Page 22 of Silver Linings

“No,” I replied. That wasn’t really a lie, was it? I’d seen a unicorn, after all, not a horse.

Splitting hairs, I supposed, and yet I’d take the small wins where I could.

“But,” I went on before he could respond, “I know these woods really well. If you’re okay with meeting here early enough so I can still be at the shop to open at ten, then I think I can at least show you around if nothing else.”

His gaze met mine, now speculative, and I hoped I looked innocent and helpful and not at all like a woman planning to purposely lead him astray so there wouldn’t be any chance of him finding the unicorn — or whichever other creature decided to blunder into the woods. Most of the time, you never encountered more than one at once, but I’d read an entry in my grandmother’s journal where she’d found both a unicorn and a griffin drinking out of a pond deep in the woods, which meant anything was possible.

“You’d really do that?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Glad to help,” I told him.

“Then I’m grateful for the assistance.” He paused there and gazed up at the sky. “It looks like it’s stopping.”

Sure enough, the rain had gradually lessened while we were talking and had diminished to little more than a faint drizzle. The ground was a muddy mess, though, and I wasn’t looking forward to the slog back to my car.

“So it is,” I said. “Do you want your jacket back?”

“You should probably keep it on until we get to the trailhead,” he replied.

Funny how he assumed we were going to walk together. But I knew it would look suspicious if I said I wanted to stay behind, especially with the current conditions being so nasty.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s get going.”

He stepped out from beneath the overhang and held out a hand, as if to gauge how much water still fell from the sky. Now even the drizzle was gone, though, which meant there wasn’t much reason to linger here any longer.

That same hand began to reach toward me, as if he instinctively wanted to help steady me as we descended toward the trail, but then he stopped. Had he told himself that I knew these woods much better than he did and could probably handle myself just fine?

Maybe. Whatever was going through his mind, he seemed content to wait until I had passed him and then fall in behind, allowing me to lead the two of us back to the trailhead.

With any luck, he’d continue to follow my lead while in these woods.

It was the only way to keep the unicorn safe, after all.

Chapter Eight

Once they reached the trailhead, Ben spied a dusty older-model Subaru sitting there, the only car he could see. Sidney unzipped her borrowed jacket and handed it back to him.

“Thanks again for that,” she said. “So…meet here tomorrow at seven-thirty?”

The timing meant he’d probably miss out on breakfast at the B&B entirely unless he could convince Mabel Whitaker to give him a muffin in advance or something. Still, it would take more than simple hunger to keep him out of these woods…or prevent him from spending more time with Sidney Lowell. He wasn’t completely sure of her motivations for wanting to help him, but he thought he’d go along for now and see what he could discover.

“Seven-thirty,” he repeated. “See you then.”

She nodded and headed over to the car, then unlocked the driver-side door and got in. He noticed how she hadn’t asked him about his own ride, but realized she probably knew the path at the B&B connected to the trail here and that he must have walked the whole way.

After all, she’d lived her whole life in Silver Hollow except for the years she’d spent in college. She could probably find her way into the woods blindfolded.

He waved as she backed out and headed to the road. A vague movement inside the car that he guessed was her returning the wave, and then she was gone.

Interesting developments all around, that was for sure. It was still fairly early, not even ten o’clock yet, which meant he had the whole day ahead of him. He thought he’d go to the library and see if they had a local history section, although he had a feeling he probably wouldn’t find what he was looking for there. Still, it would be a way to use up some time, and after he was done at the library, he figured he could poke around on the internet and try to discover whether anyone had ever reported seeing a flower like those shimmering not-quite lily-of-the-valley plants he’d spied in the forest.

Probably not, but he couldn’t leave a thread like that dangling and not do his best to pull on it and see what happened.

Whistling, he began slogging his way back along the muddy trail to the bed-and-breakfast.

The library didn’t turn up anything about possible unicorns or other strange creatures in the forest, but Ben did learn that Silver Hollow had been settled in 1852 and had earned its name because of the birch trees that grew in the valley where the town sprang up. People had come here looking for gold and silver but had stayed to make their fortunes in logging instead, and when the logging interests moved on to other areas of the Pacific Northwest, the trees grew back and the town became something of a tourist attraction.

A very small one, based on the low number of people he’d seen so far who looked like obvious out-of-towners, but it seemed visitors generated enough extra income to keep the place going.

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