“How much further?” Riley asked.

“I thought you liked to hike.”

She looked around the trail they were on. Since they’d already checked out of their hotel and had to drive home afterward, she didn’t want to overexert herself and get too hot and sticky…not to mention stinky. They were still in a new relationship in her mind, and he didn’t need to see her looking that nasty just yet.

“I do. I’m just getting hungry,” she said.

“You had a huge breakfast.”

“I know. But we’re burning a lot of calories right now. Reach into my backpack and grab me a granola bar, would you?”

She felt him moving around in there, then hand it over. She ripped the wrapper off and took a bite and held it out to him.

“Are you done with it?” he asked.

“No. I’m just sharing,” she said.

“Want me to bite the other end?”

“What? No. If you don’t want any, just say so.”

He took a bite, then grinned at her. “There was a time you wouldn’t share a brownie with me after I bit it. Or you had to bite an area that my mouth hadn’t touched.”

She laughed, surprised he remembered that. Then again, he seemed to remember everything. “That was before.”

“Before what?” he asked, tugging on her ponytail and pulling her in for a kiss. “Before we started to have dirty hotel sex?”

He was so adorable at times. Had a sense of humor that she’d never experienced with another man. “Did I really say that Friday night?”

“You did. I thought you remembered everything.”

“I remember the important parts. Not sure talking about germs and my naked body touching them was important, though.”

“Everything about our time together is important.”

She eyed him for a minute, grinned, then started to walk some more on the path. He was so confusing at times to her. He was this big tough chief of police. A laid-back guy that handled neighborhood disturbances with ease, and took bigger men down in a flash when he had to. He could be tender and rough, sweet and hard. He had it all and none of it seemed like it should blend, yet it all mixed together so smoothly.

There was no one like him on the face of the earth. She was positive of it.

“Does this trail take us in a circle, or will we have to turn around and come back down?” she asked.

She didn’t want to do the guided tour, didn’t want to be held up by other people. Instead, they’d decided on a smaller trail that they could start and stop at their own pace, and still get home by early afternoon.

They’d passed a few hikers already, and even more passed them. For the moment they were alone, but could hear voices, too. It was both comforting to be alone but secure knowing they really weren’t. Then again, she had Trevor and that was all the security she needed.

“Either, or both. We can go to the top and come down this same path, or take another path that brings us around.”

“Okay. Once we get to the top, we can decide.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

They walked another twenty minutes in silence. Birds and distant voices could be heard, but nothing more than their feet in the leaves or crunching on branches. What might seem eerie to some, especially considering what was going on in her life, felt oddly natural. Like when she was a kid in the South running with Max around her grandparents’ property.

Max had to have been in his teens, her, barely elementary school. But he chased her around, stepping on twigs and throwing leaves. The sounds and the smells that went with it were flowing through her memory banks.

She couldn’t remember ever having those thoughts before when hiking. Of course, she didn’t remember it ever being this quiet.

Before, when she got out of the city to hike, friends went with her and they were always laughing and joking the entire time. If not just talking.

Jason was the same way. He didn’t mind hiking—when he was in the mood—but he hated the silence.

She was finding the silence soothing more than anything at the moment, realizing now that the noise of her old hiking partners had still been quieter than the noise of the city. But here, in Lake Placid, the noise was so much less that this was what she needed for the break.

They reached the top where there was a little lookout area, so they stopped and sat for a minute. She took her backpack off and set it down, grabbed her water and took a big swig, then handed it over to Trevor without a thought.

“This is beautiful. I think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered,” she said.

“I’m glad,” he said. “Sorry there is no mining expedition this time.”

She giggled, remembering that from their first hike together. “No worries. I didn’t have much luck finding anything other than coal.”

He reached in her backpack and pulled out a small pouch. “Here.”

“What is it?” she asked, loosening the strings and peeking inside.

He took the pouch and turned it over in her palm. There was the purple stone he’d found on their first hike. It was shinier though, with a chain through it.

“You seemed so bummed over the coal that I wanted you to have something from that day. Maybe something to remember this weekend with. And purple is your favorite color, too, right? It didn’t seem fair I found this that day,” he said, smiling at her, a touch of something else deep in his eyes.

“Did you do this yourself?” she asked, looking it over carefully, secretly touched more than she could express.

He undid the clasp and put the necklace around her neck and then closed it. “No. Kennedy is friends with one of the artisans on Main Street. The woman sells beads and stones, makes jewelry and whatnot. I asked if there was anything she could do with this. She said it was amethyst. Has all these meanings. She babbled for a few minutes, but what I heard and what stuck with me was that it’s known to soothe and relax the mind. It encourages calmness and bravery. There was something about preventing drunkenness, but I just remembered that now. I liked you with a few drinks, so we’ll forget about that meaning,” he said, brushing her hair over her shoulder.

She reached up and ran her fingers around the stone on her neck. It was so smooth to touch. “I know this is the same stone, but it looks so different.”

“She drilled a hole in it, slid the chain through. It’s just sterling silver, but it’s sturdy. The stone doesn’t have a lot of value, but she polished it up and made it pretty. It’s meant as a token more than anything,” he said, almost looking embarrassed now.

“I love it, Trevor. It’s unique, and it’s so much you.”

 

***

 

On the drive back to town, Trevor was wondering what was going through Riley’s head. She’d been quiet on the hike. Quieter than normal. And when he gave her the necklace, she almost looked like she wanted to cry for a second. Until she clasped the stone in her hand, took a deep breath, and laughed.

Then she kissed him, hot and hard—solid even—grabbed his hand, and said, “Let’s go home now.”

They walked back down the same path, passing people again, but not really talking. Nothing more than a few words here and there.

Now she was looking out the window at the scenery. “What are you thinking about over there? You look lost in thoughts. Anything you want to share?”

She turned her head and looked at him. “Just enjoying the drive. Dreading the end of our weekend and going back to the real world.”

“Nothing stays peaceful for long, Riley. Life has to continue on. This was a detour for us.”

“I know. It was a nice detour. A good one. It just stinks to go back. Whenever I went on vacations before, I felt the same way when it was time to return home.”

“That’s good.”

“Why’s that?”

“It means you’re back in your normal place. Your normal routine. Not so much is changing around you as you think. Adapting is the word I’m looking for. When so much changes, we forget about normal reactions to things, but our body remembers. Yours is.”

He’d traveled enough in the army. Change was all around him, but some things he just remembered. Like the tension leaving every muscle when he walked through his door each night on the lake. It didn’t matter how long he was gone, or how often, his body felt the same each time he opened that door.

“You’re probably right. Still, I wouldn’t have minded a few more days with you. Your phone never went off with work issues.”

That was the idea. “I told them not to call me unless it was an emergency. That means life or death.”

“And they listened?” she asked, smiling.

“They do when I say that.” He didn’t go away often. He wasn’t out of reach much, but when he wanted that time, when he needed it, his officers listened.

“You should say it more to them,” she said.

“Does it bother you that I’m called as much as I am?”

“Not really. I mean, I get it. But wasn’t it nice to have these few days and not worry about work or what was going on?”

It was nice, but he’d known no other way. It was part of the job; he’d accepted that going in. “When I’m in town I can’t distance myself from it, even if I wanted to. Everyone knows I’m right there. Your surroundings remind you even when you want to forget or shut it off.”

“I get it. But when you’re gone, they figure out how to handle things on their own?”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe you need to train your staff a little better to do it on their own more.”

“Where are you going with this, Riley?”

“Nowhere. Just talking.” She put her hand on his arm. “I’m not judging, or mad, or asking you to change something because it bothers me. I’m just making a comment that though I know this weekend was for me, I think it was for you too. That you were different, too. I wonder if it’s because there was no worry about when the next call would come in.”

He never thought of it that way before. Never had a reason to. “Could be. Maybe we can do these little weekends away more often.”

“I’d like that a lot,” she said. “Or we can tell people we’re going away and just lock ourselves in the house and hide.”

“I don’t think that will work as much as you hope, but it’s a nice thought.”

The rest of the drive was taken in relative silence, until they pulled through the gates of her development. “Stop at the mailbox when you pull in the driveway so I can grab the mail from Friday and Saturday.”

He did as asked, parking while she reached in and pulled a few things out. He hit the garage door opener on her SUV and waited for it to open all the way before moving forward.

“Trevor.” He turned his head, looked at her white face, then down to the envelope on her lap. “He knows where I live.”