Chapter One
Stacey
“You’ll do no such thing!” My dad jokes, an edge to his voice when I even suggest I’m diverting my route home from college.
I’m done. Finished.
Graduated and cleaned out my dorm.
Finally.
“It’s the only recharge port on the way,” I reason, justifying my extended trip home cross country in my rented electric car.
“The what?” he asks, chuckling nervously still.
I giggle too, once from the idea that I got a free upgrade to a luxury electric rental car and twice because I know the real reason I’m diverting.
What dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
I got the upgrade from the rental car company because the recharge ports are few and far between, meaning I have to go a few hundred miles (okay, almost five hundred) out of my way.
Perfect for me though, because it means I get to drive through Ranger Ben Slater’s territory.
“Recharge ports, dad,” I explain to him. “I got a sweet deal on an upgrade from the rental company, but it’s an all-electric smart car which means I’ll have to recharge it before I reach home.”
I hear my dad breathing heavily through his nose. That thing he does when he’s not happy but doesn’t want to let the world know how he feels.
“An electric car? Oh, honey. I could’ve just paid for a regular car if you were short on cash, gas money too,” he volunteers.
I know he would have. But a regular car would have meant I have no excuse to drive through Ranger Ben’s territory. I wouldn’t have the chance to drive by the tourist stop and drool over his billboard at the national park entrance.
Ben Slater is my dad’s best friend, and I can safely say, my only and deepest crush in this life.
He and dad grew up together, Ben from a wealthy family with connections, and my dad… well. He was raised in a boy’s home until he was finally fostered by Ben’s neighbors when he was a kid of about eight or nine.
I get the feeling Ben had a hand in dad being fostered. Once his parents saw the bond those two had, they kind of made it happen.
My dad’s always looked up to Ben, literally as well as figuratively. Ben is well over six and a half feet and built like a tank, but a tank with abs and muscles in all the right places.
Muscles with the face of a rugged angel.
And those dark, brooding eyes…
I feel a shiver move through me even just thinking about him, knowing I’ll get to see him soon enough. His picture anyway.
Ben Slater is also the poster boy for the national parks service in the state. I’m not the only one who notices his good looks. He’s been the face of National Parks and wildlife protection for ages now, which means I get to see him still, even when I can’t in person.
A brochure or TV ad isn’t the same, but his billboard near the National Park entrance is worth it. That’s where my detour for the recharge is taking me.
And I can’t wait.
Sounds silly, I know, but there’s only one thing better than Ranger Ben in the flesh, and that’s a thirty foot high Ranger Ben smiling at me.
He was supposed to come to my graduation, but some hikers got lost and Ben being Ben, he wouldn’t leave until he found them himself.
Dad told me he felt bad, told me he’d make it up to me but I think dad was just being kind.
A girl can dream though.
I mean, the chances of a man like Ben Slater falling for a girl like me?
Pretty thin, which I ain’t either. Not that it should matter, but I somehow see Ben Slater as the type of man who knows what he wants and can get it by snapping his fingers.
Short, curvy-thick college girls need not apply.
“Well?” Dad asks me again, breaking into my reverie about Ben. “If you’re in it now, how many ‘recharge’ stops will you have to make before you get here? Doesn’t sound smart to me at all.”
Dad’s not so old fashioned he doesn’t know technology, but he is kinda behind the times when it comes to how fast things are moving in that department.
“I’m not sure I like the sound of you driving an electric car,” he continues before I can go on. “I mean, what if you get stuck or break down? Nobody can just give you a jump start or some gas to get you to where you gotta go. No, I don’t like it, sweetie, get a regular car as soon as you pass through a city, I’ll pay for it,” he says adamantly.
This is why I didn’t say anything beforehand. Dad was up in arms about me driving cross country alone, to begin with, and I had to remind him I’m an adult now, not a little kid anymore.