Chapter 2 Evan
EVAN
Isaw her before she saw me.
Eight o’clock on the dot. The trailhead parking lot at the end of Creekside Road was filling up with the usual festival crowd—couples in matching hiking boots, a few retirees with expensive cameras, a family with two kids who’d be asking to turn around within the first half mile.
I’d done this tour a dozen times already this season. I could run it in my sleep.
But Paisley walked up from the gravel shoulder where she must have parked, and something in my chest shifted like a fault line giving way.
She’d pulled her hair back this morning. Yesterday, at the Pancake House, it had been down—dark and a little wild around her shoulders—and I’d been distracted enough by her maps and her attitude that I hadn’t fully processed the rest of her.
I was processing it now.
The way her hiking pants fit. The way she moved—efficient, purposeful, no wasted energy. She had a daypack that looked like it had actually seen trails, not something bought for the occasion, and her boots were broken in. Scuffed in the right places. Trusted.
She spotted me near the trailhead sign and raised a hand. Not a wave, exactly. More of an acknowledgment. Like we had an understanding.
We did. I just wasn’t sure she knew the full extent of it yet.
“Morning,” I said as she joined the group. “Glad you made it.”
“You said eight o’clock. It’s eight o’clock.” She adjusted her pack strap and glanced at the other hikers milling around. “How many in the group?”
“Fourteen, counting you.” I checked my clipboard, which was mostly for show. I kept the real information in my head. “We’ll be on the Laurel Creek Loop. About four miles, moderate terrain. Lots of stops for wildflower identification.”
She nodded, but I could see the gears turning. She was already calculating which scavenger hunt species she might find on this route. I liked that about her—the way her mind was always two steps ahead, even when she was standing still.
I gave my usual welcome speech to the group, covering trail safety, pace expectations, and what to do if they fell behind.
Paisley listened without fidgeting, which put her ahead of about half the group already.
The dad with two kids was checking his phone.
One of the retirees was adjusting her camera lens.
A young couple near the back was taking a selfie with the trailhead sign.
Paisley was watching me, and I was trying very hard not to look like I’d noticed.
We started up the trail in a loose single file, and I fell into the rhythm I always did on these tours—pointing out species, answering questions, keeping an eye on the slower hikers.
The Laurel Creek Loop was one of the town’s prettier routes.
This time of year, the rhododendron was just starting to bloom along the creek banks, and there were patches of trillium in the shaded hollows that made people pull out their phones every ten feet.
Paisley didn’t pull out her phone for the trillium. I assumed she’d already checked those off.
She hung near the middle of the group for the first twenty minutes, which I figured was intentional.
She didn’t want to look like she was glued to the guide.
But the trail narrowed at the first creek crossing, and everyone bunched up while I helped the family across the stepping stones.
Paisley crossed on her own—quick and sure-footed—and ended up beside me on the other side.
“There’s jack-in-the-pulpit along this stretch,” I said, keeping my voice low enough that it was just between us. “Under the hemlocks on the left. Not a scavenger hunt species, but if you’ve never seen them in person, they’re worth a look.”
She glanced where I’d indicated, and her expression changed—a quick flash of genuine delight before she caught herself and went neutral again. “I’ve only seen them in field guides.”
“They’re weird little things. The spathe curls over like a hood. Kids around here call them preacher plants because it looks like someone standing at a pulpit.”
“That’s actually kind of perfect.”
She crouched near a cluster and studied them without touching, and I watched her take a mental snapshot instead of a phone one. Most people on these tours experienced the wildflowers through a screen. She was experiencing them through her eyes, filing them away somewhere I couldn’t see.
I should have been moving the group along. Instead, I crouched next to her and pointed to the base of the plant.
“See the stripes? That’s how you tell a healthy one. If the stripes are faded, the soil’s too acidic.”
She looked at me sideways. “You really love this.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway.
“I spent ten years selling hiking boots and kayaks to people who were going out and doing the things I wanted to do. One day my buddy Dash and I looked at each other across the sales floor, and he said, ‘This is stupid.’ Six months later we quit, moved out here, and started the outfitting company with another guy who worked with us.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Well, not just like that. There was a lot of eating ramen and sleeping on air mattresses and wondering if we’d made a massive mistake. But yeah. We knew it was right.”
She stood, brushing dirt off her knees. The group was pulling ahead of us, and I could hear one of the retirees calling back, asking about a plant she’d spotted. I should go.
I didn’t go.
“Must be nice,” Paisley said. “Knowing something’s right and just doing it.”
There was something underneath those words—a weight I couldn’t quite identify.
It made me want to ask her what she was carrying.
Not the daypack. The other thing. The reason she was up at seven in the morning with trail maps spread across my booth, chasing a scavenger hunt like her life depended on it.
“It’s terrifying, actually,” I said. “But I’ve never regretted it.”
She held my gaze for a beat longer than casual, and I felt it in my sternum. Not a flutter. Something heavier. More structural. Like a door closing softly and locking from the inside.
I’d spent twelve years dating women who were perfectly fine.
Nice women. Attractive women. Women who laughed at my jokes and looked good across a dinner table and never once made me feel like the ground had shifted under my feet.
I’d started to think that was just how it worked—that the seismic, everything-changes feeling was something poets made up and real people settled for something quieter.
Paisley had been in my life for one day, and I was already rearranging the furniture in my head to make room for her.
Fuck.
I caught up to the group and spent the next stretch being a professional—pointing out mountain laurel buds that would bloom in another two weeks and explaining the difference between native azaleas and the invasive variety.
But I kept track of where Paisley was at all times, a constant awareness at the edge of my attention, like knowing where north was without checking a compass.
At the halfway point, I stopped the group at an overlook where the valley opened up below us and the mountains layered out in shades of blue and green. This was the spot where I usually lost people for ten minutes to photos and snacks.
Today, it worked in my favor. While the group scattered to find the best angles, Paisley came to stand beside me at the railing.
“That ridge.” She pointed southeast. “Is that where the flame azalea grows? The higher-elevation variety?”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I’ve done nothing but homework for three weeks.
” She lowered her hand and leaned against the railing.
“I researched this festival like it was a final exam. Every trail, every species list, every blog post from previous years. I know which wildflowers are on the scavenger hunt checklist, where they’ve been spotted before, and which ones nobody’s been able to find in the last two festivals. ”
“The pink lady’s slipper,” I said.
Her head turned sharply. “You know about it?”
“I know where it grows.”
I didn’t say anything else. Her eyes widened a fraction, and I could see her brain working—calculating what that information was worth, whether I’d share it, what she’d have to give up to get it.
“I also know it’s in a location that would be genuinely dangerous for someone hiking alone,” I added. “Loose scree. No trail. And a ridgeline that drops off hard on the west side.”
“I’m not afraid of a hard hike.”
“I know you’re not. That’s what worries me.”
She studied my face like she was trying to determine whether I was patronizing her or being honest. I held still and let her look.
After a moment, something in her expression shifted. Softened.
“Why do you care?” she asked quietly. “You don’t even know me.”
That was the part I couldn’t explain yet—not without sounding like I’d lost my mind. I’d known this woman for less than a day. I had no business caring whether she scrambled up a dangerous ridgeline alone.
Except I did.
I cared with a certainty that felt older than eighteen hours. Older than yesterday’s booth conversation. As if something in me had been waiting and finally recognized what it was looking for.
“The tour finishes in about an hour,” I said instead. “After that, I promised you a bypass around the Blackrock washout. If you want, I can show you some of the harder species locations while we’re up there. The safe routes to reach them.”
“And the pink lady’s slipper?”
I looked at her—really looked at her—standing at the railing with the valley behind her and sunlight catching the flyaway strands of hair at her temples. The wind lifted a piece free, and she brushed it back absently.
I wanted to tell her I’d show her every wildflower on this mountain. I’d show her the hidden meadow I’d never taken anyone to. I’d show her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, for as long as she’d let me.
“Let’s start with Blackrock,” I said. “And see where it goes from there.”
She turned back to the view, and I watched her profile against the skyline—the set of her jaw, the focus already shifting inward as she recalculated her route.
I didn’t know what she was chasing. But I knew, with the kind of certainty that settles into your bones and doesn’t leave, that I wanted to be next to her while she chased it.
The group was reassembling behind us. I heard the dad calling for his kids. Heard one of the retirees asking about lunch options back in town. Normal tour sounds. Normal morning.
Nothing about this morning was normal.
Not for me.
Not anymore.