“Was that a bear?” Helen called out from the front.
“It was a moose!” another voice countered.
“That was not a moose,” Helen insisted.
“Well, what else could it have been?”
Silence fell.
And then Babs answered with theatrical, ominous certainty, “What if it was…Bigfoot?”
“Oh, for the love of Pete—” There was laughter behind us.
“We are not in Washington!” Josie declared.
“There have been no verified Bigfoot sightings in Colorado!” Tay called over the microphone. I definitely heard laughter in her voice.
“Not yet, there haven’t,” Babs said, using her spooky voice.
I grinned and, on a whim, decided to join in. “Well, whatever it was, it had fur! And it was like, ten feet tall!” Honestly, I didn’t know why I was feeding into Babs’s shenanigans.
I turned back to my window, biting back giggles. We’d probably just witnessed some poor hiker unknowingly become the next blurry image on a conspiracy website.
I turned and found Noah’s silver-blue eyes staring at me. He arched a brow, oh-so-casually. “Ten feet, really?”
“Oh, absolutely.” I widened my eyes innocently as half the travelers continued arguing around us. Phones out, all pointed out the windows.
“You’re horrible, you know that?” That husky sound in his laughter, I seriously felt it everywhere.
“Who, me?” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the window, refusing to acknowledge the heat creeping up my neck.
And just like that, I realized something even more ridiculous than Bigfoot: somewhere along the way, Noah Grady’s teasing had ceased to annoy me. It left me feeling warmer. And the look in his eyes felt a little too charged to pass for friendship.
Which, clearly, was going to be a problem.
But luckily, not one I had to solve today.
ADRENALINE JUNKY
I was in my gran’s old kitchen, the air thick with the scent of simmering butter and fresh herbs. She was beside me, her hands strong and sure as she guided mine over the dough, murmuring little corrections in that patient way she always had. “A little more flour, sweetheart, just until it feels right.”
God, it had been so long since I’d felt this warm, this steady?—
“Wakey, wakey, everyone. We’re coming up on Glenwood Canyon.”
Tay’s voice crackled over the speaker, dragging me out of my savory dream and back onto the bus. I blinked groggily—blue and yellow seats, the rumble of the road—and something warm beneath my cheek.
Then that something exhaled.
I jerked upright, heart skipping. Noah.
His eyes crinkled as he looked down at me. “Comfortable?”
“Did I—?” I swiped my hand across my mouth. Dry, thank God. “Did I snore?”
He drew it out. “Only a little.”
I groaned. “You’re lying.”
