Mackenzie Bardine arched a delicate brow at him. “Where’s the rest of your class?”
That soft, feathery tone concealed the talons underneath. His stomach knotted into a fist as he barely caught the towel she tossed him.
His mouth finally started to pitch in and help out hisbrain. “What are you doing here, Zee?” The nickname bestowed on her by her brother, Aaron. His best friend.
Her lips firmed into a line. “You can call me Mackenzie. I’m not a teen anymore.”
No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t even the same woman he’d last seen two years before at the funeral, or the one who’d tried to strong-arm him into her cause. She was tall and more slender than he recalled, her wet rain gear plastered around her athletic physique. Drops beaded on her chestnut ponytail, much longer than the previous short bob, as she regarded him with those gray eyes from under the brim of a boonie cap.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated through chattering teeth because he couldn’t think of anything different to ask. He looked for her car and saw only his own rain-slicked Jeep Wrangler.
“I was in the area. Thought I’d join your class. You take walk-ins, right?”
He didn’t get out a response before she rushed on. “By the way, I suggested your guy, Roger, move to a safer position to save him from being flattened by the buck. Oh, and I told him there’s concern about the Cotton Flower Dam. Some signs of pending failure. Whole town’s talking about it. He decided to get on the road home. Said to tell you adios and he’d had a wonderful time. I assured him I’d pass on the message.”
Anger ballooned in his belly. “You did what?”
She smiled. “He paid up front, I’m sure, right? So no biggie?”
Roger had prepaid, in fact, but that wasn’t the point.
“Wrong time of year for a wilderness survival class, isn’t it?” she said. “Wouldn’t August be better for the city folk?”
“Turns out people need to survive, no matter what the season,” he managed between clenched teeth. “What do you want?”
“Just what I said. I saw online that you were teaching your class again. Thought I’d take a refresher course, but ...” She shrugged. “No fun with only one student and a storm, and what with the risk of the dam failure and all . . .”
He finally broke through the stupor and stalked to his vehicle, turning his back on her and stripping off his shirt as he went. He felt her watching him as he yanked on a dry one from the back seat and added a jacket before he spun to face her again. “You’re lying, obviously.”
She stared at him, unperturbed. No explanation. No apology. Typical.
“Why are you really here?” The rain increased to a relentless sheet of misery. She pursed her lips, as if she were considering a reply. He realized he was teetering on a dangerous precipice.Do not get involved with her. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
And he didn’t want anything to do with Mackenzie Bardine or her plans. Not after he’d declined her request for help with her vigilante social media campaign and received a dose of her wrath to add to his own measure of guilt. Whatever her newest crusade was, it was no concern of his.
“Can I have a ride back to town?” Her casual tone annoyed him further.
“How did you get out here without a vehicle?”
“Staying at the hotel in Oakleaf. I ran here.”
“It’s five miles.”
She shrugged.
Of course. Five miles would be easy for Mackenzie, who’d been a marathon nut in her college days. He wanted to leave her there and drive away from the feelings she awakened in him. The pain. But the pewter eyes cooly observing him were the exact shade of her older brother’s. Aaron could run five miles too, joking the whole way, and handle every problem with a wink and a shrug ... until the last one that took his life.
And nestled deep, way down in Gideon’s soul, was the knowledge that he might have saved his friend. Might have, but didn’t. Mackenzie thought so too.
He heaved a sigh. “Fine.”
He’d use the drive to ferret out her real purpose, buried under the lies. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Stony silence was an acceptable option too, and whatever she was up to didn’t concern him, after all. Not anymore.
Get her to town and out of your life.
They got in. He cranked the ignition and jerked them onto the road, windshield wipers working double time.
The radio report confirmed Mackenzie’s information, though she’d dialed up the timeline of the impending disaster for the hapless Roger. Authorities were concerned about a failure of the Cotton Flower Dam, which had needed repairs for decades. Gideon had known all that. Engineers were monitoring the situation, but residents had been told to stay alert, as evacuation orders could be issued in the upcoming week. He’d totally have been able to complete an eight-hour survival class and get Rogersafely on the road before midnight. Had she been trying to scare Roger away out of spite? But why show up at his class? Now? There had to be plenty of other people she could harass besides him.
