By the time I’ve switched it on and set up the little fan heater which I keep in the cupboard beside my desk, Vera’s already walking around the visitor center, looking over everything like it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. I know she’s been up to the park before. Years ago, before Tilly’s MS got so bad, the Ballards always used to hike the trails up here on weekends and go on picnics. Riley could never understand why I wanted to come too instead of us staying behind and hanging out at my place, but I love it up here. Probably why I wanted to be a park ranger, now that I think about it. Some of my best memories ofchildhood are from here. Which says a lot seeing as my parents almost never came.
“God, I remember this map from when I was a kid,” she says, making me poke my head out of my office to look. I’m waiting for my computer to grumble back to life anyway, so I walk out to stand beside her, looking up at the old brown-and-white topographical map of the park.
“I mean, what’s not to love? The way they got the spelling of the First Nations people wrong or the place where some teenage dirtbag drew a dick on there when the old superintendent wasn’t looking?”
Vera snorts. “What dick? I don’t see any dick.”
Feeling juvenile, I point it out to her, and she squints, turning her head to one side.
“I mean, I’ve got news for whoever drew that.” She laughs. “I hope the artist was female and a virgin, because otherwise I’m worried.”
I shake my head. “Well, whoever they are, they’re probably in their forties or fifties by now. It’s been there a long time. So hopefully they’ve found out what a real dick looks like.”
Vera opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something and then apparently thinks better of it. I think better of asking her if she has any firsthand experience and instead return to my office to find my computer has finally booted up. “Hmm. There’s a message here to say that there’s been a bit of a landslide on the trail down to the hot springs after the rain. I want to check that out before the park re-opens. Other than that, it’s mostly paperwork today, I’m afraid. And then tomorrow we get the pleasure of checking all the toilet and shower blocks.”
“Let me guess, intern’s job to clean them all?”
“I’m afraid in a park this size, you never graduate from that kind of dirty work completely, but no. Not unless there’s a leak or a burst pipe. There’s a cleaning crew who will come out anddo that, but since they don’t work over shut down, we have to check this week. Sometimes you get animals nesting in there and whatnot.”
She nods. “Well then, shall I put a pot of coffee on? Want me to help clear emails or something?”
I grin. “Coffee sounds great.” I wish I’d taken an intern before now. Seems like it’s the perfect way to chase away the winter blues. Mind you, no other intern would have made my chest tighten in that particular way it does when Vera smiles or laughs. Other interns couldn’t make me laugh at myself rather than getting in my head and moping about my life.
Maybe she’s ruined me for other interns.
Once my inbox is cleared, we head out to the collapsed trail to the hot springs. We have to park the truck about a mile away from the area I think is most likely to be affected, since there’s no vehicle access on the slope here. The ground is too unstable.
The wind has picked up, and when we get out it licks at all the exposed places on our bodies. I don’t often feel the cold, being a shifter and all, but in weather like this my bear has a hard time staying on the go. It’s always my instinct to snuggle up somewhere warm and take a nap.
Vera pulls her beanie down lower over her brows, and we walk close together with our heads down. The ground has dried since the rain last week, but it’s still unstable in places along the trail.Vera is surefooted, though. I’m not truly worried about her. I know she’s an experienced hiker, but I keep an eye on her just in case, letting her take the lead so I can.
“There!” Vera stops, pointing at a section of the path up ahead. Sure enough, the embankment above the path has collapsed and sent a torrent of dirt and mud that covers the trail completely.
It’s a big job. Bigger than we can take care of today. I’ll probably need to get an engineer out to make sure we get it structurally sound before we can open the trail again. “Let’s get some photos,” I tell Vera, who takes out her phone and gets to work.
We document the extent of the damage, and I drop a pin in our location.
Vera props her hands on her hips, looking up at the slope. “You know, what this trail needs is some vegetation.”
I look up in surprise. “You think?”
She nods. “The whole slope is going to stay unstable unless something is planted there. The roots will help stabilize the topsoil and prevent this stuff from happening in the future.”
I nod. Makes sense. A lot of sense. “You’ll make a good ranger,” I tell her.
She beams at me. “You think so?”
“I know it.”
Her cheeks are pink from the cold, but they flush a deeper shade at my compliment, and I have to bite back my instinct to shower her in them.
On the way back we get to a section of track that’s wide enough for both of us to walk abreast, and we fall into easy conversation, the tension from Christmas forgotten. It’s almost like the old us, the us we used to be when we were kids, before I fucked everything up by not having the right words to say after humiliating her when she tried to kiss me.
Well, almost like the old us, only I keep turning my head to catch a whiff of her scent because the perfume has worn off a little and every now and then I get a hint of warmth and sweet tartness like lemonade, cranberries, or orange rind, with a bit of clove and burned sugar. It’s like I remember, only richer, deeper. It’s so distracting it takes me by surprise when she speaks. I almost bump into her.
“Do you ever get lonely up here over winter?” she asks.
“Oh! Yeah. Over the summer I always think I’m looking forward to the low season, but I do miss the bustle of all the seasonal workers and volunteers. Working alone all day and then going home to an empty house can get a little depressing.”
