By nightfall, Sierra was tired and her chest hurt again, but she didn’t want to take any more medication. She’d done enough of that earlier, and it was bound to put her to sleep. If she fell asleep then, she wouldn’t be awake when Forrest returned. Not just for the case; she’d been itching to see him all day.
She’d made headway on her research and scoured the Morel Support blog for evidence as to whether it could have served as an instructional manual. To her relief, it was nothing so blatant as that. But if you were paying attention, there were clues. It described how to tell poisonous mushrooms from edible mushrooms from mushrooms that would “give you more than you bargained for.” Reading that line, Sierra could practically hear Jolene’s voice in her head.
Beyond that, it didn’t take more than two hours with Google and YouTube for Sierra to receive an education on how to forage for magic mushrooms in the wild, how to process and dry them, and even how to burn the patches. No doubt, the guilty party’s browser history would tell all. Sean and Jesse had been in the park, but were they the only guilty parties? How many others in their fraternity house were in on all of this?
“So I guess he told you?”
Jake’s voice interrupted Sierra's thoughts. She sat at a barstool, drinking tea in Forrest’s kitchen. Whereas she had always found Jake to be alert and quite on lookout every time she’d shown up at his camp, the new version of Jake Stapleton slept a lot.
Like many things Sierra was still processing, seeing a more complete picture of Jake had been both heartbreaking and rewarding. Only now, through his seemingly endless capacity for sleep, did she see a vigilance born of extreme stress. She was sure his inability to stay awake was his body reconciling itself after so many weeks spent in survival mode. It spoke of this place as somewhere he felt safe.
“You’re asking whether Forrest told me about you and Eddie?” Sierra asked. “He didn’t need to. I kind of guessed someone running into the fire to save you might be more than a friend.”
Sierra loved seeing his goofy smile, another sign that he was finally relaxing.
“That boy is completely and totally in love with you, by the way. When I found him, he still wasn’t sure whether you were okay. I was trying to get him out. He was fighting me to stay in, to look for you.”
Jake’s stupid-in-love grin faded and he shifted his gaze out the window, toward the lake, a forlorn expression taking hold.
“If either of you hadn’t come out of there … I don’t know what I would have done. I still can’t believe either of you ran into a burning forest to save me.”
“You were my responsibility. And I should’ve kicked you out weeks ago.”
Jake shook his head. “I should’ve listened to you and gotten out of the park.”
“Well, finding out about Eddie cleared up a few things. It explained what you were doing with so much nice equipment. His parents own The Happy Camper. He had what you needed to keep you straight for a long stay in the woods.”
Jake nodded. “He’s been stuck working there every summer since he was a kid, but he’s got his license. Every day or two, he’d drive in for a visit, and bring supplies.”
“What are the doctors saying?” Sierra asked. Forrest had been handling her with kid gloves, which was to say he hadn’t given her many details. And most of what they’d talked about outside of Sierra's own health had been solving the case.
“He’ll be in a cast for six weeks, but he can come home tomorrow. I called in one last favor. A friend’s gonna go to his place, pick up his stuff, grab his truck and spring him from the hospital, day after tomorrow. Our friend will drive him here, and then we’ll go.”
“What if his parents come home while his friends are packing?”
“Oh no. It’ll be in and out. Eddie’s been packed and ready to go for a month.”
Sierra opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, not knowing what she meant to say. Jake saved her from having to continue.
“When I say we’ve been counting the days to his birthday, I mean we’ve been counting the days. His parents are terrible people. Me getting kicked out by my dad is easy compared to what he’s been through. His parents did a real job on him. Sent him away three times to conversion therapy. They still think he can pray the gay away. Broken leg or not, it’s time for us to get out.”
If Sierra thought she’d been impressed by Jake Stapleton, survivalist in the woods, it was nothing compared to how she thought of him now. It was hard to imagine she would ever forget him, or his story. She suddenly wished she had a picture of him, or something tangible to remember him by.
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
Jake’s serious look was back—not so much sullen as earnest.
“Actually …” Jake observed. “Every single thing that could have gone wrong, did. But good luck came on top of bad. And here I am—out of the park and living it up in a luxury cabin.”
“Cheers to that.”
Sierra lifted her glass of lemonade—all she was allowed given that she was still on painkillers. Though, after all she’d been through, she felt ready for the biggest sidecar in the world.
“Forrest is a good guy, you know.”
The way Jake said the words held weight. He spoke as if he needed her to sit up and listen.
“I know he is,” she agreed.
“Good. Because y’all have a pretty weird vibe. It’s like, you’re frenemies and you’re always bossing each other around, but then you’ll make the eyes at one another. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
“Yeah … it’s still new. We’re kind of working out the kinks.”
“What’s there to work out? While Eddie was busy running into a fire to save me, Forrest was busy running in there to save you.”
The next morning, Sierra woke up in Forrest’s arms once again. For the second morning in a row, there was kissing. This time, hands explored a bit more—gentle caresses rather than anything hot and heavy, which really was a disappointment.
Forrest had promised he would accept her insistence that she was “back to 95%” only after she went to the doctor. Her follow-up was scheduled for that afternoon. Procedurally, it was necessary for her doctor to sign off on normal activity like patrolling before she would be permitted to resume those aspects of her work.
What it meant for today was that she was on light duty—able to do desk work and respond to emails, but nothing that would require her to go onsite. That fact was what found her in the position she was in now. Forrest held the bag that contained her laptop out of her reach in the same annoying way her brothers used to hold things up and away from her once they’d gotten tall.
“If I give you this, you cannot abuse it,” Forrest warned.
They stood in the laundry room, which separated his kitchen and his garage. Forrest had just retrieved said laptop bag from her truck.
“I rested yesterday, didn’t I?” She stood taller on her toes, meaning to swipe it away from him. Unlikely, but it was worth a try. Only when he made his own decision to relent did Forrest hand Sierra the slim backpack she used for off the trail, but worry still colored his eyes.
“All right. I’ll be back by noon, then I’ll take you to your appointment.”
Sierra rolled her eyes.
“I thought the whole point of Jake driving you to pick up my car yesterday was so that I could drive myself.”
“The point of me and Jake picking up your car was so that your car wouldn’t have to be towed and put into impound until you could pick it up. Trust me—that would’ve been a pain in the neck.”
Sierra stood on her toes and gave him a peck on the lips as she plucked the laptop bag from his fingers.
“Thank you for taking care of me. Now, go before you drive me crazy.”
But when she pulled away, he teased her back.
“You call that a kiss? We need to practice that. I’m gonna need more of that sugar to get me through my days.”
She rolled her eyes, but her breath still caught as she leaned in for another. Forrest paused to smooth her hair and look down into her eyes for long seconds before he captured her lips. Comments like that had been small and random, but he’d definitely been making them. Even before their blow-up, he’d been alluding to things getting serious between them for days.
Sierra took this thought with her as she closed the garage door after his truck had driven away. She took it with her as she sat down at one of the stools and set herself up in the kitchen. She let it distract her as she started up her computer, daydreaming for a minute instead of entering her password, about how her life might be different—no, better—if waking up in his arms was something that happened every day.
It took effort to push those thoughts aside and focus on things far less pleasant—like when she needed to go back to work and how she would explain her highly dangerous and generally frowned-upon defiance of direct orders. It only happened in the movies that foolish acts of heroism were rewarded as long as they turned out all right. In the real world, when you received direct orders to get out, you got out. Pulling tepid coffee toward her and taking a long sip, Sierra began composing an email to Olivia in her mind.
Over the weekend, her boss had texted her once or twice, both times to check on her health and wish her a speedy recovery. Sierra was sure she would get a talking-to and soon. Her first order of business would be explaining herself. She and Forrest had agreed on the story they would both stick to. It aligned to the statement Forrest had taken from Eddie: she had been in the area earlier and remembered seeing a day hiker, off-trail, in the woods.
When she finally logged on, Sierra scanned her inbox to find two messages from Olivia. One was an email. One was a meeting invitation. The former told Sierra to schedule time with Olivia after one in the afternoon. The latter was for the following Wednesday at 10:00 AM—its subject line read, Performance Review.
How this conversation would go—the one that would define the next few years of her career—was anybody’s guess. For the first time in weeks, Sierra wished she could push it out farther. Forrest was meeting with Frank right then. But it would take him time to integrate new information about the case. Accusing the family member of a park official of anything had serious implications. Chances were, progress would be careful, and slow.
Sierra accepted the meeting invitation, then sent an invitation of her own. Olivia’s calendar looked open at two. That gave Sierra a full six hours to figure out how she was going to explain. Because, at the same time as Forrest needed to tell Frank what he knew, Sierra needed to tell Olivia.
How much trouble am I in?
She texted Rick, whose water cooler game was strong, half owing to personality, half owing to working at Sugarlands. Since it was the main ranger station where the higher-ups sat—including Chief Barnett and Superintendent Ed Ellis—Rick would know the word on the street.
She sipped more coffee and perused the rest of her inbox as she awaited Rick’s response. Only, the next sound she heard wasn’t the chime of a text message coming through. It was a new message coming into her inbox.
Subject: Disciplinary Hearing + Performance Review
Sierra's breath stopped. Her shaky hand let her half-full coffee mug fall to the counter. It was a meeting invitation, this one from Clint Grissom. Clicking into the event, she saw that Frank Barnett and Ed Ellis were also invited. And the meeting was happening in one and a half hours.