Lost in the Woods

"Thanks, Clay, this is great." Ivy nodded in satisfaction. "Hey, Willow, wait for me here, okay? I need the ladies' room and then we can grab some food. Bye, Clay. Thanks again." She darted off without waiting for an answer.

Clay was silent for a moment, not sure what to say.

"So, we really appreciate you all coming out to help with the park," he said. "It'll be a big help."

Willow laughed. "Really? A bunch of novice campers? You'll probably be pulling us out of the poison ivy and keeping us from tipping over tree roots."

"Here's a secret: Poison Ivy is...." Willow looked at him intently. "The best Batman villain ever." Clay winked.

Willow stared at him, then couldn't stop a laugh. "Trust me, I know Poison Ivy, both types. My brother had a huge crush on her when he was twelve, and I ran through some once and had it all up my left leg for a week. It was terrible."

Clay laughed, too, then said, "Seriously, the best thing to do is make sure your legs are covered and keep an eye out for the plant. You know what it looks like?"

Willow adopted a solemn tone. "Leaves of three, let it be."

Clay grinned. "You'll do fine." He was reluctant to leave, but he knew Holly must be impatient. He was surprised she hadn't come over to drag him back. He sighed to himself. "It was nice meeting you again, Willow, but I'd better get back to Holly."

"Okay. Thanks, really. This has been so helpful. Ivy and I don't want to be any trouble, so this will give us a great head start." She smiled at him.

"All right, then. See you on Earth Day."

"See you."

x-x-x-x

Ivy restrained herself until they were in the car. "He likes you," she said in a sing-song voice.

"What? What are you talking about?" Willow looked at her, puzzled, as she buckled her seat belt.

"Willow, don't be dense. It doesn't look good on you." Ivy backed the car out of the space and worked her way out of the parking lot. "Clay, dummy. He likes you."

"Oh, God, please don't remind me." Willow buried her face in her hands. "That was so embarrassing. 'She pushed you in the pool.' Did she have to say that?"

"He didn't seem to care."

"He was just being nice." Willow stared out the window. Once Holly had said that, the memory of bumping into Clay at the party had come back in all its vivid, embarrassing detail. How Willow had slipped on the concrete around the in-ground pool, and unable to right herself, had fallen against Clay. How they'd both fallen in a tangle into the pool, sending up a huge splash.

A few other memories surfaced and she bit her lip. How Clay's arm had gone around her waist, just as he'd done in the store, and how he'd felt just as warm and strong against her as he had at the party. She thought of how he'd helped her out of the pool and how she must have looked like a drowned rat, her clothes soaked and plastered to her body, her hair hanging down in ragged wet tails. She'd had to borrow a robe while waiting for her clothes to try, since she hadn't brought a swim suit with her.

At least today I didn't need a towel, she thought. Still, for God's sake—the man probably thought she had inner ear balance problems.

She and Ivy chatted as they drove, and Willow was grateful Ivy dropped the subject of Clay Wilder.

"Well, here you go. Thanks for coming, Willow." Ivy pulled up to the curb. "Need help getting stuff inside?"

"No, I'm good, thanks. And thanks for the ride. I'll talk to you later."

"Okay. We'll work out details for Friday. I can probably drive if you want." Ivy stretched as Willow unloaded her purchases from the trunk. "I'm such a control freak. That's why I never ask you to drive."

"No problem. Saves me gas money," Willow teased.

"Bye, Willow." Ivy gave her a mischievous grin. "Remember, I'm never wrong about these things. He likes you. You've swept him off his feet twice!"

"Oh, Ivy, that's awful." Willow groaned. "Please, don't keep reminding me."

Her friend laughed. "Lighten up, kiddo. Take it easy."

Willow waved and went up to the house. She pondered the upcoming trip as she brought everything into the house, and wondered if she'd be in Clay's group.

x-x-x-x

Clay nodded to his fellow rangers as they filed into the room. Adam was there, along with Sandy Audubon and Brooke Goodall. They talked sports while they got coffee and settled into the chairs in the room while they waited for the other rangers to arrive. Four more men showed up, grabbed their coffee, and sat down.

"Okay, guys." Clay spoke up and they all turned their attention to him. "Tomorrow is the Earth Day event, and we have the volunteers coming to help clean up the park. The bosses want this to go smoothly."

"Yeah, that'll happen." Brooke scoffed and the others gave wry smiles.

"I know, I know." Clay raised a hand and they settled down. "We've got a list of about fifty, and I figure there will be some last-minute cancellations. So we should each have about ten or twelve in our groups."

"They realize there's no hot tubs, right?" asked Brooke, grinning. "No espresso machines?" Brooke was a rough-and-tumble, tomboy type who had been raised on hunting and camping.

"Come on, Goodall." Clay arched an eyebrow, then grinned in return.

"She's got a point," Sandy said. "You know there's always a few who expect the park to be just like home but with more windows."

"Guys, look, I know a few of the people coming, and they're pretty down-to-earth." Clay snickered as they groaned at the pun. "It won't be that bad. They were smart about packing, and asked for advice, so if they're an example, we should be in good shape."

"Cool." Brooke downed her coffee. "Anything else, Clay? I need to make my patrol."

With that, the meeting broke up and Clay went back to his desk to start the paperwork that never seemed to end. He filled out forms, then remembered he needed to get waiver forms for the volunteers. Nothing says 'Thanks for helping' like asking people not to sue, he thought with a sigh. He found a stack and slid them into a folder that he put aside for the next day.

Clay hoped he hadn't been too optimistic with telling the others he thought the volunteers would be easy to deal with. He was basing his opinion on Willow, Ivy, Holly and Ash, Holly's brother. A reasonable sample, he decided.

He smiled as his thoughts went back to Willow. She'd looked so embarrassed at the mention of the pool incident, but he remembered it differently.

At the party, he'd just gotten out of the pool and stepped aside to talk to Holly's mother. He'd noticed a pretty woman with blonde hair off to his side, and wondered who she was. He'd seen the accident coming: someone had left a pair of shoes by the side of the pool and the blonde hadn't seen them, and had tripped and stumbled.

Clay had reached out to steady her, but she'd landed too heavily and they'd both gone into the water.

It wasn't so bad, though. Even now he smiled at the memory. She hadn't panicked, just sputtered a bit when they came up from the water. She had felt nice against him, he thought. Soft curves that had been highlighted by her clinging clothes; he hadn't minded that at all. He'd meant to get her name, but once she was out of the pool, she'd dashed into the house and he'd been handed a towel and recruited for grilling duty.

She still felt pretty good, he thought as he got up from the desk. He decided to cut over and catch Brooke on her patrol; Clay had been stuck inside all day and was desperate to get out and breathe the clean forest air. He wondered if he could get Willow into his camping group without being too obvious.

x-x-x-x

Willow woke up on Friday, stretched and rolled over. Taking the day off was a great idea, she thought. She'd originally planned to take a half day, but the week had been beyond hectic and she'd worked until nearly eight every night, so she'd gone for the full day. With a smile, she let herself fall back to sleep for another hour, then got up.

She grabbed a shower and decided to do some cleaning, figuring it'd be nice to come home to a clean house after a couple of nights in the woods. After talking to her brother, a camping enthusiast, and receiving the last informational email about the excursion, she felt less anxious.

Everyone would meet around six o'clock that evening, hike a little to a camping spot and set up for the night. The next day, they'd hike deeper into the woods and work on cleaning up. There would be rest and meal breaks, and they'd work their way back around to the campsite. The following morning, they'd hike back. Willow thought it sounded like fun, and was glad she'd signed up.

Cleaning kept her hands busy and her mind occupied, but Clay still broke into her thoughts. She shook her head at herself and sighed. He was nice, but then, he's a nice guy. And Holly is after him. That would have been obvious to a blind person, she thought.

After Ivy had returned from the restrooms at the store, they'd eaten and then finished shopping, every so often crossing paths with Clay and Holly. Willow and Ivy had had to fight to keep from laughing at the fluttering eyelashes, the doe eyes, and the way Holly had taken every opportunity to hang on Clay's arm. Ivy had also pointed out that Holly had all but gone in the opposite direction every time the pairs met; it was clear that Holly had meant to keep Clay focused on herself.

Ah well, Willow thought, it's not like you can blame her. He's a good-looking guy. She turned her attention to cleaning and packing. By the time Ivy arrived a bit before five, she didn't think she could be any more prepared.

"Hey, Willow, what's this?" Ivy picked up a black device, a little bigger than a cell phone, with a small screen.

"Oh, it's a GPS. For walking, though, not for driving."

"You weren't going to bring this, were you?" Ivy looked at her. "I mean, come on, we'll be in a group. It's a state park, not the lost world."

"I thought about it, but no." Willow stared down at it. "I never could get it to work, and I'm not sure I'd know how to read it anyway. But I don't know, I thought about it." She bit her lip. "What can I say? You know how I am about getting lost."

"I promise we won't lose you." Ivy smiled and patted her shoulder. "Let's go."

x-x-x-x

Clay watched as people started arriving. He checked his watch; not quite six o'clock. The sun was still up—Hurray for daylight savings time, he thought—and he was anxious to get the final head count and get moving. It would be dark by eight, probably earlier, and he wanted everyone to reach the camping sites before full dark.

He gritted his teeth into what he hoped was a smile and waved at Holly as he saw her pull up. He liked Holly well enough, he thought; it was just that he wasn't interested.

"Looks like a decent crowd." Adam came up beside him.

"Looks like." Clay nodded. "Our last count was around forty-three, but we'll see how many show up. Not sure it'll actually be quite that many, but that might be good."

"I guess."

"Come on, Fossey. They're donating their time when they don't have to, and we should appreciate that."

"I can appreciate her." Adam let out a low whistle.

Clay turned a bemused grin in the direction his friend was looking, and then he clenched his jaw. Willow was stepping out of a little green car. If Adam was thinking about Willow...Clay took a breath. It wasn't like Willow was his, after all. Then Ivy stepped into view and he saw a grin spread over Adam's face.

"Now there is a woman I wouldn't mind sharing a sleeping bag with."

Clay laughed. "Easy, tiger. You don't even know her."

"Yet."

"Be nice to me, Fossey. I know her."

Adam turned. "No shit? You do? Introduce me."

Clay considered. "You fill out the paperwork for a week if I do."

"All right, but no putting me down when you do the introductions."

"Deal."

Clay hoped to get over and say hello to Willow and Ivy, but Holly got to him first, and by the time he extracted himself, he had to organize the volunteers.

He went over to Brooke, who had gotten started handing out name tags and waiver forms. That had been Sandy's idea; he'd pointed out that with so many people, it would help to be able to call names instead of "Hey, you in the black shirt!" Clay had agreed, figuring that anything which made this easier was worth doing. Sandy stood next to Brooke, collecting the waivers as people signed them.

The final count was forty-eight. Before dividing the groups up, Clay asked for anyone with any camping experience to raise their hands. He was pleased to find about eight people, including Willow's friend Ivy, although Willow herself stood back.

"All right. Everyone, if I could have your attention?" Clay raised his voice and the volunteers turned to him. "My name is Clay Wilder, I'm the guy in charge, and these are my fellow rangers." He introduced Sandy, Brooke, Adam and the others who would help lead. Each raised a hand as Clay called out their name.

"We're going to divide up into groups. When your name is called, please go over to the table there and grab a t-shirt. They're a small thank you for your help, and color-coded to help everyone stay together. After that, your group leaders will come over and explain the rest of the trip to you. We really appreciate everyone's help, and hope you have a good time."

Clay began calling out names, making sure to put at least one experienced camper in each group. Exercising what might have been a small abuse of power, he assigned both Willow and Ivy to his group, then after a pause, added Holly. Flirting or not, she had worked to organize recruits and he had to remember that.

At last they were sorted into red, yellow, blue and orange groups. The t-shirts would be more useful the next day, when people separated into smaller clean up groups. Clay and Adam took the red group, Sandy and Brooke blue, and the remaining four rangers were split between yellow and orange.

As everyone went back for their gear, Holly came over to him. Clay steeled himself.

"Oh, Clay, I'm so excited to be in your group." She gave him a bright smile. "I'll feel so much safer with you."

He cleared his throat. "I'm sure it'll be fun. Why don't you go over with the rest of the group, Holly? I need to do a couple of things and then I'll be right there."

"Looking forward to it." Holly gave him a coy look before leaving.

Adam caught him as he walked over to his group. "That was slick, man. Thanks."

"Hey, I'll introduce you. That's all. You'll have to trap...I mean, charm her all on your own."

"Yeah, yeah." Adam shook his head, then grinned. "Actually, this should be fun. One of the campers is a guy I knew in high school, and another has been through Army training. He'll probably be telling us what to do."

Clay clapped Adam on the shoulder as the other man went over to the volunteers. He went back to his checklists and got a face full of clipboard when he bumped into someone.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry! I'm so clumsy, I...." A feminine voice trailed off.

Moving his clipboard aside, Clay smiled when he saw Willow. "Hi there. Don't worry about it. My fault, I wasn't looking where I was going."

"No, I was trying to get this bag, but it tangled here and I just...." Willow sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm really not usually this much of a klutz."

"Just around me?" Clay teased, and she blushed.

"It's coincidence, I guess," she managed.

"Not a problem," he assured her. "Come on, let me help you. We'll take this over, I'll give everyone an overview, and then we'll get moving."

He grabbed Willow's pack and they walked over. "Hey, this looks well-packed."

"Thanks. My brother helped me. He camps a lot. He wanted to come, actually, but he was on call this weekend."

"Looks like he taught you well." Clay handed her the bag back as they reached his group. She smiled her thanks and stepped over to stand next to Ivy.

"Okay, everybody. Again, my name is Clay and Adam and I will be your guides. Let me get these preliminaries out of the way, then feel free to ask questions. We'll be heading up to a campsite tonight, not too far, and we should be there by dark. Then we'll set up tents, make some dinner, and hit the sack. Tomorrow we'll pack up and start the clean up and work our way back to the camp. Then the next day we'll work our way back here, but no real schedule, so feel free to take pictures, video, whatever. Any questions?"

The group shook their heads and Clay was pleased. They all seemed willing and eager, and since no one voiced any complaints about sleeping outside, he figured he was off to a good start.

x-x-x-x

"Oh, this is so nice." Willow looked up at the trees and smiled as she took a deep breath. "I'm so glad we did this, Ivy." The sun was setting, and the gold, red, and oranges of the light filtered through the leaves.

"Me, too." Ivy looked around. "I love spring, when the flowers are coming out, and the trees are such rich shades of green. You know, maybe I should be a ranger."

"Maybe you should. I know you hate being inside so much with your job."

"Yeah, but it pays well." Ivy sighed. "I hate it when the practicalities of life interfere with your dreams."

"You should think about it, though. Maybe there's just something else you could do that would get you out of the office, even if it isn't being a ranger."

"I should, I really should. Hey, maybe I can ask Clay about it, if he has time. See what goes into training and all."

"Good idea." Willow nodded. "I'm not sure it's for me, though. I'll just have to keep recycling my aluminum cans."

Ivy laughed. "Every little bit helps."

"You ladies all right?" Clay came up to them.

"Yes, fine." Willow smiled, for once too caught up in her surroundings to feel nervous around him. "I was just saying how beautiful it is here. I like to take care of my flowers, and have a garden, but this...." She spread her arms out. "This is the kind of thing we forget about and think will always be there."

"Very true." Clay nodded and smiled at her enthusiasm. "I like to think I'm doing a little part towards keeping it around."

"I'm sure you do a great job." Willow looked at Ivy. "Ivy was just saying she might want to be a ranger."

"Well, I'm not sure," Ivy spoke up quickly. "I'm not dumb enough to think you just read a nature book and put on the uniform. But I used to love being outdoors when I was little, and camping, and now it just feels like I'm hermetically sealed in my office."

"If you want to talk about it, let me know," Clay told her. "Might be easier after the trip, and I do have some brochures I can give you when we get back."

"Fantastic!" Ivy grinned. "Thanks so much."

"Quite welcome. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think Holly's about to meet Batman." He strode off.

"What the hell did that mean?" Ivy stared.

Willow laughed. "Poison ivy. Holly's about to step in some, and she's wearing those silly crop pants. Trust me, you want Clay to catch her, or the rest of this trip will be miserable."

"Why didn't she wear jeans?"

Willow sighed. "My best guess is she didn't really think it through. Plus, remember how she was at Cabela's? I have a feeling she thinks capris do more for her than jeans."

Ivy snorted. "What a doof."

"Keep it down," Willow hissed but couldn't stifle a laugh. "Come on, it's terrible having that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

After another half an hour, with the sun setting, Clay called a halt to the hike. "Okay, everybody. This is where we'll stay tonight. Why don't you get started setting up your tents, and let me and Adam know if you need any help."

Ivy and Willow dug out their tent and began assembling it. Willow was glad her brother had shown her how to do it before, and she and Ivy had little trouble. As they worked, a dismayed cry made them look at each other and shake their heads.