“We can do anything you want.”
Gah. I want to jump this man’s bones, which is so unlike me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m ovulating or because he saved my life, but the pull is so strong, it is becoming too hard to ignore. “It’s kind of cold to camp.”
“I’m going south and chasing the heat.”
“You sure you don’t want to take your wife?” Man, I am fishing for information, and I pray he doesn’t realize it.
“Don’t got one.”
“Girlfriend?”
He shakes his head and smirks. “Just me.”
Shit. He knows I was fishing for information, but I guess it doesn’t matter. “Let’s see how next week goes, and then I’ll let you know.”
“Just tell me if I should pack for the bike or my other truck.”
“Bike?” I ask, both of my eyebrows shooting upward.
“Yeah. I don’t get to take her out much this time of year.”
“I’m sure.”
“But if you come, we can probably haul her with us if you like to ride.”
“I love to ride,” I tell him, but I’m not sure if I’m talking about his bike anymore—or him.
It’s as if the universe plucked my list for a perfect man right out of the sky and put him directly in my path on purpose.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
I stare at him, blinking a few times. Is he serious? He can’t be. I’m a stranger, and he’s suddenly inviting me on a trip deep into the woods with no one else around us. Usually, I would say no. There’s no way I’d do that with most men I know, especially one I just met. But this is Oliver, my lumberjack savior, and he literally just saved my life. He wouldn’t take me out there to kill me after all the trouble he’s been through today, right?
“What are we doing?” Aunt Daphne asks as she sets down two plates with the most beautiful burgers. “Making plans?”
“We’re going camping,” Oliver says to her as he turns the plate around, putting the burger side toward him instead of the fries.
Aunt D sucks in air between her teeth. “Sounds awful.”
Oliver’s gaze dips to her boots. “You don’t look like the hiking type.”
“Not a day in my life. And this one—” Aunt D shoots a look toward me “—isn’t much better.”
“Noted,” Oliver tells her with a smile. “But I’ll make sure she’s safe.”
“I have no doubt,” Aunt D tells him before taking a few steps away and glancing over her shoulder, giving me a wink. “Hot,” she mouths at me.
“Now, everyone’s going to know,” I tell him as I grab the ketchup. “And I mean everyone.”
“They can come too,” he says as he grabs the burger with one hand like it’s not half the size of my head.
A pang of sadness washes over me. Was I reading too much into it? Maybe it is just a friends-type trip, even though we aren’t even that yet. “Oh no. If you think those three were too much, my cousins are worse.”
“If they’re all like you, I’ll like them,” he says before taking the biggest bite I’ve ever seen.
I imagine his mouth, open that wide, eating something else, and I need to reach for my soda, chugging it like my insides are on fire and need to be cooled.
“You okay?” he asks after he swallows.
