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He kept coming back to the way she’d called herself ordinary. Didn’t she know about the light that surrounded her, the kindness that radiated from her, the allure that flowed around her? Was he the only one who could see it?
It was true that not every man who encountered her became entranced. Redbull, for instance, thought she was too pale. Of course he said that about any woman who wasn’t Native American, no matter how dark their skin.
“She seems nice, but it’s the nice ones you have to watch out for,” he’d warned Galen. “I’ll take a woman with a buck knife and a sharp tongue over a girl who smiles as she lies through her teeth.”
“When did Brenda ever lie to you?”
“I’m just saying. Nice isn’t always nice. And you’re so bewitched by her that you think she’s all that and a can of beans.”
“A can of beans?”
Redbull didn’t know what he was talking about. And he didn’t know Brenda.
Nevertheless, he’d tucked that warning away in the back of his mind. Nice isn’t always nice. That part was definitely true. He preferred straightforward communication to smiles that hid resentments.
He paused at an overlook and waited for Brenda to catch up. While he took a sip of water from his canteen, he eyed her lagging stride. She needed a rest.
“How are you doing?” he asked as she made it to his side.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You need a rest.”
“No, I’m—”
“You need a rest,” he said firmly, setting his backpack on the ground. “This is as good a spot as any.”
She followed his lead and gingerly slid her arms from the straps of her pack. “Just a short break.”
He shook out a tarp for her to sit on. “I have an important rule on long hikes. If you’re tired, tell me. If you’re thirsty, tell me. If you have to take a piss, tell me. If you want a snack, or a piece of chocolate, or you want to take a photo, or identify a bird call, you tell me. This isn’t a forced march. It’s a long-ass hike and we have to pace ourselves. Me included.”
She gazed up at him with those riveting green eyes. Here in the wild, they took on the deep jewel tones of a fjord. “Did you say chocolate?” she finally said, then took a long drink from her water bottle.
He laughed and dug in his pack for one of the bars of dark chocolate he’d brought. Standard procedure. Nothing gave you a burst of energy like a square of chocolate. “Do you understand my point?”
She sighed. “Yes, but I don’t like to complain about things. My general approach is to suffer through uncomfortable situations. That’s what my imagination is for. I just start telling myself stories. Like just now, my feet were getting sore, so I distracted myself by fleshing out my heroine’s character. I decided that she’s divorced.”
“Oh yeah? Are you divorced?”
Since she seemed to put a lot of herself into her heroine, it was worth asking.
“Oh, no. To my mother’s disappointment. She’d rather I be divorced than still single at my age.”
“How old are you?” She couldn’t be more than thirty, could she? He was thirty-five himself.
“Thirty-one. When I turned thirty, my mother acted like I should have a funeral instead of a birthday party. I once asked a friend of mine if he would marry me and divorce me right away, just so my mother wouldn’t be so upset about my singlehood.”
He couldn’t imagine that kind of pressure. Then again, his mother hadn’t cared about much of anything he did, so long as he didn’t get into so much trouble that the police got called. That was her red line. “Why does she care so much? A lot of people don’t get married.”
“She cares because that’s what the people around her care about. Everything’s a competition, even your children. What school do they go to? How successful of a man did they marry? How many children? How many homes? Where do they spend summers? Where do they ski?”
With each word, his heart sank further. No wonder CeCe had thought it would be hilarious to drag him into that scene. He was the exact opposite of everything Brenda’s mother wanted for her daughter.
“She wants the best for you,” he managed.
She shot him an astonished look. “She wants to look good for her friends. I mean, she loves me. But she also wants to impress her friends.”
“She also probably thinks you’d be smart to marry a successful man who skis and has a summer house. You’d be set for life that way.”
