He shrugged. “Okay. Well, I’m going to camp out in one of the alcoves. If you change your mind, I’ll be here.”
She gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded, already planning on refusing him whenever he prodded her again. He waved at her and wandered out of view, leaving her to handle the gaggle of patrons looming just beyond him.
The last hour dragged on interminably. Rowdy children returning books that had fallen on the ground and stepped on, complete with shoe print; complaining patrons demanding she hurry up while hunting for the single copy of the obscure book they wanted; her boss dropping a load of work in front of her at the circulation desk twenty minutes before she was scheduled to leave.
It was fifteen minutes after her shift had ended, and she was finally finishing up the final pieces of the stack of pages when Vincent walked by, book under his arm. He glanced at the circulation desk, then did a double-take. Chuckling, he walked over.
“Get swamped at the last minute?” he asked.
“You have no idea,” she groused. She ran her fingers through her hair as she finished the final segment and dropped the pen. She flexed her cramping hand, grimacing. “I cannot wait to get out of here.”
“Well, the offer to go hiking still stands, if you’re interested,” he said. “Sounds like you could use the stress relief.”
She peered outside, taking in that bright blue sky and the swishing trees. Birds flew overhead. She could practically feel the wind in her hair.
“Yeah, that sounds great,” she said. “Let me grab my jacket.”
She ran into the backroom and began to grab her belongings. The phone in her jacket pocket tapped against herhip when she shrugged on the coat. She pulled it out and considered it. Jasper would be annoyed that she had gone out at all. She knew that. But he would be even angrier if she didn’t tell him at all. After a quick moment of deliberation, she sent a brief text.
On a hike with Vincent. Will be back before too long.
She shoved her phone back into her pocket and hurried out of the staff room to meet the waiting Vincent.
***
The sun shone overhead, warming the air despite the autumn chill. Nikki relished the feel of it on her back as she followed Vincent up a steep slope. That was the only genuinely pleasant thing about their hike, however. Brush loomed on either side, and bramble lay under their feet. Loose rocks slipped out from underneath her feet and dug into the soles of her shoes. An outstretched branch reached out and snagged her jacket.
Extracting the branch from the denim of her jacket, she frowned, peering around.
“You all right?” Vincent asked a few feet ahead of her.
“Um … yeah.” Something nagged at the back of her head. Part of her wanted to turn back. But she didn’t want to be a bother, so she smiled and kept following.
Calling the trail poorly groomed would be disingenuous to say the least. Overgrown, in shambles, forgotten—those were all better descriptors. She continued trying to clamber along, picking her footing carefully. Vincent shoved through some brush, and Nikki wedged around it.
Her lips twitched downward, and she slowed, something prickling at the back of her skull. “You said this is a trail?”she asked, eyes skimming over the rough terrain, the lack of any well-trod path, the overgrown brush, and the obstructing branches.
“Yeah,” Vincent replied. “It’s relatively obscure, though. Not many in town know about it. It’s great, though. It means it’s peaceful.”
Or too isolated, she thought. That prickling at the back of her head began to mutate into full-on unease. She slowed, turning to look over her shoulder, and realized she could barely find the trail they’d supposedly been following.
“Everything all right?” Vincent trotted back to stand next to her.
“Everything’s fine,” she said, brows knitting together, twisting back around. “But maybe we should head back. It feels like we might have gotten turned around at some point.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vincent said. “I know exactly where we are.”
“Sure, but I think we should head back.”
“We’re so close, though,” Vincent said. He moved until he was behind her, blocking the way back. “Come on. The view is worth it, I promise.”
Before she could say anything else, his hand went to the small of her back, and he nudged her forward. She glanced behind him, down the trail, and back the way they had come. But she didn’t want to protest or make a scene, so she let him guide her further along the ungroomed trail.
It kept getting worse, though. The brush grew more overgrown, and the trail grew harder and harder to follow. She slowed twice, and both times Vincent nudged her forward again, murmuring that it was fine and she needed to relax a bit. Theonly time his hand moved from the small of her back was when she had to practically scale a boulder in order to keep going.
Eventually, though, when they came to another part of the trail that was little more than a foot wide with overgrown bramble on either side, thorns waiting to snag fabric the second she walked past, she decided she’d had enough. She came to a halt and stepped away from Vincent, out of his grasp. His hand fell to his side.
“Okay, Vincent, this is far enough,” she said. “I want to go back.”
