No Damaged Goods

It’s like a scavenger hunt.

And it’s a delight when I spot the smooth, flat rocks set into the earth, turning the trail into a set of steps leading up into the woods.

I park my rental car on the last bit of paved road before that hidden trail, get out, and slip up to mount the first step. It takes me up a winding path through tall, skinny trees with their leaves stripped off, giving me some footing on the ground in the snow.

Dead leaves crunch under my boots as I hike up and up and up until my breath burns, and suddenly the trees open up on a peak that makes me feel like I’m on top of the world. I look out over stretches of mountains that seem to march off forever in the distance.

The brochure has a story in it, too. One variation of the lovers’ cliff legend everybody seems to know around here.

It says that way back when the town was founded, the mayor’s daughter and a farm boy fell in love.

But the mayor said the boy was too poor, so they couldn’t be together. He forbade them to fall in love.

So they went to the half-heart-shaped cliff behind the Charming Inn, and jumped.

It’s not as morbid as it sounds.

In the story, they turned into a shower of flower petals and blew away into the pretty mountains I’m looking at right now.

The legend says their love lives on, these strange creatures forever with the wind, and all their generations upon generations of children. Wood-waifs guarding every impossible love that blossoms in this town.

And that’s why when people in the town fall in love, they go to the famous overlook and toss flowers over the edge.

They make a wish, with all their hearts, hoping their love will last forever.

I wonder if I can work that into the song I’m slowly piecing together. My tale of the wandering desperado, protector of a town he can never call home and yet always watches over.

Maybe there’s a fire in him that can’t burn out.

A fire in his heart, a love as lasting as wishes cast on petals in the wind.

I feel lyrics starting to take shape, so raw and real that I can almost smell the fire on the chilly midday breeze.

Wait.

It’s not my imagination.

I smell smoke.

Again.

Lord, it’s like fire follows me everywhere. I’m kind of getting sick of it—even if it summons the hottest man in town.

I’d rather have an excuse to see Blake that doesn’t involve something smoldering.

I turn, scanning the horizon, then back to the forest.

There.

A plume of smoke rises against the trees, thick and black and oddly slender.

Probably a small, controlled fire. Burning brush or something.

I sigh.

If those kids are messing around again, though, or some idiot tourists…

Hold up. The last time I snuck up on kids playing with fire, I almost made it worse by startling them as soon as I stepped on that twig.

So this time I’m quieter, making my way through the trees, keeping the bigger ones in front of me as a shield, placing my steps slowly. I’m careful to avoid crunching down in the snow and leaves as I make my way down the slopes.

I stick to the path where I can, but as I get closer, I break off and crouch down behind some bushes as I sneak closer.

Movement. I freeze.

That’s not the kids.

That’s definitely not the kids.

I don’t know who this man is, but considering he’s dressed in black from head to toe and wearing a black ski mask that completely covers his face…

I think he might be trouble.

Especially since he’s pouring water over a big pile of wood, making it flare with thick black smoke as the flames choke out.

He’s tall. Imposingly high off the ground, but kind of wiry and lean.

There’s something weird and dangerous about him.

I won’t lie.

He scares me.

I feel like I’m seeing something out here I’m not supposed to see.

Time to get out of Dodge.

I take a wary step back, then freeze as my heel comes down on a twig.

And it snaps, the sharp sound as abrupt and harsh as the manic thud of my heart.

His head jerks up immediately.

Now, I’m cursing my love for bright colors. Even through the brush, he spots me instantly.

All I can see are his eyes, but they’re oddly blank.

Strange.

Angry.

And they glaze in the coldest way as he cranes his head slowly to the side, staring dead at me.

Then he’s charging forward, moving like a pouncing cat, from statue stillness to cheetah motion in less than half a second.

I scream and tumble back, scrambling onto my hands and knees with cold slushy snow flouncing up around me, soaking my clothes.

I think it’s only the distance and my head start that saves me.

I barely risk glancing back—he’s too close, this black blur rocketing at me—before I go flying down the slope.