His words and promises were wonderful. She felt fluttery at the idea that he might really be in love with her. But she wouldn’t hold him to those words when this was over. It wouldn’t be fair to him when she couldn’t even trust her own feelings.

But standing on this steep, wooded hillside, she wanted to believe in everything. She wanted to believe in love and marriage and happily ever afters that included him pushing a baby carriage while she held a toddler’s hand. As an only child, she’d always wished for siblings. He’d mentioned a brother, so she knew he had at least one.

Good Lord. She didn’t even know how many siblings he had.

Did he have religious beliefs? What were his political leanings?

It was okay. They had time and nothing else to do but talk as they climbed the lower slopes of a mountain.

“How many siblings do you have?” she asked when they set out again.

“One. A brother. He’s older. Married with a one-year-old. I expect they’ll be trying for another soon. Fig will have cousins.”

She smiled at that. She’d also always wanted cousins, but she was the only child of only children.

“You get along with your brother?”

“I was the best man at his wedding, and it wasn’t merely a nod to tradition. He’s my best and oldest friend. He and Jae are good friends too.”

“You have a lot of friends, don’t you? Jae, your family, your SEAL team members.”

“Yes. I’m a lucky guy. I have a lot of worlds I fit in.”

She’d never had that—an abundance of friends. Mentors, yes. Friends had been harder to come by for a nerdy girl. She’d arrived in Forks more than a decade before the Twilight boom started and graduated a few years before the first book was published.

Forks had been a normal, financially unstable small logging town during her teen years, and she was the crazy girl who believed in protecting spotted owls, archaeological sites, and preserving the beauty of Olympic National Forest.

She was decidedly unpopular, and that didn’t change even when Forks’s economy shifted to tourism during the Twilight boom.

Now Forks was Forks again. She loved her small town and was glad they got to profit from the wildly popular books and movies while there was gold to mine. But she still didn’t quite fit in her hometown. She was more comfortable in Port Angeles and most comfortable in her park.

But she did have Undine and Jae, and a few other friends in her adopted peninsula town.

She slipped on the wet ground and landed on her knees, her gloved hands sinking into the soft earth. “The ground is really saturated from the rain. We’ll need to watch out. Mudslides could occur on the steeper slopes where water has pooled.”