Chapter 13
Adam
I’ve made two discoveries about Stevie today.
One, she smells like apples because of her Asian bug repellent.
Two, she’s been talking to her friends about me.
So far I know that she told them I invited her to observe rabbit burrows, and they’ve discussed whether it’s a date.
The whole thing reminds me of something Ruth would be involved in.
I hold back a growl as I lead Stevie deeper into the trees.
This is not a date. I don’t know what this is.
I wanted to spend time with her, so I invited her.
If this had been a date, I would’ve picked her up at her house.
I would’ve dressed up and taken her somewhere nice .
. . with people. I shudder. The best I could do tonight was leaving my ghillie suit at home.
Stevie grew quiet after she asked about the trail cameras, seeming to sense that we need to respect the rabbits’ turf without me having to tell her.
She knows how to blend into the woods, despite her fiery hair and pink cheeks.
We’ve reached the spot where I usually sit and observe.
The understory at the edge of the woods is thick with summer growth—vines, wildflowers, bushes, and grass. It’s perfect for blending in.
“This is where I’ve been watching for them,” I whisper, gesturing to the ground.
Stevie nods, lowering herself to the grass and folding her legs.
After seeing her walk barefoot through the mud this morning, I shouldn’t be surprised that she would jump right in.
She’s certainly in her element. The sun is setting through the trees at our backs, making her red hair glow and warming her freckled cheeks.
She’s ethereal, but I shouldn’t stare at her, right?
No, probably not.
I avert my gaze, sitting on the ground beside her.
“What do we do?” she says under her breath.
“We wait.” I still can’t look at her, and my whisper is barely audible. “We let everything forget we’re here. You’ll see.”
I hope she’ll see, anyway. I haven’t found them, but I’ve seen hints of rabbit burrows nearby. I’d love to get some photos tonight. I haven’t managed to do that yet.
Quiet surrounds us, and Stevie plucks a few tall blades of grass, braiding them together while we wait. I’m mesmerized, watching her petite fingers turn the grass into a bracelet, which she knots around her wrist.
It reminds me of something I learned to do for Ruth when she was a kid.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how I look at it, this grassy area is interspersed with invasive oxeye daisies.
I pinch a few flowers at the base of their stems one by one, gently and quietly—hopefully without Stevie noticing.
Ruth was a task master in her young age, so I have lots of practice at this. My fingers move solely from muscle memory, and I keep an eye on the brush around us while I work. Enough time passes that I’m nearly finished with my little project when there’s a soft rustle in the bushes close by.
I drop the flowers. Slowly, I work my phone free, gesturing toward the sound. Stevie’s eyebrows pull together, and she follows my line of sight.
The leaves shift again, and I hold my breath. I’d love some validation after all the effort I made last fall. I’ve been out here so many times, and Stevie and I have only been sitting here for twenty minutes or so. It would be a miracle if—
A fluffy brown kit emerges from a barely visible gap in the undergrowth, its brown eyes wide and alert.
Holy crap. The forest mascot has to be good luck. It’s the only reasonable explanation.
I sense Stevie’s mouth drop open in my peripheral vision. She looks at me with an expression that asks Is that what I think it is?
I nod.
Then another kit follows the first, and their voracious nibbling is audible even from this distance.
I open my camera app, zooming in on the rabbits and taking silent bursts of photos.
A third rabbit peeks out of the burrow—probably a doe, and likely the kits’ mother—and I want to whoop.
She hops cautiously behind her babies, stopping to munch on grass as she goes.
Stevie and I watch the rabbits weave through the grass, and I take as many photos as I can before they’re out of sight.
When the grass and leaves go still behind them, I release a slow breath. My work paid off. That was so unbelievably validating.
Stevie turns to face me. Her brown eyes are wide. “Oh my gosh,” she mouths. The tortured look in her eyes tells me she wants to squeal with delight, and the fact that she can’t is killing her.
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I got pictures, and they have a short memory.” The corner of my mouth hitches in a half smile. “Let it out.”
“We saw them!” she cheers, throwing her arms around my neck with a laugh. “That was amazing!”
Out of instinct, I curl my arms around Stevie’s back. “Wasn’t that great?” I ask with a chuckle against her hair, caught up in her contagious excitement. This isn’t what I expected her to do, but I’m not complaining.
Then, I’m aware of every soft inch of her pressed against me.
Her hair tickles my nose, and it’s silky against the corner of my mouth.
She breathes out, and I feel the warmth of it on the skin of my neck.
Her body shifts, her cheek rests on my shoulder, and my world tilts.
Everything is upside down—or maybe it’s rightside up for the first time in my life.
It’s like the needle on my compass has been spinning for thirty-four years, and it’s finally found north. Is Stevie my north? It shouldn’t be possible. I barely know her, but everything inside me wants to move toward her. Follow her. Get as close to her as possible.
Oh no. I sound obsessed. I can’t form a coherent thought. This is dangerous.
Then Stevie sighs against me again, and I freeze.
She has no idea what she’s doing to me.
She yanks herself away. “Sorry,” she says with a wrinkle of her freckled nose.
“I get a little too”—she pulls a face, sticking out her tongue and doing some kind of jazz hands—“when I’m excited about something.
” Pink washes over her cheeks. She’s still close enough that I can feel her warmth at my side.
I swallow. I can’t handle this proximity. It’s painful, but I force myself to pull away. “Uh, it’s fine.” I’m losing my ability to speak again. She does that to me sometimes, and it’s not good. “It’s okay.”
It’s okay?! It’s so much more than okay. It’s everything.
Come on, Adam. Be yourself. I gulp again, trying to form a word. Any word.
“Whatcha got there?” she asks, pointing at the grass between us.
My brow furrows in confusion, and I look down at the forgotten daisies I strung together a hundred hours ago—before the rabbits and before that world-changing hug.
I can’t seem to summon any words, but the sudden memory of a message she sent from my phone gives me an idea.
With a half smile, I weave the ends of the chain together and carefully settle the daisy crown on her ginger hair.
“Queen of the Forest,” I murmur, holding back a smile.
Stevie’s grin is wide as she holds the flowers in place. Then her eyes narrow. “I’ll allow it . . . peasant.”
“Ruth,” I practically holler in the cab of my truck on the drive home from the preserve. “I gotta big problem.”
“Adam?” There’s a toddler screeching on her end, and I realize I’ve caught her at a bad time. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll call you later.” Now I feel dumb. Did I seriously get right on the phone with my sister to talk about Stevie like some kind of teenager? “Go take care of Sammie. I’m good.”
“Adam Sandoval.” She’s using her Mom Voice on me now, and she sounds like our mother. “Out with it.”
My niece’s crying gives way to whimpering, and I feel less ridiculous now.
And I need Ruth’s input. In as few words as possible, I describe my day with Stevie from this morning’s hike to the text exchange—which Ruth makes me screenshot and send to her—to the hug tonight and our awkward goodbye in the parking area.
My sister screeches, yells at me, and makes a general disruption the entire time.
I throw my truck into park in front of my cabin and make my way up the wood steps as I wrap up the story. “So? What do I do about this?” I ask with a heavy exhale.
“About what?” Ruth asks, her voice full of laughter. “It seems like you know what you’re doing. Did you really make a daisy crown for her? Gah. Dead. I am dead.” She yells away from the phone, “Davis, how come you’ve never made a daisy crown for me?”
My brother-in-law mumbles something I can’t make out, and Ruth laughs.
“I’m not joking, Ruth.” I bypass my front door, heading straight for the hammock on my wide front porch. “What do I do about Stevie?”
Her only response is to sigh the way I’ve only heard her sigh when she watches Tangled with my niece. My sister loves love. Except this isn’t love. This is me losing my mind over a woman who has already lost her mind, a fact that only came to me as I watched her drive away.
“I can’t feel this way about a woman who . . . you know.” I can’t say it.
“Believes in Bigfoot?” Ruth finishes my sentence.
Yes. That. I sigh, sinking onto my hammock while my sister coos at her daughter.
“Did she really send you a screenshot of your texts?” Ruth snickers.
I throw my arm over my eyes. “You’ve seen them.”
“She has to be mortified. I would be.”
“I never thought I’d be the subject of a group text to determine the status of a relationship,” I mutter.
“Oh, my sweet, naive brother,” Ruth chides. “I assure you, you’ve been the subject of many, many group texts among women.”
“Yeah, okay.” I roll my eyes. “I think I’d know if I was.”
“You don’t. That’s exactly it.” Her pitying tone has me itching to push the red button to end the call. “You’re completely clueless when it comes to women, Adam. You don’t know how you affect them, or that you’re a giant catch. It’s adorable, but it’s a huge problem.”
“This is weird, Ruth.” I fidget, readjusting the phone against my ear. “I don’t want to talk about this with my sister.”
“Someone has to talk to you about it.” I can’t see it, but I know she just stomped a foot on the floor. “I want nieces and nephews.”
“And do you want their mother to be of sound mind?”
It’s quiet on my sister’s end now.
“Exactly,” I say with a sigh.
I’m surprised to find I want her to argue with me. I want Ruth to tell me it’s okay to be interested in someone who might not be all there upstairs, but she doesn’t. Of all of the times for my sister to be reasonable, she chooses this one.
What she does say surprises me even more. “I need to meet her.”