Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Donovan
I need to start wearing a sign around my neck. Or tattoo something on my arm so I can simply hold it up when needed. I’m getting sick and tired of having to say it over and over, especially when no one seems to listen. It’s not that hard of a concept:
Not interested in dating.
“Really,” I say, grateful to have an armful of boat paddles between me and Reese.
If I need to, I can drop all but one and use that to whack him in the side of the head.
Though, I don’t think my boss would approve of that particular tactic, and I don’t like to resort to violence if I can help it.
“I’m flattered, but I don’t date customers.
” Or anyone, I add silently. I’ve come to learn that if I say that part out loud, some men tend to think it’s an invitation to try harder to change my ways.
You just haven’t found the right man. No woman wants to be alone forever.
That first part is right, but I don’t think there’s a man in the world who fits my life, and I love my life. As for being alone? That’s my default setting, one I willingly choose day after day.
Reese tilts his head, eyebrows low and jaw tight, like he can’t comprehend why anyone would say no to a date with him.
I get it—he has a good face, and he probably knows his way around a gym.
Objectively, he’s a good-looking guy. But that might be the only thing going for him, and after spending four days with him yammering about his tech startup, I am ready for him to get back to his supposedly exciting life.
“Come on, Vanny,” he says, pressing his palms together and making what I think is supposed to be a pleading face, lower lip pushed out.
The nickname alone is enough to convince me that saying no was the right choice, but his expression isn’t doing him any favors either.
Even after finagling his way into my boat the entire week on the river instead of switching it up like he should have, he clearly doesn’t know anything about me.
“You can make an exception just once, can’t you? ”
Shaking my head, I wrap my arms more tightly around the paddles and lift them up so I can get back to work. “Sorry, but no. Hard and fast rule.”
“Let me help you.” Before I can tell him no, Reese bends down and tries to take the paddles from me.
It’s a sweet gesture, I guess, but he should have been out of the pavilion with the rest of the guests an hour ago and is really getting on my nerves.
That’s why I only feel a little bad when his assistance makes me stumble and hit him in the face with the blades, knocking him over.
“Oh! I am so sorry!” I’m only a little sorry, and it takes everything in me not to smirk when Reese lands in the dirt, gripping his nose.
“Donovan!”
I wince at the growled shout that comes from the direction of the office. Taking a second to fix my expression while Reese checks his nose to see if he’s bleeding—he didn’t get hit hard enough for that—I turn only when I’m sure I look moderately repentant. “Spencer.”
My boss—and my cousin—has that look on his face that says he’s at the end of his rope, and my little accident isn’t enough to frazzle him like this.
There’s a high chance this incident is the straw to break the camel’s back, which isn’t a good sign.
A stressed Spencer is a dangerous Spencer.
“Office,” he snaps, then helps Reese to his feet, apologizing profusely while walking him out of the boat yard and into the parking lot.
I don’t especially want to sit in one of the hard chairs in the office and wait to be scolded for something that wasn’t my fault, so I grab hold of the paddles again and bring them to the back of the yard to put them away.
I’m hanging the last paddle on the pegs on the wall of the pavilion when Spencer finds me again. “Donovan, we’re not even two months into the season.”
“I know,” I say as brightly as I can. Most of the equipment has been put away already, but there are a few buckled straps still lying around.
I pick one up and start daisy chaining, twisting it so it’s short enough to hang on the wall with the others.
“And the water was great this week, so I think we’re in for a good summer. ”
“Don’t you think it’s a little early to be assaulting customers?”
“It was an accident.”
“Donovan.”
At the sound of Spencer’s sigh, I turn and fold my arms. If I use the nickname I gave him when we were kids, maybe it’ll help him believe me. “It was an accident, Dink. Besides, he was asking for it.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t just hit people when they get on your nerves!”
It’s not like I’ve made it a habit of resorting to violence, though this isn’t the first time a guy has ignored my well-set boundaries. “Someone needs to teach the guy what the word ‘no’ means.”
Spencer swears, a rarity for him, and runs a hand through his hair. “Did he do anything to you?” he asks, softer now.
Spencer and I don’t always get along, but I can count on him to look after me. It’s what cousins are for, or so our grandpa has been telling us for years.
I shake my head. “No. But he wanted a date and wasn’t giving up.”
“Why does this always happen to you?”
“I’m going to do my best not to see an insult in that.”
Groaning, he sits on the nearest raft, sinking into it because it isn’t fully inflated.
We’ll pump it up before next week’s trip, but it’s better for the boats to be loose when not in use.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. Farah is cute too, but she doesn’t have guys drooling over her all summer. ”
I snicker and plop onto the boat next to him.
“She does,” I argue, “but she’s more of a flirt than I am, so they are usually satisfied by the end of a trip.
” Farah is by far my favorite guide to work with, in part because she’s the only other woman working for Red Earth River Tours but also because she tends to draw more of the men’s attention and inadvertently give me some peace when single guys book our trips.
Spencer lifts an eyebrow. “So what’s your deal? You don’t flirt?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“I figured you would be too intimidating for guys to go after in the first place.”
My smile is one of pride and makes Spencer roll his eyes. “You’re not wrong,” I tell him. “But intimidation is a double-edged sword. They’re terrified of me, but they also can’t resist the ego boost that would come from winning a gal like me.” As if to prove my point, I hold my arms up and flex.
Spencer shoves my arm down, probably because he’s jealous.
He may own the whitewater company I work for, but he’s never been much of an athlete.
He’s way better in the office than on the oars of a boat, which I’m totally fine with because it means he deals with all the paperwork so I can focus on leading the tours down river.
We’re quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of frogs and crickets take up their evening vigil. I love summer nights in Southern Utah, and it’s always nice to be back after winters away. It’s calm here, and the smell of the rafts and wet equipment is the smell of home.
“You’re worried about something,” I say eventually. It’s out of the blue, but Spencer likely won’t be surprised by the comment. We’ve worked together for fifteen years now and spent enough time on rivers and hiking that we can read each other pretty well.
He sighs, leaning back until he’s stretched out along the tube of the raft. “We don’t have enough trips booked.”
I gather my hair over my shoulder and start braiding, a nervous habit. “You say that every year.”
“This year’s worse.”
“How much worse?”
Lifting his head, he grimaces at me. “Bad enough that I won’t be able to keep the property unless we fully book out the rest of the summer, and there’s nowhere in town big enough that we can afford.”
My fingers slow to a stop halfway through my braid, and I look around the yard and the giant pavilion that protects the boats and gear from the elements.
Red Earth has been operating from this spot in Moab for decades, our grandpa’s pride and joy before he passed it on to Spencer.
“I thought Pops owned the land outright.”
“He did,” Spencer says with a groan, “but I had to take out a loan when we replaced the boats a few years back, and the property was the only collateral I had.”
I wrinkle my nose. “That was a stupid idea.”
“I know! But it’s the only thing that saved the company, and I can’t change it now. But unless we get more trips booked, we might be toast. I still haven’t paid off the loan.”
“Which means you’ll lose the boats too,” I guess, wishing our old Avons had lasted a few more years. But some of the rafts were forty years old and had more patches than solid material, so new boats were a necessity.
As my stomach ties itself in a knot far tighter than the half a braid I’ve twisted my hair into, I look around the space again.
I have so many memories here. Utah is full of whitewater companies, so it’s not like I couldn’t find a job somewhere else with my years of experience, but how could I abandon Red Earth River Tours?
This place changed my life when I was a teen.
It saved my life.
“So what are we going to do?” I ask, bouncing where I sit so Spencer bounces with me.
He glares at me and sits up. “I don’t know what we can do. I’ve already spent more on advertising than I’m comfortable with, but we’re too small of a company to get much notice.”
Commercial rafting has been a staple of Moab’s tourism for decades, and we’ve always been one of the highest rated companies. But as the modern world evolves, people’s comfort zones get smaller. Even some of the big companies have had harder years, but we seem to have them more and more often.
We need something to set us apart. To catch attention. I have no idea what that something is, but I’m sure we can think of something.
“Don’t panic yet,” I tell Spencer, patting his arm. “Maybe this summer will surprise you with some last-minute bookings.”
He grunts, apparently not believing me, and I know better than to try to keep convincing him. For how much he has followed in our grandpa’s footsteps, he never seemed to pick up on Pops’s optimistic side. Spencer is a worrier.
“Have you talked to Pops about this?” I ask warily.
Shaking his head, he pushes himself up to his feet and starts shuffling back to the office. “No, and don’t you dare tell him. I shouldn’t have told you in the first place. I’ll figure it out.”
I clench my jaw, waiting until Spencer shuts the door behind him before I stand and head to the back of the yard and my above-garage apartment.
Spencer says he’ll figure it out, and he has the Tate stubbornness, the one thing all of us grandkids inherited from Pops without fail.
I know better than anyone how hard it is to accept help.
But Spencer might be out of his depth with this one, and I have no way to help him. I hate that.
As night falls thick and fast around me, I climb the steps to my summer home and don’t bother flipping on the light when I get inside.
The space is small enough that I know my way around by feel, and after a week on the river I want nothing more than to rinse off and collapse into bed.
This week was especially exhausting, and I can’t imagine how it would have been with a six-day trip instead of the four days I had to endure with Reese.
Most guests become dear friends over the course of my time with them, but every once in a while there are guys like Reese who catch a glimpse of a part of me that I’ve long tried to bury and want more.
Next week I’m doing an all ages Desolation Canyon trip, but after that is an adult-only six-day stretch through Cataract Canyon.
That one is fully booked by an almost equal number of men and women, which likely means a presumptive man or two will make a move.
I don’t want attention, and I do my best to make that clear. Somehow, there’s always someone who takes that as a challenge.
“Goody,” I mutter as I step into the dark shower, not bothering to wait for the water to warm up.
All I need is to rinse off before I go to bed, and I just spent four days bathing in the chilly water of the Colorado River.
I can handle a slightly cool shower, especially when Spencer’s news has left me exhausted.
I can’t lose Red Earth. Working here is the only life I know. The only one worth living, anyway.
Clean enough, I towel dry and fumble through my drawers for clean clothes, and then I’m in bed, falling asleep within seconds of hitting the mattress. But I dream of self-important men chasing me like some trophy while I have nowhere to hide, and nothing about my sleep is restful.