He couldn’t dump the real reason on her—that he’d missed her so much he’d driven over two hours to sit in the restaurant for an hour just to see her. “I’ve been itching to hit the trails, and the weather’s supposed to be perfect tomorrow. Cool and overcast, and it’s going to rain overnight tonight, so it won’t be too dusty.”
“There won’t be many people out there on a Wednesday, either. I can tell from the amount of people in here on weekends that the trails are getting busier every year. Which is good for my business—and yours—but not as fun if you’re out riding.”
“You got plans for after work tomorrow?” When her eyes narrowed, he held up his hands. “Hey, four-wheeling is more fun with friends. It’ll be like a walk in the woods, except we’ll be going a lot faster.”
“It does sound like fun,” she said with a slight reluctance. “I was planning to defrost the chest freezer at home.”
“Oh, we’ll have so much more fun than freezer defrosting. I can almost guarantee it.”
She laughed. “Almost?”
“I mean, you never know. We could break down or blow a tire or get lost and just ride around lost in the woods until we run out of gas.”
“I’m not likely to be lost out on those trails.”
Neither was he, since they’d been coming here since he was a kid. “See? My life might depend on you being with me.”
“You are such a—” She stopped, laughing. “Fine. I’ll be there after work tomorrow.”
Then Frank bellowing Kenzie’s name made them both jump, and she rolled her eyes before turning to get Danny’s lunch from the window. “I’m literally right here, Dad.”
Chapter Twenty
Kenzie parked next to Hannah’s car and got out, wondering not for the first time what power Danny Kowalski had over her to keep her doing things she knew she’d regret later.
Maybe she’d get lucky and Rob and Hannah would decide to tag along. The machine sat four people, after all—two bucket seats in the front and two in the back. She grabbed her helmet and sunglasses out of the back seat of her car, along with the steel water bottle that was scratched and beat up from bouncing around in their UTV.
She could see the front bumper of the Kowalskis’ side-by-side from where she stood, so she headed over to put her stuff down. Since she knew they had at least one camera for the store and Danny seemed to have some kind of built-in Kenzie detector and always found her, she figured he’d meet her there.
But it was Rob who stepped out of the store to greet her. “Hey, Kenzie. How’s it going?”
“Good. You?”
“We’re good. Although, I think you broke my brother.”
That wasn’t something she’d ever heard before. She would have liked to come up with a snappy comeback, but her mind was otherwise occupied with imagining what Danny may or may not have told his family.
“We could barely drag him up here,” Rob continued, saving her from having to respond. “Now we can’t keep him away.”
She laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as forced as it felt. “That’s his book’s fault, not mine. He came up here and got unstuck, and I guess it probably made him like being up here.”
Rob looked at her a beat too long and then smiled. “Sure.”
“Is he around?”
“Yeah, his agent called so he went into the house to talk to him, but that was a while ago. He should be out any minute.”
As if they’d summoned him, Danny walked around the house carrying a small cooler, and his face lit up when he saw her. “Hey, Kenzie.”
“Was that a good agent call or anuh-ohagent call?”
“It was good. Mostly just touching base on a lot of different things. He said he would have sent an email, but he was driving and we hadn’t actually talked in a while.” He waved his hand toward the side-by-side. “She’s all gassed up and ready to go. You need a helmet?”
“I brought my own, so I’m ready when you are.”
“Have fun,” Rob said. “Hannah and I are going to go through some photos I took last week and plan out some social media posts. Captions. Hashtags. Fun stuff.”
The way he said it made Kenzie laugh because it was clear he didn’t find the social media aspect as fun as taking the pictures. “At least Hannah’s really good at that.”
