Page 15 of Hidden Nature

“If I promise not to push harder than I can handle, you have to promise back you won’t let work slide, you won’t worry and hover.”

“There isn’t a parent in the world who can promise not to worry and mean it. But we’re going to try really hard not to hover.”

“Fair.”

As Drea came out, the car pulled up.

“You get in the front.”

“No way. We’re not breaking traditions. Parents in the front, kids in the back.”

“Fair.” Her mother kissed her cheek.

“Everybody in?” Her dad rubbed his hands together. “Let’s rock and roll.”

It made her laugh—another tradition. He’d said the same anytime the family took a road trip.

So off they went with the radio playing her father’s favored classic rock.

“So how are the fall rentals?” Sloan began.

“Full up.” Her mother shifted to look over her shoulder. “The Bensons are coming in Tuesday for their Thanksgiving week. Two more grandchildren came along this year, so they’ve booked two cabins. They’ll do some skiing, but some of the older kids want to try snowshoeing. We’ve booked that.”

She remembered the Bensons, as they’d been coming to the Rest since she’d been a kid herself. Renting a cabin in the fall and again in the summer. Skiing or hiking in the fall, a boat rental in the summer.

The family business, All the Rest—in its third generation with Drea on board—maintained and rented cabins, cottages and lake houses, boats—motor, sail—kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards.

They booked white-water rafting excursions, winter skiing, snowboarding, snowshoes, arranged guided hikes.

Heron’s Rest, deep in the mountains and centered by Mirror Lake, didn’t pull them in like Deep Creek and the resorts, but it appealed to those who wanted a quieter, more intimate stay.

And it offered what the tourists wanted in four distinct seasons. All four, Sloan thought, with their own beauty and appeal.

She couldn’t go to her own place for a while, Sloan thought, but she could, and would, take short hikes on familiar trails, long walks on the lake path. She’d build up her strength and endurance again.

The route north and west was also familiar. The endless highway that took long, long curves through the mountains, and the mountains that became more serious as the miles passed.

They’d left the hospital in the chilly but dry, but as those miles passed, snow spread over hills and fields. It iced the peaks, ran down the valleys. It clung to the branches of pines and denuded hardwoods so everything looked like an old-fashioned Christmas card.

She loved the look of it, the feel of it, the smell of it when she walked through those deep woods. That appeal had been one of the reasons she’d chosen her career.

She knew the beauty of nature—and its dangers, its capriciousness. And she’d felt, always, a strong need to protect and preserve it.

She dozed off, then surfaced, irritated with herself. Like a child, she thought, or an old lady, unable to stay awake for a couple of hours in a moving car.

No whining, she reminded herself. A nap just made the ride go faster.

And besides, they were nearly home.

The car rolled off the highway now where the road wound and climbed up, snaked and rolled down. Thick woods of green and white, icy rocks, deep seas of snow, the rise of the Alleghenies dominated, as if highways didn’t exist.

She glanced over to see Drea scowling at her phone.

“Problem?”

“Hmm? No, not really. Why does it always get me that there’s no service on this mile-and-a-half stretch?”

“I bet whatever’s on the other end of the phone can wait the three or four minutes until we’re through the gap.”

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