Her Heart's Bargain. Cheryl Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ Reserve’s business. He hated it.

      A full week? Seventy-eight hours was all Ash could manage. He needed his desk, his view of the forests and the comfortable sounds of Macy running the world outside his door. The park guides needed a new schedule. Brett was handling all the incident reports that landed on his desk, doing Ash’s job. And Macy was forced to juggle all the tiny crises that hit every day in a busy place like Otter Lake.

      Ash closed his eyes and tried to breathe in the peace of the Buckeye Cove along Wattie Run, one of the smaller creeks that flowed into Otter Lake. At this time of year, few animals were stirring in the cold hours before dawn, but the heart of the land was still beating. He tried to concentrate on his own heartbeat. If he was successful, it would drown out the chaos that had taken over his brain ever since he’d gotten an angry phone call from his boss Monday morning.

      When the faintest pink of sunrise over the mountains stained his eyelids, he gave up. It wasn’t that he was a big believer in meditation, but when times got hard, he knew he had to go to the water.

      Very little of his father’s Cherokee heritage had trickled down and stuck with him, but this was unshakable. His sister could tell stories and share their history easily because she’d soaked it in. For him, he had to be outdoors to truly feel alive. Today, the sound, the smell, the quiet of his spot beside the running water were necessary.

      He needed to absorb enough silence and calm to make it through what would be a hard day.

      Winter was his least favorite season, but attendance numbers dropped in the Reserve and there was more time in the day to get outside. To get away from the ringing phone and back to what made him love his job. The land he worked hard to protect. His father’s favorite fishing hole. The place his grandmother’s youngest brother had told him about the legend of Rabbit tricking Possum, leaving him with a tail without a single hair. The background of the old faded wedding photo his mother loved to show him. She’d been the original hippie, even if she’d come to Sweetwater and Otter Lake on a spring break trip from her Ivy League school forty years ago, about a decade too late to claim the name.

      Donna Warren and Martin Kingfisher had met on a hike; as soon as she’d graduated, Donna had left New England behind to find her real home in Tennessee.

      She and his father had married with a small group of friends who’d made the climb up to the overlook of Yanu Falls. From his spot, he could hear the falls rustling in the summertime. Right now, the water was more of a slide along a frozen surface down into the lake.

      But that was okay. It was only for a season. In the spring, everything would change again.

      He’d held on to that promise, that things would change again, for a long time.

      Unfortunately, sometimes when the promise came true, things only got worse.

      “Dark. Real dark, Kingfisher.” Ash forced himself to stand, the ache in his leg worse than when he’d started out that morning. Sitting on cold rock could do that to a man. Eventually, he’d either have to give up his favorite hike, or he’d have to admit old age and bad decisions had caught up with him and find a place with a bench. “So it’s going to be like that, is it? Nothing but rain clouds and thunder.”

      The hoot of an owl stopped him in his tracks. “Oh, fine. That’s not creepy timing.” If his grandmother had been near, she’d insist the owl was a messenger. Somehow, every omen had to do with death the way his enisi told it. “Could be good news, Ash. And messages are just messages, anyway.”

      Frustrated with himself, Ash limped back to the Reserve SUV sitting alone in the tiny parking lot. The push to get the Reserve’s attendance numbers up hadn’t taken off, and this latest catastrophe was going to be a distraction. To address either problem, he had to be hands-on.

      As Ash slid into the driver’s seat, he gripped the steering wheel. While his leg painfully adjusted to the change in circumstances and the heater warmed everything, Ash muttered, “Three good things.”

      That was Macy’s influence. It wasn’t that she was so bright and optimistic herself. She had no time for foolishness. Self-pity? Yeah, that would be enemy number one to his capable office manager.

      He liked it like that, too. Without her...

      He didn’t want to imagine how dark life might get without her.

      In the bad days right after the accident, where a friend’s decision to climb the wrong spot in the park had gotten them both injured, Ash had struggled against that darkness. The threat of never being able to do what he loved, serving at Otter Lake as a ranger, had been real. Then he’d been moved to his spot in the new visitor center. Eventually, the Administrative Services director had sent young Macy Gentry to manage it and turn his world upside down, mainly by forcing light into dim corners.

      They’d made each other miserable before they’d learned to work together.

      Come up with three good things. That’s what she muttered to herself every time someone snapped at her over the phone, or a vendor gave her the runaround, or when he made her mad enough to spit. Sometimes she said them out loud. Sunshine. A steady paycheck. Work that matters. She’d said it; Ash had felt it and he was grateful for the reminder.

      Ash backed out of the parking spot. “Number one, your commute is perfect.”

      Driving in the park was something he enjoyed. Even in the winter, the old growth trees meant lots of shade and sun and the animals of the park were hardy. A little cold only slowed them down. As he turned into the parking lot of the ranger station, Ash hit the brakes hard at the sight of a shadow on the path leading up to the visitor center’s overlook. Was it a black bear? The mild temps meant the bear might still be out foraging, but he faded into the trees before Ash could get his binoculars out.

      Black bears mean good luck. His father had told him that the first time they’d run into one on a hike up Yanu. Ash had never found anyone else who said so, but his father either believed or wanted him to, so Ash went with it. Good luck. He needed it.

      And Macy’s car was already parked outside. “That’s got to be three.”

      She was usually the first in; he was the last out, only because he insisted she go home ahead of him. He and his rangers and support staff served the visitors to Otter Lake and Smoky Valley Nature Reserve. They were responsible for safety and law enforcement in the park, all education and conservation efforts, and welcoming visitors. If school groups needed guides or researchers needed support or hikers got lost or campers got rowdy or bills needed to be paid, it all ended up on his desk.

      Macy made sure all of that fell into an orderly formation. Spending all day with her annoyed was going to test his patience.

      Following orders outlined by his boss, the chief ranger, was always important, but it was especially a priority now that he owed his career to Leland Hall. Climbing without the proper safety equipment as a Reserve law enforcement ranger had been dumb beyond belief. Being fired would have made perfect sense. Instead, Leland Hall had recommended him for the new head ranger position. Ash’s hardline position on safety procedures was now well known to everyone who worked for him. No one would make the same mistakes he had, not while he was watching over the rangers at Otter Lake. He’d been lucky Chief Ranger Hall had believed in his ability to do more. His boss’s questioning about the leaked environmental impact report had been a hard blow. Being ordered away from his post was worse.

      “Doesn’t matter. Only way out is through.” Ash heard his grim tone. He knew that people were saying he’d СКАЧАТЬ