The True Love Travels Series Box Set

by Poppy Pennington-Smith

  “Oh my goodness,” she said, holding her side. “I don’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.”

  Blake shook his head and placed his hands flat on the table. “Me neither.”

  The drive to the icefield was just a little over two hours. For the first part of the journey, the two of them looked out of their windows, listened to the cab driver’s knowledgeable patter about Banff National Park and what they’d see up on the glacier. And then, eventually, Blake reached into his small day-pack and handed Beth a pile of handwritten notes.

  “I thought you dictated all of your notes?” she quipped, taking the papers from him and starting to leaf through them.

  “It’s the feedback you asked for, on your blog.”

  Beth narrowed her eyes at him. “All this?” There must have been at least ten pages.

  “I wanted to be thorough.”

  “Okay.” Beth had expected a few tips, not an essay.

  “You don’t need to read it right now.”

  “No, no, I’m intrigued.” She settled back into her seat and was aware of Blake watching her as she started to read.

  The first page wasn’t too bad – some compliments about her photography and her ‘innate’ ability to write compelling descriptions. But then, on page two, it turned into what Beth could only describe as an assassination. Blake had critiqued everything from her ‘out-dated’ web design and her ‘clumsy’ layout to her ‘lack of theme, clarity, and direction’.

  It was brutal.

  And by the time she reached the end, her skin was burning with the effort of trying not to burst into tears.

  Slowly, she put the notes down on the seat beside her.

  Blake had finished with an enormously long list of ‘next steps’, including a complete redesign of the site, editing or removing eighty percent of her articles because they weren’t ‘SEO’ friendly enough, and the suggestion to sit down and figure out what was actually unique about what she was doing because so far – he said –apart from a few stand-out pieces, she was just getting lost in the crowd. She was no different from the other thousands of bloggers writing mediocre material and trying to make it.

  “What’d you think?” Blake was watching her expectantly.

  “Thank you. I’ll think about it.” She couldn’t say more than that because, if she did, she’d either cry or lose her temper.

  For a moment, Blake didn’t say anything. But then he tapped her arm and, looking a little concerned, said, “I didn’t offend you did I?”

  “No.”

  “I feel like I did.”

  Beth glanced at the driver, who was watching them in his rear-view mirror. “We can talk about it later.”

  Blake drummed his fingers on his thigh. His foot was twitching nervously up and down. “Come on, Greenwood. Don’t take it personally. It’s business.”

  Beth couldn’t tell whether she was overreacting; he’d hit her where it hurt and she was too full of emotion to think clearly. So, she angled herself towards the window and tried to focus on what she needed to get out of the glacier trip in order to write a good article instead of the words ‘mediocre’ and ‘lost in the crowd’, hoping that her hurt pride would settle and she’d realise she was being a little too sensitive.

  By the time they reached the icefields, however, any warmth she’d felt towards Blake O’Brien that morning had evaporated and, now, she could barely look at him.

  Climbing out of the car, they were greeted by a tour guide who shepherded them towards a group of big-wheeled multi-coloured ice-buses. They were provided with huge coats, hats, gloves and scarves and boarded their assigned bus without saying a word to one another.

  The ice-buses, in a line of four, drove them from the visitor’s centre right onto the glacier itself. Some chose to stay inside, not wanting to brave the cold, but Beth and Blake both disembarked.

  “Woah, this is incredible.” Blake was standing in the middle of the big white space beyond the buses, looking up at the mountain behind them.

  Beth turned away. She just couldn’t bring herself to be friendly towards him; whether he’d meant to or not, he’d managed to shatter her confidence. Made her question whether Harry was right. Whether she really was foolish to think she’d ever be able to achieve the kind of things her father had.

  Shivering, she took some pictures of the tourists skidding about on the glacier, then headed back inside.

  Back at the visitor’s centre, Blake finally cornered her.

  “Beth. Talk to me.”

  They were outside and the sun was shining, but the cold on the glacier had seeped into her bones and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Were they supposed to help?”

  “My notes?”

  “Mm hmm. Your notes. Were they supposed to help me? Or were you trying to destroy my self-esteem?”

  Blake looked genuinely surprised. “I...”

  “You tore me apart. My entire blog. My posts, the way the website looks... every single thing.”

  “Not everything. And I didn’t tear it apart. I was trying to help. It’s constructive criticism, that’s all.”

  “There’s nothing constructive about it. It’s mean and cruel and I don’t want to talk about it.” Beth knew she sounded childish, but she didn’t care.

  “Come on, Greenwood…”

  “No. I was stupid to ever think we could...”

  “Could what?” Blake moved a little closer and put his hand on her forearm.

  Beth shrugged him off and shook her head. “I was stupid to think we could be friends. This is a competition. If anything, we’re enemies.”

  “Enemies? That’s...”

  But Beth was already walking away. “And stop calling me ‘Greenwood’!”

  Back at the B&B, Beth stayed in her room all evening. She didn’t want to risk running into Blake, and she was panicking about the article that was due tomorrow. She’d submitted two so far: one about their first two days in Vancouver – Granville Island and Lynn Canyon – and one detailing their train trip through the Rockies. Both had been okay. But nothing spectacular. Certain that Blake’s two pieces would have been far better than hers, she’d been avoiding looking at the Nomad website to see whether they’d gotten any good comments. But now, thinking of all the things he’d said in his ‘constructive criticism’ she figured that she might as well find out what other people thought.

  The World Travel Finalists’ Tour was prominently featured on Nomad’s home page. There was the video of her and Blake, and then links to an interactive map of their trip and the articles they were submitting.

  Blake’s first was, surprisingly, not about the artists they’d met on Granville Island or their experience at the suspension bridge in Lynn Canyon Park; it was a listicle. Top ten tourist spots around Vancouver.

  His second article was similar: Five Excellent Reasons to Travel Gold Leaf on the Rocky Mountaineer.

  He was writing exactly the same kind of material he wrote on his blog. The kind that would generate traffic for Nomad’s website. Scrolling through the comments that readers had made, almost all were positive. Great tips. Good job, Blake. Rooting for you, Blake.

  Beth’s stomach twitched and her skin prickled with anxiety.

  She clicked through to her own articles. They were the polar opposite of Blake’s. She’d written about what she had experienced. She’d written about Todd the student, who was saving up for college, and about the artists they’d met. She’d written about the super-friendly Canadian lady who had, without question, shown Beth the way to her favourite coffee house. She’d written about swimming in the freezing cold waters in Lynn Canyon Park, and about Doris and Mike and how brave they were to go on a single travellers’ trip at the ages of eight-five and ninety.

  As she navigated to the comments section below her most recent piece, her stomach clenched nervously. She didn’t have as many comments as Blake, but they were more detailed, and definitely more effusive.

  Such a refreshing style, amazing t
o read. Can’t wait to see more from this exciting new writer. Charles Greenwood’s daughter has clearly inherited his talent…

  And suddenly, as she looked back at what she’d written, she realised that Blake was right. But not in the way he thought he was.

  Yes, she probably did need to be more search engine friendly. And, no, her articles weren’t optimised for key words or designed to be click-bait for would-be travellers.

  But they were authentic.

  In his ten-page critique, Blake had mentioned - as a negative - that Beth’s articles sounded more like excerpts from a travel journal than articles on a commercial blog.

  But maybe that was precisely the point.

  Maybe that’s what she’d been struggling with all this time. Maybe she didn’t want to be commercial. Just like she didn’t want to settle down in Oxford and work at Cooper's and marry Harry, she didn’t want to sanitise her blog. She didn’t want to make it all about clicks and traffic. She wanted it to be about her and her experience of the world.

  So, instead of writing down the ten best reasons to visit the Athabasca Glacier, Beth wrote from her heart. She wrote about the alarming rate at which the icefields were melting, and the irony of the tourists who marvel at it but who don’t seem to care that, very soon, it might not be there anymore.

  When she finally stopped writing and went to bed, she felt calm. And she knew precisely what she was going to say to Blake O’Brien first thing tomorrow morning.

  12

  Day Six, Banff and Jasper

  She found Blake down by the river, in the exact spot she’d watched the sunrise the day before. He was wearing a dark grey hoodie and had his knees tucked up under his chin. As she sat down beside him, she handed him a flask of coffee.

  “Morning O’Brien… peace offering.”

  Blake took the flask and balanced it on the rocks in front of him. “Beth,” he said, turning so that he was facing her. “I’m so sorry if I offended you. Nothing I said about your blog was personal. I had my business-hat on. I was just trying to help.”

  “I know.” She met his eyes and smiled a little. “I guess you just hit a nerve. Several nerves, actually.”

  “I really am sorry...”

  “You don’t need to apologise. I should have been more mature about it.” She sighed and slurped luke-warm coffee from her flask. “For a long time, Harry’s been telling me I should give up writing. So, I guess the things you said made me wonder if he was right.”

  “Beth, there’s no way you should give up writing. Are you crazy?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to. Actually, I think, in a weird way, you might have helped me.”

  Blake frowned, clearly surprised.

  “Last night, I thought really hard about what makes my blog different. How I can make it stand out.”

  “That’s great.” Blake sat up a little straighter and unfolded his knees.

  “In your critique you said my articles are too much like journal entries...”

  Blake’s neck flushed pink. “I...”

  “It’s fine.” Beth waved dismissively. “Because I realised that’s exactly what I want my blog to be like. I know it’s not very commercial. And maybe those kinds of articles won’t win me the competition. Maybe they won’t draw in hundreds of new customers for Nomad. But they’re the kind of articles I’ll be proud to write. The kind of articles I’d have been proud to show my dad.” She sat back and breathed in a slow deliberate breath. “So, that’s what I’m going to write. And if it means I don’t make it as a ‘successful’ blogger. Then...” she shrugged. “Then I guess that’s okay.”

  After breakfast, Emily appeared for their usual morning briefing and told them they’d be heading for the small alpine town of Jasper, where she’d booked them on the two p.m. Skytram up to The Whistlers mountain.

  “Skytram? So that’s like... a cable car?” Beth’s stomach lurched at the thought of it.

  “Sure is. The longest aerial tramway in Canada.” Emily smiled. “It’s like a little glass pod that takes you up over the trees to this amazing viewing point on the mountain. It’s really spectacular. I was worried it would be closed today as they’d warned about wind, but I called ahead and it’s fine. Your slot is at two, so we better get moving. It’s a three and a half hour drive and I’m sure you’ll want to make a couple of stops on the way to take in the scenery.”

  Beth absent-mindedly scratched her fingernails against the grain of the wooden table. Swallowing hard, she asked, “This aerial tram... how high does it go exactly?”

  “Oh pretty high. It dangles right above–” Emily stopped mid-sentence because Blake was shaking his head at her. “Oh, Beth. Are you scared of heights?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure? I could always call the office and see if they’d be happy for Blake to do it alone?”

  “No. I want to do it. I’ll be fine.”

  And Beth kept telling herself that she’d be fine.

  As she packed her suitcase. As she climbed into the back of a large people-carrier taxi cab with Blake. As she listened to Emily chatter excitedly to the driver about the beauty of Canada’s national parks.

  Even as they reached the Skytram’s starting point and she read the sign that said it would be taking them two-thousand metres above sea-level, she told herself it would all be okay once she was up there.

  But as they climbed into their little glass pod, and as the pod was slowly guided – on thick metal wires – up into the air, she started to tremble.

  At first, it wasn’t particularly high and the treetops below gave the illusion of safety. But when they reached the point where they were way above even the tops of the trees, Beth started to feel woozy.

  With a pod all to themselves, Blake was watching her. “Are you okay, Greenwood?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look like you might vomit.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  Blake nodded. “Okay.” But then, just as he turned to take a video of their journey, something made a loud creaking sound and the pod swayed from side to side.

  A small eeep escaped Beth’s lips. She wanted to get up and leap across to sit beside Blake, but she couldn’t move.

  “We’ve stopped. Why have we stopped?”

  A voice over the tannoy announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties. We’ll have you moving again any minute now. Just sit tight.”

  “As if we could go anywhere else?!” Beth exclaimed nervously.

  Holding up his hands as if Beth was a frightened rabbit, Blake stood up and moved over to sit beside her.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get moving any minute. And we’re nearly at the top.”

  Beth accidentally looked down at the long-long way between them and the ground, and groaned. “Talk to me about something.” She nudged closer to Blake’s side and tried to focus on his face, his hands, his eyes... anything but the overwhelming sensation that they were about to drop to their deaths.

  “Okay. What kind of something?”

  “Anything. Your parents. What are they like?”

  “My parents?”

  “Yeah. Mr and Mrs O’Brien.” Beth motioned for him to hurry up.

  “Um. Okay. So, my mom’s a school teacher and my dad’s an engineer. They’re pretty great. Married young but always stuck together, made it work, you know. Very supportive.” Blake rubbed his neck a little sheepishly. “Actually, if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have got as far as I have with my blog. They paid my rent for the first three months after I quit my job.”

  “Wow. That’s generous.”

  “I had a business plan, showed them exactly how I was planning on starting to bring in income within six months. But, really, I had no idea if it would work.” Blake wrinkled his nose slightly. “I’m glad it did. I’m glad I didn’t have to rely on them for too long.”

  Beth nodded, trying to picture what Mr and Mrs O’Brien would look like. S
he was about to ask him to show her a photo when the cable car made a sudden, vicious, jolt. Beth shrieked and grabbed hold of Blake’s arm. Her heart was thundering in her chest. Her head was swimming and her hands felt clammy.

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just the wind. We’ll get moving any second.” Blake’s voice was soft and gentle. Slowly, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her a little closer. “I got you.”

  Concentrating on the warmth of his body against hers, Beth leaned into him and closed her eyes. “My parents met young too.”

  “They did?” If Blake was surprised that she’d started to talk about her family, he didn’t show it.

  “Straight out of college. Funny really. They were so different. Mum hated travelling. Dad lived for it. But they managed to stay totally in love.”

  “Your mum hates travel?”

  Beth nodded, and nudged a little closer. “She loves her home. Her things around her. And she’s pretty terrified of flying.”

  “So she never went places with your dad?”

  “Nope. He sent her these super romantic postcards and letters though, every place he went.” She sighed and looked down at her fingernails. “I guess that’s why I tried so hard to make it work with Harry. I thought we could be like them. But it turns out he’s not very keen on the idea of a wife who goes off gallivanting around the world. And I’m not very keen on staying put.”

  Beth looked quickly up at Blake then sat up a little straighter. “We broke up. Harry and I. At least, I think we did. He said he needed me to choose between this...” she waved her hand at their surroundings. “And settling down.”

  “And you chose this?” Blake’s deep brown eyes were fixed on hers and, not for the first time, she tried not to count the flecks of green in them.

  “I did.”

  “You know, settling down doesn’t have to mean staying in one place.” Blake was speaking so quietly that his words were almost lost in the air between them.

  “It doesn’t?”