“I’ve been in talks with a colleague over in Wyoming,” I say, deploying the most plausible half-truth I can think of. “We have an opportunity to expand my study into a comparative survey. Two different forest systems, similar latitude, different elevation and tourism pressure. It would mean I leave here a little earlier than planned, but I’d come back in the fall to wrap up some of the long-term plots.”
It sounds good. It sounds exactly like the sort of thing I’d get excited about even if I wasn’t secretly planning to walk across half the country with Bigfoot.
Gladys flips through the papers, scanning my printed email exchange with a fictional “colleague” whose name I absolutely did not borrow from one of Milo’s photo assistants.
“You know we like having you out here,” she says. “It’s good data. And you don’t do anything too stupid.”
“High praise,” I say. “I try not to fall off cliffs more than once a season.”
“There was that one time,” she reminds me.
I grimace. “In my defense, moss is treacherous.”
She snorts quietly, then sighs. “How early?” she asks.
“A week and a half,” I say. “Maybe two. I want to wrap up everything I can here first, then travel, then set up there before their season hits full swing.”
She leans back, assessing me.
“You’ll come back in the fall,” she says, not quite a question.
“If you’ll have me,” I say, and mean it. “I know these woods now. It would be stupid not to keep building on that.”
We both know there are no guarantees. Funding shifts. Grants expire. Life happens.
But I want to come back.
I want there to be acoming backto this place, to this station, to this forest where I met a legend who stole my heart so fast my head is still spinning.
Gladys lets out a slow breath. “All right,” she says. “You’re a grown-up. Mostly. I can’t chain you to a tree.”
“Probably frowned upon in the handbook,” I say.
She gives me a narrow look. “You’ll keep in touch. Check in with the team when you’re traveling. If you’re doing long stretches on foot, I want your locations. And if you vanish off the map?—”
“I know,” I say. “You’ll send a search party armed with paperwork and disappointed looks.”
“Damn right,” she says.
A knock on the doorframe interrupts us.
“Hey, Doc,” says a familiar voice. “You breaking up with us?”
I turn to see Sam leaning against the doorway, his hat tipped back and smile easy.
“Not breaking up,” I say. “Just… seeing other parks.”
Gladys makes a choking sound into her coffee.
Sam clutches his chest. “Ouch. And here I thought what we had was special.”
“What we have is you yelling at campers about fire safety,” I remind him.
“And you patching up my paperwork,” he counters. “Sounds like a partnership to me.”
He’s teasing since I helped him once. It’s light and harmless. A few weeks ago, it sort of made me flustered in a vaguely pleasant way. Now all it does is make me think of Boone.
Warmth flickers in my gut at the thought, and I have to look away for a second before it shows on my face.
