No. Bad, Liz. Coffee, food, trail . . . coffee, food, trail . . .
“Is that your plan?” I nod, and he stretches out his hand. “May I?”
I hesitate a moment, wondering why he cares. There’s no harm in getting a second opinion, right? My other option decided he had better things to do with his time than help me plan a five-month trip. I hand him the tablet and pick up my coffee.
He leans back, scrolling the screen with one hand and the handle of his coffee cup with the other. “Lake Morena. No surprise there. Lower Morris? Huh. Okay.”
I lean closer. Which is a bad idea because I get another delicious whiff of him. “What’s wrong with Lower Morris? It has a water source, and I like meadows. There should be flowers to check out too.”
He pauses, looking like he’s not quite sure of what to make of me. Which is nothing new, if I’m being honest with myself. Something I’m trying to do a lot more, since I clearly wasn’t while I was with Bryce. All the more reason I should excuse myself and sit elsewhere. I didn’t come here to hook up with someone. Especially not the first guy I meet. I have a long trip ahead of me, and I don’t need the sexy distraction in front of me. Yet for some reason, I don’t want to get up.
“It’s Southern California,” he quips, drawing me back to our conversation. “Everything is brown. Even the flowers.” I chuckle as he continues scanning my list of destinations. “Is there a reason you don’t hike for more than eight hours?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve estimated your hiking time each day, and it’s all between seven and eight hours, like clockwork. Even when a little extra time would get you to a nicer location.”
I reach to take my tablet back, my smile and my good mood dropping. “I’ll hike my own hike, thank you. Besides, you can’t critique my plan when I don’t even know your name.”
He holds out his hand and grins. “I’m Kayden, but my trail name is Nova.”
A tingle rushes through my body as I take his offered hand. It’s soft, almost velvety. He holds mine tenderly, like a promise of how his touch might feel elsewhere. Doubt it will feel that nice after a few days in the wilderness, but damn, my body wants to find out.
I gulp, pushing down the urgings for a man I won’t see again once I walk out of this dining room. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be nice. “Nice to meet you, Nova. I’m Belle.”
***
The picture on Rachel’s phone shows me with an ecstatic smile next to the cement marker not a hundred feet from the Mexican border. It’s a replica of the original wooden one that was placed here by the Pacific Crest Trail Association, or PCTA, a group that helps maintain and improve the trail, for the trail’s twentieth anniversary. Its twin stands at the Canadian border 2,650 miles away.
What her photo doesn’t show is the swarm of butterflies that have been fluttering in my stomach since breakfast. It doesn’t help that Nova is a few yards away, talking with two other guys. One is a few inches taller than Nova, with a similar trim build. He’s wearing a serious expression under his combed brown hair, a few shades darker than my own, like he’s late to a meeting or something. The other is even taller, over six foot by a couple inches at least, and more muscular, with dark hair. He has a rugged look about him, like he was born to be in the wilderness. I don’t miss that Nova keeps looking my way. Or that I smile when he does. Lucky for me, Rachel hasn’t noticed yet, or I’d be getting a much different pep talk from her.
“I’m going to miss you like crazy, girl. I’m going to need lots of pictures.” Rachel turns and eyes Nova and the guys with him. Crap, maybe she had noticed. “Of all the wildlife you find,” she tells me with a playful wink.
Lucky for me—or unlucky—that’s when Nova decides to come over. He gives me a slight wave, which I return like some gawky teenager. Ugh.
“Speaking of which . . .” my bestie mutters with amusement.
“Hey, Belle,” he says with that pleasant grin of his. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Rachel,” I tell him with a slight wave. Rachel offers Nova a smile and a handshake. “Rach, this is Nova. We met at breakfast this morning.”
Rachel turns to me with a mischievous grin. “You don’t say.”
Nova looks at me and grins. “Nice shirt, Belle,” he says with a wink. An awkward embarrassment fills me, as wearing a yellow shirt featuring Disney’s Belle in her princess gown no longer seems as good of an idea as Rachel made it out to be back in our hotel room. He turns his attention toward Rachel. “So is your trail name Aurora?”
“Huh?” Rachel looks at her pink shirt, where Sleeping Beauty is dancing with her Prince Charming. “Oh. Sorry, no. There was no way I was driving all this way without stopping at Disneyland."
Nova chuckles, and I grin. Damn, I can’t help myself smiling around this guy. “So where’s your pack?” he asks her.
“This isn’t my thing,” Rachel admits. “I came to drop Lizzy off.”
Nova’s gaze snaps toward me, looking like he’s discovered a crucial clue about me. “Lizzy, huh.” He smiles again, and this time, it promises all kinds of fun. Rachel’s kind of fun. If he catches my cheeks blushing at the idea of giving in to his kind of fun, he doesn’t press it. “Going alone then, Lizzy?”
That question kills my warm feeling. “Yeah. Long story.” I turn away before he can notice the hurt still lingering in me.
Nova’s smile dips a little in the corners as he catches on to it being a story I don’t want to tell right now. He nods in understanding. “Well, the guys and I are always open to having other hikers join us. We tend to go a little longer than your eight-hour days, but we’re heading to Canada. You can hike with us as long as you want. No pressure.”
Rachel leans into me, purring. “You hear that, Liz? As long as you want.” I’m not sure they’re talking about the same things being long.
“Rach is a little overprotective,” I tell Nova, then turn toward Rachel. “And sometimes she forgets I can take care of myself.”
“Nova,” a voice calls. “We’re up!”
Nova turns and waves at his friends, who are standing in front of a folding table under a pop-up canopy where two people are checking permits. “Are you sure you’re good?”
“I am. But thanks for the offer.”
Nova looks torn between rushing over to his friends or staying to try to convince me to join them. “Well, we’re also staying at the lake tonight, if you change your mind.”
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. He nods and heads back over to his buddies. There’s a moment of silence as Rachel and I stand there, watching as Nova and his friends finish at the table before starting down the trail.
“Mmm,” Rachel muses.
“What?”