Hudson steps aside, clearing the trail for me. I walk past him carefully, my sandals slipping once on the uneven ground. His hand hovers near my elbow but does not touch me this time. I feel that almost-touch all the way down my arm. When I reach the bend in the trail, I glance back. He is still there, standing near the ledge with the sun behind him, tall and broad and impossible to file into any safe category.
All the way to cabin six, I tell myself I am not going tomorrow. I am a sensible woman. A teacher. A grown adult who understands risk, consequences, and the basic laws of gravity.
But when I reach my porch, I sit in one of the wooden chairs and stare through the trees toward the hidden cove. My wrist still tingles where Hudson’s hand closed around it. Tomorrow feels less like another day now and more like something waiting to happen.
Chapter 2
Hudson
By eight-thirty the next morning, I’m already on the water. That’s the best time to be on Cady Springs Lake -- before the tourists wake up, before kids start shrieking from the swimming beach, before coolers roll down docks and someone who rented a kayak for the first time decides a mountain lake is the perfect place to discover that balance is not one of their natural gifts.
Morning belongs to the lake. The surface lies smooth and silver beneath the rising sun, mist lifting off it in slow ribbons.Pines crowd the shoreline, dark and still. The mountains beyond them catch the first light, their peaks turning gold before the cabins below even know day has started.
I paddle my kayak along the edge of the cove, scanning the waterline. A loose branch near the northern rocks. A new scrape on the lower jump ledge. One dock bumper hangs by a frayed rope farther up the lake. I make a mental list, same as I do every morning I’m in Cady Springs.
People think lake work is all muscles and sunshine. Haul a kayak. Tie a rope. Fix a dock. Jump off a cliff now and then for show. They don’t see the checking. I check everything -- weather, water level, ropes, cleats, loose boards, slick moss, trail washouts. Which families have kids who wander. Which bachelor party has too much beer and not enough sense. Which pretty woman in sandals is standing on the wrong damn ledge with curiosity in her eyes.
I drag the paddle once through the water and let the kayak glide.
Layla.
Her name slides through my head before I can stop it. I don’t know why I’m thinking about her again. That’s a lie. I know exactly why.
Blond hair coming loose from a ponytail. Green eyes too bright for the careful way she held herself. Soft mouth, stubborn chin, curvy little body tucked into shorts and a green tank top like she had no idea every inch of her looked made for a man’s hands. And those feet.
I huff out a laugh, shaking my head. The woman tried to hide her toes from me while standing three inches from a ledge that could’ve cracked her open if she’d jumped wrong. I saw that embarrassment on her face before she even said a word. Women have tells when they’re ashamed of something. They tuck, cover, joke, look away. Layla did all of that over toes.
I’ve seen feet blackened from frostbite scares, split open on shale, blistered raw after city people bought brand-new hiking boots for a seven-mile trail. I’ve carried men twice Layla’s size off mountains because their feet gave up before their pride did.
Her toes weren’t ugly. They were useful. Small, pale, stubborn little things that had gotten her close enough to the edge to scare ten years off my life.
I paddle toward the dock at Eight Pines Cabins, slowing when I reach the rental slip. The main office sits back through the trees, still quiet. A thin line of smoke curls from the chimney even though it’s summer -- probably the owner’s habit of lighting the office stove early to take the damp out of the air.
I don’t see Layla yet. But I want to.
I’m twenty-eight years old. Old enough to know exactly what kind of life I want, and young enough that people still assume I’ll grow out of it. Women especially.
They like the lake guy at first. The mountain man. The rough-handed summer fantasy who knows where to jump, how to tie a knot, and how to make them feel like the careful rules of their lives don’t apply for a week.
Then, if it lasts longer than that, they start talking like my life is a phase. Like one day I’ll stop chasing seasons, buy a house in town, build a fence, and decide I was only waiting for the right woman to make me want babies.
I’m not.
I don’t hate kids. Hell, I spend half the summer keeping other people’s kids from launching themselves into bad decisions. But wanting kids and being fair to them are two different things. A man who leaves every six months has no business promising a child roots.
I don’t blame them for wanting it. Roots are good things for people who need them. I’ve just never been any good at staying planted.
Summers in Cady Springs. Autumn shoulder jobs wherever the work takes me. Winters somewhere warm enough that my hands don’t go stiff in the morning. Florida some years. Arizona others. Trail and guide work. Repair jobs. Seasonal outfitting. Enough to keep money coming in and my life moving.
Every six months or so, I go. That’s not the kind of man a woman builds a nursery with. It’s damn sure not the kind of man a second-grade teacher builds anything with.
I push the kayak against the dock and climb out, tying off with a quick knot. The frayed bumper rope near cabin four is worse than I thought. It won’t last another day once people start loading boats with coolers and water skis.
“Hudson.”
I glance back.
Kelsey Matlock, who owns the cabins, steps out of the office with two mugs in her hands. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and she’s already wearing the expression of a woman who has solved three problems before coffee.
