“Will you?”
I cut another look at her.
She grins bigger and scoots closer, the quilt still covering her legs, then leans into the laptop and points. “Oh, is that Shipwreck?”
I actively ignore my brain filling in all of the details of what her legs look like under that quilt, and I zoom in and move the map until we can see the old cabin—the one neither of us will be going back to until I drop Vanessa a note that’ll wreck her entire month—and then pass her the laptop. “You know the maps better than I do.”
“How do I do that zoom thing you did? I’m better with people than I am with electronics.”
I demonstrate the keypad for her, not at all sad when our hands touch as I’m showing her how to operate the software, and then she’s off.
Exploring the Shipwreck-Sarcasm area virtually.
While I keep my arms tucked over my crotch so she can’t see the effect she has on me just by breathing.
I have such a fucking problem.
Peggy sticks her head out from under the bed and looks at us.
I cluck my tongue once, getting a look from Sloane as the cat leaps into my lap.
She turns her attention back to the computer. “You’re a cat person.”
“Watched Sarah with her cats.”
“Dog person?”
“Ellie and Wyatt and Tripp and Lila have dogs. Levi’s considering one, but their kids can’t agree on what kind of dog they’d want. They preferred having a squirrel. Would probably adopt the raccoons that attacked us if it wouldn’t make Giselle want to set Levi’s hair on fire.”
She winces, then gasps. “Oh my god, it’s the chicken!”
Peggy gives her a death glare.
“Don’t even,” Sloane tells the cat. “You’re that loud half the nights of the week too. Yeah, I hear you singing for the goats in the middle of the night. Davis. Look.Look. Doesn’t that look like a chicken?”
I follow where her finger is pointing at the screen, and I don’t even have to look hard to see the chicken.
That rock is definitely shaped like a chicken. Like a chicken walking somewhere, but on its side.
“That’s an overhead view,” I point out. “They wouldn’t have had overhead views.”
“We’re in the mountains, and it’s in a valley. They could’ve climbed and looked down on it. But look.Look. Its beak isn’t pointed south.”
I lean in.
Sniff subtly.
Inhale cinnamon.
Fuck, she smells good.
She scrolls, and then she pauses and grabs my forearm. “Davis,” she whispers.
“What?” I whisper back.
“It’s pointed at the Blue Lagoon Nature Preserve.”
I’ve hiked there before.
