standing in the driveway loading a cooler for a woman who has to live in this town after whatever I do next. I make myself look at that, straight on, for as long as I can stand it.
About three seconds, it turns out. Long enough to know the honest sentence: I'm tangled up in something I'm not sure I get to keep.
I set that down carefully next to the bear spray and close the tailgate.
"Ask me about all this on Sunday," I tell him.
Colton looks at me for the first time in the whole conversation. Whatever he finds, he doesn't say. He nods once, picks up the wire spool, and heads for the fence line.
"Bring the cooler back," he says over his shoulder.
In this family, that's a blessing. I take it and go to pick up Darcy.
She comes down the stairs beside the bookshop at five sharp, one duffel over her shoulder, and I forget what I was going to say.
Faded jeans. Honest-to-God broken-in hiking boots, and a soft moss-colored henley with the sleeves shoved up, with her wavy brown hair twisted in a knot she'll lose by the first trailhead. I've now seen this woman in a wrap dress, in teacher cardigans, in candlelight, and in nothing at all, and it turns out the version that guts me on a Friday afternoon is ready-for-anything Darcy standing on a curb with her chin up and a big smile on her face.
