Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
It’s our last morning at the campsite, and I’m milking every damn minute out of it.
“It’s a short one,” I remind her for the third time. “And it’ll be worth it.”
“I could be sleeping in the hammock,” she mutters, making me smile. I’ve loved spending all this time with her, just the two of us. Getting to know her again, in every way, is an adventure.
I don’t plan to ever stop learning her.
“Trust me, you want to see this.”
“I trust you.” She reaches back and takes my hand. “I just don’t like to hike.”
“And yet, you walk the beach pretty much every single day.”
“That’s not the same,” she insists. “That’s taking a walk.”
“What do you think we’re doing right now? We’re just walking, you know.”
“Uphill,” she replies. “We’re walking uphill. Which means it’s hiking.”
I laugh and urge her on. “It’s not much farther. You’re doing great.”
Ten minutes later, we walk around a bend, and before us is a waterfall. It has to be a hundred feet high, and when the water hits the pool below, it sends up a fine misty spray, making the whole area feel cool and fresh.
“Wow,” Sarah breathes and stares with her mouth open, taking it all in. “Okay, this is really cool.”
“Told you.” I lead her to a log, and we sit next to each other, staring at the water. “Thanks for taking this week with me.”
“Are you kidding?” She leans in and kisses my cheek. “Thanks for bringing me. I don’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed. I didn’t realize I needed it so badly.”
“When was the last time you took a vacation?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again and narrows her eyes, thinking.
“That long, huh?”
“I don’t remember,” she finally admits. “So, yeah, this was way overdue. We shouldn’t wait a decade between time off.”
I shake my head, already mentally planning something for a few months from now. “We shouldn’t wait a year.”
“I don’t know how much vacation time you have,” she says dryly, “but I don’t have a ton.”
“You’re about to be self-employed,” I remind her. “That comes with some liberties.”
“Hey, you’re right. I’ll have to check with the boss, but I hear she’s really cool.” She laughs and bumps my shoulder with hers. “Yeah, we can travel a little, if you want to.”
“I want to.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her against me, kissing her hair and breathing her in.
When she shivers with a chill, I stand and take her hand in mine. “Let’s go back to the van and pack up to go home.”
“It’s time,” she agrees, but takes a moment to look back at the waterfall, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. She looks so happy, so calm, and absolutely beautiful. “But first, we have to hike.”
“You can do it. I have faith.”
She grumbles a little, but heading down doesn’t take nearly as long as hiking in did, and before I know it, we’re back at the van.
“What’s that?” Sarah asks, pointing to the side door. “It wasn’t there earlier.”
“Dirt.” I wave it off, but when I approach, I scowl. “Wait, it’s a dent.”
Sure enough, the sliding door of the van has a dent in it the size of my head. No paint is chipped, and it looks like it would be an easy fix, but how?
“How in the world did that happen?” she asks, echoing my own thoughts. “We haven’t been anywhere in days, and no one has been here.”
I prop my hands on my hips and look around the campsite, but nothing has been disturbed. The hammock’s floating in the breeze, and our folding chairs sit by the fire pit, all as they were when we left earlier, only an hour ago.
“Weird,” I murmur. “I wonder if it could be a bear?”
“A bear?” Her voice just raised three octaves. “A freaking bear? There aren’t bears in Oregon.”
I frown over at her. “Of course, there are. Okay, you just lost some science cred with that remark.”
“But, there can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m terrified of bears, and I’d know if they were here! Crap. Now I have to be scared of getting eaten by a damn bear. It’s good that I didn’t know that when we got here, or I would have spent the whole week inside with Petunia. Petunia!”
She races to open the van door, and there’s the cat, taking a leisurely bath in the driver’s seat.
“She’s fine,” I assure her. “Come on, let’s clean up and gather our stuff, then hit the road.”
“There could be a bear lurking behind any of these trees.”
“I don’t think they lurk.” I untie one end of the hammock. “I’m pretty sure they just go about living their bear life.”
“Eating unsuspecting campers,” she adds, quickly gathering and folding our chairs. She stows them in the van.