“Who’s your celebrity crush?”
I wanted to face-smack myself. Seriously? That was the best I could come up with?
The randomness of my question puzzled him at first, but then he smiled. “That’s easy. Heidi Klum.” Hunter rinsed the knife under the water, scrubbed carrots of dirt, then handed me everything. “Peel these, please.”
I pointed the blade at him. “Not Gal Gadot?” I had to tease him, even though it sounded like I was asking him if he liked me since she could be my twin.
“She’s hot too,” he said, retreating, raised arms in surrender. My cheeks grew warm with the compliment. “What about you? Who is your celebrity crush? And if you say, Henry Cavill, I’ll howl.”
I ran the knife over the root, scraping off its delicate skin and watching it fall into a bowl on the table. “Well, then you better start howling because Henry is fucking fantastic. Only a bit short for my taste.”
“Isn’t he like six one?” Hunter lit the logs and threw the used match into the growing fire.
I shrugged,what can I say?“Yeah, if he were a few inches taller, I would totally marry him.”
“You have a thing for tall guys?” He wiggled his eyebrows, straightening his back and squaring his broad shoulders.
I ran my eyes over Hunter’s statuesque figure. Ihada thing for him, but not just because he had the greatest physique and, God, that handsome face—no, it was more. His humor and kindness. Something about him was so calm. He was sure of himself, confident, and I couldn’t deny that I found it attractive. All of it. And there were also small touches like his cute text message notes, and the fresh flowers that appeared in the hut and on the picnic table, that made this rustic place feel like a glamping second cousin. Hunter also gave very good forehead kisses. Okay, there’d only been the one, but it was flawless.
I shrugged again. “You’ll do,” I said in an indifferent tone, willing my lips not to curl up at the corners.
“You’re all right too.” He winked and picked up the bird by its feet. “Now, do you want to learn how to pluck a chicken?”
ChapterSixteen
The next day, Hunter and I decided to only focus on the riddle “When you face to face with death you are in the right place,” which led us to the idea to poke around the skeleton and see if John was onto something but possibly triggered a trap (thereby facing his death) before reaching the treasure. Since the pit wasn’t large enough for all three of us, andjustin case something went astray, only Hunter climbed with a shovel into the hole, and I stayed up. As Hunter dug, he placed most of the fresh dirt into the lowered bucket, and I pulled it up. We dropped that idea after digging about three feet down, with only extra blisters on my palms to show for it.
In the late afternoon the following day, I studied the island map on the blanket in the shade of the leaning palm. I couldn’t take another minute in the hut, so I moved my “office” to the beach. I chose to work on the “When the ocean bows low it exposes Achilles fatal flaw” riddle. My idea was to find Achilles’ shape in the island’s contour, but the more I studied it, the more it felt like a waste of time.
“You are not your usual self today,” Hunter said, plopping beside me.
I didn’t sleep because my back and shoulders hurt from yesterday’s John Keating bootcamp. And I might have been a tad bit cranky because of that. “And what is my usual self?”
“Cheerful, full of annoying questions and suggestions.” A smile quirked Hunter’s lips, and his eyes glistened like the ocean on a bright day, and they held an essence of affection. He often looked at me like that, sometimes averting his eyes as if he wasn’t staring. But on some days, he kept my eyes locked with his for what seemed endless time, unafraid to show his vulnerable yearning.
“This morning, I thought of something, but after staring at the map for too long, I think it was a dumb idea.”
“What was it?”
“What if the outline looks like a Greek god or the island had the shape of a foot. And if I could find the part that resembled a heel…” I shook my head. “Never mind, this is stupid.”
“No. I think you are on to something.” Hunter shifted closer, his knee bumping against mine, his chest pressing into my shoulder, as he leaned to look at the map in my hands. A slow, dazzling warmth spread across my skin at the touch, enveloping my entire body. He hummed as he thought, rotating the map one way, then another. Then he made a notable “hmm” sound. Hunter had seen something I didn’t notice before.
“What?” I peered at him. His face was so close I could graze the tip of my nose on his stubbled cheek.
“We are looking on the island from the above, but if we were out in the sea.” Hunter pointed into the ocean. “Coming from Southwest. It would look something like this.”
He grabbed a pencil and notebook, flipped to a fresh page, and sketched. After a minute, I was presented with a pancake, a pile of something on top of it, and a large foot that hung in the air to the right from two smiley human and cat stick figures.
“This is you, me, and two cats on the beach.” Hunter circled the obvious.
“I got it. Explain the foot with…”—I counted—“six toes.”
“Sometimes you can be so judgy.” Hunter’s tongue peeked at the corner of his mouth, as he erased one tiny circle. “Happy? May I continue now?”
I chuckled. “Yes, please proceed.”
“If you catch the side of the hill just from the right angle, it does appear like a bare foot is about to leap off.” Hunter dropped the notebook and got up. “Come on, let’s check out that area. Put on your swimsuit.”
