A Temporary Courtship

Bree turned when she felt a pat on her shoulder. Looking into Stella’s eyes, she chuckled when the elderly woman wiggled her eyebrows. As if she and Darren had hit it off. More like she’d made him angry, considering the way he barked orders.

She glanced at him, shocked to find him watching her. “What?”

“You getting out?”

Of course she was getting out. What did he think, after they’d come all this way she’d stay in the van? “Yes. Why?”

“No reason.” He shrugged and exited the vehicle.

Bree watched him walk around the front. He tapped lightly on the hood as if dreading this. She knew irritation when she saw it. What was his problem, anyway?

Bree pocketed her phone and grabbed her bag. Maybe she should try to find out.

Chapter Two (#ulink_98424fa4-aefa-5036-8f60-2cf548cc8d2d)

Darren glanced at Bree as she slid from the passenger seat of the van, and he shook his head. She was dressed in light-colored cropped pants and shoes that were barely more than slippers. He’d be surprised if she stayed clean. Unless she was the prissy type that wouldn’t get her hands dirty. She’d go home empty-handed if that were true.

She looked nothing like his ex-girlfriend, but Bree came from the same place. Overdressed for roaming around outside, she might as well have been cut from the same cloth as Raleigh.

He had ten people to look after. He needed to quit focusing on one. It was up to him to show them respect for the woods. And that meant staying alert. “Gather around, please.”

Darren passed out plastic whistle lanyards to each person as they stepped close. “Stay in pairs at all times, and if you get turned around, just blow your whistle. I’ll find you.”

He waited for them to slip the whistles over their heads, and then he held up the wild edibles pamphlet. “Open your booklet to page three, and take a good look at the picture of the morel mushroom. Notice the pattern and the shape, with the bottom closed around the stem. That’s what we’re looking for. Stay away from the blobby-looking ones. They’re false morels. There are also caps that are open on the bottom like an umbrella. They’re edible, but use caution. They make some people sick. I’ll go through what you find before we leave to make sure they’re all safe. Any questions?”

Stella raised her hand.

“Stel?”

“We shouldn’t eat them now, right?” She knew that but was trying to help him out.

He hadn’t even thought about mentioning it and appreciated the reminder. These people didn’t know what they were doing. This was a novelty. A vacation treat. “Right. They need to be cleaned of grit, and there might be a rare stowaway bug inside. Morels are way better cooked, in my opinion. I’ll show you how to clean them when we return.” He checked his watch. “Okay, we’ll meet back here in forty-five minutes.”

“Darren, will you find the first morel for us before we split up?” Stella asked.

He noticed everyone nodding in agreement. Okay, maybe he wasn’t so good at leading this class. They had no clue what to look for and where. He’d almost sent them away without showing them. All because he’d been in a hurry to get rid of them. Especially Bree.

He gestured for them to follow and headed for a wooded area, keeping his gaze focused on the ground. “They’re dark, a blackish-tan triangle. Look around these ash trees. See the gray bark?”

He noticed that Bree watched his every move and copied it. She bent down low but didn’t touch anything. “Oh! Is this one?”

He leaned close to her, still bent over and staring at the ground. He could smell her perfume, or maybe it was her shampoo. Whatever it was, it stopped him cold like a sucker punch to the gut. The soft, flowery scent teased his senses and begged him to move closer.

He didn’t.

He couldn’t go there. Some things might smell good at first but ended up rotten. Spoiled rotten. He’d found that out much too late.

He took a knee and waited for the rest of the class to gather round. “This is exactly what we’re looking for. Morels. Take care where you step and look around. Where there’s one, there are bound to be more. Pinch off the stem so the roots stay in the ground. Like this.”

He offered the mushroom to Bree.

“I get the first one?” Her fingertips grazed his palm as she scooped it up and dropped it into her plastic bag.

“You found it.”

She grinned at him. Proud of herself.

Another sucker punch. The jaws of attraction snapped around him like a rusty old trap digging in deep. He couldn’t let it poison his blood. Or his brain by giving it room to grow.

“Here are some!” one of the women announced, not far away.

Darren stopped staring at Bree and jogged over to inspect the finding. Sure enough, his class was on a roll as another morel was found, then another. “Good job. I think everyone’s got it.”

He pulled a small red onion bag from his pocket and joined the hunt.

“Why that kind of bag?” Bree came up from behind him. She had several mushrooms bulging from the bottom of her plastic grocery store variety.

“It lets the spores fall and reseed.”

“Oh.” She didn’t wander far from his side.

Why’d she stick with him? He’d hoped she would have joined Stella’s group of three ladies. He heard laughter and shouts as more found mushrooms, and Darren silently thanked the Lord for small favors. They hadn’t been skunked on his first class.

“Should I pick these little ones?” Bree asked.

He stepped closer. They were small white morels yet to mature. “Go ahead. They’ll get picked by somebody else if you leave ’em.”

“So, people come way out here?”

He nodded. “A lot of people. I’ve run into campers from downstate, Ohio, even Indiana, up here picking on state land. Gather as much as they can to enjoy or sell.”

“I’ve had morels before at a golf club dinner but never gave much thought to where they came from.”

Local ingredients were desirable, and some of the finer restaurants in town paid top dollar to serve local morels. Darren didn’t frequent those places anymore. The places Raleigh had dragged him to. Give him plain cooking at Dean’s Hometown Grille in town any day. But his breakup had chased him from going there. Too many sympathy glances and gossip.

After Raleigh left him, Darren didn’t go anywhere he might run into her. He’d stayed away from downtown Maple Springs, where she lived with his best friend, Tony. He’d stayed away from Bay Willows and the memories there, too. In fact, he pretty much stayed away from women in general. Too often they tried to turn him into someone he wasn’t, like Raleigh had. She’d told him that he’d never change and was stuck in a rut doing the same thing all the time.

Maybe that was true, but Darren loved what he did. He’d grown up here, where the summer residents and tourists bloated the population from a mere two thousand to ten times that number, crowding out those who lived here year-round. Some of his friends had tried to emulate them in manner and dress. Tony had been one of them. Never content to embrace where he came from, Tony wanted more. Tony wanted too much and took more than he should have.

Darren glanced at Bree and spotted a mushroom at her feet. He bent to pluck it. If she wanted to know where morels came from, today’s outing answered it. A person couldn’t put a price tag on finding these. “They come from right here.”

“I almost stepped on that one.” She laughed and kept walking forward, slow and hunched over. Her hair fell like a curtain, draping her face from view. Her gray slip-ons were dirty at the toes, and her pants had streaks of dirt on them, too. She wore a gold-colored windbreaker that made her easy to spot. That color also made her eyes glow. Like a cat’s eyes.

Darren wasn’t real fond of cats. Even his parents’ cat drove him nuts with all its hollering for attention, only to run away if he tried to pet it. Women were like cats in that way. He preferred dogs. Dogs didn’t tease.

“Ooh, here’s another couple.” She picked them properly and foraged on, poking her fingers under dead leaves and raking through the clumps of grass here and there.

Well, she wasn’t prissy. He’d give her that. He found a few more as well and checked his watch. Twenty minutes to go. He stood and glanced around the woods. Stella was out of sight, as were several others, but he heard lots of chatter. No one lost. That was good. Real good.