He crossed the room to join her. “That’s Monte Roraima. It’s a tabletop mountain. That’s why the sides are flat like that.”
“Cool,” she said, meaning it. Since when did she care this much about nature?
He reached for her hand. “It’s on the border of Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana. Some people say it took a billion years to form. Billion with aB.” He shook his head. “I’m shit at math, but even I know that’s a long time.”
They stared in silence at the cliff walls of the mountain before Faith spotted something out of the corner of her eye.
“Oh my God.” She darted over and snatched up the little stuffed dragon. “Is this Griff? What’s he wearing?”
She brought it closer to her nose, but Leo plucked it from her fingers with a sigh.
“It’s a jersey for the Puerto Rico national fútbol team,” he said as he returned Griff to the shelf he occupied along with a decorative floral plaque that clearly belonged to the actual owners of the home.
“A tiny jersey!” She squealed and pressed her hands over her heart. “You’re so cute.”
“It’s just the stuff I had in my room at POR,” he grumbled, but he was smiling a little as he said it. “That’s why it all fits in here.”
“I love it.” She spun in a circle, looking for any more Leo touches, and made a beeline when she spotted a small basket in the corner of the room. She reached inside and pulled out a set of needles with about eight inches of flat blue knitting on them.
“Um. That’s also mine,” he said.
“You knit?” Her mouth dropped.
“Learning.” He shrugged. “Char’s teaching me.”
“Oh!” Well, that made sense. More than sense actually. It made her heart pitter-patter to know that he’d been spending that much time at the Knit Nook. “So what are you making?”
“It’s a scarf,” he said a little reluctantly.
She rubbed the finished section against her cheek. “I didn’t think you could get cuter than Griff in a soccer jersey, but you went and did it, you old softy.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” he said with another one of those not-scowl scowls. “I thought the blue would look good with your eyes. Your hair.” He twined one of her blue strands around his finger.
“Leo.” She pressed her lips together, almost scared to ask. “Are you knitting me a scarf?”
He shrugged again, color touching his cheeks. “Maybe. I mean, it might not be very good by the time I’m done with it. The pattern doesn’t take much counting. Just back and forth across the row, so…”
For a second, she couldn’t speak. She just hugged the bundle of yarn to her chest and blinked at the tears that inexplicably appeared at the corner of her eyes. He thought about her. Her eyes, her hair. And he was learning something new from one of the programs he’d helped to fund.
She was very close to being swept off her feet. Time to ground herself before she got bowled over entirely.
She set the knitting back in the basket and walked to his framed photos, picking up the one with the dozen or so POR volunteers posing in front of the Amazon. Leo’s arm was slung around a thin, tan woman with effortlessly cool, short, tousled hair.
“This is Reggie, isn’t it?”
She turned the picture to face him, and Leo answered reluctantly. “Yes?”
“Oh God, she’s everything I was afraid of.” She swung it back for a closer look. “She’s the anti-me.”
He pulled the frame out of her hand and set it back on the dresser without a second glance. “What do you mean?”
She pointed. “Tiny. Looks good in khaki. Probably graceful as a little gazelle.”
He canted his head to the side. “Dutch, are you jealous?”
“No! I’m just saying, take every single thing that she is, and I am the opposite.”
Not tiny. Not a gazelle. Okay, maybe she was jealous. But Leo’s eyes burned into hers as he slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her close.
