Lumbersexual (Novella) (16 page)

Everyone had plans.

I’d been hanging out for about twenty minutes when Kristy came up to me.  “Maggie!  Just the person I wanted to see.  I have news.  Helen got a new—”

But we were interrupted by Court, who walked back in, his face like a summer storm.

“Let’s go, Maggie.”

I furrowed my brows, not wanting to leave since we just got here.  What the hell happened?  What did she do?

Was I right in trusting him?

“Gotta talk to you.”

I rolled my eyes at Kristy.  “I’ll be back.”  I followed him out to his truck.

Agitated, he paced back and forth in front of it, shaded under the trees, and started gesturing at me and him.  “
Fuck
.  God she pisses me off.  You have to know.  I told her.  This—what you and I have—it’s not a summer fling.”

My eyes flew open and my heart started pounding.

What was he saying?

He continued, hands now shoved in his pockets, eyes blazing. “I am falling in love with you.”

What?

No.

Really?

What?

I felt my body seize up.  I couldn’t think.  He kept talking.  “I’ll go wherever you are.  I’ll sell my house to the government.  I just want to be with you.”

No.  He couldn’t give up all that he had here for me.  A million people—more—would want to live in his house.  No one had unique, special rights like that.  Yosemite was in his blood, his heritage, tattooed on his body and part of his soul.

He was an outdoorsman, always would be.

I would not let him give any of that up for me.

“Absolutely not.  You’re not thinking logically.  Your house has been in your family for a century and a half.  There is no way you could give that up, especially not for someone like me.”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘someone like you’?  I love you.  I’ll do anything to be with you.  The thought of you leaving sickens me.  Amanda’s fucking words?  No.  I’m not breaking up with you.”

But he couldn’t fall in love with me.  This was just for the summer.  I shook my head.

He looked at me, lips pressed together, eyes narrowed.  “What?”

“You can’t.  We can’t.  I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m just someone in your life for now.  This isn’t forever.  I don’t fit in anywhere.  Why would you want to throw away all you have to be with me?”

“Maggie Washington.  You don’t get it. You do all the things I like to do.  We can talk about anything or nothing at all. You’re smart, funny, hot.  When I first saw you?  I wanted to stay away from you because I knew you were the kind of girl I would want forever, and I’m the guy who everyone knows is not a forever guy.  Fuck that.  I’ve changed.  I want forever with you.”

My whole body shook, my stomach a writhing pit of snakes, my knees buckling.  Tears in my eyes.  “No.  I can’t give you forever.  I don’t even know what I’m going to do in two weeks.”

His voice lowered to a dangerous level.  “Maggie.”

I shook my head and burst into tears.  “It’s not going to work.  I have to leave.”

“
Fuck
.”  He stared up at the sky.  “I love you, and you have to leave.  That’s how this is?”

I nodded.

He closed his eyes, wincing in pain, and I felt horrible.  Worse than I’d ever felt in my life.  Worse than when the kids in school made fun of my secondhand clothes.  Worse than when I’d been friend-zoned by every other guy.  Worse than every year on my birthday when my parents didn’t call or come.

Now I had this guy—beautiful, giving, sexy, and trustworthy—who loved me, and I couldn’t be with him.

Tears streamed down my face.

“Go, Court.  I can’t talk to you right now.  Let me be.”

Staring at me, he went to reach out a hand to dry my tears, but I stopped him.

“Go.  Leave me before I have to leave you.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Please,” I whispered.  “Please go.”

He shook his head, and then said, “I’ll do what you want me to do.  I’m just gonna go for a walk.  You know where to find me.”  He rummaged in his pocket and handed me the keys to his truck.  “Drive yourself home.  I’ll come by your house later.”  He started walking down the road toward his secret spot.  “Just think about what you really want, Maggie.  Not what you think you want.”

And his feet crushed pine needles on the side of the road as he loped off away from me.

I stood there in the street, holding his keys, shaking, and slumped against the truck.

Court “love-em and leave-em” Thompson, fell in love with me.

Me.

For real.

The hot, late summer breeze blew my curls and made my body shudder.

I unlocked the truck and went inside the passenger seat, needing to gather my thoughts before I went back inside to talk to Kristy.

Was I in love with him?

I opened up the glove box to see if he had any tissues, and my camera popped out.  We’d kept it in there so we had it at all times.

Wiping my eyes on the back of my hand, I turned on the camera and started looking at the pictures from this summer.  Court and I standing on the riverbank of the Merced, smiling in the sun.  Court and I backpacking in Tuolumne Meadows.  A zillion flowers from a photography walk he took me on.  The time we sat in the Valley floor with binoculars and watched rock climbers go up El Capitan.  Me riding a bike.  Him on a horse.  Both of us sipping drinks and listening to the piano music at the Wawona Hotel.  Looking at the majesty of Yosemite through the windows of the Ahwahnee Hotel.

I kept flipping and ended up at the first picture we took—the selfie from when I woke up after being with him the first time.  In that picture, he looked so hot, his bed head sticking up all over the place, his biceps flexed, holding the camera, showing his tatts.

But me?

I looked beautiful.  Content.  Comfortable.

Trusting.

He’d never let me down.  I was the one who’d let him down.

I’d feared rejection from him, but in the end, it was me who rejected him, not the other way around.

And I started to sob.

Because in the last three months, Court had become my everything.  He meant all of the beautiful things of Yosemite National Park—its wildflowers and tall trees, its granite peaks and waterfalls.  Its vistas and intimate spots.

But he also opened me up and made me find myself.  He saw me, he made me see myself.

He made me trust him.

He made me trust myself.

I loved him.  Oh my God, I fucking loved him.

Could I trust that love?  Could I trust that we would figure it out?

And the only answer to that was yes.

My tears subsided and I looked in the mirror.  I looked rough.  Did I go after Court?

Absolutely.

I just needed to excuse myself from the party, and then I’d find him.

A few minutes later, rubbing my cheeks, I stared at myself in the rear view mirror and thought that I could be seen in public.  I went back into the party to find Kristy.  Before I even could step inside, I got immediately side-hugged by Ian.  “Beautiful Maggie.  I’m gonna miss you when this summer is over.”

I nodded.  “I’ll miss you too.”

“Where are you going after?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You gonna leave Man of the Sierra?”

“No,” I whispered.  “I’m not.”

“That’s, uh, good,” he said vaguely.  Then he said in a rush, “Guess I’ve just wished that you got together with me instead.”

I shook my head.  “Friends, Ian.”

“Friends with benefits?” he asked hopefully.

“No.”  It wasn’t even a temptation.  It never had been.

“Sorry, Ian, we’ll talk later.  I need to go, but Kristy said she wanted to talk to me.”

“She’s over there,” he started.  Then he stared over my shoulder.  “Shit.”

“What?”

“You know how they’ve been saying for a month that it’s fire season?  I think we’ve got one.”  

I turned.  A black, billowing cloud like an angry thunderhead was forming behind me.  During my tears, my fight with Court, it hadn’t been there.

“You can tell when fires are new and out of control because the smoke is black,” he continued, analytically.  “When the smoke gets white, you know they’re contained.  Woods are like a matchstick right now, at the end of summer.  Just about anything will set them off.”

“Court went that way,” I shriek-whispered, and took off running to the truck.  He followed me.

“Maggie, wait.  Don’t go that way.”  

I wrenched the door open and started the engine.  “I need to find him.”

“He’ll take care of himself.  He’s no dummy.  He’ll see the smoke and come back.”

“I am not going to feel safe until I find him.”

Ian stared at me.  “You really do love him don’t you?”

I nodded.  “Tell Kristy I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Up a deer trail past the Brown House.  Court’s favorite spot is about a fifteen minute hike up.”  Tires squealing, I took off, headed up to our house.  So fast I didn’t notice it, I got there, then shut the engine off, pocketed the keys, and took off running up the trail, the smoke rising up in the direction I was headed, dark and angry.  I started yelling.  “Court!  Courtney Thompson!  Court!  Where are you?”

I ran up the trail, my thighs screaming from the elevation gain, my feet finally comfortable with my boots, my lungs finally comfortable at the elevation—but not with my speed and not with the smoky air.  Running, running, I got to the boulders where we normally sat.

And he wasn’t there.

“Court!  Court!”  I screamed as loud as I could.

Nothing.

Had he left?  Was he at his house?

No, he couldn’t be.  I would have seen him.

“Court!”

I heard a faint, “Maggie!”

“Keep calling, where are you?” I hollered.

“Down here.  Careful.”

Shit.  I got down on my butt and scooted to the edge of the boulder and looked down.  Court lay at the bottom of a narrow ravine, wedged between two boulders, his foot twisted up under him.  Dusty and dirty, he’d been scraped up badly.

A helicopter roared over my head, tossing my curls.

“Court!” I yelled.  “What happened?  Let me help you.”

“I hurt my ankle.  I think I broke my leg.  Go get help, you can’t pull me up,” he ordered, his low voice tough, but this time tinged with pain.

“We don’t have time,” I said.  “Look.”  And I pointed to the smoke cloud, getting bigger and darker.

“If you can get down here and help me up, I think I can hop out of here,” he said.  “But I can’t get out on my own.”

I looked down.  

Fucking heights.  Twenty feet down?  More?  I’d have to scramble down a rock, trusting that my feet wouldn’t fall.

It scared the shit out of me.

But he was down there and I had to get him.

Take the next step.

Carefully, gingerly, I took the first step down the side of the slanted boulder, making my way to the bottom slowly.  When I got to him, I was scared to touch him, scared to hurt him more.  Scared to jar his leg.

“You can lean on my shoulder,” I said, and I helped him to his feet.  Then I looked back up.

The way back up was steep, at a sharp angle.  The cloud of black smoke was moving directly overhead.  How much time did we have?

Fuck.

“Okay,” I said.  “Let’s try this.”  He leaned on my shoulders, his bad ankle dangling, and he took a hop, moaning in pain.  “Is this going to make it worse?” I asked.

“We have no choice.”

Grim and determined, he leaned on me, took another vertical hop, and this time my feet gave way and we both slipped to the rock.  I hit my chin and scraped my knees and he made another moan of pain.

“We have to do this,” I said.  “We have to get you out of here.  I’m not leaving you.”

He looked at me.

I continued.  “I’m never leaving you, Court.  I love you.  I love every single thing about you.  I want you forever.  If you’ll still have me?”

“Course, babe.”  He wrapped me in the tightest hug ever, then wiped the blood off my chin.  He gave me a gentle kiss.  “Let’s get me out of here and then continue this conversation.”

Me helping, him pulling, us tugging, we managed to crawl, hop, balance, and scramble our way back up the boulder.  When we got to the top, Ian, Matt, and Emma appeared, Emma holding a backpack.  “We thought there might be trouble,” she said, looking at his ankle.  “Let me wrap it up.”

She whipped out a stretchy bandage and braced his ankle, then he leaned on Matt and Ian.  “We’re to evacuate,” said Matt.

He and Ian each wrapped one of Court’s arms around their necks and helped him slowly make his way down the trail.

I turned and looked behind me.  The fire was so close, I could see the flames licking at the trees.  And then I heard the roar overhead of planes for water drops.