Chapter Eight
Tyler had been in Gold Mountain a week and already he was packing again. With Abbi on his case, it was even more important that he get out on that ridge. He’d been busy studying maps and every data point he could find…but now he needed to see the land for himself.
He might have been able to do the walkthrough in a day, but the climb was going to be tough, and he needed to allow extra time to be thorough. A slight chance of rain wasn’t enough to make him reconsider. There was no predicting what might happen in the mountains, anyway.
He cinched up his backpack and reached for his phone. Normally he’d make sure someone knew where he was going and when he planned to be back. But his emergency contact had always been Scotty. Now who was he supposed to call?
There was Aidan, but Aidan was twelve hundred miles away. There wasn’t much he could do for Tyler in a crisis. And having your former boss be your emergency contact was just depressing.
There wasn’t any family Tyler could call—not who’d care enough to rush after him if there were any problems. He wasn’t even sure where his mom was living these days. He could already hear his father gruffly asking why he was calling, the subtext being, “What are you bothering me about this time?”
His parents hadn’t spoken to each other in almost twenty years, not since his father walked out with his secretary and started his brand new life.
His mom lived alone, bouncing from place to place, never more than a year or two before she got bored of the town, her job, the people she knew. If she kept moving, there would always be something else to look forward to. She wouldn’t have to feel how hard it was to be alone.
For a long time, Tyler had tried to tell her she wasn’t alone. She still had him, after all. Although he’d started off living with his father after the divorce, so he could stay in the same school, his dad hadn’t been too keen on his company after the twins were born. He had too many things to attend to besides the demands of a moody preteen.
Or that was what Tyler overheard him say on the phone. When his dad presented him with a plane ticket to go live with his mom in Houston, Tyler had already packed.
He could tell Abbi where he was going, since she probably knew the trails better than anyone else in this town. But that was a thousand kinds of no. Better to set out and hope for the best. It was only because of Scott that Tyler carried around so much worry, that pit in his stomach that said he was fallible, that bad things could happen any time.
It was better to focus on the present and the job that had to be done.
As far as Tyler could tell, there were two ways to approach the ridgeline where the firebreak had been proposed. The first was from a trailhead called Silver Meadows, which followed a winding path up the side of the mountain. Once he got high enough, he could cut off that main trail and make his way along the ridge, across the valley, and up again, where the firebreak would swing around to protect the houses contained inside the curve.
The second option was to park at a pull-off higher up the mountain. It was a more direct route and would save time overall. But Tyler wanted to get the feel of the whole area. It may have been overkill, but he only had one chance to do this right.
He pulled into Silver Meadows just as he was finishing his thermos of coffee. He’d left the farmers market last night and headed straight home, knowing he needed to get Abbi out of his mind and wake up early, ready to go. So he’d expected to have the lot to himself at this hour. But someone else had parked and was unloading gear from a car.
That’s when he realized he knew the car. And the person pulling up her blue hair.
What the ever loving fuck was she doing here?
And why was she strapping a tent to the frame of her backpack, like she thought she was going camping for the night?
…
Abbi shoved an extra pair of socks into her pack and tried to look as though she’d only just arrived at the trailhead and was busy getting her things together. It was better than looking how she felt, which was tired and bored from having been waiting at the trailhead for ages before Tyler arrived.
If it were just her, she’d have parked farther up the mountain and taken the more direct route instead of tackling the switchbacks up the Silver Meadows Trail. The owls and other critters she was looking for didn’t have their nests that low, anyway.
But she’d guessed—correctly—that Tyler would want to be thorough, and so she’d driven to the trailhead instead. When she didn’t see his truck, she’d taken her time to make sure her bag was carefully packed and then stretched and warmed up before hitting the trail.
She was only waiting so she could keep an eye on him. The point was to complete her survey—not have a slumber party in the woods.
But when she heard the tires on the gravel, her heart kicked up as though she’d already started up the hill. And when he stepped out of the truck, she had to remind herself she was here for work.
Not for the muscles in his legs visible through his hiking shorts. Or the pull of his T-shirt across his chest. She absolutely didn’t care that he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. No, she barely noticed his stubble at all.
“What are you doing here?” Tyler said, skipping over pesky little niceties like “hello.”
“Getting ready to do a walkthrough. You?”
“Come on. You know I’m here for the same thing.”
“How convenient.” She hoisted her pack onto her back and buckled the straps around her waist. “Are you coming?”
“Fuck me,” he muttered, and then the tips of his ears reddened like maybe she wasn’t supposed to hear that.
“You okay there?” she asked.
“Whatever, Blue. Let’s just see if you can keep up.”
Her bag felt heavy as she started on the trail. She was too tired to be doing this, and she’d packed all wrong. She’d forgotten her rain jacket, even though there was no telling what the weather might do. She hadn’t forgotten impractical underwear, though.
Lace. On a camping trip. With Tyler. Who was never going to see her underwear again.
She really did confuse herself sometimes.
But it wasn’t the underwear weighing her down. It was the gear she’d taken to study wind, soil, vegetation, animal life—anything that would help her build a case against the firebreak.
Which was also a case against Tyler, she had to remind herself. So she’d better stop staring at the cut of his calf muscles as he pushed off a rock.
The trail didn’t give them any time to ease in. Tyler had longer legs and was walking fast, but Abbi pushed just as hard. She’d be damned if she’d let him leave her behind.
And the truth was that she loved the burn through her lungs and the strain in her legs. It was the only way she’d survived the whispers and stares after the headmaster himself spotted her leaving Mr. Cash’s house on a Sunday morning, hair disheveled, sleepy looking, wearing the same clothes as the night before.
That was when she’d discovered the mountains around campus, endless trails where she could wander until darkness, hunger, and a vague sense that she should probably do some homework drew her in. She had her favorite spots where she could sit and read a book or look out at the view and pretend she wasn’t stuck on that campus at all.
It had amazed her what she could see once she started paying attention. Bald eagles, fawns, once even a bobcat carrying a bloody snowshoe hare in its jaws. A whole world unfolding for her. A huge, beautiful one where she wasn’t a victim, or a slut, or whatever else they were calling her in the dorms.
Even now, all these years later, she still felt the most at home, and the most herself, when she was deep in the woods.
She was glad she’d followed Sam’s advice and not waited to get out here. The best way to figure out what she needed to know was to see it for herself. She’d been cooped up in the office for too long, dealing with maps and coordinates and data, so much data, until she couldn’t make sense of it anymore.
But this was what mattered. It was all here, in the woods and the life unfolding around them. This was what she worked for. She knew she’d make a great head naturalist, if only she had the chance.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the spice of pine and the rich, damp earth. Tyler, mistaking the noise in her chest, asked if she wanted to stop.
“Not on your life,” she said, and picked up the pace.
…
Abbi thought her legs were going to fall off by the time the trees opened to a grassy expanse covered in wildflowers. They could pause here before crossing the meadow and climbing to the ridge.
She dropped her pack as soon as she stepped into the view. Above them in every direction rose jagged peaks that stretched to the horizon, layers of blue that, somewhere in Canada, vanished into sky.
Tyler fanned himself and gulped water. She was passing him the mixture of nuts, berries, and chocolate she’d packed before she remembered she was supposed to want nothing to do with him—especially since she still hadn’t gotten her cherries. But he took it gratefully, as though they were two ordinary people out for an ordinary hike and not two people who’d fucked and still wanted to, or fucked and regretted it, or fucked and still thought about it. But knew they never could again.
“That close peak is Gold Mountain.” Abbi pointed to the distinctive bump, still with a bit of snow on top—although less than in years past. She named the other mountains, pointing out routes that traversed the wilderness, trails that continued for weeks along the spine of the Cascades and others good for a steep, grueling push up a towering peak. She was the one with the brilliant plan to hike together. She might as well make conversation.
But Tyler wasn’t looking at the peaks. He was looking down in the valley, where so much of what used to be green had faded to a tangle of brown. Some of the trees had died from disease, others from lack of water. It frustrated Abbi not to know how to fight so many problems at once.
“Look at all that kindling,” Tyler said, shaking his head. “Add in the light snowfall you’ve gotten this year and the lack of rain, and you’re looking at prime conditions for a fire to blaze.”
“I know,” Abbi said, hoisting her pack onto her back again.
“Then I don’t understand why you’ve staked your career on opposing a project that can actually help.” He seemed genuinely perplexed, which made Abbi all the more frustrated.
She pointed across the meadow to the ridge where they were heading. “Look at where the proposed firebreak is. Notice anything?”
“It’s higher than I’d normally put a break. Obviously I know that. But at lower elevations you have the valley, you have the roads around the town, and you have natural features, like North and South Lake, to act as a buffer.”
“If it’s so obvious, you could have backed me up when I pointed that out to Walker and Chip instead of acting like I was the one with the problem.”
“Saying it’s higher than average isn’t a good enough reason not to do it altogether,” Tyler argued. “There’s nothing in place to stop a higher elevation fire here. And like I said, look at all those dead trees. Lightning, arson, an illegal campfire that doesn’t get put out, a cigarette dropped in the woods at the right angle, the right time when a wind is coming through—”
“A fire like that’s going to rip through here,” she interrupted. “Like you said, it’s obvious. But at a higher elevation, it’ll stick to the crowns of trees. A firebreak isn’t going to stop a blaze like that from spreading.”
“So what? We don’t have a perfect option, so we should do nothing?”
“No, but we could start by not wasting time and money on Band-Aid solutions—especially not when any construction will seriously impact the species around here.”
“That impact is still better than the alternative. And people want to feel safe, Abbi. They want to know someone is making sure they’re taken care of.” Tyler cocked his head at her. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Abbi flashed to a memory: Cash grabbing her arm as she tried to leave his house to go back to her dorm where she belonged. “Stay, Abbi. I already made dinner. Why won’t you let me take care of you?”
Abbi pinched her eyes shut, willing the feel of Cash’s hand on her skin to retreat. When she opened her eyes, she was steady again. Back in the present, where she was a grown-ass woman in charge of her life, and nothing—not even a firefighter with a smile like sunlight—could stand in her way.
“Do I want someone to feed me platitudes and rock me into a false sense of security so I can avoid the other things that are wrong in my life? No, Tyler. I don’t.”
“Jesus, Abbi.” His eyes widened. “Everything isn’t one or the other. We can put resources into fighting fires and building firebreaks and addressing ecological concerns.”
“Or we can face reality head-on and try to make the best decisions with the lowest ecological impact for the greatest benefits, which is what the nature center is trying to do.”
He shook his head at her, and she, swallowing a cry of annoyance, picked up her pack again and set off. She didn’t need his help. She didn’t need his approval. She reported to her boss—not to him.
But it was fucking infuriating to be so easily dismissed.
They were all the way across the meadow and heading to the ridge when he finally spoke again.
“Firebreaks help,” he said. And although Abbi had a dozen responses to that, all she could do was laugh.
“It took you that long to come up with that argument?”
“I’m not arguing,” Tyler said. “I’m stating the facts.”
“The facts as you see them.”
“The facts as anyone who knows anything about wildfires would see them.”
Oh, this was rich. “So now you’re questioning my expertise?”
“Abbi, I have a master’s in forestry.”
“So do I.”
“I’m a trained EMT.”
“And that’s relevant to firebreaks because…?”
“I’ve fought fires. Lots of them. I’ve seen wildfires rage out of control, and I’ve seen how firebreaks can help contain the momentum.”
They were walking side by side and she couldn’t miss how he suddenly turned away, swallowing back the sentence as if there’d been something more he wanted to say.
She wanted to ask what he meant, what he’d seen—what sorts of disasters did someone get used to when they ran toward fire and not away?
But then he said, as though he hadn’t even paused, “At the very least, they provide a bare area where firefighters can regroup to back burn. I’m not saying a firebreak is a guarantee, but you can’t argue that they never do anything.”
“Have you heard of the spotted owl?” Abbi asked.
“The what?”
“The spotted owl. Cutest little bird there is. When you have two of them together, side by side on a tree, their faces all smooshed up on these round little bodies, big, glassy eyes staring at you—”
“I get it. You love owls,” Tyler said. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that while you’re busy bulldozing these trees—”
“Technically, it’s your boyfriend who’s going to be doing the bulldozing—”
“Russ is not and has never been my boyfriend,” Abbi said. “We fucked. That was it. Get over it.”
Tyler shrugged. “Abbi Haas. Incurable romantic.”
“Now you know. Anyway.” She glared at him. “While you and Russ are working together as a team, all buddy-buddy as you bulldoze the trees surrounding Gold Mountain, the spotted owl is losing its home. Because they only nest in old growth forest. The same old growth forest being targeted by your little plan.”
“You make it sound like we’re razing the entire woods. We’re taking one little stretch—”
“Little? Size does matter, I’ll have you know.”
“You weren’t complaining about my measurements the other night,” Tyler shot back.
“Are you looking for me to compliment your penis, Tyler?” Abbi asked, and was satisfied by the flame of red up his face. Men. Wanted to insinuate that they were the greatest. Couldn’t handle when a woman didn’t giggle and act shocked.
“Because I can,” she went on. “You have a great dick. Seriously. People talk about size but the shape matters, too, and of course that you know what to do with it. You want it thick enough to feel it but not have a boxing match with the cervix. You’re a good lay, Tyler. You should be proud.”
“Wow,” Tyler said. “Usually I find out if a woman is an asshole before I go to bed with her.”
“We didn’t spend any time in bed,” Abbi corrected him. “And you’re the one who said you were my boyfriend. I didn’t start this at all.”
“I thought we were talking about firefighting,” Tyler said. “Why are we now talking about us?”
“Because you couldn’t even tell me before fucking me that you were here to ruin my job!”
“You didn’t want to talk about work that night, either. You didn’t want to know who I am, why I’m here, or anything about me. It’s not my fault that blew up in your face.”
“Both our faces,” Abbi reminded him. “It’s not like you can get out of this any more than I can.”
“Something I really don’t need you to remind me of,” he grumbled.
“Let’s just get to the ridge,” Abbi said, and, ignoring the fact that her legs were screaming at her, started walking even faster.