Page 6 of Their Rustic Retreat

“I guess we’ll know what to call it in hindsight, in a few years, won’t we?”

I guide our travels through the woods. I know exactly where I want to take him. It’s a bit of an uphill hike, but he’s definitely in shape enough to handle anything I throw at him.

“So, do you do anything besides looking beautiful at the family farm?” he asks as we climb over some big tree roots. “Not to say that isn’t a full-time job. You do it incredibly well.”

I cackle. “I mostly manage the kennel and the dogs.”

“Your parents run a kennel?”

“Hey, dogs need a place to stay sometimes, and we got more than enough space to tend to them. I love animals, so it works out for me. At least until I can get into a good school.”

His eyebrows perk up. “School, for what?”

“Veterinary medicine.”

“So you want to care for more than just hugging and kissing them and taking them for long walks?”

“Those are important too,” I say, watching Reuben relieve himself against a nearby tree. “But Evergreen Valley needs a full-time vet. And that vet may as well be me.”

Tristian looks at me with amazement. “You literally don’t have a vet in town?”

“None that are open to seeing all animals. We’re a small town. Sometimes you just don’t have these things.”

“That’s kind of strange to me. What next, you’re going to tell me you don’t have a good Indian restaurant?”

“Sorry to break your heart again, Tristian.”

“Damn. I guess I’ll survive. Have to learn how to cook that stuff myself.”

Up the hill more we go. It’s actually been a bit since I’d been up here myself, so I’m not surprised at the trouble it's giving me. “What about you? Do you just look handsome at Mr. Bell’s ranch?”

“I do that very well,” he says, keeping up with me easily. “But sadly, he pays me as a farmhand and not a model.”

“What brought you out here, anyway? I don’t think you grew up dreaming about chucking hay bales onto the backs of trucks.”

“And what if I did? It’s a respectable position. The world needs people loading hay bales onto trucks.”

“Yes, they do, but I assume most city people dream of being astronauts. Or billionaires.”

“And I desire to be neither of those.”

“We’ve established that. Okay, what did you do back in the city, then?”

The two of us keep going for a bit. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s not responding.

I glance back at him. “You all right?”

“I was a bouncer, back in the city,” he says, his words kind of abrupt. “You know, being the strongman in front of the club, making sure the wrong people don’t get in. And if they do get in, take care of them when they start to cause trouble. You grab them by the neck and toss them into the street, as if they are very loud, smelly, and violent hay bales.”

I grimace. “That doesn’t seem like a fun job.”

“It wasn't. But it paid well, and the hours were really good. So I stuck it out. I was good at it.”

“Looking at you? It’s no surprise that you would be.” We clambor up the hill a little more. It’s fast approaching sundown, the time getting far, far away from me.

Luckily, we’re not going to be hiking in the dark for too long. We’re just about there.

And for the trip back? My phone’s got a really strong flashlight. Sure, living out in the woods is the old-fashioned way of Evergreen Valley, but it doesn’t mean modern technology isn’t appreciated.

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