Page 28 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

I flicked a look in her direction. We were already behind schedule. The trip to Target had eaten all of my allotted bathroom/meal/shopping time combined. “Sightseeing isn’t on the itinerary.”

She giggled like I’d told a hilarious joke. “Itinerary. Nicky, you’ve scheduled almost two days for a fifteen-hour trip. We have time to see some sights.”

“If we make it to Mobile before we stop for the night, we’ll have time to sightsee in Savannah tomorrow.” I had a schedule, and I didn’t care if Brit thought I was being uptight for wanting to get there early. The last thing we needed was to miss another ride. I couldn’t take another day to dwell on how many ways this trip had gone wrong.

Alex’s unfinished list felt like a fifty-pound weight in my back pocket. Though, I was starting to care less and less about whether or not I completed these tasks. I did my best; now I needed to get home.

Even as I thought it, I knew “I did my best” wasn’t how my family handled things.

Brit huffed, seeming to give up, but a few minutes later, she crossed her legs and started doing some squirming, shaking dance in her seat. She turned to look at me, pulling her newly pink lip between her teeth.

“What?”

“I have to pee.”

Christ.“That’s convenient.”

She pushed her lip into a pout. “It’s ratherinconvenient, actually, given that I’m stuck in this moving vehicle.”

I pointed to the grassy shoulder. “I’ll pull over up there.”

Her jaw dropped. “Nick! I amnotgoing to pee on the side of the highway.”

Of all the ridiculous things, this was what she took exception to? I blew out a breath and tried to ignore her puppy-dog eyes. “Let me guess, this park has public restrooms?”

She nodded, that lip between her teeth again, and the puppy-dog eyes won.

I put on my blinker. “Ten minutes.”

I grabbed Brit’s arm, steering her around a puddle at least ankle deep. It turned out the puppy-dog eyes weren’t the only tool she had at her disposal. After she’d used the bathroom in the visitor center, she’d turned that pouty lip on me and I was like a robot programmed to do whatever she said. That was how we ended up going to see the waterfall.

We were a quarter mile into the woods, far enough that I couldn’t see the car anymore, and I looked down at her flip-flops. “Did you put any thought into your footwear when you decided we should do this?”

She shrugged. “I’m not going to let my wardrobe constraints keep me from seeing a bridge haunted by the ghost of a dead blacksmith.”

I watched mud splatter up the back of her calf when her shoe slapped her heel, then looked back at her perfect hair and makeup. I shook my head, seriously torn between annoyed and turned on.

“You don’t really believe in this ghost stuff, right?” I asked.

“You mean this particular story or the afterlife in general?”

“In general, I guess.” I chewed my lip, wondering why I’d even broached this subject. I had my own thoughts on the matter, and lately I was intolerant of anyone who talked about Alex living on in some other realm like that was supposed to make him not being in this one any better. Brit was talking about campfire tales and kids’ stories. It wasn’t the same, but I had to know if she really bought into it.

She looked over her shoulder at me and I knew I hadn’t gotten away with anything. She knew why I was asking. “What do you think?”

“I’m not the one looking for a dead blacksmith haunting a bridge.”

“Well, we all know I’m the fun one.” She gathered her skirt up, giving me a glimpse of thigh, and jumped over a rock in the trail, landing in more mud. “I don’t know, Nick. I don’t think any of us do. But I think sometimes people just need something to believe in and we should let them have it.”

I nodded at the top of her head, thinking about my mother and Willow and the way they thought it mattered where these ashes in my pocket ended up, how they believed it was a piece of Alex and not just a pile of dust. I didn’t believe any of that, yet every time that tin got lighter, I felt more alone. Until I met this beautiful woman stomping around in the mud.

A few more brush-covered feet, and the sound of water rushing overpowered the sound of the mosquitos.

“Here,” she said, pushing ahead of me. I followed, ducking under a low branch, and found myself at the edge of a wooden bridge that didn’t look like people should be enticed to visit it. Now I was wondering if the blacksmith died trying to cross this rickety thing.

Below us were rapids that I was hoping we could avoid exploring, but across the river, draped over the jagged edges of a slate wall was a waterfall that glowed green from the moss growing behind it. The canopy opened directly above it and the sun poked through in fingers, like it was plucking at the water. The air around us was fresh with mist.

We’d just spent a week hopping from one gorgeous destination to another by boat, but something about this spot in the forest in the middle of nowhere took my breath away.

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