Caleb wasn’t sure if a purse was the best accessory for where they were going, but he didn’t say anything. She could always leave it in the car if necessary.
“Sure,” he said, and waited while she disappeared somewhere in the house to fetch her bag.
When she came back, though, he saw she wasn’t carrying her usual oversized purse, one that could fit her phone and her tablet and the little case she used for cleansing houses of any unwanted spiritual presences, but had a tiny thing slung bandolier-style across her chest, one made of canvas and looking as if it could fit her cell phone and some credit cards and not much else.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked as she climbed into the passenger seat and then fastened her seatbelt.
“What would be the fun in that?”
She smiled…but she also shook her head, as if she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised by his reply.
And this morning she seemed all business, friendly but neutral, and he wondered if he’d been imagining those loaded glances the night before.
Well, if that turned out to be the case, this would be…interesting.
He backed out of the driveway and made his way through her neighborhood of large, tidy, Mediterranean-style houses until he reached the freeway. Delia didn’t say much of anything, but when he turned off onto the 157 west toward Mount Charleston, a knowing smile touched her lips, one that seemed to indicate she knew exactly where they were heading.
“You’ve been here before?” he asked, a little surprised. Her footwear seemed to be a clue that she’d done some hiking in her life, but she still didn’t strike him as much of an outdoor person.
“Yes,” she replied, then paused for a second. “My ex-fiancé was into all the outdoorsy stuff, so we hiked pretty much all the places that were within an hour drive of Las Vegas.”
She’d never talked about the man, so Caleb guessed he’d been in the past for a while. Still….
“The guy who left the UNLV sweats behind?” he asked, mentioning the clothes she’d given him to wear after he’d been attacked by demons at his old house.
Her expression now seemed a little startled, as if she was surprised he’d even cared about that one small detail. “Yeah, him. We got engaged about two years ago — he worked at one of the title companies we sometimes did business with. But after that, every time I tried to sit down with him and plan the wedding, he found some excuse for why it wasn’t the right time. About a year after we announced our engagement, he broke it off.”
Clearly, her ex-fiancé was an utter moron.
“I’m sorry,” Caleb said, doing his best to sound neutral.
“Don’t be,” she replied, and her mouth lifted a little at the corners. “Better that he figured it out then and not after we got married. We would never have been compatible in the long run. Also, he hated Las Vegas. Last I heard, he’d moved to Reno.”
Caleb wasn’t sure if that was much of an improvement, but if the guy wasn’t a desert sort of person, then Vegas definitely wouldn’t have been the right place for him.
“Anyway,” she continued, “he loved to hike, and I went with him when I could. I’ll admit it was nice to get out of the city and see some actual nature, even though I was never going to be the rock-climbing type.”
“No rocks today,” Caleb promised her. “Just…a picnic lunch.”
He’d gone to a deli by his house and gotten a nice spread of meats and cheeses, and then picked up some fruit at Sprouts. And even though the day-use area at Kyle Canyon was supposed to be dry, he’d brought along a bottle of pinot noir, figuring what the park rangers didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.
“That sounds good.”
They fell silent as he guided the Range Rover along the sometimes twisting highway. Already the landscape around them had changed dramatically, dry desert scrub giving way to junipers and ponderosa pines, the sky above somehow much bluer and clearer than it was back in Las Vegas.
Up ahead to the left was one of the familiar brown and tan Forest Service signs signaling the turn-off to the day-use area, so Caleb guided the SUV there. On this particular Thursday morning, a few cars were parked in the lot, but he guessed the people they belonged to had probably headed off to hike the Acastus trail, which began not too far from their destination, and wouldn’t be anywhere near the picnic areas.
At least, he hoped he and Delia would have the place to themselves. This wasn’t the sort of conversation where he wanted an audience.
He parked as close to the exit that led to the picnic areas as he could, then turned off the engine. “I have to get a couple of things out of the back,” he told her as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Need any help?”
There wasn’t that much, just a picnic basket and one of those hard-case totes that had storage space for a wine bottle and a couple of wine glasses. “No, I’m good,” he said. “You can wait by the entrance.”
She nodded, then undid her own seatbelt and got out of the Range Rover. He exited the vehicle as well, going around to the cargo compartment in the back so he could get out the basket and wine tote. Soon enough, he’d joined Delia, who was standing a few feet away from the front end of the SUV and looking around in appreciation.
“This is beautiful. You’re right — it does feel good to get out and away.”
