Another ascender went into the bin. “You don’t look like that made you feel any better.”
“It did. It’s just—” Sarah sighed. “We barely know each other.”
Beckett nodded and stayed silent for a few moments, checking and clearing another two ascenders. “So what do you want to know? What’s your minimum threshold of knowledge that will make you more comfortable with this?”
She laughed a little. “I don’t know.”
Abandoning the ascenders, he caged her against the table, planting his hands behind her. He didn’t touch her, but Sarah was aware of every hard inch of him as he leaned in, close enough that it would barely take more than breathing to brush her mouth to his. He smelled of soap and cedar. Delicious.
“Look, I figure a spark like this doesn’t come along every day. So, to my mind, it’s worth following up to see if it fizzles or catches. So, what do you want to know?”
When you’ll kiss me again. But that wasn’t what he was asking. “I guess I can’t say everything, can I?”
Beckett’s lips curved, and he stepped back, returning to his bin of equipment. “Okay. I’ll start with a mini-bio. I’m originally from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Non-smoker. Social drinker. Coke over Pepsi. Dogs over cats. Morning person, which I hope you won’t hold against me. Did my undergrad at USC, then grad school at Dartmouth, where I met Michael and Heather.”
“Dartmouth?”
“Eh, don’t be impressed. I left before I graduated.”
Getting into an Ivy League graduate program was an achievement unto itself. She knew. “What were you studying?”
“I was getting my MBA.”
“Really? I would’ve imagined—I don’t know—environmental science or something.”
“That would’ve been a better fit.” He finished one bin and grabbed another. “I could have stuck it out, I guess. I was in the last year.”
Sarah couldn’t imagine being so close to finished and not following through. “Why didn’t you?”
“They’re big on group work in MBA programs. I found out in the middle of a presentation that my partner had plagiarized his entire half of the project.”
“Oh my God. Did your professor fail you, too?”
“Nope. He just said that kind of thing happened in the real world, and I needed to get over it.”
Her mouth fell open. “You’re kidding!”
“Wish I was. I figured if that was what the real, corporate world was like, I’d never be happy, and I wanted none of it. I walked straight out. Didn’t even finish my half.”
“Ballsy.”
“The word my parents used was ‘stupid’. But that was later. There’s a trailhead for the Appalachian Trail about a mile from campus. I packed a bag and hit the trail. By the time I made it to Virginia, I’d decided the National Park Service was my ne
xt step.”
He said it casually, as if hiking what had to be around three hundred miles, give or take, was no big deal.
“You said you were at Yosemite the last three years?”
“Yeah. Stints at Conagree, Shenandoah, and Hot Springs before that.”
“So what are you doing here at Camp Firefly Falls? I’d think summer would be high season for a park ranger.”
“It is. I’m not a park ranger anymore.” Though his tone was easy, a muscle jumped in his jaw.
“I’m guessing that wasn’t as easy a decision as leaving Dartmouth.”
“No. The powers that be didn’t much appreciate my hijacking the park’s social media account to counter the blatantly false information about climate change being spread by those currently running our government.”