“Thank you, Rose. Between you and Hailey, I certainly won’t go hungry.”
She turned a laser-sharp gaze on him. “Hailey’s feeding you?”
He had to get better at this small-town thing. “She made me a shepherd’s pie, to welcome me to the neighborhood. It was a huge pan and I’ve been enjoying the leftovers.”
“Hmm.” She searched his face, as if looking for any sign a welcome to the neighborhood dish was a euphemism for something a lot more gossip-worthy. “She makes the best shepherd’s pie in town. Refuses to give me the recipe.”
“I told her it was better than my mother’s and she told me it was the seasonings.”
“Well, that could mean almost anything. And never, ever admit out loud a woman’s cooking is better than your mama’s.”
“Yes, ma’am. Rose.”
“Let’s get out of here before I have to put on my wading boots.” Josh kissed Rose’s cheek. “Thanks for lunch.”
Figuring this was a woman whose good graces he wanted to be in, Matt stepped up and did the same. “It was delicious.”
“Ride hard. Burn those sandwiches off so you can have some pie.”
He walked back out to his truck while the other two guys went to one of the barns where, he assumed, their machines were stored. He undid his tie-down straps, then dragged out the ramps that were shoved beside the ATV. After fastening the safety straps to the hitch of his truck, he climbed onto the tailgate with a groan. Those meatloaf sandwiches were going to stay with him a while.
After firing up his machine, he backed it down the ramps and parked it off to the side. He didn’t bother stowing the ramps, since he’d drive right back up them when they were done and he wasn’t blocking any parking spaces.
By the time he’d put the bag of snacks and his water bottle in the cargo box and grabbed his helmet and gloves, the other two guys were ready to go. Josh drove over and handed him a folded map.
“You wanted a copy of this?”
Matt took the map and unfolded it. It was fairly rough, but he didn’t have much trouble finding the lodge. He had a couple of permanent markers in his pocket, and he fired up the GPS unit mounted on the handlebar. He not only wanted to get his bearings, but he wanted to see how good a job the Northern Star ATV club had done on their trail map.
He knew they’d had some help from the state in the early stages of making trails and a lot of people had looked over their shoulders in different official capacities to make sure wetlands were avoided, bridges were built where necessary, that trail head parking was available and that all of their road crossings were safe, but this section of the state was his primary responsibility now and he wasn’t relying on anybody else’s work.
“Thanks. I’m going to want to stop at each intersection, but they’ll be quick stops.” When Josh didn’t say anything, Matt looked up from the map to find him watching him. “What?”
“We’ve done GPS tracks for this trail system so many times I can probably quote the coordinates in my sleep.”
“That’s good and makes my job that much easier.” He folded the map and tucked it into his tank bag for easy access. “Look. We want the same thing here—people coming to ride these trails while dumping some money into our economy and having a good enough time so they come back and tell all their friends. But there might be times you and I are at odds because you represent the ATV club, your town and your guests, and I represent the state of Maine.”
“I don’t foresee us having too many problems.”
“I just want to get it out there now, while it’s just us. I respect what you’ve done here and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure both visitors to the trails and the citizens of Whitford are safe and happy while laws are abided. But if I have to give out some tickets and you try to make them go away because your guests are pissed or it’s your girlfriend’s second cousin’s son, we’re going to have a problem.”
“I’ve asked around about you and so has Drew Miller. We’ve heard you’re fair, so I don’t have a problem with that. Sometimes we get people acting like assholes, running wild, and the landowners get upset and talk about closing their land to four-wheelers. If that happens, all of this work was for nothing, so I don’t care if it’s my girlfriend’s second cousin’s son and he’s staying at the lodge. If he does something wrong, nail him. But if I think you’re just throwing your weight around to be big man on the trails, I’ll start making phone calls.”
Matt nodded and stuck out his hand. “Fair enough.”
They shook hands and then strapped on their helmets. Josh led the way around the lodge and into the break in the tree line, with Andy riding behind Matt. The afternoon passed quickly as they covered the miles. At every intersection, Matt checked the map against his GPS and he was impressed. This club knew what they were doing.
They’d done a good job with the trails, too. They were wide enough to account for the bigger side-by-side machines, though there would be places they’d have to squeeze by each other. The terrain was a nice mix. Some easier trails and others a little more rugged. A few were marked on the map as recommended for advanced riders and they had a pretty good time playing on those.
While they didn’t cover every trail, Matt felt as if he got a solid feel for the trail system and he could explore on his own both at his leisure and officially. When they got back to the lodge, he drove his ATV up into the bed of his truck, then stowed the ramps and strapped it down.
“I’m impressed,” he told Josh and Andy when he was done. “It’s a nice system.”
“Thanks,” Josh said. “We hope to grow it some more over time, but we connect to two other clubs’ trails now and we want to make sure this goes smoothly before we invest in too many more miles.”
“You think that’s impressive,” Andy added, “come get a taste of my Rose’s banana cream pie.”
Mitch groaned and rubbed his stomach. “I think I’m still full. But I bet there’s room for pie.”
EIGHT
AFTER WORK ON Wednesday, Hailey changed into yard clothes—which consisted of an old T-shirt and older jeans—and pulled her lawn mower out of the storage shed. She had an electric mower, even though the cord was often a nuisance, because it was quieter and easier for her to handle. Less noise pollution and no pollution in the form of gas usage or exhaust appealed to her, and she didn’t worry about bothering the neighbors.
She was about halfway through mowing her backyard, when the sound of Bear barking registered above the song being piped through her earbuds. She pulled them out and looked next door just in time to see the dog run up onto the back deck and a big riding lawn mower turn the far corner of Matt’s house.
He was shirtless again. That was the first thing she noticed, because his chest was hard to miss. Sometimes the temptation to sneak a picture of him without a shirt to go with the photo of him in uniform saved on her phone was very strong.
Since they’d shared her shepherd’s pie, things had been quiet between them. They were both busy and, other than the occasional wave when eye contact was made because it would have been rude not to, they hadn’t really interacted. Even though she didn’t mind seeing him at a distance, it was probably for the best.
As she watched, he steered the lawn mower around one of the shade trees in his backyard so fast, she was surprised he didn’t tip over. Then he proceeded to drag race up and down the yard, making a whole lot of racket to cut not a huge amount of grass.
After a few passes up and down the yard, along with another death-defying spin around a tree, he stopped the lawnmower and shut it off. “What?”
He was talking to her. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been glaring at me with your hands on your hips the entire time I’ve been mowing. I assume I’m doing it wrong?”
She hadn’t realized she’d assumed such a damning position while she was watching. “It’s your yard.”
“But you disapprove.”
She laughed, throwing her hands up. “Again, it’s your yard.”
“I could do yours, too. It’d only take me a few minutes. You did make me shepherd’s pie, after all.”
“Thank you, but I enjoy mowing my lawn. With my lawnmower that doesn’t disturb the entire neighborhood or stink up the yard with exhaust fumes.”
“Ah. So it’s my big, bad lawnmower that’s annoying you.”
So much for a quiet, post-shepherd’s pie truce between neighbors. “Yes. It is.”
“Put your earbuds back in and turn the music up.”
She took a deep breath, then tried going about it a different way. “When you drive recklessly like that, I worry about your dog.”
“You mean the dog who hasn’t left the deck since I drove this around the corner?” Now that he mentioned it, Bear was still on the deck. “And I’m not reckless.”
“You almost rolled it over going around the tree.”
He laughed. “I did not. This thing corners so tight, it’s like being on rails.”
She had no idea what that meant, but she knew this conversation was pointless. After putting the earbuds back in her ears, she flipped through her playlist for some fun dance music and restarted her lawnmower.