He tilted his head back to take in the sky and her chest went tight. God, he was beautiful, even with the beard and the unruly hair—or was it because of them? Even more handsome now, knowing what he’d gone through to get here, the sacrifices he’d made. Although she still didn’t understand quite what had happened. He’d tell her, she figured. For some reason, her need to know wasn’t as urgent as it had been.
“Nine? Sun’s almost down, so it’s at least that. Although the days are getting longer now.”
She forced her eyes from his profile and sought a way to occupy her hands. “What’s the plan? Are we doing protein bars again?”
“Wanna heat something up?” The question made her stomach growl, and then she salivated at the idea of hot food sliding down. It was all she could do to keep in a moan.
“Love you some MREs, Leo?”
She looked up. “What?”
He shook his head. “You looked sort of…excited.”
In a flash, heat burned a path up her skin from her chest to her face. Had he caught her thinking about food? Or about him? Avoiding his gaze, she reached into the bag and pulled out what she’d need to make dinner, relieved when he went back to work, knocking the last peg into the ground with a piece of wood, quiet and efficient.
“We having a fire?”Please say yes.“Or…”
Slowly, he stood and turned to look back out the way they’d come. “Best not.” His voice was hushed.
“You think there’s someone out there?”
He shrugged, though the movement was much too casual for her taste.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Don’t know. There’s something…” He glanced her way, the movement just barely visible now. “Yeah. I think there’s someone out there.”
She repressed the shiver that tried to work its way up her spine. “Camp stove?”
At his nod, she set to work—not as quick or quiet or confident as he was, but she got water heating while he prepared their tent and disappeared for a while. When he returned, he made a sound with his feet and she wondered if he’d done it on purpose—so as not to startle her. As if he was so quiet usually that he walked like a ghost.
“Smells good.”
She smiled and held up two bags of hot, rehydrated food. “Think this one says Chili Mac, though it smells almost the same as this lasagna. Got a preference?”
“Eenie meenie?”
“Want to do half and half?”
“Yeah. Variety sounds good.”
She shut down the camp stove, leaving them to eat in darkness and silence, the specter of whoever or whatever was out there all around them. Or somewhere below. It was quiet, aside from the wind in the trees, and it was cold, a jittery, bone-jarring cold.
“Fire would be nice.”
Without a word, Elias set down his food, went over to the backpack, and pulled some kind of fur from a plastic bag. He rummaged around and returned to lay it over Leo’s shoulders. The flashlight went on next, only he turned it on upside down between them, giving them the barest glow to see by.
“Better?”
She smiled and nodded, then went back to her dinner, all the while watching him eat from the corner of her eye.
What would he look like without that beard? Or even just cleaned up? Shampooed and shaved with a fresh set of clothes?
“Hold on. Got something else.” He got up and returned with a chocolate bar, broke off a square for each of them, then put it away again. Careful, thoughtful. Competent.
As she scraped the bottom of the chili bag, she pictured him sitting in, or rather overflowing from, one of those old-fashioned barbershop chairs. Suddenly, in her mind, Elias was dressed in hipster regalia—maybe a plaid button-down shirt, rolled up to the elbows. He wouldn’t be wearing that fur-lined parka hood and ratty wool beanie that looked like his grandma made it. Instead, he’d have a short back and sides—no hat. Glasses maybe, although those would have to be horn-rimmed, which would distract from his unusual, mottled-green irises and…
What the actual hell am I thinking right now?
