CHAPTER 8

Following a rather somber breakfast in the smoke, True tackled the less-than-savory chore of repacking the groover— we call it that because of the grooves the bucket seat leaves on your backside, she’d told Emmett, to his delight—into the raft. She had just clicked the groover lid into place when Vivian approached her through the trees.

“So listen,” she said, and True felt herself tense. Here it was, the moment Mel had predicted, right along with the ash and smoke.

“It’s going to clear up,” she said quickly, though the morning haze was definitely not dissipating. If anything, it had settled into the river valley even more stubbornly.

Vivian just lifted both eyebrows in silent protest. “I’m a straight shooter,” she said, “and I need you to be the same.”

True exhaled, setting the groover down and nodding. “All right. Yeah.” She reminded herself that Vivian had entrusted her— her , True—with these precious four remaining days down the Outlaw. That trust felt sacred in a world where faith in people could be hard to come by. In their campfire circle, True had even found herself opening up about her own personal life—including how important her goddaughters were to her—in return. Maybe she’d felt comfortable knowing she was in like-minded company. Maybe it was seeing representation of gay family life, in contrast to the hetero one True was so acutely familiar with, that made her feel like opening up. Or maybe it was just Vivian. Either way, it was a first.

“How bad is this, really?” Vivian asked now. “What’s the protocol?”

True wavered. Just like last night, the thought of letting Vivian down felt almost as unsettling to her as letting down Mel.

Almost.

She cared about Emmett. Liked him very much. And she was starting to like his mother even more.

But she loved Annie.

They had to get downriver to Temple Bar by Friday. There was just no way around it. When Mel had first come to her with this plan, she had looked the most desperate True had ever seen her, and she’d seen her trying to navigate Quartz Canyon with half of one broken paddle. Of course True would do anything for her and the Bishops. It was all just such a fucking foregone conclusion.

Anyway, there was no protocol, not when it came to wildfire smoke. “It’s common for the AQ index to become poor when fires burn in the mountains around the Outlaw National Forest during the summers here,” she told Vivian. It was why, when they’d first begun talking about this trip, she’d urged Vivian to book in July, not August.

“But this is early,” Vivian countered, having apparently paid close attention to True’s advice. “And this fire isn’t just ‘in the mountains.’ It’s on the mountain, the one right there.” She hooked a thumb back behind her.

This, too, was true.

“I won’t put Emmett at risk,” Vivian said. A second look True recognized shone in her usually warm, dark eyes. The look was of a mother who was not to be messed with. True had seen that look in Mel’s eyes more than once.

Which was what enabled her to meet her gaze head-on. “Of course not. Which is why I have a plan.” Stage at Wonderland. Rest a day, out of the smoke. Would it work? It would have to.

She explained Mel’s idea to Vivian, who absorbed this new itinerary in thoughtful silence before breaking it with one last question that managed to knock what little air True had in her lungs right out. “Would you try this with Astor and Annie?”

Would she?

I am doing this for Astor and Annie, True decided fiercely. It allowed her to look Vivian in the eyes as she answered. “I would have to.”

Vivian nodded slowly. “Then our well-being is in your hands,” she said softly, touching True’s forearm lightly as she stepped back toward camp.

Fuck was all True could think, her limbs suddenly limp. Whose wasn’t?

An hour later, she navigated the raft unceremoniously toward Cougar and Buckshot Falls, not stopping to play up the novelty of the Class III rapids for her clients. Usually she eddied out just above each landmark, hopping ashore to describe the whitewater they were about to tackle, showing clients which line they’d take by drawing a crude diagram of the rocks and falls in the sand at their feet. Today, she just wanted to get some miles under their belt.

“We’ll start out left,” she called out as they approached the roar of Cougar, drawing Vivian’s attention immediately upon her. “And then we’ll move to the middle after that first boulder, right where the water boils over that channel. See?” True released her grip on one oar to point, and Emmett swiveled on his tube seat to track the location. “Then row right-right-right , hard and fast, to avoid hitting the left bank by those blackberry bushes. Got it?”

Both faces registered bare panic. “Wait, left first?” Vivian shot at her. “Or right?”

“And then what, again?” Emmett added at a shout.

“Just follow my lead,” True assured them, amused despite herself by the duo’s unique “two against the world” dynamic.

“Toeholds, please,” she called out as they took their first hard pull left, and Emmett and Vivian both scrambled to stick their sandaled feet deep in the crack of the inner tube at the interior base of the raft for stability. “Paddles in the water. And row .”

No matter how many times she ran these rapids, each plunge gave True a thrill, and she allowed herself to embrace the delicious drop of her stomach as Cougar spit them out at the bottom to drift toward the riffles at the next bend. She caught her breath, grinning despite the smoke, taking a break on the oars as the Wus recovered from the shock of the whitewater and took stock, wiping the spray from their faces. She rested her forearms for a moment, the burn slowly fading from her deltoids while the raft turned in a lazy half circle as it floated.

“That was cool,” Emmett said, his smile a welcome break from the serious frown he’d worn since they’d hastily broken camp in the smoke of Fern Creek. True smiled back, always happy to make an ally in her love of adrenaline-inducing outdoor sports.

Vivian, too, was grinning, a sight that sent a little stab of unexpected joy through True’s gut. Usually, it was easier to just paddle through rapids without client “assistance,” but Vivian’s toned biceps had been a welcome aid. True told her as much, enjoying the blush that touched upon her cheeks. Well, from that and the cold. Vivian shivered visibly following the waves of icy river water they’d taken onboard. True pulled them into an eddy long enough to ship her oars and tug a dry towel out of her dry bag and press it into Emmett’s hands. “Give this to your mom, will you, kiddo?”

“Thanks, True.”

Vivian looked suddenly vulnerable, clutching the towel to her chest, eyes stinging from the water and smoke, and True was startled to realize she nearly wanted to call off her revised itinerary right then and there, offering an evac instead. What if she was taking too big a risk, after all? Looks can be deceiving, she reminded herself. A woman didn’t climb through the ranks at UCSF Medical Center as a single mother without being tougher than she appeared.

Still, worry clouded Vivian’s face as Emmett cast an anxious glance back toward the silty air, one hand waving like a fan in front of his face. Despite True’s reassurances, the sight of the smoke and ash continued to cast a pallor. True knew they all felt the weight of it, exhilarating rides through rapids notwithstanding, but so far, to True’s relief, there had been no further talk of evacuating.

That relief came with a healthy dose of guilt. She looked again at Emmett. She was essentially putting this beautiful child at risk to save another, but what choice did she have?

“I’ve seen wildfires out here before,” True assured them now as they all followed the path of Emmett’s hand batting at the smoke. “Nothing we can’t handle, right, E?”

Emmett looked dubious, and so she took up the oars again, rowing with long, deep strokes toward their next challenge, Buckshot Falls.

“That’s right,” Vivian contributed, squeezing Emmett’s hand for reassurance. “Fifteen years’ experience, kiddo,” she declared, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically. “We’re in good hands.”

True managed a smile over the wooden handle of her oar, grateful for the endorsement even if it might have been forced. Even knowing she might not deserve it, not this trip. Apparently, Vivian hadn’t become a respected lead RN without in turn recognizing and valuing fellow professional women as well, True decided as she rowed into the current. What was the saying? A high tide lifts all boats? It was refreshing to skip the part of the rafting trip where she had to prove herself double just because she lacked a Y chromosome.

She continued on steadily, letting the Wus go back to covering their mouths with the hems of their T-shirts to filter out the smoke that, while less thick here, downriver, still clung to the canyon walls they glided through. She focused on her stroke, knowing she’d need to row longer and stronger today than the day before. She let her thoughts turn inward, even as Vivian’s vote of confidence echoed in her head.

Fifteen years ... shit. True never loved the reminder that she was forty-two years old. She’d always thought she’d have years to figure out her future, plenty of time before societal norms would expect her to work a nine-to-five with benefits and a 401(k). But it couldn’t be denied that everyone she’d started out rafting with had long since exited the industry, leaving the lifestyle for relationships, responsibility, “real jobs” that didn’t take them away from their families for twelve weeks every summer. True had been the one to stubbornly remain, rising through the ranks of Paddle, Inc., each summer, welding in the offseason, before finally realizing that long-ago dream of embarking on her own guide business. She’d earned respect, sure, but also more than one nickname that hinted at her age and years of outdoor exposure. Sunbaked came to mind, a favorite of the college kids and single-seasoners thanks to her near-permanent tan lines, the skin across her shoulders a constant bronze tone against her blond hair. And, admittedly, probably also for that one night the newbies had discovered the stash of indica she enjoyed from time to time. She far preferred the other nickname, TrueBlue, which she liked to think she’d earned for her loyalty to the job and her love of the water she couldn’t seem to leave.

Well, she had her own exit plan, she’d have them all know. And it had nothing to do with this fresh hell she and Mel had managed to get themselves into this summer. Automatically, she glanced back over her shoulder toward Flatiron, where, somewhere in the haze of the smoke upriver, her Pinterest-perfect yurt, with its rainwater-collection barrels and drought-resistant garden, sat at the end of her private, rough gravel drive just off the river road. She hadn’t so much as unloaded her first load of solar panels before a caravan of trucks, Don’t Tread on Me and MAGA flags billowing behind them in a wash of yellow, red, white, and blue, had churned up the dust around True’s Chacos. Immediately, the hair on her arms had stood on end as intuition kicked into overdrive. At least ten men stared back at her through the dirty windshields of their rigs.

“Welcome to the hood,” John Fallows had drawled, alighting from the last truck to spit on the ground at his feet. “We got our own little neighborhood watch out here, seeing as we’re so far off the grid.”

“All right,” True had said carefully, looking from Fallows to his son, Chris, always in his shadow.

Additional men had emerged from their vehicles one by one, until a half circle of unwashed humanity framed her in. The closest guy offered her a wink. “So, you know, consider yourself ... watched.”

True had refused to be intimidated. At least, that was what she hoped she’d projected. She’d refused to run directly back to town and give up on homesteading, anyway. She’d known John and his crew grew illegal weed, under cover of their legal grow. Everyone knew. And a whole handful of property owners out here farmed similarly. Most kept to themselves. Most didn’t mind a quiet, non-nosy neighbor. What she hadn’t known— Because you didn’t ask, Sam had pointed out later—was just what league she’d leveled up to.

She’d worked on the Outsider yurt in the following months with her head down, determination fueling her. Laying a foundation, wrapping the canvas around the frame, constructing the yurt’s deck solo from a blueprint. Knowing that it would serve not only as her escape but as her professional art and welding studio for when she gave up the river for good. She could live out her days there, with very little overhead. She’d thought it all through. As a gay woman who wasn’t the marrying type, she’d had to. No one else stood in the wings, waiting to take care of her in her old age.

She wouldn’t let John Fallows, or anyone else, rob her of that.

She sighed, glancing away from the Wus and the nuclear-family coziness they represented. She’d almost convinced herself she didn’t want that life by the time she’d seen the Outsider through Mel’s eyes for the first time and had to admit that her subconscious, at least, felt differently. Showing off her homestead to the Bishops, she’d watched Mel’s face slowly shift from admiration to confusion to realization. The river-rock fireplace she’d said she’d always wanted? Check. The herb garden out front, complete with a wraparound fence to keep out the deer? Yep. Shit. Even after working day after day in the Oregon sunshine, True hadn’t realized she’d been building her retreat to Mel’s exact specifications.

“You’ll be set here for life,” Sam had declared, startling True while she tried to wrap her head around her own self-sabotage, clapping a hand on her sun-warmed shoulder.

“You’ll put your own spin on it,” Mel had added softly before darting away to prevent Astor, just a toddler, from climbing up the deer fence.

True sighed at the memory, then glanced through the smoke again at Vivian, giving in to a moment of speculation before coming back down to earth. She should have named her yurt the Lost Cause.

“Ready?” she said, signaling to the Wus to begin rowing again as the hum of Buckshot Falls increased to a more insistent rumble from around the next bend.

Emmett lowered his Buff to flash a quick smile, but Vivian just lifted her eyebrows at True, as if to ask, Are you?