Page 88 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“We're at a lake.”

“There are a lot of those in Montana.”

I try to place it by sound alone and fail completely. He keeps me moving, guiding me carefully around what I can only assume is the perimeter of something. Gravel gives way to wood under my feet. Steps. A few more. Then he positions me somewhere, hands settling on my shoulders, turning me gently in a specific direction.

“Okay,” he says. “You can take it off now.”

I pull the blindfold away.

I know this lake. I've known it my whole life. It spreads out in front of me, blue and still, sunlight scattered across the surface, mountains rising green and dark beyond the far shore. But I'm looking at it from a different stretch of shoreline, quiet and private, nothing like the public rope-swing beach.

“Alder Lake,” I say.

“Yeah.”

I turn to him, delighted and completely confused about why he’d bring me to Alder Lake.

Then I turn around fully and see the house behind us.

It's modest, wood-sided, a little weathered, a wide porch stretching along the back facing the water. Mature pines crowd close on either side.

“Is this a rental?” I ask.

“No.”

“Whose place is it?”

“Mine.”

I look at him. “What?”

“I bought it,” he says. “Closed last week.”

I stare at the house, then at him, then back at the house, trying to make the pieces fit together into something that makes sense. Beck Hale. The man whose whole life was built around leaving, never staying anywhere long enough to need furniture.

“You bought a house.”

“Yes.”

“You used to own four things.”

“I had at least seven.”

I laugh, mostly because I have to do something with the disbelief, and ask him why this cabin, out of everywhere he could have looked.

“Heard it was coming up for sale through somebody in town. Came out to see it. Saw the lake.” He shrugs, like it's simple, even though I know it isn't. “Knew pretty fast.”

We talk about it for a few minutes, practical things, easier ground than whatever's building underneath the conversation. Three bedrooms, he tells me. Kitchen needs work. Roof's solid, at least, which he says like it's the highest praise a roof can receive.

“You've bought yourself a renovation project.”

“I like projects.”

Then he nods toward the porch, wide enough for a full table and then some. “Plenty of room out here.”

“For what?”

“Sunday dinners.”