and a tank top over a sports bra, a very practical outfit that is still sexy as hell, showing off her long legs and tanned, toned arms.
The place is busier this morning, with about a dozen cars in the parking lot and people going in and out of the general store. There are a handful of passengers loading into the water taxi. I wonder if the news coverage has caused the sudden influx of visitors. Maybe people want to see where the so-called heroism occurred.
The same kid is piloting the taxi today, and when he spots me, he yells, “Hey, man, you want a ride? It’s on the house today!”
I explain to Claire that the taxi can bypass four miles of the hike.
“Nah,” she says, “we came here to hike, didn’t we?”
My heart warms at her words. It’s obvious she’s better suited for me than Hannah ever would be.
I tell the pilot that we’ll pass, and he says that we can always get a ride on the way back.
“There’s a telephone at the dock at the other end,” he says. “The number is taped to the phone. Just give us a buzz and we’ll come get you.”
For a second, I think he’s going to tell everyone in the boat who I am, but he—unlike Hannah—keeps my identity a secret, and I’m thankful for that.
Claire and I buy a couple bottles of Gatorade at the general store, and then we head out. The miles go by in a blur as we talk nonstop. I try to ask as many questions as I can, hoping to keep her from asking me too many details about my past. When she does ask me about what I do, I don’t tell her that I have a trust fund. I’ve learned from my mistake with Hannah. Instead, I tell her that my parents died, and I’m temporarily living off the insurance money.
“It won’t last forever,” I say. “But for now I’m just trying to figure out what’s next for me.”
“I’m so sorry about your parents,” she says, and she puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.
I feel a pang of guilt about pretending that I have money because of my parents’ death. My parents are dead, but there was certainly no insurance or inheritance. I can’t tell her the truth. What would I say? That I’m a retired thief living off a stash of stolen diamonds?
The trail is flat and shaded as we walk along the two Echo Lakes. We pass the dock at the far end and spot the pay phone the pilot was talking about, then the trail ascends and begins to get rockier. We hike in the shade of red fir and lodgepole pine, but they begin to thin the higher we climb. The trail is made up of rocks that are bleached white from the sun. The temperature begins to rise and soon we are both slick with sweat like the day before in the spinning class.
We hike for hours. When we get close to the lake, the landscape is made up almost entirely of granite, with the trail interweaving around boulders bigger than cars. The trees that do survive this high are twisted and gnarled by the wind and winter snow.
When we arrive at the lake, Claire says it’s gorgeous, which makes me like her even more. Lake Aloha isn’t beautiful in any traditional sense; it’s stunning because its appearance is so unusual. When you imagine a mountain lake, you might think of a bowl of water that’s more or less circular, its banks lined with pine trees and patches of green meadow. Lake Aloha is a misshapen body of water lying in a desolate granite valley, with strings of rock islands rising up out of the clear water. There are hardly any trees, barely any vegetation at all. The elevation is so high that dirty snow patches cling to the mountain peaks around us. The blue water seems to glow against the backdrop of barren rocky slopes.
I tell Claire I know a good place to stop, and I lead her to a granite-sloped bank about halfway around the lake.
Claire dips her hands into the lake and splashes water on her face. She gasps and says, “Holy crap, that’s cold.”
“You want to go for a swim?” I ask.
“Seriously?” she says. “That water’s like ice.”
“You mind if I take a dip?”
She stares at me as if I’ve just suggested something truly outrageous.
I kick off my shoes and pull my T-shirt over