Chapter 2
Hudson
By eight-thirty the next morning, I’m already on the water.
That’s the best time to be on Cady Springs Lake -- before the tourists wake up, before kids start shrieking from the swimming beach, before coolers roll down docks and someone who rented a kayak for the first time decides a mountain lake is the perfect place to discover that balance is not one of their natural gifts.
Morning belongs to the lake. The surface lies smooth and silver beneath the rising sun, mist lifting off it in slow ribbons. Pines crowd the shoreline, dark and still. The mountains beyond them catch the first light, their peaks turning gold before the cabins below even know day has started.
I paddle my kayak along the edge of the cove, scanning the waterline. A loose branch near the northern rocks. A new scrape on the lower jump ledge. One dock bumper hangs by a frayed rope farther up the lake. I make a mental list, same as I do every morning I’m in Cady Springs.
People think lake work is all muscles and sunshine.
Haul a kayak. Tie a rope. Fix a dock. Jump off a cliff now and then for show.
They don’t see the checking. I check everything -- weather, water level, ropes, cleats, loose boards, slick moss, trail washouts.
Which families have kids who wander. Which bachelor party has too much beer and not enough sense.
Which pretty woman in sandals is standing on the wrong damn ledge with curiosity in her eyes.
I drag the paddle once through the water and let the kayak glide.
Layla.
Her name slides through my head before I can stop it. I don’t know why I’m thinking about her again. That’s a lie. I know exactly why.
Blond hair coming loose from a ponytail. Green eyes too bright for the careful way she held herself. Soft mouth, stubborn chin, curvy little body tucked into shorts and a green tank top like she had no idea every inch of her looked made for a man’s hands. And those feet.
I huff out a laugh, shaking my head. The woman tried to hide her toes from me while standing three inches from a ledge that could’ve cracked her open if she’d jumped wrong.
I saw that embarrassment on her face before she even said a word.
Women have tells when they’re ashamed of something.
They tuck, cover, joke, look away. Layla did all of that over toes.
I’ve seen feet blackened from frostbite scares, split open on shale, blistered raw after city people bought brand-new hiking boots for a seven-mile trail. I’ve carried men twice Layla’s size off mountains because their feet gave up before their pride did.
Her toes weren’t ugly. They were useful. Small, pale, stubborn little things that had gotten her close enough to the edge to scare ten years off my life.
I paddle toward the dock at Eight Pines Cabins, slowing when I reach the rental slip.
The main office sits back through the trees, still quiet.
A thin line of smoke curls from the chimney even though it’s summer -- probably the owner’s habit of lighting the office stove early to take the damp out of the air.
I don’t see Layla yet. But I want to.
I’m twenty-eight years old. Old enough to know exactly what kind of life I want, and young enough that people still assume I’ll grow out of it. Women especially.
They like the lake guy at first. The mountain man. The rough-handed summer fantasy who knows where to jump, how to tie a knot, and how to make them feel like the careful rules of their lives don’t apply for a week.
Then, if it lasts longer than that, they start talking like my life is a phase. Like one day I’ll stop chasing seasons, buy a house in town, build a fence, and decide I was only waiting for the right woman to make me want babies.
I’m not.
I don’t hate kids. Hell, I spend half the summer keeping other people’s kids from launching themselves into bad decisions. But wanting kids and being fair to them are two different things. A man who leaves every six months has no business promising a child roots.
I don’t blame them for wanting it. Roots are good things for people who need them. I’ve just never been any good at staying planted.
Summers in Cady Springs. Autumn shoulder jobs wherever the work takes me. Winters somewhere warm enough that my hands don’t go stiff in the morning. Florida some years. Arizona others. Trail and guide work. Repair jobs. Seasonal outfitting. Enough to keep money coming in and my life moving.
Every six months or so, I go. That’s not the kind of man a woman builds a nursery with. It’s damn sure not the kind of man a second-grade teacher builds anything with.
I push the kayak against the dock and climb out, tying off with a quick knot. The frayed bumper rope near cabin four is worse than I thought. It won’t last another day once people start loading boats with coolers and water skis.
“Hudson.”
I glance back.
Kelsey Matlock, who owns the cabins, steps out of the office with two mugs in her hands. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and she’s already wearing the expression of a woman who has solved three problems before coffee.
I walk up the dock toward her. “Morning.”
She holds out one of the mugs. “You’re earlier than usual.”
“I’m always early.”
“You’re usually early with less scowling.”
“I don’t scowl.”
“You were born scowling.”
I take the coffee. “Bumper on four needs replacing. Lower dock has one board starting to lift near the kayak rack. There’s a branch hung up in the northern cove. Not dangerous yet, but if the wind shifts, it’ll drift toward the swimming area.”
She stares at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Good morning to you too.”
I grunt and drink the coffee.
She smiles because she knows that’s as close to an apology as she’s getting.
Kelsey and I grew up around the same lake, though she left for college and came back with business software, bright ideas, and an ability to talk tourists into following rules without making them feel stupid.
I came back with a truck full of gear, a bad habit of moving every time the weather changed, and enough skills to make myself useful.
“You’re taking the Morrison family out at ten, right?” she asks.
“Kayak loop. Two adults, three kids.”
“The youngest is six and believes he’s part otter.”
“I’ll keep him floating.”
“And the bachelor group in cabins two and three asked about cliff jumping.”
“Only if they’re sober.”
She laughs. “That’s what I told them you’d say.”
“I’m not taking eight inebriated men to the cliffs so one of them can try to impress the others and break his tailbone.”
“I’ll quote you exactly.”
“Do that.”
She takes a sip of coffee, her gaze sliding toward the trail. “Speaking of cliff jumping…”
I know that tone.
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“The guest in cabin six stopped by the office.”
My hand tightens around the mug.
“She asked if there were any guided activities this week,” she continues, too casually. “I told her kayak rentals were easy, horseback rides were outside town, and if she wanted anything involving the cliffs, she should speak to you.”
“She already did.”
“I figured.”
I look at her.
Kelsey’s eyebrows lift. “What? She came back from the lake looking like she’d seen a half-naked man. Around here, the odds favored you.”
“Careful.”
“Oh, please. Don’t growl at me.”
“She’s supposed to meet me in a few minutes.”
Kelsey looks past me toward the cabins. “For a jump?”
“For a lesson.”
“With Layla Whitman, second-grade teacher from wherever safe people come from?”
I narrow my eyes. “You got all that from check-in?”
“I got Layla Whitman and second-grade teacher from check-in. The safe people part came from the cardigan folded over her suitcase and the way she apologized for asking where the ice machine was.”
That sounds like Layla. Too careful and polite. Too ready to make herself smaller.
My jaw tightens.
Kelsey watches me over the rim of her mug. “Oh.”
“What?”
“You like her.”
“I pulled her back from a ledge.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I don’t know her.”
“You don’t have to know someone to like looking at them.”
I turn toward the dock. “I’ve got work.”
“You’ve always got work when a conversation annoys you.”
“Most conversations annoy me.”
“Also true.”
I set the coffee on the dock post and crouch to inspect the loose board. The screw has pulled up on one side, probably from wet wood expanding and shrinking in the sun. Easy fix. I keep a small kit in the storage shed, but the board can wait.
Layla cannot.
I hate that I think it that plainly, like she’s already some responsibility I took on. She isn’t.
Layla is a guest. A pretty one with sad eyes and more nerve than sense yesterday, but still a guest. I’ll show her the safe ledge, teach her the jump, get her laughing in the water, and send her back to her cabin with a story. That’s all. By next week, she’ll be gone.
A woman like Layla doesn’t stay unrooted. She might want one reckless jump. Maybe one reckless man. But wanting a thing in the sun is not the same as living with it when the seasons change.
“Hudson?”
Kelsey’s voice cuts through my thoughts. I glance over. She nods toward the trail behind me. I turn and see Layla standing at the edge of the trees.
She’s wearing dark shorts today, the kind that show off her legs, and a white tank under a lightweight blue shirt left open.
Her blond hair is braided over one shoulder, but soft pieces have already escaped around her face.
She has a small backpack slung over one arm and a pair of water shoes in her hand -- not on her feet, but in her hand.
Her feet are bare in the grass. She sees me looking and immediately shifts one foot behind the other. Her cheeks color even from twenty feet away.
“I brought shoes that grip.”
I stride toward her. The closer I get, the greener her eyes look. Not soft green. Clear green. The kind that belongs to shaded water and leaves after rain. She looks nervous, but she lifts her chin anyway. Brave little thing.
“Morning,” I say.
“Morning.”
“You eat?”
She blinks. “What?”
“Breakfast.”
“Oh. A granola bar.”
“That’s not breakfast.”