“Crep—”
“Active at dawn and dusk. So. It’s almost eight thirty. The beavers are probably going to sleep right now.”
The road she chose was the one that led to the visitor center, not the turn toward the northern lake trails. Teagan began to feel confused again, not certain any longer why he’d been lured out of bed before dawn and promised beavers, only to be subjected to a podcast about alcoholism and interrogated about bad habits he didn’t actually have.
“Are we not actually going to see beavers?” he asked, looking down the busy road ahead of them, full of summer park tourists.
“I mean, I can never promise you’ll see any animals here. They’re wildlife. Wild. They have their own agendas.But, if you’re willing to wait while I run a couple of errands in Mammoth Hot Springs, I can ask the rangers what’s out today, then we can go see the bison, maybe some elk, whatever... and we’ll catch the beavers at dusk. Does that sound like a plan?”
Darcy said it all very quickly, as though she were hoping to gain his agreement without a great deal of thought on his part.
“What kind of errands?” he asked, not sure whether he was supposed to be suspicious.
“Some stuff for my job,” she said evasively.
“Doing what?”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, do you need any help? Anything I can do to get it done faster?”
“No,” she said firmly. “You’ve helped plenty. Just hang out, all right?”
“For how long?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of hours?” she said, tone tight.
Teagan stared at her.
Darcy’s jaw clenched as she kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead of her. “I’ll give you my phone. You can keep listening to the podcast while you wait.”
Oh, to hell withthat.
“Did you seriously just bring me out here to make me listen to alcoholism podcasts?” Teagan demanded, annoyance beginning to rise after three hours of Steps One and Two.
Now who’s dumb, Sloane?She’d halfway convinced him this was going to be a date.
“No,” Darcy snapped, face shuttering. “I brought you out here because it’s my only day off for two weeks and I need to interview for winter park positions, but Rachel’s planning some appropriative sweat lodge bullshit today where you choke on steam and talk to your ancestors. She had me up and stacking firewood before dawn.”
At that explanation, Teagan sat back hard in his seat. Of course it was something like that. He should have known better.
She didn’t like him.
Stop showing your ass, Teagan.
“Seemed like talking to your ancestors in particular was the kind of thing that could set you back to day zero,” Darcy said, voice still defensive.
She didn’t like him. She didn’t like him for very good, understandable reasons. She thought it was her job to help him, and she was trying her best, but he needed to stop expecting anything more than that.
Beavers.
Darcy fidgeted again with her hair and the collar of her shirt, which had been ironed and starched within an inch of its life.
“I didn’t find out about the postings until last night or the sweat lodge stuff until this morning, so I didn’t have a chance to plan anything else for you.” Her tone was apologetic now.
“Sure,” Teagan said. “I get why you needed to be here.”
Whyhewas here was not apparent.
