Page 266 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t think he’s great. He even makes friends while handing out tickets. There’s something about him that draws people in.”

“What is it that drawsyouto him?” he asked.

He’d given her the opening. All she had to do was speak the truth, but words eluded her. She turned her head to keep him from noticing how flustered she was. “Aren’t we were going to talk about the case?”

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have asked about your love life. It’s none of my business.”

The following morning,Emily arrived at work earlier than usual, and Austin was already waiting for her when she walked through the door of the park office. He spun his chair around to face her, and the look on his face was not that of easygoing Austin. “Either you tell him, or I will.”

“Tell who what?” She took a step into the room. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m tired of getting death glares from Wade Brunner.”

“He does not glare at you.” She laughed it off. “You’re insane.”

“Tell him we’re not seeing each other.”

“If I tell him that, he’ll think I lied to him.”

“You did lie to him.”

“He made an assumption. Maybe I should’ve set him straight, but I didn’t lie.”

“It was a lie of omission.”

“You and I can have a pretend breakup?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He stood. “Then you’d go from lie of omission to outright lie and a bit of acting to go along with it. I’m definitely not gettinginvolved in that. Tell him the truth, Emily.” The look in his eyes softened. “He’ll understand.”

Austin left her standing there and a moment later, the outer door slammed.

Tight knots formed in her gut at the prospect of telling Wade the truth. Austin was right, she needed to do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.

Emily pulledinto the parking lot on Route 118 below falls trail and waited for Sam to arrive. They planned to drive Sam’s car up to Lake Jean and hike down Falls Trail. It was a beautiful and challenging hike, but she wasn’t in the mood for an uphill climb, so she was glad Sam suggested parking a car at the bottom of the trail, so they could drive back up.

She was thankful she hadn’t run into Wade since her last conversation with Austin. She would tell him the truth and explain why she lied, but she wasn’t sure how to explain something she didn’t understand herself.

When she spotted Sam’s car pulling into the lot, she grabbed her backpack, hopped out of her car, and hit the lock button on her key-fob. She pulled open the passenger door of Sam’s car and climbed in.

“We can hike uphill instead, if you want?”

“Not a chance. We agreed on downhill this time,” Emily said.

“Works for me. I had to hike Old Bulldozer Road Trail to locate a hiker yesterday. The man sprained his ankle and couldn’t go on. The battery in his cell phone was dead. Not that he would’ve had a signal anyway. It’s a good thing he’d thought to tell a neighboring camper what trail he was hiking and whenhe planned to return. If he hadn’t, we might not have known he was missing. I had to radio Chase to come get him on an ATV.

“My legs felt like jelly by the time I got home. The first mile of that trail is killer steep.” Sam pulled out of the parking lot and headed West on Route 118 to Route 487 and made a right turn.

“You should’ve taken the ATV to begin with.”

“Next time.”

“By the time you need to rescue someone on that trail again, you’ll forget how steep it is.”

“Doubtful.” Sam made another right at the entrance to Ricketts Glen and drove down to the lot by Lake Jean. She parked at the end closest to Falls Trail.

---