“You should be. I’m proud too.” The quiet intensity of her voice told him that she really did grasp the work it had taken him to accomplish. The humility to ask for the help he needed.
She leaned over and squeezed his knee. The brief contact burned through him even though she removed her hand as quickly as she’d placed it there.
“Also,” she said briskly, “I didn’t go to Northwestern. Too expensive after I told my parents to go to hell. I took out loans and went to UIC.”
The news caught him by surprise. “For real? After all that legacy talk?”
“My dad waspissed.” She shrugged. “But so was I. He knew exactly what he was doing when he showed you that essay. And our relationship hasn’t ever recovered from that.”
Leo didn’t know what to say, but hearing that she’d burned down her relationship with the man who’d caused him so much pain didn’t bring the satisfaction it once might have. Instead, he just felt sorrow. For her, for himself. For her parents even. He was sure they never intended to drive a wedge between them and their only child.
They lapsed into silence. The radio station dissolved into static as they traveled out of the Beaucoeur area, and he reached forward to turn it down.
“Do we need to talk about the shopping trip?” he asked.
The worst moments of their relationship kept resurfacing, and despite her cheerful attitude today, he wasn’t quite sure how to move forward without addressing it.
“Nope.” Her voice was firm, shutting down any future conversation.
If that’s what she wanted, that’s how he’d play it. Maybe it was better to just let it stay in the past with the rest of the messes they’d made.
She gave a little smirk. “I will say, William laughed and laughed when I told him about the poles. Said Grandpa Leo was at it again.”
He grunted at hearing that stupid nickname on her lips, but she blithely continued. “He said using poles on a hike in Starved Rock was beyond overkill. Like wrapping a basketball in bubble wrap to roll it across the floor.”
An unwilling laugh escaped him. William wasn’t wrong, but at least he hadn’t figured out what was behind Leo’s sudden obsession with safety. Or if he had, at least he had the decency to keep his mouth shut to Faith.
“Sodoyou want to wrap me in bubble wrap?” she asked.
Yes.But he stuck with a half-truth.
“I trust you when you say you can handle it.” There. That was accurate without confessing how much the thought of her getting hurt made his insides tangle up into knots.
Before she could press the issue, he pointed up through the windshield at the overcast sky. “Looks like we might get rain sooner than we thought.”
She ducked her head to look. “Yikes. Am I going to get wet?” Her hands flew to her newly blue braids.
“That’s why Dig Greener bought you the pinkest jacket in history.”
“My precious,” she crooned, and he laughed again. He hadn’t laughed this much since…
Since he’d been her boyfriend all those years ago. He was lighter when he was around her. Sometimes anyway. Other times, he saw her turning those open, sunny smiles on William, and he had to pull himself from a black hole of jealousy that he wasn’t entitled to feel.
But William wasn’t here right now, was he?
TWENTY
“Okay, I’ll admit it. This is kind of fun.”
Leo glanced over his shoulder at her, a big, heart-stopping smile on his lips. “Yeah?”
Her breath caught in her chest—and not just because she was tromping through the woods like some sort of mountaineer. His delight at her enjoyment left her feeling a little giddy. And shewasenjoying herself. Despite the fact that she had the contents of a small apartment strapped to her back and the clouds were gathering ominously above their heads. Despite the fact that she was that weird combination of chilled but sweating that turned everything clammy. And despite the fact that her thigh muscles were sore and she was thirsty and had to pee.
Despite it all, she was enjoying herself, and it had everything to do with Leo. Specifically, it had to do with the fourth version of Leo that she’d discovered once they’d set foot on the hard-packed Starved Rock trail. She was used to seeing him in suits by now, and she’d spent most of her free time at the Gourd Olde Days Festival sneaking glances at the whole torso situation happening under his shirt. But she wasn’t prepared for this plaid-wearing, scruff-sporting, ruggedly masculine man who’d apparently been born with a compass for a brain and Illinois river water running through his veins.
When they’d met Ranger Steve a few hours ago, he’d dragged them to a million different spots to point out a million different rocks and plants, and Leo had asked all kinds of questions that she couldn’t even begin to follow about sediment layers and erosion patterns and conservation efforts. They’d parted ways with Steve about an hour ago, and she was beginning to realize that she’d never actually seen Leo in his natural habitat until today. And this relaxed, confident outdoorsy man was giving her a serious competency boner.
The guy in question stopped walking to consult his GPS, which was a crying shame; she couldn’t watch the muscles shift under his shirt if he was standing still.
