Page 1 of Off the Beaten Path

“Tothelittlecabinoff the beaten path!” I yell, wincing as I pop the cork on the cheapest bottle of champagne I could find at the liquor store. The cork falls to the floor with a dullthump.

“Well,” my lifelong best friend, Stevie, drawls. She sits propped against an exposed beam in the demolished kitchen of the cabin I’m renovating. “That was underwhelming.”

I stare at the bottle in my hand, not hearing the telltale fizz of carbonation. “That’s the last time I buy something from the liquor store in town.”

Stevie snorts a laugh. “You said that last time.”

The bottle thuds against the ground as I set it down. “I’m serious this time. The five-dollar strawberry wine from the market never fails me.”

A smile lifts one corner of Stevie’s mouth. “I thought you might say that.” She reaches for the backpack she dropped to the floor when we came in. The zing of the zipper echoes through the empty cabin, and a second later, she pulls out a clear bottle filled with dark pink liquid. The metallic frog sipping from a large wine glass on the label winks in the sunlight slanting through the windows.

Stevie twists the cap and looks at me expectantly. “Did you bring glasses?”

My mouth falls open, and her lips curve in a wry grin before she kicks the bottle back and takes a swig. When she’s done, she extends it to me. “Congrats, friend.”

I close my fingers around its neck, take a long sip of the sweet strawberry wine, and look around the empty cabin I plan to renovate and rent out. We sat in this exact spot last month when I got the keys to this place. Because of the holidays, my contractor just got it stripped to the studs and ready to start the renovations on Monday, so I wanted to celebrate.

My little cabin in the middle of the woods, on the outskirts of my tiny speck-on-the-map town.

When I bought it a month ago, everything was outdated, all warm wood walls and peeling linoleum floors and countertops. Dust covered every square inch of the place, and the windows were dirty enough to mute the sun shining through them. It’s certainly not the place I would have picked for myself, but it’s got great potential as a rental. And since I live in a town that sees more tourists than residents year-round, it’s exactly the kind of place I need.

“How are you going to manage renovating this?” Stevie asks, her gaze trailing my own, taking in the gutted expanse in front of us.

My shoulders lift in a shrug. “Jimmy said he could get it done in time, and he told me I could shadow him. This way I can learn the basics and DIY some things on the next flip. Plus, you know as well as I do how slow things are at the orchard in the winter.” Her parents own Misty Grove, after all, and I’ve been working there in some capacity since high school. Now, I run all their events and marketing. And after the imported Christmas trees are hauled away at the end of December, not even the crickets come out to chirp until spring. I make the most of the downtime with small events, but the bleak beginning months of the year are usually spent twiddling my thumbs and praying for the flowers to bloom early so visitors return.

“Well, if you need my help with anything, let me know.” She gestures around the room. “I have done some of this before.”

Stevie lives in an Airstream deep in a patch of woods so far down the lake that you’d never stumble upon it if you weren’t expressly looking for it. But when she bought the land, before she purchased the Airstream, she lived in the cheapest RV she could find for sale online. It was crumbling and deteriorating and only ran well enough to get up the hill the one time. When she finally upgraded, it had to be towed to the junkyard.

But somehow, despite all its shortcomings, Stevie managed to make the vintage RV homey, customizing it piece by piece.

When I started looking at properties in the fall, I planned to update a place on my own, with the help of Stevie and anyone willing to lend a hand, of course. But then this place came available, and while it wasn’t the cabin I would have chosen, the location was hard to beat. Even with the windows covered in grime, you can’t miss the view of the mountains sloping and climbing right outside or the trees older than the town itself springing up from the soil.

“You know we couldn’t handle this amount of work on our own,” I say, trailing my fingers along the now barren concrete floors. They used to be covered in a bubbling, peeling linoleum. “Or maybe we could handle it, but there’s no way we could finish by April.”

It’s only January, with fat snowflakes falling to the ground outside, but tourist season takes a village of prep work, and although we’re in a lull until March, things are going to get hectic fast.

Stevie takes the wine bottle from my hand, her throat working as she swallows a large gulp. “You’re right. I’m just bored. No one is hiking for at least another month and a half.”

Stevie works as a trail guide for her uncle’s tour company, taking groups of tourists on hikes into the backcountry for anywhere from one afternoon to multiple days. During tourist season, she works constantly. And when she’snotworking, she’s ripping apart at the seams, taking up different hobbies and somehow cooking enough food in her tiny Airstream kitchen to feed the town twice over.

She doesn’t do well with sitting still or staying in one place, which is ironic since she’s never lived anywhere but here in Fontana Ridge. I always thought she’d get out and see the world the first chance she could get.

“Do you need any help with the Galentine’s Auction?” Stevie asks, perking up, a feverish gleam entering her dark eyes.

A laugh rumbles out of me. “You look deranged. Are you seriouslythatbored? I thought you were knitting for the family shelter in town.”

Stevie’s dark gaze darts away, a faint pink tingeing her cheeks. “They told me they have enough hats and mittens to last them through next winter.”

I’m quiet for so long, stifling my laughter, that Stevie glances back at me. She presses her lips together, holding back a grin of her own. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” I say, holding my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Why don’t you go on a vacation? You deserve it. You could take your Airstream and stay gone until April.”

Stevie reclines against the counter, crossing her lean arms over her chest. Her eyes fix on an unidentifiable point on the floor. “I don’t want to go on a vacation,” she says finally, an odd tone entering her raspy voice. “Can I help you with the event or not?”

I’m shocked by the sharpness of her tone, but from the flickering muscle in her jaw, I get the sense she doesn’t want to talk more about it. Instead, I say, “I’d love some help. You can be in charge of finding bachelors to sign up.”

Flinty eyes meet mine. “That’s the worst part of this event, and you know it.”

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