“Yeah,” he grimaced, “sorry. My mouth moves faster than my brain sometimes. If you want little white lies to make you feel better, I’m not your man.”
With an unexpected ache, shewantedhim to be her man. She just plain wanted him. She wanted to run her fingers through his short hair and dig her fingers into his beard again, slide her hands all over his hard muscles… Gah! It was ridiculous. She’d just met him, and she was probably suffering from whatever that thing was where you form an attachment to your rescuer due to heightened levels of hormones running wild in your system, but knowing that didn’t diminish the attraction.
Good Lord, what was wrong with her? Megan was out there with those assholes—alive was the only option Lindsey would consider—andshehad to be Lindsey’s top priority.
“At least I know I’m getting your honest thoughts,” she told Todd. She’d dealt with enough lies and subterfuge this year to last a lifetime.
“Seriously?” He sounded genuinely disbelieving. His raised brows and crossed arms signaled a vulnerability that she hadn’t seen in him before.
“Absolutely. I’d rather know exactly what you’re thinking than try to figure it out.” Especially after Cruz. “It’s why I always preferred the hard-assed coaches to the rah-rah ones. If I was doing well, they told me. If I needed work, they told me. No games, no reading between the lines to figure out what they really wanted.”
“Sounds like dating,” he said, searching her gaze as if he was trying to decide if she was yanking his chain. The dark hair really did change his appearance, but his stunning eyes were the same mesmerizing shade of blue.
“Yeah. I’m not great at that either.”
“Maybe you haven’t been out with the right people.” He kept looking at her, his expression solemn but friendly.
Her heart flopped over. In spite of all her intentions, before she could think it through, she planted a quick kiss on his lips. Nothing too hot, or too out of control. Just a simple, warm thank you that both energized her and made her sad.
He stared at her for a minute, and then cleared his throat. “Lindsey—”
“It’s okay.” She stood, cutting him off before he said something to ruin the moment. He was already far nicer than any man she’d ever kissed. How sad was that? Maybe she could enjoy that novelty while it lasted and call it a win. “We should get going.”
He licked his lips and stared at her for another beat before nodding. “Right.”
By the time they reached the top of the hill and cut through to the trail, the setting sun cast a warm glow over the trees and they walked in deep shadows. Her legs burned, and she was warm and sticky despite the cool wind.
“How am I doing as an end-of-the-world pick so far?” he asked after they’d walked a couple miles, stopping to hand her a protein bar.
She smiled and ripped open the makeshift meal. If she had her way, she was never eating one of these again for the rest of her life. But for now, hungry as she was, she devoured it. “No complaints. Especially if you keep feeding me.”
“I’ll work on being nerdier.”
“What makes you think you’re not enough of a dork already?”
She wanted to hoard his easy laughter, make him do it again and again so she could fill her soul with that joy. Oblivious to her inner turmoil, he tucked their empty wrappers into a zippered side pocket on his pack and gestured to her to resume hiking.
The sun had slid behind the mountains, and it was nearly too dark to see the trail when Todd donned a red-lighted headlamp and said, “I’ve been thinking. Why didn’t these guys just kill you?”
“Wow, okay.” There was that brutal directness on full display. But, hadn’t she asked for it? It sure beat her concerns about how easily he’d snowed the cashier earlier.
“Not to be harsh,” he continued, “but it’s the obvious question.”
She stumbled and he took her gloved hand. Keeping a tight grip, she shuffled along next to him, trying to make out the roots and rocks that conspired to trip her up.
“I wish I knew,” she said. “I’m not even sure why they took us hostage. They could’ve avoided all this trouble by pointing us in the direction of our hotel and calling it a day.” She hesitated and took a deep breath. “I originally thought maybe they wanted us for…” She winced, unable to make herself say it.
“But they left you alone?”
“I don’t know about Megan”—God, she hoped they’d left Megan alone—“but no one touched me.”
“Good.” His voice was like flint. “Maybe you saw something incriminating and they wanted to check that you weren’t undercover law enforcement or something before they took drastic measures.”
She shrugged despite the dark. “There were armed guards, a few white nationalist tattoos, a makeshift gun range. Worrisome, but not necessarily illegal.”
“Unless JJ didn’t want anyone to be able to place him there.”
“I guess, though I don’t know who would’ve asked us about it later. It’s not like we’d have had anything to report if we’d simply gotten lost and been helped back to the trail.”
