Trail of Desire

I turned thirty-seven in March and somewhere around the second glass of birthday wine I decided I needed proof I still had adventure in me. That's the only explanation I have for booking a two-day guided trek in Sequoia National Park. Alone. With a stranger.

My sister said it sounded like the opening of a true crime podcast. Thanks, Stella.

So there I was at the trailhead at seven in the morning, standing next to my rental car with a pack I had clearly overpacked, waiting for a man I had only emailed. A sommelier who spends her days swirling and describing things for people who nod. I figured a hike would be simple. Walk. Breathe. Look at trees.

Then the stranger showed up and simple left the building.

He got out of a dusty white truck and I did the thing where you look, then look away, then look again like you're checking the weather. He was younger than I expected. Much younger. Late twenties at least, maybe younger, and my stomach did a little flip of annoyance about it. I had pictured a grizzled fifty-year-old with a beard and a thermos. Instead I got lean and sun-bronzed with forearms that belonged on a magazine about kayaks.

"Lynette?" he called.

"That's me."

"Nolan." He crossed the lot and stuck out his hand. "Glad you found it. This lot confuses people."

His handshake was firm and warm and I hated how aware of it I was. He looked me over, quick and friendly, checking my boots.

"Good boots," he said. "You'd be surprised how many people show up in vans."

"I own heels too, but I assumed those would be a mistake."

He laughed. "Yeah, big mistake."

He helped me adjust my pack, standing close, tugging straps, and I kept my eyes on a very interesting patch of gravel because looking directly at him felt like a bad idea. Twenty-something. Fit. Probably eats protein and climbs things recreationally. And me, thirty-seven, with my gray streak I refuse to dye and my knees that announce themselves on stairs.

Great. Wonderful. Pay for the trees, Lynette, not for this.

We started walking and it was actually nice. Morning light through the pines. Cool air. He asked questions like a person actually interested in the answers. What did I do, why'd I book a solo trek, had I backpacked before.

"I'm a sommelier," I said. "So professionally I climb nothing. I stand in a nice room and talk about wine."

"That's a real job?"

"It's a real job. It took me a decade of studying to be allowed to call myself that."

"Respect. I could not do that. I'd just say it tastes grapey."

"You would not last one shift."

"Definitely not." He grinned over his shoulder. "Fair warning, this is the flat part. Enjoy it."

Then the flat part ended.

The first climb was honest and mean. Switchbacks that kept going, sun coming through the trees, my thighs filing complaints. Nolan set a steady pace ahead of me, patient, and every time I fell behind he slowed without making a show of it. I was sweating through my shirt and my breathing had turned into something public.

"You okay back there?"

"Peachy," I said. "This is fine. This is my natural state."

He laughed but kept watching me, and I kept climbing, and then my boot slipped on a root and my whole balance went sideways. His hand was on my lower back before I even finished stumbling. Steadying me. Just a hand, just a correction, the kind of thing guides do a hundred times a day.

Except it went through me like a current. I am not exaggerating. One warm hand flat against my spine and my brain shorted out entirely. I had not been touched by anyone in four months and apparently my body had been keeping a ledger.

"Got you," he said.

"Thanks." I stepped forward way too fast. "I'm fine. Root. Sneaky root."

"Those roots are jerks," he said, easy, and dropped back into pace beside me instead of ahead. Which meant his arm kept brushing mine on the narrow stretches. Which meant I spent forty minutes thinking about a hand on my back.

Stop it, I told myself. He's a professional. You are a client. You are also old enough to know better, which is the humiliating part.

We hit a saddle with a view and he called a rest. We sat on rocks, ate trail mix, drank water. I tried to look composed while gulping air.

"I win the slow race," I said. "There was one other contestant and I lost to her too."

"You're doing fine."

"I'm doing fine for a woman whose idea of altitude is the second floor of her apartment building."

"Okay, first of all," he said, pointing a trail mix handful at me, "nobody's fast on this climb. Second of all, how old do you think I am?"

Wait. Where did that come from.

"Twenty-eight?" I guessed.

"Twenty-four."

I made a face I could not take back. "Twenty-four."

"Is that a problem?"

"No. No. I'm just doing math about my life choices out loud." I waved a hand. "I turned thirty-seven this year. So I'm hiking with a man who was in elementary school when I was in college buying my first decent bottle of wine."

He smirked. Not a polite smirk. The kind with something behind it.

"You don't hike like you're almost forty," he said. "You hike like someone who's almost forty and has never once apologized for it."

"That is a very long way to say old."

"It's really not."

I stared at him and he just kept smirking, chewing his trail mix, a man who knew exactly what he'd said. My face went hot and it was not all from the sun.

"Careful, guide," I said. "Flattery in the wilderness. Is that in the brochure?"

"Would it work?"

"It's very unprofessional is what it is."

"I'm off the clock in about six hours," he said, and stood up, and shouldered his pack like nothing had happened at all. "Ready?"

Not remotely, I did not say. Ready as I'll ever be, I also did not say.

"Lead on," I said instead.

The afternoon went easier, or my legs forgave me, or something else had my attention. We talked the whole way. His college, my restaurant, the worst wine I'd ever tasted professionally, the dumbest thing a client had ever done on a trail with him. He had a story about a guy who tried to bring a full bottle of red wine up into the backcountry, and he told it well, and I laughed loud enough to startle a bird.

This was fine, I kept telling myself. This was a nice conversation with a nice young man and I was reading too much into a hand and a smirk.

Then we came down into the grove.

Giant sequoias, enormous and red and older than countries, and a creek running bright over stones, and a small campsite tucked in beside them. Fire ring. Level ground. The kind of place that looks arranged.

Nolan dropped his pack and stretched, arms overhead, shirt riding up, and I made myself look at a very large tree instead.

"Home," he said. "We've got hours of light left. You want to see the big one downstream, or you want to put your feet up?"

I wanted both and I wanted neither and I wanted to stop thinking about that hand on my back. My legs chose for me.

"Feet up," I said. "Then the tree."

He was already gathering wood for the fire, moving around the site like it was his kitchen, and I sat on a rock with my boots loosened and watched the light go gold through the sequoias and thought, okay, so the trip has gotten complicated.

The complicated part had not even started yet. I just didn't know that sitting there.

The tent went up faster than I expected. Nolan talked me through it and mostly let me do it, which I appreciated, because I was already feeling like the old lady on this trip and didn't need him assembling my shelter for me.

"You've done this before," he said.

"Once. In my twenties. It collapsed."

"Then we're upgrading your record."

We staked it out and I stood back and looked at it and felt weirdly proud. Small tent. One tent, actually, one small tent, and I had known that when I booked, and had thought about it for exactly one second before moving on with my life. There were two sleeping bags. That was the arrangement. Guides carry one in case of weather or injury. That's the official reason. I was trying very hard to keep thinking about it in official terms.

"I'm going to wash off," I said. "In the creek. Is that allowed or will fish sue me?"

"Nobody's watching the fish. Go ahead. I'll get the fire going."

I walked down to the creek with my soap bag and a dry shirt. The water was snowmelt cold and I loved it. I pulled my sweaty shirt over my head, and the air hit my skin and I made a noise I was glad nobody