Page 47 of Dahlia Made A List

The first summer, Jae’s gran and older brother pounded in the stakes and popped up the tent, but we took over the next year. Our little temporary shelter fit two tiny girls like a charm. We smooshed together in the space meant for one adult, giggling and oohing and ahhing over the Richland fireworks display we could just see over the trees. We’d lay with our heads popped out the flap, staring up at the bright red and blue and purple and golden starbursts. I remember feeling happy under the beautiful sky, filled with the artwork of sparkling color against a night sky.

Jaelynn planned our adventure each year, up until we turned fifteen. She never made it to sixteen and my parents wouldn’t have allowed me to erect a tent in their yard, even if I’d had the heart to try.

Jaelynn would probably have a list of things to take to the yurt. Ever efficient, anticipating our every possible need.

I, on the other hand, stood in the doorway of a circular room and wished I could shrink into a teeny weeny speck and disappear. I’d leapt at the chance to leave the apartment, for the distraction of a camping trip.

A distraction from the situation I found myself in with Wyatt.

I’d ghosted him since the Sunday dinner with his family. The dinner where I embarrassed myself and him by talking about naked people and flashing hockey players. Among other misdeeds.

I’d avoided him since he challenged my list.

I’d avoided him since I wanted nothing more than to toss the whole reason for my list out the window and throw myself at the grump man.

In my rush to escape, I arrived completely unprepared. I’d been so excited to have my reservation come early, I’d completely forgotten to check what would be provided. I remember from talking to the owner, that he’d said accommodations included a bed and a bathhouse outside. And a wood stove for heat and cooking.

He hadn’t lied. I took in the rustic, circular building. Tan canvas on the outside and wooden lattice on the inside. The top, also canvas and reinforced with wood slats, narrowed to a ginormous transparent dome cover at the top letting in glorious sunshine and lighting the interior.

A queen-sized bed-but-not-a-bed raised wooden platform took up most of the space below with a small wooden table pushed up against the side nearest the door. On the opposite side, with a pipe jutting up and then sideways out the canvas wall of the yurt, sat a black wood stove. Another table, smaller than the first and topped with an old-timey lantern, stood near the bed-not-a-bed.

The sight of the inside did not match my Instagram imaginings. No plush bed covered with jewel-toned pillows. No luxurious rugs strewn about the floor in elegant disarray.

A right proper punishment, my guilty conscience offered with a sneer.

I dropped my bag atop the table. I’d worn my hiking boots and packed plenty of clothes, my Kindle, several water bottles and half a dozen baggies of my favorite trail mix.

I snorted. I was vastly underprepared.

My shoulders slumped and I rolled my lips together and stepped back outside to look around. I’d taken a Rideshare to the Gas n’ Apple and hiked the well-worn trail that rose with a steady incline behind the store. An easy enough trek of a little more than three hours, with the yurt visible from the main trail.

As I lost myself beneath the canopy of Fraser fir and red spruce, I could pretend I hadn’t humiliated Wyatt and myself Sunday in front of Minerva and his mother and father and all the others. I’d never sat at a table with so many chairs and filled with so many smart and important people.

Even Minerva, in her own way, watched me, curious and considering, and the attention turned my reasonable nervousness into a debilitating inability to follow anyone’s conversation.

I barely managed to answer direct questions, and even then, my answers felt wrong, confused. When the conversation moved into more business-related topics, at first I was grateful for the diversion. But as their conversion went on, I felt more and more lost and out of my depth. These people lived in a different world and I had no chance of keeping up.

The trees thinned, the ground dappled with wild blackberry bushes and hobblebush until the trail curved and the ground opened up to a pretty field.

I could see how Vida’s mom would be curious if she didn’t know the structure was here and came across the thing on a random afternoon hike. Situated in a meadow along a curve in the path that snaked in and out of trees as it continued on up into the Blue Ridge foothills. I’d intended to continue along the trail before the sun set, but seeing the inside of the yurt reminded me of everything I was supposed to have brought along.

I’d meant to research what to expect, make a list of anything I could possibly need and haul it up with me. Instead, I had trail mix and a loaded, fully charged Kindle. I strode around to the far side of the yurt in search of the bathhouse. But behind the yurt was a deck with two pretty chairs set to look across the meadow and on to the mountains in the distance, a fire pit and along a deck walkway, the expected bathhouse in the shape of a round building with a pointy top.

But what brought the smile back to my lips was on ground level at the edge of the deck. An outdoor shower. Narrow, vertical slats of wood created a cylinder atop a smooth stone base. Sunlight glinted off the fixtures, light and shadow playing over the plants dotting the outside of the little structure.

I’d never taken a shower outside before, but now I wanted to do so more than anything. The idea ripped away my frustration at the lack of planning and thinking I’d done for this little adventure. Now, I was determined to make the best of things. I could hike down to the Gas n’ Apple for food, and tomorrow the farmer’s market would be in full swing and there was no telling what treasures I’d find. I could survive a night roughing it, surely.

I swung around on my heel. So I didn’t have a real bed. I could make due. I had an outdoor shower! I plodded back along the deck to the door of the yurt only to stop dead in my tracks.

Wyatt Weston strode up the path, a huge pack over his shoulders, his eyes sharp on me.

He prowled closer in his rolling, ground-eating gait. Steady and sure, closing the distance between us.

Maybe I wouldn’t be tossing the list, after all. Because nothing about Wyatt Weston was like any man I’d ever known and hadn’t the list been about not repeating past mistakes? Maybe I’d found my unicorn. My perfect match.

A smile pulled at my lips, heat flagging my cheeks. Happiness at seeing him. And certainty that despite my list, I couldn’t ignore this thing between us.

Because no way could this lightness filling my body, this complete joy at seeing this particular human being be ignored. He deserved a woman who had her act together. Who remembered to check the accommodations and to pack accordingly when she took a trip, who wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his family.

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