6. Blaze
Blaze
“I’m going to be home late tonight,” I tell Brooke Friday morning through the open door as she’s brushing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror.
“Oh, yeah?” she asks with interest. “You got a date?”
I flinch. I haven’t had a real date in a decade. “Work. I’m taking a guest on a night hike. Should be fun, though. It’s Shawn Camden.”
“’m I supposed to know who ’at is?” she asks, her words partially obscured by the hair clip she’s holding between her lips.
“He was on the Hartford Laurels. Shortstop.”
“A baseball player? Is he cute?”
“He’s—” Cute isn’t the right word. All told, he’s reassuringly normal looking.
Nice eyes, though. Appealing smile. And as long as you ignore his muscles and the size of his hands and the fact that he spent ten years playing for my favorite baseball team, he’s just a regular dude.
“—a guest,” I finish belatedly, because that’s all that matters, anyway.
“You are so boring,” she says with affection. “I’ll be late tonight, too, so feel free to stay out as late as you want with your baseball player.”
This hike with Shawn is not a date—it’s literally my job.
But I’m looking forward to it all the same.
Is it sad that these are my Friday night plans?
It’s not the work that bothers me—my job isn’t nine-to-five, and I wouldn’t want it to be.
But lately it’s becoming pretty clear that between work and building the house for Brooke, I haven’t left time for anything else.
I thought I was okay with that, but something about Shawn’s arrival at the retreat’s been making me wonder if I’m ready for a change.
Not that available guys are thick on the ground in these parts.
“So, tomorrow, we’re going to see the construction progress,” I call as I untangle Misty’s lead from where I tossed it on the kitchen table after getting home last night. I hang it up on the hook next to the fireplace.
Brooke joins me in the living room, her hair now neatly twisted away from her face.
She looks so much like Mom sometimes, when she’d pull her hair back and help Dad strip old furniture he’d picked up at yard sales.
He’d fix up tables and chairs, paint them, and sell them for a small profit.
Mom would playfully criticize his paint color choices, and they’d laugh together, heads bent toward each other.
My heart pinches a little at the intrusive memory.
“Yeah, sure, B. But it’s my day off, so I’m sleeping in.”
“We’ll go after breakfast,” I promise, putting away thoughts of our parents with a roll of my shoulders.
On our way to the retreat, Misty and I stop by the construction site and check in with Luis.
“We lost most of yesterday to the rain, but we should be able to catch up today. I might come in on Saturday, too,” he says.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“More rain in the forecast for next week. Let’s try to stay ahead of the weather.”
He’s the boss. “Sounds good.”
The kayaking expedition with two guests from Montreal goes well.
They’re fairly inexperienced, but they catch on quickly, and mostly I’m there for safety as they poke around the edges of the lake and explore the little feeder streams. It’s a gloriously clear day after yesterday’s rain, without a cloud in the sky.
It’s also fairly warm, which bodes well for the evening ahead.
It takes some time to coax Nolan into putting together a picnic dinner, but when I threaten to serve Shawn granola bars and powdered hot chocolate on the trail, he relents.
“Chicken sandwiches and pasta salad,” he decides, stroking his angular chin.
“And real hot chocolate?” I ask hopefully. Nolan’s homemade hot chocolate is legendary, but he only makes it seasonally, the bastard.
He consults his notes. “Cabin three likes salted caramel. I’ll do something with that.”
I resist complaining, because whatever Nolan comes up with will be delicious, even if it’s not what I’d order for myself. The guest comes first. “Thanks, man.”
I gather the rest of the essentials and pack a lightweight backpack.
We’ve got water, flashlights, headlamps, and emergency gear.
We shouldn’t need the whistles, compass, and emergency ponchos, but I pack them anyway.
A night hike might seem risky, but I’ve been up this trail about a thousand times at every hour of the day.
Still, I know better than to skip any basic safety precautions.
I knock on the door of cabin three at four o’clock. Shawn answers wearing joggers, sneakers, and a hoodie over a T-shirt. It’s the most casual outfit I’ve seen him in since he arrived. “Let me grab my jacket.”
I peek inside the cabin while he goes to the armchair and grabs a suitable nylon windbreaker.
There’s not much of him inside the room, which makes sense. But still, I’m oddly disappointed to find it so impersonal. Then I catch the green Laurels insignia on the black jacket he ties around his waist. It’s the first overt nod I’ve seen him make to the team.
“All set? Want me to carry that?” He points to the backpack over my shoulders.
“You can take a turn later,” I say. “Besides, we’re driving to the trailhead. Misty’s in the truck already.”
“How long have you had her?” he asks, making small talk as we walk back to where my truck is parked at the boathouse.
“She’s six going on seven. I got her when my sister left for college. The house was too quiet.”
It’s clear he doesn’t know what to say to that. But by then we’re at the truck, and Misty barks excitedly when she sees I’ve brought company.
“She loves people,” I warn him. “Should have asked if you were allergic.”
“Not allergic,” he says.
I open the passenger door, but Misty stays put in the cab, wagging her tail and sniffing the air as Shawn comes close and offers her a hand to smell.
“She’s beautiful.” He pets the soft fur on the top of her head and climbs in next to her without complaint.
I get behind the wheel and try not to notice how good he looks in my truck with my dog practically sitting on his lap.
It’s a short drive down the main road toward town, but before we get there, we turn off and park at the trailhead. No one else is here on a late September Friday afternoon. The shadows have lengthened, but it won’t be full dark for a while yet.
I clip the lead to Misty’s collar and grab the backpack. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Shawn says.
“This is a well-marked trail,” I say as we start up the pine-needle strewn path with its initially easy incline. “Orange blazes.” I point out the pumpkin-orange rectangle painted onto the bark of a white pine a few dozen feet ahead of us. “Do you know how to read them?”
“You better remind me,” he says with a self-deprecating twist of his lips.
I explain that the markers show which way to go in case of a fork in the trail, where two blazes indicate direction depending on if the top one is to the left or right of the bottom one.
“Here.” I hand him a silver whistle on a thin cord. “In case we get separated. Just blow.”
He drops the cord over his head, fingering the whistle at his sternum. “I feel like Mr. Munsen.”
“Who now?”
“My eighth-grade gym teacher. Nothing that man loved more than blowing a whistle.”
I chuckle. “Well, only use it in case of emergency, okay?”
We walk a little more, me and Misty leading as the trail gets steeper.
“What else should I know for safety?” Shawn asks, not sounding out of breath even as I’m feeling the climb. “I mean, like, there aren’t bears or anything?”
There’s a thread of genuine worry in his question. I glance back to see him looking around the woods as if expecting a furry, clawed monster to emerge out of the undergrowth.
“There are all kinds of critters in these woods,” I say. “But if we spot anything, we’ll just give them space. They don’t want to mess with us, and we don’t want to mess with them.”
“Okay.” He sounds more worried than before.
“Seriously, Shawn, bears are much more common north of here.”
“You ever see one on this trail?”
“Once. And I waited, and she moved on. Not a big deal, I promise.” I’m not worried about running into a bear tonight, but maybe it’s best to change the subject. I decide it’s time to confess. “So, I gotta tell you—I’m a big baseball fan.”
“Yeah?”
“The Laurels are my favorite team. Really shitty of them to let you go midseason.”
He lets out an audible huff of air at that but doesn’t comment except to say, “Isn’t everyone up here Boston fans?”
“Mostly,” I confirm. “But I come by it honestly—my dad was born in Hartford. His team was the Laurels.”
“That’s cool,” he says, kind of quietly. “Was?”
“He passed.” That’s all I usually say, but then something moves me to elaborate. “He and my mom—they were in a small plane crash about ten years ago on their way to Nova Scotia for their anniversary.”
The crunch of his steps on the forest floor stops for a brief moment, then starts up again. “I’m so sorry,” he says.
I shrug without looking back.
“How old were you?”
“Nineteen. My sister was fifteen.”
“And you took care of her.” It’s not a question.
It never was for me either.
“Yes. Now she’s a dental hygienist. I’m building a house for her on the other side of the lake.”
“What—you’re a carpenter, too?”
“Oh, no. I’m not, like, literally building the house.
” If my dad were alive, maybe we could have tackled the job together.
But I never paid much attention when he tried to teach me.
“My contractor and his crew are running the show. We’re hoping to get the frame built and roof on before it gets too cold, but it’s been slow going lately.
They’re short a man or two.” I’m not sure why I’m sharing all this with him, except that he’s easy to talk to.
I have a lot of acquaintances, but not a lot of people to confide in.
“I worked construction a couple of winters when I was in the minors. But those were Florida winters. I remember it was hard to keep a full crew.”
“You worked construction after you were drafted?”