Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Brighton
On Wednesday, I told Bailey to be ready about an hour and a half before our usual run time. Since she’d stopped resisting everything I said, she was ready when I arrived.
“Ugh, I really need this run,” she said as she climbed into the passenger seat. “These last few days have been super stressful.” She looked over at me with a grin as she clicked her seatbelt into the lock. “But I did get some good news yesterday. My hearing was scheduled.”
“Cool. For when?”
“June 16th.”
It was a little more than a month out, which gave me plenty of time to adjust my schedule accordingly. Bailey didn’t know it yet, but I was going to Chicago with her when she went. “Cool.”
I could feel the heat of her gaze on the side of my head while I kept my eyes on the road. “What do you mean cool?” she finally questioned.
I chuckled lightly. “I mean cool. That’s enough time for me to rearrange whatever needs rearranging in my schedule so I can be there.”
“Be where?”
“Stop playin’. Chicago. I know you don’t think I’m letting you go there alone. Especially after a senior citizen had to pull his heat to make your man behave.”
“I’m not going alone. My mom and I’m sure Bayliss are going with me.”
“And Bright.”
She huffed out a sigh. “Bright . . .”
“I’m not listening to nothing you’re saying, Bae-Bae. I’m going. That’s it.”
“That’s it? Bayliss is kinda my step-daddy, not you.”
“You want me to get him on the phone?”
Her folding her arms across her chest with an attitude gave me my answer. She knew Bayliss would be on my side.
We rode in silence for a little while until she broke it. “Where are we going? Are we going to Chicago right now? This is nowhere near the high school.”
Her sarcasm made me snigger. “I wanna show you something. Sit back and relax, because it’s gonna take a minute to get there.”
Once again, the vehicle fell into a companionable silence as I started the scenic drive through the Cascada Noir National Park.
“Oh my gosh.” She looked out the window. “Where are we? Where are we going?”
“We’re on Road to the Angels of God, and we’re heading into Cascada Noir.”
“Doesn’t the lodge back up to Cascada Noir? Couldn’t we have just left from the lodge?”
“Yeah, the lodge does back up to an area of the park, and yes, we could’ve left from the lodge if we wanted to hike.
I wanted to drive. You get to see a different part of the park when you drive.
Neither of us are skilled enough to hike up this far.
I’m not even sure Beck is. Anyway, from this road I’m hoping you’ll get to see some wildlife from the safety of the truck.
” No sooner than the words left my mouth did I spot something on the side of the mountain.
“Look.” I pointed out of her window. “There’s bighorn sheep. ”
She gasped and fumbled for her phone. “Wow.” She held the phone up and snapped some pictures. She pointed a slim finger. “Are those glaciers?”
“They are the very tops of glaciers.”
“It’s beautiful. Riding is definitely better than hiking. Plus we have air conditioning.”
I chuckled.
As we continued to drive, I pointed out a herd of elk, some mountain goats, and even a lone black bear. We stopped at a pull-out on the side of the road. I pointed out pristine alpine lakes, mountain peaks, and the forest.
We headed back to my truck and continued up the road that followed the incline of the mountains.
It took us a little more than an hour to make the fifty mile drive because of the combination of the stop to see the vistas and the traffic.
But soon enough, I pulled the pick-up into the visitor center’s parking lot.
We both used the bathroom and washed our hands before meeting back up at the truck.
“I brought breakfast.”
We set up the tailgate. Bailey laid down the plaid tablecloth I brought with me.
She set up the breakfast sandwiches, French toast sticks, syrup, and sausages.
I set out bottles of water and poured hot tea into two mugs, since the spring mornings in Jackson Falls were in the mid-fifties.
And it was noticeably cooler than that up in the mountains.
“Did Brewer make these sandwiches?” she teased, hand covering her mouth to hide the food inside.
“You already know.”
“Thanks for thinking of this,” she said after she swallowed. “It’s so peaceful up here.” She paused. “It’s peaceful in Oregon period. But it’s extra peaceful up here. And the sights are so gorgeous and the air is so . . . I don’t know, clean. I’m really gonna miss it here.”
“You’re gonna be missed. I hate that you feel like you have to go back.”
She heaved out a sigh. “So do I. Maybe something will turn around, and I’ll be able to stay.
First things first though, I need to finalize the divorce.
Then I need to see if I can even stomach returning to work.
I talk a lot about how much my job pays.
How it’s the main thing keeping me tethered to Chicago.
But the truth is that the last time I went to work, I basically got physically ill.
I have to see if that was about work or if it was about the headspace I was in at the time. ”
I nodded because that made total sense.
We finished up eating and packed the truck back up. Bailey decided that she wasn’t ready to head back to town. Instead we took a short hike. I was shocked when she rested her hand in mine, but I didn’t speak on it.
“Thank you for being so, I don’t know, Bright.
You’re just cool. You’re so laid-back. You make my nervous system calm down.
” She glanced over at me with a smirk. “I don’t know how you do that, because your energy is always so high.
I always feel like you’re one minute away from bouncing off the walls, but somehow you’re calming to me. ”
I gave her hand a firm squeeze. We walked for a little bit before I spoke.
“Say, take some pictures. Whenever I come up here, which isn’t often at all, I like to get some good shots.
I frame them and use them as artwork in the homes I build.
A lot of times, the buyers ask if they can purchase them with the house. ”
“For real?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe somebody will buy yours and you’ll get to leave a little bit of yourself out here in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Quit bringing it up, Bright.”
“Sorry.”
“But I will see if I can get some good pictures.” We quietly snapped away on our phones. “You know what?” she asked me.
“What’s up?”
“You have so many layers.”
I laughed aloud.
“No, for real. You come off as this, I don’t know, good time guy. Like you’re silly and personable. But beneath all that you’re a really good dude. I mean, you have one-night stands with unsuspecting lodge guests and send them back home to their men the next day—”
“They ain’t unsuspecting. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they know exactly what they want. Mountain dick.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Mountain dick? Oh my word. I can’t believe you said that.” Chuckles continued to spill from her juicy lips.
Bailey was so pretty. And when she let herself be free, she was even prettier.
“I’m calling it how I see it. They come here with fantasies of getting knocked down by a big burly dude wearing a cowboy hat or a flannel shirt. I help them have a story to tell when they get home.”
She waved me off. “Whatever, Bright.”
We took more pictures. The day was beautiful. The sky was a cerulean blue and the clouds that dotted the horizon really did look like cotton balls.
“I never knew you had a love for nature. I feel like you hide it.”
“I don’t. I’m a born and bred nature boy, but Beck’s more the nature-head.
You grew up with three sisters. I’m sure y’all had roles that you played.
Beck’s the outdoorsy one. Bayliss is the genius brother.
Brew’s the career-driven one, and I’m the builder.
I love working with my hands. And I’m the dreamer. I like to imagine and invent.”
“What do you dream about?”
It took everything in me not to respond with her name. Lately, the thing I daydreamed about the most was Bailey Kingsley-Eckhart.
We headed back down the mountain around lunchtime, both because we were hungry and because she had plans to meet up with her sisters for lunch.
When I pulled to a stop in front of the house, I turned to her. “What’re you doing for dinner?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“Can I take you on a date?”
“We just came from a date,” she joked.
“I mean a real date. A date-date.”
Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. I didn’t back down. I waited patiently.
“Uh, I probably shouldn’t be going on dates. I’m still married,” she finally responded.
“Is that a no?”
She seemed to consider for a long few moments. “Okay.” Her eyes were wide as her voice came out in a whisper.
“Dress for a date, Bae-Bae. I love when you do your natural thing. The whole no makeup look with the ponytail. You’re gorgeous. But tonight, I want to take Bailey Kingsley on a date. I want the woman you were before life started life-ing. Can I get that?”
She started nodding before she spoke. “You could, if I had some dress-up clothes with me. Unfortunately, I don’t.”
“You need me to give you a card?”
“Uh . . .”
While she was deciding, I shot a text to my sister-in-law, Alisha. I trusted that she would handle everything. “I’ll pick you up at 7:45.”