Leaning down, he brought his mouth close to her ear, breathing in the scent of her he’d missed so damn much. “What do I have to do to get an invitation to go on this adventure with you?”
She froze, every part of her going still with the exception of the shiver that ran through her body. Was she even aware she was tilting her head toward him, as if aching for his touch as much as he craved hers?
“I don’t know…” she said, her voice quiet and breathless, and damn, he liked that a hell of a lot. His cocklovedit. “You think you can hack it in those woods?” She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “It’s kind of a mess out there. A lot of shit to wade through.”
There was something in the seriousness of her tone that made him think she might be talking about a lot more than just the wooded area of the Haven estate.
Unable to help himself, he reached up, swept her hair behind her shoulder, and cupped her neck, his thumb pressing lightly against her pulse point. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, even the slight contact sending a jolt of electricity humming through his veins. “I think I can keep up.”
She stared at him for a beat, her gaze flicking down to his mouth before meeting his eyes again. She licked her lips and then pressed them together, nodding once. “Well, come on, then.”
Kenna tugged him behind her, down the steps and to the east, her stride focused and purposeful as she led them toward the brush.
He couldn’t count how many times he and Kenna had explored these woods when they’d been younger. At one time, they’d had a dozen paths running through that part of the Havens’ property. How they always found their way out, he had no idea.
“You ever think what a miracle it is that we never got lost out here as kids?”
She squatted next to what appeared to be a Canada goldenrod, carefully studying it, before pulling out a blue flag and affixing it to one of the stems. “All the time, actually. That’s why I do this.” She stood, swiped her hands on her pants, then continued deeper into the woods.
“Why you do what? These flags?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about them,” he said, tugging on the variety of colors poking out of the top of her backpack. “Y’all do scavenger hunts out here or something?”
She glanced back at him with a small smile, the sun shining through the trees setting her dark hair aflame. “Hardly. Ella and I are pretty much the only two who come back here. In this part, anyway.”
“She’s a lot like you, isn’t she?”
Her smile grew. “Yeah.”
“So, you put these out for her? Why?”
“Your momma ever tell you about the scare we had with her a few years ago?”
Hudson thought back to all the information his mom had been feeding him—at his request—for years, but he couldn’t remember anything about Kenna’s nieces coming up at all. “Not that I can recall. What happened?”
She blew out a long breath and stopped to pick up a fallen flag, reaffixing it to the correct bush. “The little shit took off on us. She was maybe five? Definitely not old enough to be in here by herself. She and I had been going into the woods for a couple months, explorin’, and Ms. Independent that she is thought it’d be okay if she dipped inside without lettin’ anyone know.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. She was missin’ for a couple hours.” Kenna’s head dipped and she swallowed, her voice shaky when she said, “Scariest hours of my life.”
“Did y’all call in the search and rescue team?”
“If by search and rescue team you meanme, then yeah.”
“Wait…Havenbrook is surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods, and y’all don’t have an SAR team in place yet?”
“Nope. Even after that. Even though Daddy’s the one who’d approve the budget for that and it was his freakin’ granddaughter who went missin’.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s just me.”
“That’s…” He shook his head, lifting his hat off his head and scrubbing a hand over his scalp. “Fucking ridiculous.”
She huffed out a laugh and nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. But what’re you gonna do?” She gestured to the red flag she’d tied around a deep root in the ground, protruding enough to pose a hazard if someone wasn’t paying attention. “That’s why I do this. After Ella got lost in here, I taught her everything I could. She knows these woods as well as we did—better. Plus, she thinks she’s playin’ while I’m crammin’ her little brain full of even more knowledge with some of these flags.”
“And how’d your brain get stuffed full of all this knowledge?”
Kenna had always been smart as hell and resourceful, especially outdoors, but watching her comb the forest, eyes assessing as she categorized vegetation for her niece, was something else entirely.
