Hours later, with a puffy face, bloodshot eyes, and a raw throat, she 
managed to venture back downstairs from where she had hidden the rest 
of the morning.  She'd been terrified that the boys would try to 
break in and finish what they started, and had a few heartstopping 
moments when somebody HAD knocked on the door.  She didn't answer 
however and eventually whoever it was went away.  The living room of 
the little cottage was still in the same state as when she'd left it 
this morning. Dirty and barren, but not ransacked.  She forced 
herself to take a few deep breaths and hoped her trembling would stop 
soon.  It was beginning to give her a headache.  

She stood quietly at the bottom of the stair for a few moments, 
staring at the room and hugging herself.  In her mind, her husbands 
arms held her safe and strong, "I need you," she whispered 
desperately.  Unfailingly, she heard the response as if he were in 
the room, just as he had been all those times before, "I am always 
here for you, my love."  She bit her lip, determined that the tears 
wouldn't start anew and wondered if it would be safe to walk back 
down where she'd left her bag to see if she could retrieve any of its 
contents.  More than likely, the boys had scattered them to the four 
winds just to spite her.  Why?  What had she ever done to deserve all 
this?  The familiar heavy weight of sorrow and struggle pressed down 
on her shoulders, threatening to crush her with its overwhelming grip 
once more, but she pushed it away.  Instead, she would be brave.  If 
there was nothing left of the knapsack, then she would just have to 
do with water from the Lake for now.

Cautiously, she unlocked the door and peered out onto the porch.  
What she saw took her slightly by surprise.  Her knapsack lay 
unharmed on the top step near the cut wood railing.  She opened the 
door a little wider and scanned the area for any sign of the 
troublemakers, but she didn't find anything.  So, she walked over and 
lifted the knapsack into her arms.  Opening it, she inspected the 
contents and amazingly found everything she had purchased this 
morning.  One of the soap boxes was crushed in where she'd hit the 
boy named Jack earlier, but other than that everything seemed to be 
in order.  Again she searched the immediate yard, but noone was 
around.  Still she smiled softly at her absent benefactor who 
obviously must have been either a fisherman from the dock or one of 
the townsfolk that had run the boys off. "Thank you," she whispered 
into the breeze.

As she stood on the porch contemplating her next course of action, a 
car made its way up the dirt road, hobbling over the potholes slowly 
and delicately as it could.  No one should ever drive a Mercedes into 
the back woods.  Its not good for the suspension.  She thought it odd 
that someone with such an expensive vehicle would make their way up 
to see her and wondered if it was one of her husband's old business 
partners or something.  The clean-cut man who emerged from the 
vehicle barely ten feet from her porch step however was  nobody she 
knew.  She watched him silently from behind her curtain of hair as he 
carefully extricated a briefcase from the backseat and came up the 
towards the house with one of those professional fake smiles 
plastered on his face.  "Good day, Mrs. Livingston. My name is Cort 
Donovan and I represent Barnett Corporation.  I wondered if I might 
take a bit of your time to speak with you this afternoon." His voice 
was pleasant, but there was something about his demeanor that 
immediately put her on guard.  Her memory flashed to her husband's 
shoulders that used to tense under her fingertips anytime someone 
adressed him like that.  It meant trouble. 

********************************************************************

Ever wonder why it is that in the middle of a forest of pine trees, 
one would feel the need to put a pine cone into a state park's little 
museum room for display?  I mean seriously, in some stretch of the 
imagination there might be someone somewhere in the great expanse of 
the world that might not actually KNOW what a pine cone was or how it 
worked, but I seriously doubt said person would ever be in proximity 
of this park.  On the other hand, I'm sure somewhere there was a very 
diligent little botanist who'd spent hours slaving over the grafts, 
charts, and synopsis of this little display.  Therefore in deference 
to their great efforts and sacrifice to define the working order of 
our universe, I owed the display at least...what?....thirty seconds 
of my time?  Yeah, that sounded good.

I'd spent the morning, after I managed to struggle up out of the huge 
bed I'd sunk into, editing the few chapters I had.  I added a little 
here, refined a bit there, but I couldn't seem to move forward.  
Everything I tried sounded stale and boring.  So finally in 
frustration, I slammed the top of the laptop down and decided to make 
Phyllis' official suggestion of "research" plausible by going to see 
some of the sites.  Rather conveniently about that time, the morning 
newspaper was delivered to the front door.  I hadn’t seen any piles 
of newspaper on the stoop when I’d first entered the cabin, so I 
found myself wondering what they did with the newspapers when no one 
was in residence.  Opening the local/entertainment section, I perused 
through the different events, comparing prices to my current funds, 
and finally decided upon the local state park that was supposed to be 
putting on a kayak expo later that afternoon. 

And so here I was exactly one and half hours later standing in the 
exhibition room of the park’s main guest hall being totally 
enthralled by the intricacies of the pine cone when my hero suddenly 
tapped on my shoulder.  That is to say, the type I’d been looking for 
to emulate my story’s hero after.  I turned to confront a pair of 
brilliant blue eyes and a bright smile framed in neatly trimmed 
blondish-brown goatee and mustache.  Shoulder-length, sun-kissed, 
brownish blond hair spilled out from under some kind of safari hat 
that had one side of the brim pinned up. The rest of what seemed to 
be a VERY well taken care of physique, was encased in a khaki park 
ranger uniform complete with shorts that displayed tanned, muscular 
legs and hiking boots.  It took me a few seconds before it registered 
that I should shut my trap before I started drooling in earnest.  
From the amusement that seemed to jump sparkling into his gaze, I 
suspected he had noticed, so I went for the evasive maneuver, turning 
my face quickly back to the display, and hoping my cheeks weren’t 
flaming TOO badly.      

“I was wondering why you would exhibit a pine cone that people can 
see wherever they walk throughout the entire park?  Wouldn’t it be 
more interesting to display items they might NOT see so much of…like 
lions, tigers, or bears perhaps?” His laugh was a warm, rich baritone 
that kind of erupted from his chest to be distributed between his 
mouth and nose; the latter of which pinning him as being yankee at 
least some point in his lifetime.  “We don’t actually HAVE any tigers 
in North America, about the only lions are mountain lions of which we 
have more bobcats than anything in this region, and although we do 
have bears around, I don’t think they’d hang around the exhibit hall 
too long unless we allowed them to munch on the guests,” he pointed 
out in a somewhat informative, if amused tone.  Then he smiled again, 
practically forcing an answering smile from my own lips, and 
added, “The pine cone exhibit I admit is a bit silly in a wooded area 
surrounded by pine cones, but we have a lot of school groups come 
through here.” He swished his hair off of his shoulder while 
indicating the park in general at a nod. “So I’m afraid we’re forced 
to be educational as well as fun.”  

I raised my eyebrows in enlightenment, “ah, I see.”  Then he pointed 
towards a group of about six elderly couples over waiting towards a 
back door that led into the park, “but we don’t have kids around 
today, so I was just going to take these folks for a sight-seeing 
venture down the boardwalk and thought you might like to join us.”  
His face was pleasant, but obviously expecting an answer.  I looked 
down at my watch, “Well, I kind of signed up for the kayak expo. Will 
we be back by then?” I asked.  “Mm, hmm” he nodded an 
affirmative.  “This trail only takes about forty minutes or so.” He 
leaned down towards me a bit and whispered, “I don’t think that group 
behind me could handle much more,” He winked before resuming his 
former posture, “You might get to see some wildlife and I’ll point 
out some vegetation which is common to the Smoky mountain region. All 
that good stuff.” I couldn’t help but tease him, “Ah, so you’ll catch 
me a bear to look at then?” He chuckled again, reaching for my 
hand, “We’ll have to see about that.  My name’s Peter.” Picking up my 
bag that held a change of clothes for the expo, I took his 
hand. “Callie,” I reciprocated.  “Nice to meet cha, Callie” 

The boardwalk was just that, a plank-board type sidewalk that twisted 
and twined its way through the undergrowth trying to be as 
inconspicuous and non-disruptive of the surrounding environment as 
possible.  The just-after-the-rain smell the whole place had was 
wonderful, what with the fragrant green foliage, budding blooms, and 
rich dark earth.  The humidity however you could almost have chewed 
on.  The group that I was with walked slow.  Painfully slow.  And 
they asked lots of questions, which made me think this forty-minute 
walk was going to take the entire two hours until the expo to get 
through.  I also suspected that they enjoyed listening to Peter talk, 
which was fine by me.  It allowed me to study his features, his body 
language, the way he spoke with his hands, his facial expressions, 
and the different tones in his voice.  It wasn’t until he actually 
pointed out a critter sitting less than a foot away from the raised 
boardwalk that I bothered to pay attention to what he was 
saying.  “That is a diamond-back rattler which is one of a handful of 
snakes in this region that are actually poisonous to come into 
contact with.”  Rattler?  Snake!  Did I mention that I was not 
particularly fond of our slithering friends.  Sure, I know they help 
the environment and all, keeping down the rodent population….but 
still.  It’s a snake.  Eek!

The snake was curled up in a relaxed position with its head resting 
comfortably on its own back.  It was hardly paying attention to the 
people on the boardwalk at all, but I was taking no chances.  I moved 
to the other side of the walkway.  Peter must have noticed my 
decisive shift, because he spoke up, “Callie, there are two more on 
the other side of the walk.  If you’ll look through the branch there 
towards the tree trunk, you can see them.  The lighter colored one is 
the female.”  Quickly I whirled around and noticed the other two, not 
quite as close to the walk, but too close for MY comfort.  A couple 
of the gentlemen in the group chuckled under their breath and the 
women looked at me with sympathetic eyes.  ‘Yeah, ok so I’m a wuss.  
I didn’t notice any of you letting go of your husbands’ arms to reach 
down and pet em.’ I murmured under my breath as they moved on.   
Peter hung back and leaned down so he could whisper in my ear.  “You 
ok?” he asked.  My head nodded and I purposefully drug my shoulders 
down so they weren’t attached to my earlobes anymore, but for some 
reason I couldn’t convince my hands to let go of my elbows as my arms 
crossed over in front of my waist.  Peter’s hand was warm and gentle 
on my back.  “Snakes are one of those few creatures that unless 
you’re food, they won’t bother you until you bother them first.  
You’re too big to be food for a snake, Callie. It’ll take a little 
bigger predator to eat you.”

His smile was non-committal, but his eyes sparkled with mischief 
again.  ‘Was that a flirt?  I could almost swear it was.  And he’s 
observant too.  He noticed my discomfort of the snakes.’ I thought to 
myself, tucking the information away in my brain for future 
reference.  I tempted a smile and asked, “What happens if they crawl 
up here on the boardwalk though?”  Peter looked up and around a 
minute, snagging down a dead branch from a pine tree standing close 
by.  “Don’t worry, I’ll shoo them away for you.  Can’t have my guests 
being attacked by the piddling wild animals when there’s bigger, more 
interesting ones out there,” he teased with a wiggle of his 
eyebrows, “Shall we go find your bear?”  At that, another giggle 
escaped me without permission.  At this rate, I was going to set a 
new personal record by the end of the week.  “Sure,” I replied, quite 
certain my cheeks were going to be sore tonight from the blushing 
grins this man coaxed from them.  

With that, we went to catch up with the rest of the group; me trying 
to be tactfully evasive to any slithering threats, Peter trying NOT 
to be entertained at my expense.  NOT trying very hard, I might add.  
I did survive the rest of the nature walk however and even managed to 
enjoy myself for the most part.  I’d also gathered up a collection of 
mental notes for my “hero” that I hurried to jot down on a memo pad 
I’d kept in my bag while grabbing a snack and drink from the snack 
bar upon our return to the guest hall.  A breeze kicked up while I 
was eating and writing which blissfully lifted the oppressive weight 
of humidity off my lungs.  I had two choices.  I could hold down the 
pages of the memo pad with my other hand and let my food get cold 
while I wrote, OR I could set my cup on the ear of the upper page and 
let the sweat off the glass ruin my pages.  My salvation came when 
Peter chose to sit down with me at that moment, taking a couple 
napkins from his snack sack and placing them under my cup before 
setting it on the run-away pages.  

“A man of ingenuity,” I commented while inside very conscious of the 
fact I had notes of his general description on the page that lay open 
before me.  “Do you fix the kitchen sink too?” I asked.  He spread 
out his lunch a bit and chuckled, “Sure, but you’ll probably need to 
call a plumber after I’m done.” 

‘I wonder if I could mesmerize him with my eyes while I 
inconspicuously moved the memo pad to the far side of the table,’ I 
thought to myself

“I hope you don’t mind if I join you, Callie” he seemed to remember 
his manners AFTER he’d already settled himself, but I decided to play 
it off in hopes of getting away with my intrigue.  I shook my head, 
smiling and batting my eyes as I moved the notepad, presumably out of 
the way. “No, not at all.” I answered.  “So what cha writing?” he 
asked pleasantly, chomping down into a sub sandwich.  “Oh, just 
jotting down some research notes for a writing project.”  Hey, why 
lie if you don’t have to?  “Really,” he seemed to perk up with 
interest, “what kind of notes?”

My face contorted into one of those intellectual, thoughtful smirks 
as my brain raced to come up with an answer without actually having 
to TELL him what I’d written about him. “Scenery, mostly.  I write 
fictional novels.” I nodded.  Nice save, huh?  He struggled a moment 
to finish his mouthful and washed it down with a swig of Coke before 
continuing with the conversation. “Wow, that must be rewarding.  
Writing, I mean.”

My neck jostled, “It has it’s moments.”  Then I decided to deflect 
any further investigation by rerouting the conversation onto him.  
Men like to talk about themselves, right?  Well, ok then.  “So how 
long have you worked here at the park?”

“Mm, I guess about 5 years now.  I started while I was getting my 
Master’s on Botany, and decided that I liked it here, so I stayed.”  
His pager went off and he groaned.  “No rest for the weary.”  Pulling 
the device off his belt, he looked at it and began gathering his 
lunch together again.  “Well, I hope you enjoy the expo.  Maybe we 
can continue this conversation another time?”  His face was pleasant, 
but his eyes looked hopeful.  ‘Wow, someone’s actually interested in 
me.  Now don’t panic.’
My cheeks threatened to blush again, but I held them down and smiled 
non-committed at Peter.  “Sure.”

“Great,” Peter’s shoulders relaxed, “I’ll catch you later than.”  He 
walked off towards the bike rack stand on the other side of the main 
visitor’s center area.  I had to bite my lip not to beam ear to ear 
as I hurriedly finished my lunch and my notes before making my way to 
the ladies room to change my clothes.  With that done, I studied the 
park map for a few minutes to pick my route down to the kayak 
shelter.  Then I mindlessly strolled down the unpaved path, listening 
to the birds sing, feeling the sun alternately hit and miss my face 
as it trickled through the tree branches, and generally enjoying 
myself.  Once I got down to the water, there was a big, wood log 
along the water line just great for use as a balance beam, so I let 
the child out in me and started walking along it, one foot 
precariously placed in front of the other.  I’d just about made it to 
the shelter when all of a sudden a long, thin weight wrapped around 
my shoulders.  The last thing I heard as I lost my balance, fighting 
what I was SURE was a snake that had dropped out of the trees to 
accost me, and falling butt-first into the water, was a terrified 
shriek.  I think it was my own.