“Every activity for this retreat is designed to inspire romantic scenes for your books. I couldn’t wrangle up my other two grandsons tonight, so this moonlit walk is a VIP package special. Wade has graciously accepted to be your tour guide. He’ll keep you safe.” Lina patted the bag on the counter and shoved it toward Wade. “You two should be all set.” She slipped out of the room with a glowing smile.
“Safe?” Trish repeated.
“From coyotes,” Wade answered. “Bears.”
“There are no bears around here,” Trish interjected.
Wade shrugged. “Okay. If you say so. If you’re too afraid to go—” he started, but Trish cut him off.
“Never said that. Plus, we have Shadow.” She knelt down and hugged his dog. Odd. Shadow didn’t normally appreciate that kind of affection, but with Trish she was eating it up. Shadow licked Trish on the cheek, and she giggled. “When do we leave?”
* * *
Trish
This was a bad idea.Likeverybad. One of those ideas that got a girl into trouble. Trish really needed to track down that itinerary so she had more time to prepare for any more unexpected events Lina had planned. She’d been happily typing away on her new Chapter Four when Lina tapped her on the shoulder and mentioned something about a revised itinerary and this moonlit walk.
The conceptwasromantic. Itwouldmake a great scene to write. But walking under a moonlit sky with Wade? Alone?
Trish’s overactive imagination ran away with her. It always did. The starry sky. The singing of crickets. A gentle breeze. This strong man who filled out his T-shirt so well. Even if it was covered with a jacket to ward off the cold. A jacket the hero in her story would surely give to her heroine if she caught a chill.
This overactive imagination was the very reason Mindy had insisted Trish would make a good romance novelist.
“You keep moving that slow and you’ll get left behind.” Wade stopped a few dozen feet ahead of her on the dirt-packed trail and waited for her to catch up. Shadow zipped circles around them, weaving in and out of the trees.
“Such a gentleman.” Trish had been a little distracted by it all. A girl could fall in love out here—her heroine could fall in love out here—on a moonlit walk. Lina was right.
“Grams gave us the long trail. The slower you go, the longer we’ll be out.”
“Rearrange those words a little, and you might make a semi-decent romance novel hero.”
Wade shook his head. “I have some work to do early in the morning.”
Trish thought it might be a bad time to remind him they were supposed to have breakfast in town tomorrow. She’d let his grandma spoil his good mood.
Deciding she was close enough, apparently, Wade turned and kept walking. So far, there’d been glimpses of him that made him seem warm and friendly. But they seemed rare amid this grumpier, put-out version.
“Why did you agree to this?” Trish asked, remembering how he dodged her question earlier today. “You run the ranch. Surely the other cowboys could entertain the writers. How did you get roped into being a personal escort?”
“That a little pun there?”
“You’re smiling, aren’t you?” Trish could only guess with the way he faced forward. But when he turned his head, the white of his teeth showed in the moonlight, curving into a not-so-reluctant smile. Trish nearly collided into him, unaware his feet had stopped moving. She wasn’t ready to be so close to him again, not after that photoshoot. Her mind was bouncing around like a fly trapped inside on a hot summer night.
“The path gets a little tricky for a bit.” Wade adjusted the straps of the backpack. He seemed to hesitate before he reached out his hand, offering, “I know the trail pretty well.”
“Is this ontheitinerary?” Trish meant it in a teasing way, but with the way his lips straightened into a grimace, she regretted her words. She took his hand before he could withdraw it. Ahead of where he stood, she could see the path descend. With how dark it was ahead, she had no idea how far down it went or what might be lurking below. Electric tingles raced through their joined hands and up her arm, and for a moment, she forgot how to use coherent words.
“You good?” came through the dimness.
Trish just nodded. But she so wasn’t. Between her overactive romance writer imagination, the memory of being wrapped in his arms earlier, and now a moonlit walk, she was in so much trouble when it came to this cowboy.
Chapter 10
Wade
This was a bad idea,and Wade knew it. He never should have agreed to this chaperone thing. Maybe Grams would’ve been disappointed, but could he have offered to make it up in other ways? Group participation, for instance. Instead, he was alone in the moonlight with a beautiful woman under the cover of trees.
“Romance novels, huh?” he asked, desperate to distract himself from the sensation of Trish’s touch. It was safest to keep their hands connected. He knew this trail with his eyes closed, but someone unfamiliar might have a hard time navigating it in the daylight with its unruly tree roots and random steep drop-offs. Grams would kill him if he brought her back damaged. Add an energetic German shepherd running zigzags around them, and anyone stumbling onto this path at night was bound to break a bone or at least twist an ankle.
