Wendy Galinetti
The sign had warned against climbing down, but apparently Lindsey Porter’s true talent was making bad decisions in scenic locations. Now she sat at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, foot bleeding, with no way out but up. The last sliver of sun hovered behind the ridge, turning the water to hammered gold.
“Park’s closing.”
Her stomach dropped.
Of all people.
Lindsey tipped her head back. A ranger stood at the crest—broader now, surer, nothing like the lanky boy she remembered.
Carter Evans started down, boots sending slides of sand ahead of him.
“I know,” she called, heat rising into her face. “I can’t make it back up.”
When he reached her, he took in the scene with one sweep of his gaze—the abandoned shoes, the blood on her foot, the fact that she was stranded at the bottom of a dune every local knew better than to underestimate.
Then his mouth twitched.
“You read the sign?”
Lindsey let out a breath. “Of course I’ve read the sign, Carter. I know the only way out is up.”
He crouched beside her. “I can call for a rescue.”
She lifted her chin. “And have to pay three thousand dollars? No thank you. I’d crawl first.”
His gaze dropped to her foot. “Let me see it.”
She tried to pull back. “It’s fine.”
“You’re bleeding in the sand. It’s not fine.”
His hands were steady, warm despite the evening breeze. He turned her foot. She bit back a wince.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s not nothing.”
From his pocket, he pulled out two princess Band-Aids.
She stared. “Seriously?”
“Hold still.”
He rinsed the cut with water from his bottle, and Lindsey hissed between her teeth.
“Sorry.” He pressed a Band-Aid over the cut. It peeled loose immediately. He sat back on his heels and exhaled. “This isn’t going to hold.”
“The crawl plan is still available.”
That almost made him smile.
“Hang on.” He untied one boot, tugged off a sock, and wrapped it firmly around the ball of her foot, his fingers careful against her skin. Then he pulled his boot back on, stood, and slung her bag over one shoulder.
Lindsey looked up at him. “What’s your plan?”
He turned and crouched in front of her.
“Oh no.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Sun’s dropping fast.”
“Carter—”
“Lindsey.” His tone stayed calm, matter of fact. “Get on.”
Humiliation and gratitude tangled in her throat, but she slid her arms around his shoulders and climbed onto his back.
He rose with a small grunt and started up the dune.
After forty feet, Lindsey said into his shoulder, “You’re not going to carry me all four hundred and fifty feet.”
“You’re right.” His breathing stayed annoyingly even. “We’re going to take breaks.”
Despite herself, she let out a shaky laugh.
The lake darkened behind them as they climbed. She felt the tightening of his shoulders, the deeper pull of breath.
When he finally stopped, he eased her down onto a shelf of packed sand, breathing hard now. Wind hissed over the dune. Far below, waves murmured against the shore. Lindsey stared at the sock wrapped around her foot, then at the sand clinging to his ranger pants.
“I’m sorry.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. “Leaving you at prom was a rotten thing to do.”
For a moment he said nothing.
Then he nodded once. “I know.”
She looked away toward the darkening lake. “I should’ve apologized a long time ago.”
When he answered, his voice had softened. “My mom had cancer then.”
Lindsey turned back.
He lowered himself onto the sand beside her, leaving enough space not to crowd her.
“Chemo was rough that spring,” he said. “But planning that night with you gave her something happy to hold onto. Having everybody over. The flowers and food. Making sure the lake was behind you in the pictures.”
Lindsey blinked. She remembered his mother fussing over everyone, straightening shoulders and smoothing ties, smiling like prom pictures on the back deck were the event of the year.
“I didn’t know.”
“She still has the prom picture on the shelf.”
Lindsey stared at him. “She does?”
He nodded. “You remembered the last fifteen minutes. I remembered the whole night.”
The words broke open something she’d carried for years. She remembered the parking lot, the taillights, the look on his face when her ex pulled up and she made the selfish, stupid choice to leave.
But before that…
His mother laughing. The deck strung with lights and lilacs on the rail. Carter in a tie, nervous and handsome. A whole evening she had ruined in her own mind so completely that she’d forgotten how good the rest of the night had been.
Her throat tightened. “All this time, I thought you hated me.”
He pushed to his feet and brushed the sand from his hands. “Seems like a waste of six years.”
Then he crouched again.
This time she climbed onto his back without arguing.
By the time they reached the top, the sun was gone and dusk had settled over the overlook.
Carter stepped onto the wooden platform and carefully lowered her to her feet beside the railing.
Lindsey looked out over the lake, then back at him. The strong jaw, the broad shoulders, the kindness in his eyes. He wasn’t the boy she’d left behind in a parking lot.
And maybe she wasn’t that girl anymore either.
She reached out, caught his sleeve. When he looked at her, she rose on her toes and brushed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for the rescue.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face, followed by that almost-smile. “Heard you’re teaching second grade this fall.”
She nodded. “Starting in September. Looks like I’m home to stay.”
“Good to know.”
“Why?”
He slid an arm around her waist to steady her limp. “Means I’ll know where to find you.”
Raised in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula, Wendy still calls the Great Lakes State home, where she lives with her husband of more than forty years. Together, they spent decades in ministry, planting and pastoring a church side by side—an experience that continues to shape the faith and hope woven through her fiction. A devoted wife, mom, and proud GiGi, she loves fresh-brewed coffee, biblical truth, and stories that remind readers God is never finished with us.
She is the author of A Dangerous Heart, book four in the Wind River Mail-Order Brides series, and Heart’s Secret Haven, from Snowbound at Christmas: A Wind River Mail-Order Brides Christmas Anthology.
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