Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
I figured the dream had to be some kind of omen for the hike I was doing today.
I was here because of her, after all.
But, some part of me couldn’t help but wish that I’d stayed in the tent last night with Rhodes.
Lying on the sleeping bags, me in my pajamas, and basically lined up along that incredible body, we had watched one movie and started another. The night had been quiet and comfortable, with only the slight sounds of the occasional car driving down the county road interrupting the voices of the actors coming from the tablet.
Honestly, it had been the most romantic night of my life.
Not that Rhodes had known that.
And as we’d rolled up the sleeping bags and torn down the tent, he had asked me what I was taking with me to do the hike I was going to knock out today. Rhodes had given me some quiet warnings, and sitting in the camp chairs afterward, we’d checked the weather on his phone.
And that was exactly why I’d drug myself out of bed at five thirty in the morning. I needed to get an early start. This might be my last shot at doing the Hike from Hell, unless I wanted to wait until next year. Snow was going to be hitting the highest peaks soon.
And I probably would have waited, but . . . I needed to do it.
I had to.
The reminder of how short life was had blossomed in my head and stayed there, and I knew I had to at least try and knock another hike out of the way since I actually had the time. Might as well. Go big or go home, and my mom had been a supernova of guts and fearlessness. I had to do it for her.
I’d pumped myself up to try and make this hike my bitch once and for all. The forecast was good. There had been a post I’d found on a forum from someone who said they’d done the trail two days ago and it had been great.
So why not? I’d gotten my things mostly together, and I was going to do this. To prove to myself that I could.
For my mom and for all the years she hadn’t gotten. For all the experiences she had missed. For the path that her life’s course had paved for me.
I was here, in this place, with hope in my heart because of her. It was the least I could do.
And that was probably why I was so caught up in my head, as I finished lugging my supplies downstairs to my car, that I didn’t notice the figure approaching from across the driveway until Rhodes asked quietly, “Are you good?”
Over my shoulder, I caught a glance of his silvery hair and smiled at the handsome face looking at me. “Yeah. I’m great, just thinking about my mom,” I answered before dropping my backpack into the back seat.
“Good thoughts or bad thoughts?” he asked softly before covering his mouth for a yawn. He was already in his uniform, but the top buttons were undone and he hadn’t put his belt on.
Had he come out here just because he saw me through the window?
Turning around slowly, I took in his heavy features, those slashes of cheekbones, the subtle cleft in his chin. He was pretty awake even though he couldn’t have been up for long.
“Both,” I answered him. “Good as in I’m here because of her and I’m really happy that I came back and things are going good, but bad because . . .”
He watched me closely, so good-looking it made my chest ache a little.
I had never really spoken the words out loud. I’d heard them from other people’s mouths but never mine. But I found that I wanted to. “Did you ever hear that there were some people who didn’t believe she got hurt and couldn’t make it out?”
Rhodes’s eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, but he didn’t bullshit me. He took a small step forward and dipped his chin, still watching. “There were a few trains of thought that she”—he sucked in a breath like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the words either, but he did—“harmed herself.”
I nodded.
“Or that she walked away to start a new life,” he finished quietly.
That one specifically had stung the worst. That people would think she would leave everything behind, leave me behind, to start over fresh.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I wasn’t sure how much you’d heard. I never thought she would leave like that, not even because of all the financial issues she was having that I didn’t know about. How she was going to have to declare bankruptcy, how we were about to get evicted . . . or how she might have . . .” The words bubbled in my throat like they were acid, and I couldn’t say the S-word. “Not come back on purpose,” I settled for. “I know the police knew about how she was on medication for depression.”