Chapter Fifteen
It wasn’t such an odd thing for Ashley Bloom to go off by herself into the back country. She was an experienced hiker, an expert with a compass, and she’d spent her adult life making it a practice of handling potentially dangerous situations with a ready self assurance. She trusted herself, which was probably why she wasn’t going to be scared about this excursion. She also had a way of ignoring the possibility of danger, pretending it didn’t exist at all, as long as it was out of her mind. Backpacking by herself for a few days was going to be a trip she’d enjoy. Just the thought of being alone, with no one but Ashley Bloom to count on usually fit her style. However, this time, it didn’t fit her mood.
She was going for love. That alone set the trip apart from anything she
