3. Dean #2
Teagan catches up, slightly out of breath. "Sorry—he's supposed to be in the office with me, but he has the attention span of a hummingbird and the escape skills of a convict." She chuckles, clueless to the irony of it, and waves a hand. "He just runs."
Jamie tugs on the seam of my jeans. "Do you know how to build roads? My daddy builds roads for Blue Truck but they're not very good."
"Jamie," Teagan warns.
"They're not, Mama. They fall down."
I kneel down, and the kid immediately shows me Blue Truck up close, pressing it against my leg and making engine noises.
"I know a little about roads," I say. "You need good dirt. Packed tight."
"And rocks," he adds. "Small ones. Not big ones because Blue Truck's tires aren't big enough."
"That's solid engineering."
He grins—wide and gap-toothed and completely trusting—and my heart squeezes a bit in my chest.
This kid doesn't care about my record or the fourteen years I spent running from myself. I'm just a tall guy who took Blue Truck seriously, and that's enough.
"Jamie, come on, sweetie. Let Dean get back to work." Teagan picks him up, and he goes willingly, but keeps talking over her shoulder as she carries him away.
"Bye, Dean! I'll show you the roads later, okay? Daddy's making new ones, but I need a helper since he's always busy—"
His voice fades around the corner of the office building, still chattering.
I stand in the yard for a minute, watching the space where he was.
Kids don't ask about your past. They don't weigh your history or calculate your risk.
They just decide you're worth talking to or they don't, and Jamie decided in about four seconds that I was someone worth showing his truck to.
I don't know what to do with that kind of trust. Especially when I haven't earned it.
The interaction fills me with a warmth I’m not used to…a specific ache of wanting something you're not sure you're allowed to want. A kid calling your name across a yard. Small hands tugging your shirt. Someone who just assumes you'll be here tomorrow because you were here today.
I’m starting to understand why Connor is so protective of this place.
It's not just a business. It's a web. Everyone here is connected to everyone else, and those connections run on trust, trust that the crew knows what they're doing, that the equipment is maintained, that the guests are safe, that the people behind the scenes are exactly who they say they are.
And here I am…woven into the fabric under false pretenses.
Well, not exactly. Connor knows. Connor made the call.
But the rest of them—Graham, who just told me I'm good at something.
Rourke, who said I'm doing grand. Teagan, who let her son talk to me.
They don't know what I am. They don't know that the man hauling their equipment and teaching their guests has a felony assault conviction and a history of disappearing.
If it came out it would ripple outward the way things do in small towns.
It wouldn't just be my problem. Connor would have to answer for hiring me.
Parents would question whether their kids were safe around me.
The social media attention Sky's built for this place could flip from asset to weapon overnight.
Eco-tourism camp employs convicted felon in wilderness safety role.
I can see the headline now.
I watch the guest families crossing the yard toward their cabins after dinner, kids on shoulders, couples holding hands, and my stomach churns. These people trust this place with their vacations, their safety, their memories.
The crew trusts Connor, and Connor trusts me, and I make sure to remind myself of that every chance I get.
Later, I'm returning a set of splitting wedges to the equipment room—a converted shed behind the main demonstration area, with shelves and hooks covering every wall. It smells of iron and pine pitch and chainsaw oil.
I'm sorting the wedges when I hear the door.
Kaylee steps in, head down, reading something on her clipboard. She doesn't see me until she's three steps inside.
We both stop.
The room is maybe ten by twelve. With one door and minimal lighting. She's between me and the only exit, and I'm standing at the back wall by the shelving units, staring at her like a moron.
"Sorry," she says, quickly. "Didn't know anyone was in here. I need to restock the front desk first aid kit." She nods toward the upper shelf where the bulk supplies are kept: Band-Aids, gauze, tape, antiseptic...
She moves past me toward the shelves and reaches up, but the box she needs is pushed to the back of the top shelf, well past her fingertips.
"I can get that."
"I've got it." She stretches higher, rising onto her toes, and the shelf wobbles. The box starts sliding toward her.
I'm already there. And my hand goes up over her shoulder, palm flat against the box, and I ease it down. But the space is too narrow, and my chest presses against her back. The soft warmth of her body nearly has me groaning.
She goes still. I freeze with my arm still extended above her, hand on the box.
I can smell her shampoo…that same tropical sweetness I remember, and my body responds to it before my brain can intervene—a full-system recognition that makes my jeans tight. My breath catches against the back of her neck, and I see the goosebumps rise.
She doesn't turn around. I don't step back.
Three seconds. Maybe four. Long enough for my heartbeat to become the loudest thing in the room.
"The box," she says. Her voice is low and tight.
I slide it off the shelf and set it on the workbench beside us, and when I pull my arm back my knuckles brush her shoulder and she flinches.
"Thanks." She doesn't look at me. Just grabs the box off the workbench and holds it against her. "Could you not—" She stops. Regroups. "Never mind."
"Sorry, Kaylee." My voice sounds like someone stepped on it.
She walks out. The door doesn't slam, but it closes with a finality that's worse.
I stand there for a while after that.
I can still feel the warmth of her back against my chest and the room still smells like her underneath the oil and iron.
I close my eyes and press my palms against the workbench, breathing until my heartbeat stops going crazy.
Could you not.
She started a sentence she couldn't finish.
Could you not stand so close? Could you not smell like that? Could you not exist in my space and remind me of the night I'm trying to forget?
I don't know which version she meant. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them.
Maybe the truest version was similar to mine—could you not make me feel something when I've decided to feel nothing?
Whatever just happened in this room wasn't one-sided.
If she felt nothing, I could survive that. I could be the guy she hates and eventually forgets and we could orbit each other professionally for months, years, however long this lasts. I could bury what I feel and do my job and that would be enough.
But her breath caught. Her skin responded. She couldn't finish her sentence because the sentence was going to be honest, and she's not ready for honest yet.
And I have no right to want her honesty when I can't give it back.
I walk back to my cabin in the dark, the mountain air warm and still. The sky is absurd out here, with more stars than I've seen anywhere, the Milky Way smeared across the black as if someone spilled light.
From across the yard, I can see the glow of the fire pit where the crew gathers most evenings. Rourke's guitar drifts through the trees—something slow and Irish that makes the night feel older than it is. I hear Ewan's laugh, Imogen's voice, the low murmur of people who belong to each other.
And I catch a glimpse of Kaylee. She's sitting on one of the log benches, knees drawn up, a mug in her hands. Imogen's beside her, talking, and Kaylee's face is lit by the fire, and she's laughing. It reaches her eyes and brings out the dimple and makes her whole body shake.
She's part of the fabric of this place in a way I'm only beginning to understand…
the person who remembers every guest's name, who notices when someone's off, who holds the front end together with warmth and competence and a witty humor that’s surprising in the best way.
She didn't stumble into this community. She built herself into it, plank by plank, and it holds her now the way a good structure holds weight—naturally, completely, and without even thinking about it.
I want that.
The thought is dangerous and I let myself have it anyway, just for a second, standing in the dark where nobody can see my face. I want what she has. I want to be part of something that lasts. I want a cabin with a light on and people who expect me to show up tomorrow.
I want Kaylee to laugh like that when I'm sitting beside her. Like she did at the bar.
She won't even look at you, man. And she shouldn't. You lied to her and now you're standing in the shadows watching her…some sad country song come to life. Go to bed. Stop wanting things you have no right to want after you burned that bridge.
I turn toward my cabin and go inside and close the door. I sit on the edge of the bed in the dark for a minute, boots still on, listening to the muffled guitar through the walls.
My phone is on the nightstand. Her number's still in it. I scroll to it sometimes. Not to call, just to look at it. Proof that Saturday night happened. That she trusted me enough once to give me a piece of herself.
One week down.
I've earned a little ground with the crew, maybe. Enough to keep going at least.
But the ground between me and Kaylee hasn't moved an inch. She's protecting herself from me.
And I don’t blame her.