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He'd been my safe harbor when the paparazzi started hounding me like hunting dogs, digging into my private life and publicizing every date I went on. Dad had offered suggestions for how to avoid those jackals and keep my private life private.
Twelve damn lonely months since he’d been out for a jog and been hit by a drunk driver. At ten in the fucking morning. Who the hell drinks that early? “The asshole sitting in jail right now for manslaughter. I hope he’s enjoying that jailhouse toilet hooch.” I shoved my sunglasses back on my face, more to hide the moisture puddling in my eyes than because it was too bright outside.
The joy and freedom of my ride today had been stolen by the unspoken sympathy in Carrie’s voice.
Grip a grip, Cal, I chastised myself as I opened my personal phone. As always, when something was bugging the shit out of me, my instinct was to call or text my dad. He was the first person I’d reach out to if something went wrong, or right, or if the sun was shining in the most spectacular way.
I opened the text with Dad and tapped out a message complaining about how disappointing it was when people failed to live up to a commitment. I blew out a harsh breath and tried to let it go.
With my finger hovering over the send icon, I checked my spelling. Dad had been a teacher, so typos always had to be corrected. All good, so I pressed the button and watched the message move up on my screen until it resided under the other one-hundred or so unanswered texts. While it made me feel better to talk to my dad this way, sadness washed over me, knowing I was never, ever going to get a reply.
I slid the phone into the back pocket of my jeans, tightened my helmet and climbed back onto my bike. The sun was shining, and I could hear my dad telling me to finish my ride as planned.
I left the sprawling city of Nashville behind me and let the breeze rush against my face as I cruised toward the trailhead. I gathered a lot of my songwriting inspiration while hiking. The trill of birds singing a particular way was at the heart of my break-out hit “Forest For The Trees.” The snap of pine needles under my hiking boots and a couple frolicking squirrels had inspired the next hit, “Alone But Not.”
I coasted into the trailhead lot and parked my bike. When I balanced the bike’s weight and shut off the ignition, the vibration of the powerful motor under my ass rumbled to a halt. After I dropped the kickstand, I dismounted, removed my helmet, and secured it to my bike, trading the dark bronze bucket for a vivid gold ball cap with the Predators logo.
There was one other vehicle in the gravel lot on this Wednesday afternoon; a muscular-looking black pickup truck. The vintage sticker on the bumper made me laugh out loud.I Refuse To Have A Battle Of Wits With An Unarmed Person.The expression made me wonder a little about the owner. Anyone with a sense of humor was my kind of person.
After checking my water bottle and my phone, I hitched my pack higher on my back and hit the trail.
Days like this made me miss my dad even more. He was a huge outdoorsman. Hiking, biking, fishing, hunting…running. He’d had an old Bluetick hound named Smokey, who went everywhere Dad went. He’d been Dad’s constant companion, a true comfort and consolation after Mom died. Smokey had passed on about a year before my… Well, after the dog crossed the rainbow bridge, Dad didn’t have it in him to replace his canine best friend. Told me if he’d lost his human best friend, me, he couldn’t replace me. While I’d laughed about being compared to his dog, it made sense. God knew, I couldn’t replace my dad.
Lifting my face to the treetops, I shook away the dismal thoughts and considered the song idea I’d been toying with instead. My dad had tons of pithy sayings and advice, but he’d uttered one of them with the best intentions. That was the base I was considering for the new song. I knew I wanted it to have a rumbling beat under a lighter melody line.
With each footstep, I hummed a bit of the tune running through my head. The breeze in the trees added a harmony I hadn’t considered.
I stopped dead on the trail, eyes closed, and listened to nature. A string of the tune was just beyond my grasp. I played the notes again and again in my mind, hitting a wall when the tune disappeared. It was so close—
“Sweet Cream! You get back here.”
The startling shout came from ahead on the pine needle-strewn path, followed by the scrambling sound of an animal moving fast in my direction.
“Dammit, so fucking close,” I snarled as I snapped my eyes open in time to see a gigantic golden ball of fluff hurtling toward me.
And right behind the animal came a red-faced, red-haired goddess.
A different song began playing through my head as the dog leaped toward me.
“Sweet Cream, no!” the goddess cried.
There was another screech from behind her as another woman burst onto the trail. “Dog, don’t you do it.”
I braced for impact and caught the dog against my belly. It immediately lapped its long pink tongue through my beard, slobbering all over my cheeks. I pressed my lips shut because I might love dogs, but I hated doggy kisses.
“Ohmigod! I’m so sorry,” the second woman panted as she pulled the dog away from my body. “Sweet Cream, you say you’re sorry.”
That made the goddess laugh. “Naomi, I think you’re going to have to apologize instead of your dog.” She made direct eye-contact with me and hit me with a smile that landed in my solar plexus and exploded in my brain with a prismatic burst of light.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I already apologized.” Naomi snapped the leash she was carrying onto to the dog’s collar.
Concern dominated Red’s expression as she addressed me, “Are you okay? We normally don’t run into another soul up here, so Sweet Cream is almost never leashed. It’s never been a problem before.”
“It’s okay. I do like dogs, even ones with silly names. Sweet Cream?”
Naomi looked up from petting the dog, which now resembled more of a Golden Retriever than a golden ball of fluff. “You should have seen him as a puppy. He was a pale-yellow color. Looked like sweet cream. The name fit.”
“It’s a boy? I didn’t expect that.” I laughed and reached down to ruffle the dog’s fur.
