Page 26 of Past Tents

Voices down the hallway reminded me we’d been here talking for far too long. Ally seemed to realize it at the same time, checking the time on her phone. “I need to get to class. Yearbook’s in shambles because we’re using a new company this year, and their page templates are all different. As in, we can’t just plug in new photos—we have to redesign everything.”

“Whose idea was it to change companies?”

Ally waves a hand. “That would be me. It’s cheaper, and the money the school saved allowed us to keep more in the budget for our special ed teacher, which we need.”

“Got it. Okay, don’t want to hold you up.” Ally grabbed her coffee and moved toward the door just as Witty came in with a muffin on a paper plate. Hijacking the toaster, he pulled out my bagel, which I’d forgotten about.

“This yours?” He held it up with two fingers.

“Don’t touch people’s food,” Ally scolded. “We’ve talked about that, Witty.”

He shrugged, tossed my bagel on a paper towel, and went ahead warming his muffin.

“Don’t watch those shows!” I called after Ally.

“Yes, sir!” she called back.

I dropped into a chair and took a bite of my now-cold toasted bagel, devoid of cream cheese. It tasted how I felt.

CHAPTER

NINE

CLAY

Ally ignored my advice.

“This guy was in his tent—or not even a tent, it was more like a tarp hanging from a tree branch—and some animal starts heavy breathing right next to him, and then touches him through the tarp!”

I shook my head, accepting the steep pitch that lay ahead of me: convincing her we’d be safe on a two-mile trail to a campsite tended by park rangers.

“Which one did you watch?” It didn’t matter. One episode of either wilderness survival show would have terrified anyone planning to go camping for the first time.

“Both of them.”

I held my face in my hands. This woman...so stubborn. “Ally, why?”

She shrugged and dropped her overnight bag at my feet. “I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess.” To her credit, she’d packed in a nylon duffel, not some roller bag that would be impractical on a camping trip. I’d told her I’d lend her a backpack for the retreat,and she didn’t seem put off by the idea of carrying everything on her back.

“They ate beetles. Lots of them. And one guy was trying to catch a fish and ended up eating leeches. We’re not eating beetles, are we?” Ally stood on my front porch, arms crossed, crease between her brows. At first, I was delighted that she’d shown up fifteen minutes early because I mistook it for enthusiasm. But it was something else.

“We won’t be eating beetles. These are high school kids, remember? We’ll be eating things like GORP.”

“What the hell’s that? Is it a type of insect? A weird plant?” She looked legitimately terrified, and I fought the urge to pull her against my chest and wrap her in my arms. Her fear was kind of adorable, mainly because I had years of camping experience that made me feel like sleeping outside was no big deal.

She was a puzzle. So capable and badass in every way—unwilling to back down when it came to refusing Pindich and his smarmy lunch invitations, feisty as hell when it came to creating an art program that none of the other public schools had, and giving me a hard time about...everything. But this one thing scared the hell out of her.

I needed to understand why. And my ego wanted to be the superhero that got her over her fears. Not to mention that I loved the outdoors, and we happened to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It would be a shame for Ally to live here and not get to experience all the wonders in nature.

Escorting her into my house, I tried to talk her down. “It’s an acronym. Good old raisins and peanuts. GORP is basically trailmix, though we don’t actually use peanuts because kids are allergic.”

She exhaled a breath I didn’t know she was holding and looked around my kitchen, where I’d gathered our food supplies for the night. “Here, let’s bring these out back and I’ll show you the setup.”

We wouldn’t have a cooler on the camping trip because we’d be hiking a couple miles with backpacks, but for tonight’s purposes, there was no need to rough it.

“You sure you wouldn’t rather cook in here? This is a pretty nice kitchen setup you’ve got.” She ran a hand over the dark gray stone countertop and admired the cabinets. I felt a sense of pride as she looked around. “Did you do a lot of work when you moved in?”

“I did a few things recently. Mostly in here.” I pointed to where a big center island separated the kitchen from the den. I’d painted the cabinets a deep shade of green that matched the trees visible beyond the deck. It wasn’t fancy, but the rustic charm suited me.

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