Chapter 5
FIVE
WARRICK
The sun is just starting to rise as I slip out of bed and head down to my garage to work out.
I don’t know why I’m up so early…no, that’s a lie.
I know exactly why I’m up so early. It’s because I’m eager to get back to the trailhead to see if Verity is there.
If she isn’t, I plan to wait for her at the ranger’s office tomorrow morning so I can follow her to wherever she’s stationed so I have a chance to talk to her again.
I met Clayton at the bar last night, and even though I tried to turn the conversation to the beautiful volunteer, he was determined to get laid and spent most of the time I was there flirting with the tourists until one of them invited him back to her hotel.
After that, I’d driven home and slipped into bed, falling easily to sleep, my dreams filled with visions of Verity.
According to Clayton, the volunteers pick up their free food and water at the office at eight a.m. and get assigned their jobs for the day. Which is why I’m sitting in my car at eight forty-five a.m. waiting for her to arrive.
Instead of arriving in a car or even on a bike, she’s on foot when I spot her walking toward the parking lot.
A surge of annoyance at her walking on the road fills me.
Has she walked here all the way from town?
The trailhead isn’t in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a good thirty-minute walk from the ranger’s station.
The roads are narrow and winding, and my team and I have attended far too many car accidents along this stretch of road, where motorists haven’t anticipated the curves or overshot the bends and ended up in a ditch, or worse.
My hand reaches for the door handle, ready to demand she not walk anywhere ever again, but I manage to stop myself before I do something stupid. Even though I want to, I can’t order around a girl I don’t know, no matter how important she already feels to me.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I exhale slowly, watching as she enters the parking lot and drops her backpack to the ground by a huge boulder. The need to go to her is almost overwhelming, but I stop myself from barreling over to her like a bull in a china shop and instead force myself to relax.
Once I’m calm and confident I can speak to her without demanding that she do as I say, I open my car door and slip out.
Lifting my backpack from the back seat, I fill it with some bottles of water and my ball cap, then make a big show of securing it on my shoulders as I wait for her to turn in my direction.
“Hey, you were here yesterday,” I say, keeping my tone light, like seeing her again is just a happy coincidence and not exactly what I’d planned. The moment she turns in my direction, I realize her face is still partially hidden by her cap.
“Oh, yeah, I was,” she says, her voice just as sweet as I remember it.
“Verity, right?” I ask, taking two steps toward her.
“Yep, that’s me,” she says, dropping her chin as she pulls paper maps from her backpack.
“I’m Warrick,” I tell her.
“Are you hiking the trail again, or are you headed somewhere different today?” she asks, not looking at me.
“I haven’t decided yet. What would you recommend?” I ask, trying to make her look at me, as my fingers twitch with the desire to rip the ball cap from her head so I can see her face.
“Oh, well, there’s a nice hike that goes from a little further up the mountain. You could drive up to the parking lot, or the route is outlined on the map I gave you yesterday if you still have it,” she says.
“I’m sorry, I’m not entirely sure where I put the map,” I admit, taking the opportunity to step closer until I’m on the verge of being too close to her.
“Oh, here you go,” she says, stepping back a pace and tipping her head back as she hands me a map, finally giving me a chance to actually look at her.
Just like I expected she would be, she’s fucking gorgeous. Her navy-blue eyes are shaded beneath inky-black lashes. Her skin is sun-tanned but still pale, and there are dark circles beneath her eyes that make her look older than I’m sure she is.
“How old are you?” I blurt.
“Err, what?” she squeaks.
“Sorry, I just thought you were older when I saw you yesterday.”
“I’m twenty,” she says.
My stomach sinks. I knew she was younger than me, but twenty is young. Too young. Fuck, so fucking young. But her eyes don’t hold the kind of youthful hopefulness that most kids her age do.
Honestly, she looks tired as fuck and not just physically exhausted, but drained, like the world has been sitting directly on her shoulders, and she’s crumbling beneath the weight.
“Fuck, amore mio, that’s…” I trail off, not bothering to say anything else, because honestly, even though she’s young, I can’t seem to find it in me to care.
She’s mine. Yesterday I wasn’t sure this connection I felt with her was romantic, but it is, and I’m more sure that she’s meant to be mine now that I’ve looked into her eyes than I ever have of anything ever before.
“I should.” She gestures to the maps in her hand. “Enjoy your hike.”
“You could join me,” I suggest, not wanting to leave her.
“I’m working.”
“But you finish at lunch, right? Let me take you for food, or coffee, or an ice cream.”
“Enjoy your hike, Warrick,” she says, sidestepping me and heading for a group of hikers I hadn’t noticed arriving.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath, wanting to stay but knowing I can’t.
Locking my car, I head down the trail, walking faster than I should to a place I have no interest in going.
For a moment I consider turning around and just hanging out in the parking lot, but I have no reason to be there, and I don’t want to freak her out or make her think I’m stalking her, so I keep moving forward but at a slower pace.
After about fifteen minutes, I reach a fork in the path.
Opening the map that’s still gripped tightly in my hand, I take a moment to figure out where I am.
The route I took yesterday, and the one the majority of the visiting hikers seem to take, continues off to the right.
The trail to the left ends at a glacial pool, but it’s a much longer hike, nearly thirty miles versus the ten miles to the vista point I saw yesterday when I was here.
I don’t really want to hike thirty miles, but I don’t want to walk the same route I took yesterday either, so I turn left, leaving the crowds on the trail behind me.
Within ten minutes, the noise of the other hikers has faded away, and all I can hear are the buzzing bees, the birds in the trees, and the constant hum of nature doing its thing all around me.
Pausing for a moment, I tip my head back and close my eyes, enjoying the loud silence. Inhaling, I exhale slowly, then blink my eyes open and try to decide what I should do to try to get to know Verity better.
Clearly asking her out was too forward. Or maybe it was demanding to know her age, then calling her young before asking her out that scared her off. Either way, I need a new approach that’s not going to freak her out or have her calling the cops.
Slowing my pace, I meander along the path, my thoughts focused on her and not the beauty around me. After I’ve walked for another fifteen minutes, I stop when something around me feels wrong. I don’t know what it is, but something seems out of place.
Turning in a circle, I almost miss it. Twenty yards off the trail, hidden in the trees, is a tent.
A tiny, green tent that’s clearly been there long enough for grass to have started growing around it.
The entrance is almost hidden behind the tall strands of grass that have woven their way around the ropes that are pinned to the forest floor.
Obviously, this isn’t the first tent I’ve come across in the woods.
In fact, last summer alone we attended dozens of small fires, started by campers lighting campfires out in the middle of the woods, completely oblivious to the danger until the trees around them were on fire, and we were dumping lake water from the sky to stop a wildfire from consuming the entire area.
Stepping off the trail, I move quietly toward the tent, not wanting to alert the inhabitant that I’m here, but there’s no sign of an irresponsible campfire here.
In fact, whoever owns this tent has clearly been here long enough to have dug out a fire pit, lining the sides with rocks to stop the fire from spreading along the dry grass.
There are no signs of trash or a mess or anything to suggest this belongs to a drunk or a drug user.
In fact, apart from the tent and the fire pit, there’s nothing else here.
While dispersed camping is allowed here, the fire pit is against the rules and completely prohibited, especially at this time of year.
Suddenly angry, I march forward, no longer trying to be quiet as I slap my hand against the canvas. “Hey, you in there?” I yell.
Waiting for the hatch to open, or for someone to speak, I pause, then slap my palm against the top of the tent again when no one appears. “I’m from the Rockhead Peak Fire Department, open up,” I call again louder. When there’s no response, I unzip the door a couple of inches and peer inside.
It’s a small tent, probably only big enough for two people at a push. Inside is a thin bedroll and an old, worn sleeping bag. Pushed in the far corner is a larger backpack that looks to be filled with stuff.
Unwilling to start rifling through someone’s personal belongings, I zip the door closed and instead pull out my cell, stepping back far enough that I can take pictures of the tent and the firepit.