In that moment, she felt satisfied with her decision to join Gabe at the Aspens. While her father did his best to dissuade Kristine from returning to the Lodge, her mother offered cautious support as if she could sense what Kristine wrestled with after her brother had called to ask her to help him run the Aspens. Ultimately her opportunity to put things right with Gabe had tipped her into coming back. “You ever want more than this?” she asked, elbows resting on the top rail of the dude corral after they’d turned out and fed the stock.
“Maybe,” he said. A broad grin spread across his handsome face.
Kristine squinted at him. “Do not…” she warned him.
“After I’m finished sowing…”
“No, not the wild oats! I know you feel like you want to play the field, but do you have to…” Though she shoved her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly, she still saw his lips move as he continued the sentence. “C’mon. I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you.”
“I could tell by the way you had your fingers in your ears. Real grown up.”
“Dad wants you back in Quincy after you graduate this year.”
“Yeah. And I’ll settle there. But you know I’m no good at the broodmares and starting colts. There’s a reason you did the ag degree, and I’m in business. Between the two of us, he’s got the ranch covered.”
The sounds of the night surrounded them, the chomping of thirty animals on sweet alfalfa, hooves stomping flies away. This was the chorus she’d listened to her whole life.
Gabe broke the silence. “And what’s so bad about running the ranch with your awesome brother?”
“Nothing at all. After work, we’ll go line dancing. It’d be such fun to pick up chicks together.”
“Hey, at least one of us has some luck in that category. We could help each other out. Or more specifically, you could send girls my way, let them know why I’m such a catch.”
“You are a catch. You know that, right?”
“Catch and release is what I am,” he said with uncharacteristic glumness.
“At least you actually have a chance of finding an eligible girl in Quincy. Can you imagine if we did both end up back on the ranch?”
“I could see us double dating,” he said, hopefulness in his voice.
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be weird at all,” she said, needing to change the direction of their conversation. “And pretty soon, the one-screen theater in town might show an independent film.”
“We’re not that far from Reno, you know,” Gabe reminded her.
“Ugh. Gabe. It doesn’t take a genius to spot a goat in a herd of sheep.”
“Exactly! I’ll sow my oats, you go find some goats. Dad will totally understand. Great chat, sis.”
Though Kristine hung her head at the remark, inwardly she was thankful to hear his characteristic glibness return. “For that, you cook tonight, my friend.”
“You know I cook by driving the truck down to the Lodge.”
Kristine wondered if Gloria was back from her trip. She could be at the store getting supplies or having dinner in the café. Maybe she’d run into her by the washing machines. She chided herself for slipping back into such musings. “No. You owe me more than Jorge’s chili dogs. You’re taking me up the mountain for something good in Mammoth.”
Chapter Twelve
Though beat from her all-day hike in from Fish Creek, Gloria’s pace quickened for the final uphill push into the yard at the Lodge. She was exhausted, having spent five nights asserting her dominance over last year’s orphan yearling which could very easily become a problem bear. The first three nights, she’d chased him out of her camp making as much noise as she could. She’d shot him with rubber bullets so he’d associate pain with humans and start looking for food elsewhere. The gangly black bear was already drawn to her food canisters, which told her that he’d been lucky visiting camps the year before. She was fairly pleased with her progress—he had not visited her camp the last two nights. Maybe it wasn’t too late to turn him around. If only she could trust all of his encounters with humans to be consistent.
The ignorant and lazy tourists could very well drive her insane. They were worst in Yosemite. People who covered their food in their cars imagining they could hide the meal from the bear, not understanding that their paws worked just fine as can openers on any vehicle. That big metal box that the state had installed at the campsite? No, please don’t use it. Take your chances leaving your food just outside your tent. Better yet, have that late-night snack of an apple or banana and leave the core or peel just outside the door of your tent.
Then, when a bear damages your property, certainly DO freak out and blame the Forest Service or Fish and Wildlife for not doing their job to protect you and your family during your time in the park.
Gloria steamed but tried to remind herself to let go of the frustrations of her job. She tried to see herself as the mediator. She just wished that she could train some of the humans with her rubber bullets instead of turning them toward the bears.
Now she was thinking about Kristine again. Lovely Kristine who refused to bottle her frustration, at least with Dozer. The thought of Kristine’s hoot of laughter when they’d recalled her shot again brought a smile to Gloria’s face. Then she froze. That wasn’t just the thought of Kristine’s laughter. It was Kristine’s laughter, rich and booming, flowing down the trail to her. She slowed as she walked parallel to a corral full of mules and spotted the cowgirl sitting in front of the store. Three young girls sat with her, all laughing, all riveted by Kristine.
She sure has a draw, Gloria acknowledged, wishing she’d heard what made them all laugh so hard. She looked down at her filthy self, days of sweat caked onto her skin, her Fish and Wildlife tee and trousers slept in, scrunched into her pack, pulled back on again, far from how pressed they’d been when she left. She’d hoped to run into Kristine but not before she’d had a chance to shower and change into a fresh set of clothes.
As she dithered about walking across the yard, she noticed the wattage of the smile the girl sitting on Kristine, well practically on, okay, on a closer look, next to, but really close to, more so than a casual acquaintance would sit, next to Kristine. Kristine returned the smile, and Gloria felt a flash of anger. Had she been playing with Gloria with her talk of friendship? She’d seemed so frank about it that it hadn’t occurred to Gloria to think that she just wasn’t attracted to her.
Gloria scolded herself for the emotional reaction, reminding herself that she had accepted Kristine’s invitation of friendship. Thus, she told herself, no reason to be jealous or angry, and no reason to think that she needed to clean up. Friends didn’t need to look good for the other. Chin high, she strode into the yard.
“Gloria!”
Gloria’s traitorous heart jumped when Kristine called her name. She was already waving off the three girls and jogging toward Gloria with a smile brighter than the one she’d just seen plastered to her face. Today she wore no riding gear, just her skintight jeans and an untucked tee with The Lodge’s logo blazed across her chest. Gloria tried to keep her eyes trained above it.
“Hey,” Kristine said.
For a moment, Gloria thought Kristine wanted to hug her. Her arms came up but then she quickly tucked them into her pockets, her thumbs hanging out adorably. Gloria realized she still had her heavy pack on her back. Once she was out of it, she would hate to have to put it back on again. She glanced toward the road leading down to the campground.
“Hope I’m not looking like a creepy stalker right about now. I really did have to come down for hay cubes for a trip that’s going out tomorrow.” She motioned to her truck parked by a metal feed shed. “I got to chatting with the day-ride crew and thought maybe you’d be up the trail today. Let me take your pack, drive you home?”
Gloria laughed at her babble.
“What?”
“You’re the one chattering away like you’ve been your only company for five days.”
“Yeah? W
ell.” That same bright smile swept across her face. “I missed your company.”
“Then, by all means, drive me home.”
Kristine helped Gloria off with her pack and tossed it in the bed of her truck.
“Either you ate every ounce of food you took in there, or that space-aged food doesn’t weigh a thing,” she laughed.
“I’m sure it just feels light in comparison to those feed sacks,” she said, motioning to the back of the truck. “Too bad I missed you breaking butch. Showing off for the girls?”
“Hardly. More like cracking the whip.”
“Are you trying to bait me?” Gloria said, running her eyes over Kristine’s body.
Kristine smiled mischievously. “How’d it go down at Fish Creek?” she asked, redirecting the conversation as she pulled out onto the road.
Gloria slumped against the seat, tired to her core. “Touch and go. Whether this bear makes it or not totally rests with the contact he has with humans this season. I really hope we can turn him around.”
“Sure he wasn’t just hitting on you? Could be he was just noticing the pretty new woman in town.”
Gloria swatted her weakly.
“I think I’d better take you home, get some real food into you.”
“As good as that sounds, a shower sounds better.”
“We have plenty of hot water, and Gabe’s cooking tonight. I can’t guarantee it’ll be good, but I can tell you it’ll be better than your camp food.”
Gloria’s head rolled to the side. “I’m too tired to argue.”
“Good.”
“But I’ll do dinner next.” That was what friends did, she told herself.
“Sounds good to me.”
Gloria couldn’t help closing her eyes as Kristine drove to The Aspen Outpost down the road. Kristine kept a steady conversation on the short drive, full of details about her various trips, the stock, her guests. She had no shortage of material and masterfully shaped it into a fun narrative. Gloria relaxed and listened, enjoying how good it felt to be in her company.
“What’s that smile for? Are you laughing at how much I talk? I can stop anytime.”
“No, please don’t. I was just sitting here thinking about how much fun you must make the overnight trips with your storytelling.”
“Yeah, used to.”
Gloria’s brows creased in confusion. Kristine’s answers were rarely so brief. “But…” she prompted. Kristine’s pause before answering sparked Gloria’s curiosity again. She looked like she was at a fork in the trail, considering which direction to take.
“But that’s not our job at the outpost,” she said with a little hesitation in her voice. After a brief silence, she seemed to recover and launched into her more typical delivery. “We’ll occasionally help a longer trip, like packing in food for the stock. That’s why I had to make the run into the Lodge for these hay cubes. There’s a base camp up at Garnet, and they lost a bunch of their stock the first day…”
“Lost them?” Gloria sat up, alarmed.
“Not lost, lost. They came home for supper. Gabe will run the stock back in tomorrow and set them up with feed, so the packer out there doesn’t have to worry about keeping his stock from running home again.”
Gloria noticed that Kristine’s answer was centered on another story about this season, rather than explaining why she no longer took overnight trips out. “Don’t you miss those trips? The overnight trips take you further back into the wilderness, don’t they?” Again, Gloria saw Kristine tense when she steered the topic back to overnighters. Their easy flow of conversation had hit a snag again. Kristine smiled at her as if to apologize, and her eyes, in the flash that they connected with Gloria’s, expressed both sadness and discovery.
“I do,” Kristine answered simply.
Before Gloria could even consider pushing the subject further, Kristine pulled into the outpost which looked to be roughly a third of the size of the setup at the Lodge. It had a similar layout to the larger outfit: stock corralled in several paddocks by the side of the road, a saddle shed in the center of the yard, tie-rails on either side. Their pack dock sat between the saddle shed and a cabin, which she assumed Kristine shared with Gabe. She smiled at its placement, tucked at the edge of a lovely grove of aspens. An evening breeze made their silvery leaves dance.
“It’s so tidy,” she observed as they walked through the working area to the cabin. “Is it always like this?”
“Being so close to the road, Leo has a thing about the yard being spotless. Trying to make a good impression and all.” Her hand paused on the doorknob of the cabin, and she turned and wiggled her eyebrows, “But this is where it ends.”
Gloria couldn’t contain her gasp at the contrast when she stepped inside. Kristine kicked her boots off at the door and hung her hat on some antlers mounted on the wall. A sock-footed, hatless Gabe stood at the small stove, spatula in hand, and what looked like every dish in the place stacked on the counter behind him. He waved the spatula at Gloria.
“Ms. Fisher, what a surprise!” Gabe said. Gloria read the twinkle in his eye and saw him look from her to Kristine and back again.
“Hope you made enough for three,” Kristine said, swatting her brother’s attention back to the stove in front of him.
Gloria removed her own boots and took in the living space that was littered with piles of clothes, clean or dirty she couldn’t determine. Her survey stopped at a pile of shoeing gear and horseshoes that took up an entire corner. “The stock has to take off its shoes, too?”
The siblings laughed in stereo, Gabe from the kitchen and Kristine from the hallway.
“Of course. They’re just in the bathroom cleaning up,” Gabe offered.
“I’ll shoo them out, so you can have a turn,” Kristine said, disappearing.
Gloria smiled again at Gabe, at the picture of the cowboy at home in the absurdly disheveled kitchen. “I hope I’m not putting you out by joining you.”
“Oh, no. I was all set to head over to the Lodge for the evening, but…” A surprised look crossed his face, and Gloria caught Kristine’s glare out of the bathroom door. She glanced back to Gabe, and he whispered, “Insurance.”
“Oh?” Gloria asked, surprised. Remembering the charge between them when she’d hugged Kristine, she wondered if Kristine was having trouble sticking to her own resolve to be just friends. She picked up an apple from the kitchen, polishing it above her right breast as she approached Kristine. As they passed in the hallway, she handed the apple to Kristine.
Kristine held her eye contact as she accepted the apple. She spun it a few times, pressed it to her lips and inhaled deeply. She arched an eyebrow and lowered the apple without taking a bite. “Wouldn’t want to spoil supper,” she said, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “I left some clean clothes for you.”
Again, Gloria felt the heat between them and couldn’t understand Kristine’s reluctance to explore their spark. It had to be more than overcoming her past reputation. She shut the door, stripped down quickly, and stepped into the gloriously warm shower.
She scrubbed quickly and furiously, feeling self-conscious showering so close to where both Gabe and Kristine worked. She felt vulnerable out of her clothes and away from the siblings who, no doubt, were talking about her. Neatly folded sweats and a tee sat on the bathroom cabinet next to the towel which Gloria grabbed. Gratefully, she slipped into them and emerged from the bathroom. As she figured, Gabe and Kristine grew silent at her approach. She continued to stare at Kristine, willing herself to look away, but unable to do so. Kristine didn’t break their eye contact either, just stayed in an all-too alluring pose leaning up against the counter.
“Feel better?” It was Gabe who finally snapped them out of their staring contest.
“Much. After five days in the backcountry, I really needed that. I think I used all your hot water.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure Kristine’s ready for a cold one now,” Gabe quipped, earning him one of the many swats
of the evening.
“I apologize for my brother,” Kristine said. “He’s the type to think that just because two ladies play for the same team, they’d like to play with each other.”
The two of them continued to needle each other good-humoredly in between questions directed at Gloria about her trip. They found the perfect balance, never making Gloria feel pressured to fill the silence but never making her feel left out, either. After dinner, Gloria volunteered to do the dishes. Kristine took up her maddening pose next to her under the pretense of drying the dishes, and Gabe played a few songs on his guitar. She wanted to stay longer but when she couldn’t deny that her eyes refused to stay open any longer, she let Kristine drive her home.
“Sorry I’m such lousy company,” she said, watching Kristine’s hands on the wheel as she handled the curves of the road.
“You’re great company,” Kristine said, her vibrant smile directed at Gloria.
“It beats hanging around with your cowboy friends?”
“That and then some,” Kristine said.
Gloria leaned back against the seat and shut her eyes momentarily, comparing this to other times a woman had driven her home. Instead of running through scenarios about whether they would kiss and how far things might go, she found herself thinking about the value Kristine obviously placed on company. Good company. When was the last time she’d heard someone talk about good company? She had to admit that Kristine was good company, and it felt nice to share an evening with someone who asked questions about her, listened to what she had to say and shared her own ideas. Suddenly, Kristine’s warm hand was on her shoulder and quiet surrounded them. She didn’t remember falling asleep and hadn’t even noticed when Kristine cut the engine. When her eyes snapped open, she asked how long she’d been asleep.
“A few minutes. You looked too peaceful to wake, but it’s getting colder,” Kristine said.
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