Girl Out of Water(39)

He catches my eye, and my stomach does that twisty, fluttering thing it likes doing around him. “Trust me, surfer girl, you don’t want to give up on this.”

? ? ?

About fifteen minutes later, I follow Lincoln as he turns right onto a beaten concrete road, down a hill, and into a gravel parking lot. There are a few cars, mostly Jeep Wranglers and Ford trucks. My skateboard struggles against the textured terrain, and giving up, I grind to a halt.

“Umm, where are we?” Woods surround the gravel lot. The only breaks in the trees are the access road we just came in on and a small opening to a trail. The woods emit an earthy scent of damp soil and foliage. It’s not the salted air I’m used to, and yet as I take a deep breath, it’s just as fresh and soothing.

“Dodge Park,” Lincoln answers, taking off his glasses to quickly wipe them clean. “Well, part of it. The whole thing is about fifty acres.”

“A park.” I pause. “You realize we were just at a park, right? You had us skate six miles to go from one park to another park?”

Lincoln smiles. “Ah, but this is a special park.”

“Uh-huh. What makes it so special?”

“Follow me to find out. Unfortunately, we’ll have to go on foot from here. I know you’re disappointed about that.”

“Unimaginably so.”

But the truth is, I will miss the board beneath my feet. There’s something satisfying about going faster than you can on the legs you were born with.

We both pick up our boards, and I follow Lincoln on the small path. I trust Lincoln, but going into a secluded spot with someone I barely know goes against just about every stranger danger warning I’ve ever heard, so I slip my phone out of my pocket to make sure I still have service. I do. I also have a text message from Emery showing me a picture of the boys sitting on their skateboards and chowing down on the fruit. Parker’s flipped one of the orange peels inside out and stuffed it between his lips to create a giant cartoon smile. She even sent some emojis with the picture. Emojis are a good sign. I send three laughing-tears smiles back, then put my phone away and relax.

The woods are dense, filled with moss-covered trails, ivy crawling over trunks of towering trees, and scattered logs and branches we carefully maneuver around. Sunlight filters through the canopy, spreading an early day golden light over everything, glinting off the dew-dropped grass and illuminating our path in dappled shadows. The land is startling in its beauty. I had no idea that Nebraska was hiding all of this, lush nature.

As we walk, Lincoln points out different plants. He seems to know the name for every bush, tree, and flower. “This is one of my favorites.” He bends down in front of a nettle of green stalks peppered with magenta flowers. “The purple poppy mallow.”

I bend down next to him, watching as his fingers skim over the fragile petals. “Why is it a favorite?” I ask.

He glances at me, grinning. “Are you kidding? Purple poppy mallow? Can’t beat that name.” He repeats it like it’s a tongue twister as we stand and continue down the trail.

A minute later, he stops short again, and I almost bump into him. Again. “Hey, careful—” I start to say, but stop when he spins around and places a finger to his lips.

He has really nice lips.

He whispers, “Look over here. Walk gently.”

He grabs my hand and pulls me forward and then down so that we’re both crouching in front of a cluster of lavender and white flowers sprouting from a knot of spiky green stalks. The flowers have long, skinny petals. Two yellow and black butterflies flit around them, the patterned shapes in their wings reminding me of stained-glass windows.

“Wild bergamot,” Lincoln informs me. “Butterflies love it, and—” he drops my hand and reaches forward to carefully pluck off a couple of the green leaves “—these brew some pretty mean mint tea.”

“Um, Lincoln?” I ask, still crouched by the bergamot, watching the butterflies flutter back and forth and deciding on a scale of one to very how much I like holding Lincoln’s hand. “How do you know all this stuff?”

He shrugs. “You know how I want to hike the PCT?”

I nod.

“I’ve had a thing for nature since I was little. We moved around a lot for my mom’s job, so there was always somewhere new to explore, and I guess my thing for nature turned into a rather sturdy obsession with nature.” He plucks off a few more bergamot leaves and tucks them into his pocket. “Hopefully I’ll get into a college with a good biology or sustainability program and then maybe work for the national parks or some job that lets me travel all over the country, see all the wild bergamot and purple poppy mallow I want.”

“That sounds awesome.” And it does—even if his plan is so different than mine. He wants to travel the world, and I basically never want to leave home again.

“It definitely would be.” He nudges my shoulder. “Come on, time for your adventure.”

“So this Lincoln-guided nature walk wasn’t my adventure?”

He grins. “Just an added bonus of my lovely company. The real adventure still awaits.”

? ? ?

I hear voices first, cheerful shouts and laughs. But then—the splash of water. My skin tingles. My pulse accelerates. “Is that…”

We walk through another cluster of trees, and the world opens up. I find myself standing on top of a cliff over a large, streaming river. The river flows into a small gulf where people are splashing in the water and sunning on the muddy banks. “Welcome to our little slice of the Missouri River,” Lincoln says. “It’s no Pacific Ocean, but I figured it’d do the trick for today.”