“Thought I heard someone out here,” a voice says as I turn. Relief blasts through me. It’s a nice voice. A human voice. A mellow tenor with humor brightening its edges—completely different from Forrest’s no-bullshit baritone.
The figure of a man approaches me, but I can’t see him well. I hold up a hand against the glare of his headlamp, and he adjusts it upward with a quick “Sorry!”
When my pupils adjust, I find myself looking up at a tall, lanky man. He’s younger than I am—probably midtwenties—and cute. Very cute, with messy reddish-brown hair beneath his beanie, freckles all over, and dark, mischievous brown eyes.
“Wow,” he says with a lopsided smile. “I mean—Hi. Name’s Ollie.” He holds out a bare hand.
“Margot,” I say, offering my mittened one.
He shakes it, then, bringing two fingers to his lips, he whistles loudly. “Found her!” he calls into the woods.
Another whistle responds like a thumbs-up, and he turns back to me.
“My buddy Topher was searching for you too. Guess I win,” he says, grinning. I can’t help smiling back. Suddenly, the woods feel a lot less threatening. “Headed to dinner?” he guesses.
“Trying to,” I say, embarrassed. “It’s my first night. I probably should have packed one of those.” I point to his headlamp.
“That’s okay. Just follow me.”
With his guidance, it’s no time before we get back on the path and reach the porch of the lodge, where I arrive slightly out of breath.
“Here,” Ollie says, switching off his headlamp and holding it out to me before we go in. Under the overhead light of the porch, he looks even younger. Almost Peter Pan–ish, if Peter had gone through puberty and taken up mountaineering. “I’ve got an extra.”
“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “That’s okay, I don’t want to take your things—”
In response, he grabs my mitten and closes my hand over the light. “It’s yours,” he says with all the gallantry of offering me a tennis bracelet.
“Thanks,” I say, my stomach giving a small swoop as he lets go of my hand with a squeeze. Ollie is way too young for me, but it’s not the worst thing to be the subject of his attraction. After the weird energy with Forrest earlier, this feels simple. Manageable.
He opens the door for me. “Ladies first?”
We enter, and my mouth immediately waters from an incredible aroma coming from the back of the lodge. We follow it to a rough-hewn dining table where three people are already seated. As we approach, a young man with elbow-length brown hair throws up a hand in greeting. As he does, his poncho flaps open, and I’m hit by a gust that’s equal parts weed and BO.
“Hey, man! You found her!”
Ollie smiles, unzipping his coat and removing his hat to reveal a messy mop of hair, which only deepens the Peter Pan vibe. “Margot, this is Topher, your other knight in shining North Face.”
“Thanks, Topher,” I say, removing my outerwear. “I’d definitely still be out there if it weren’t for you two.”
“And this is Alice,” Ollie goes on, gesturing across the table toward an athletic-looking woman in her fifties with a frizzy brown ponytail, “and her wife, Yoon,” he finishes, introducing a woman with short gray hair who also looks like she could wake up on any given day and participate in a surprise triathlon.
“Nice to meet you all,” I say, climbing over the bench to sit next to Ollie. The table is already set. Beeswax candles illuminate the length of the table, and their warm glow gives an intimate quality to the large open space.
“First time to North Star?” Yoon asks with excitement.
I nod. “Sure is,” I confirm, hoping she doesn’t see how hard it is for me to imagine coming a second time. “Is this not your first visit?”
Yoon and Alice laugh. “Oh, no,” Alice says in a distinct midwestern accent. “We’ve been coming here since before the Internet. Usually we’re summer tourists, but we had to visit after we heard about Trapper’s—”
Alice seems to catch herself and stops awkwardly, glancing toward Yoon for help. But just then the door to the kitchen opens, and I lose track of the conversation. Forrest strides through carrying a giant earthenware platter and wearing an apron. The dark pin-striped cotton stretched across the center of his broad chest looks like a postage stamp being drawn and quartered. Of course, he’s wearing a white Henley beneath it—the standard-issue uniform of all romance heroes—and in accordance with Romance Law, he has the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Thankfully, I’m distracted as Jo, the woman I met earlier, comes through the doors behind him. Like Forrest, she’s loaded down with food but stops to hold the door open for a man in a motorized wheelchair and, right behind him, a dog that looks like an honest-to-goodness wolf. As they all approach the table, Jo quickens her pace and claims a spot next to Alice. The man, who must be Trapper because he’s basically Forrest in thirty years with a mustache, pulls up to the head of the table along with his furry sidekick, leaving Forrest with one obvious place to sit—next to me.
“Hi again, Margot,” Jo says, interrupting the flip-flopping in my stomach. “Settling into your cabin okay?”
“It’s very cozy, thank you,” I say diplomatically. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly “settle” into a place where wild animals larger than refrigerators prowl right outside my door.
“Food’s growing icicles, son—come on and sit down,” Trapper calls out to Forrest, who’s arranging dishes like it’s his job to avoid sitting next to me. Honestly, I can’t blame him. Within the first ten minutes of meeting him, I managed to both leap into his arms and go full Regina George on him. Now I’m armed with a steak knife. I’d probably avoid me too.
