At Last

Riley zipped up her backpack, or tried to, but the ragged zipper caught. This didn’t slow her down. She merely hugged the thing to her chest and took off, and in less than ten seconds, was swallowed up by the woods.

Matt shook his head and went back to the station, but he didn’t sit more than thirty minutes behind his desk before he was called back out. Being supervisor of the district required him to wear many hats: firefighter, EMT, cop, S &R. Over the next several hours, he used the S &R hat to rescue two kayakers from the Shirley River, which at this time of year was gushing with snow melt. Finicky and dangerous, the river had been closed off to water play. But the kayakers had ignored the warning signs and had gone out anyway, then got stuck on the fast rushing water.

It took Matt, his rangers, and an additional crew from the south district to get the kayakers safely out of the water. Two rangers were injured in the rescue, but even after all that, the kayakers refused to leave, saying they had the right to do as they wanted on public land.

Matt ended up forcibly evicting them for violating park laws, and when they argued, he banned them for the rest of the season just because they were complete assholes.

Sometimes it was good to wear the badge.

Now down two rangers, he went on with his work. He assisted in the daily reporting on the condition of the trails, tracked the movement of various wildlife as required by one of the federal conservation agencies, then checked on the small forest fire that was burning on the far south end-which was thankfully 95 percent contained, which was good. By the end of his shift, he was hot, sweaty, tired, and starving. But before he left the area, he took the time to drive by the campsite where Riley had said her family was staying to check the registers. Easy enough to do, it was early in the season, and the snow had barely melted off in the past few weeks. He had four sites booked at this time, and only one of those sites had been booked by a family.

When he pulled up, that family was standing around their campfire roasting hot dogs and corn on the cob. His mouth watered. He’d had a sandwich hours and hours ago, before the river rescue.

The campers didn’t have a teenage daughter.

Which meant that his dinner was going to have to wait. Turning his truck around, he headed back up the fire road to the site of the illegal campfire, where earlier he’d found the teen girl.

The fire was still out and still emitting residual warmth. Huddled up as close as she could get to it in the quickly cooling evening sat Riley.

She took one look at him and leapt to her feet.

He pointed at her as he got out of his truck. “Don’t,” he warned. “I’m not in the mood for another run through the woods.” He was tired as shit and hungry, dammit.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, still as a deer caught in headlights, though not nearly as innocent as any Bambi.

“That’s my question for you.”

“I have rights,” she said.

“You lied to me.”

Her eyes flashed. “You weren’t going to believe anything I told you!”

“Not true,” he told her. “And for future reference, lying to law enforcement officers isn’t a smart move. It makes them not trust you.”

“Oh, please.” Her stance was slouched, sullen. Defensive. “You didn’t trust me before I even opened my mouth.”

“Because you ran from me.”

“Okay, well, now I know. You don’t like running or lying. Jeez.”

“I don’t like attitude either,” he said.

She tossed up her hands. “Well, what do you like?”

“Not much today. Where’s your family, Riley?”

“Okay, fine, I’m not with my family. But you saw my ID. I’m eighteen now. I’m on my own.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Town.”

Well wasn’t that nice and vague. “What are you doing in town?”

“Visiting friends.”

He sighed. This conversation was like running in circles. “What friends?”

“I watch all the cop shows, you know.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Christ. “Fine.” He gestured back to his truck. “Let’s go.”

“Wait-What?” Her eyes got huge, and she scrambled back a few feet. “You can’t arrest me.”

“Have you done something arrest worthy?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then you’re not getting arrested. I’m driving you into town. To your friends.” And then he planned to call his friend Sheriff Sawyer Thompson to run her ID to see if she was a person of interest or reported as missing.

She looked away. “I don’t need a ride.”

“You’re not sleeping out here tonight. Get in the truck.”

She threw her backpack into the truck bed with enough attitude to give him a starter headache. Then she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

Matt drew a deep breath and walked around to the driver’s side. He drove her attitude-ridden ass into town, wondering what it was with him and stubborn females this week.

In the heavy silence of the truck cab, Riley’s stomach grumbled. She ignored both it and Matt, keeping her face firmly turned toward the window. But by the time they drove down the main drag of Lucky Harbor, her stomach was louder than the venomous thoughts she was sending his way.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Here’s fine.”

Here was the corner where the pier met the beach. “Your friends live on the pier?” he asked dryly.

“I’ll walk to their place.” Her stomach cut her off with yet another loud rumble.

Matt sighed and pulled into the pier parking lot.

Riley immediately reached for the door handle but Matt gripped the back of her sweatshirt. “Not so fast.”

She stiffened. “I’m not thanking you for the ride with anything that involves me losing my clothes.”

Jesus, he thought, his gut squeezing hard. “I’m not looking for a thank-you at all, but I’m not dropping you off on the damn corner. I’m taking you into the diner to feed you.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“Because you’re hungry. And no,” he said before she could speak again. “I don’t expect a thank-you for that either.”

Like a cornered, injured, starving animal, she didn’t so much as blink, and he felt the punch of her mistrust more forcibly than he’d felt Ty’s right uppercut this morning.

“I don’t have any money,” she finally said.

“You’re not going to need any.”

This produced another long, unblinking stare.

In the silence, his own belly grumbled. “Let’s go.”

Her eyes swiveled to the diner on the pier’s corner. “What kind of place is called Eat Me?” she asked, unwittingly cementing what he’d suspected all along.

If she hadn’t known the name of the only diner in Lucky Harbor, she hadn’t come from town. She didn’t belong here any more than she’d belonged out on the mountain. And he knew what that likely meant, he’d seen it all too often in Chicago. Homeless teens, a rising phenomenon that no one had yet come up with a solution for. She was either a runaway, abandoned, or a juvenile delinquent dodging the authorities. “The food’s good,” he said. “And I’m starving. So are you.”

The girl seemed to fold in on herself. “I’m not cleaned up good enough for a fancy place like that.”

Eat Me was just about the furthest thing from fancy he’d ever seen, but he gave her a cursory once-over. “You look fine.”

“But-”