Her Heart's Bargain

“I appreciate it.” Ash forced himself to move away from her desk. His boots on the ground. That was the only way to know, day to day, what was happening in the Reserve. Visitation and incident reports, revenues, those told only part of the story. Driving through the trailhead lots, talking with visitors, making sure he remembered all the people behind the statistics mattered. Those people, this place, made him love his job.

And he needed to get out of the office. It seemed his staff was also avoiding him. Only Brett had stuck his head in so far all day long. Were they convinced he’d anonymously sabotaged the lodge, too?

Here, he could avoid...whatever. He wasn’t sure what the consequences within the ranks would be of the firestorm that had yet to fade.

“Are you headed out to patrol?” Macy asked. “Patrol” was her word for his “making the rounds.” He was a law enforcement ranger, but most of what he did was management instead of enforcement.

They both knew he had to spend time on the trails of the Reserve to make it through some days. She’d been telling him he needed to do that at least once an hour all morning.

Being a part of the Reserve’s team was important to him. His first job at the Reserve had been summer help at the marina, and he’d loved it, but being able to combine the service of a policeman with the mission of the park had been his calling. When attendance was up, having another park ranger SUV on the roads and uniforms actually in the campground and on the trails, with the signature hat and holstered weapon, kept troublemakers on their best behavior.

Today, this “patrol” was just for him.

“The fire chief wants me to check out the photography backdrop you commandeered for the open house. I’m not sure why we couldn’t stand next to a...tree or something to have our pictures taken with the kids, but I’ll bow to your creative planning. I also don’t know why I have to do it when it’s your...” Her cleared throat interrupted the flow which was a good thing. She’d raised one eyebrow. “Then, I’ll head into Knoxville to the district office. We’ve got to get a full-time park guide on staff to handle the volunteers and part-time guides, and Chief McKesson’s had a personnel request in for weeks. We both need the chief ranger’s approval to move forward.”

Macy nodded, but the fear that he could remember in her eyes during their early days flitted across his memory. She’d always been able to eventually control it. After all this time, Ash had decided that Macy Gentry only feared one thing: failure. He’d seen less of that fear lately; he wanted to keep it that way.

“I bet the phones at the district office have been busy. Surely that’s the holdup. I’m guessing the chief ranger doesn’t like the lodge’s construction delay. He’ll be hustling to get everything back on track. I can’t believe anybody in Knoxville would blame you for all this.” Macy propped her hands on her hips. “It beats all I ever saw.”

Her loyalty was a nice boost. “All you ever saw, huh? You must be from around here.” He liked to tease her about how she spoke. Most days, Macy was completely professional, letting little of her firecracker personality slip through to anyone but him. Being that person to Macy was nice.

“My grandmother used to say that. She had this little run-down farmhouse with enough land to kill us both as we tried to keep up the garden.” Macy slumped back against her chair. “I’ll never forget the torment of picking green beans in the hot sun. Can’t even eat those suckers from a can now.”

Ash leaned an elbow on the high ledge of her desk. They didn’t do a lot of personal talk, so this glimpse was rare and sweeter for it. The lilt of her voice changed when she talked about home. Listening to her talk was easy.

“Why don’t I know where you grew up?” Ash asked, surprised there was something he needed to know about Macy. They’d talked about all the favorites: music, movies, books, candy bars, ice creams and assorted baked goods.

But he didn’t know where her family was.

Where a person came from could tell a lot about them.

“Myrtle Bend, Georgia. About thirty miles from nowhere and as fancy as you’d imagine. At least the indoor plumbing came along before I did.” Macy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like to talk about my family or lack of one too much. That’s probably why.”

Ash had a hard time picturing such a place. He’d grown up on a very nice street in the middle of Sweetwater, the kind of place people imagine when they daydream about the good old days.

“Do you ever go home?” Ash asked.

He’d helped her move. She made him coffee every morning just because. Once he’d asked his mother to make chicken noodle soup for her, even though Macy refused to take a sick day.

He knew Macy. So well.

But they’d never talked about her history. Why was that?

“No home to go back to. Home is my apartment in Sweetwater.” Macy cleared her throat. “Grandma died when I was nineteen, so...” She shrugged a shoulder. “I was the only one left. Had college and bills and I couldn’t keep up the place, too.” She tipped her head down. “She wouldn’t have wanted me to give up school just to keep a small farmhouse. I’m pretty sure.” The way she bit her lip suggested she wasn’t as certain as she wanted to be.

Uneasy because the emotions were changing so quickly on her face that he was afraid she was about to be overwhelmed, Ash said, “Surely she’d want you to be happy.”

Macy frowned. “Actually, happiness wasn’t high on her list of priorities. Busyness. Usefulness. Those things ruled, and she had zero tolerance for anything that interfered.”

Ash considered that. It was so far outside of his own experience, he had a hard time imagining it. When he was growing up, his mother had taken him out of school so that he could experience perfect weather or she’d kept him up too late watching shooting stars to make his first period and she’d refused to let him take a required shop class because the main project was a gun rack.

For Donna Kingfisher, life was about loving each day. Work was a part of that, but not the biggest part. She’d been a successful lawyer, but she’d retired at sixty, determined not to miss out on all the things she’d been putting off. His father had put on a suit and tie and been an accountant at the electric company for forty years.