I shrug and hold my hand about three feet off the ground.
“I’m not a hog sleuth,” I point out. “I can’t tell you that it’s got a chipped tooth and had berries for breakfast by looking at its tracks.”
“What use are you?” she teases.
“I can tag the hell out of a grouse.”
We stand, brushing snow off ourselves. It falls to the ground in clumps.
“How dangerousarethey?” she asks. “You did say they were the worst thing out here.”
“No, I said the worst thing was a mountain lion, followed by a momma bear,” I correct. “I just said you’remore likelyto come across—”
She flicks some snow off her sleeve right into my cheek, and my sentence gets all tangled up.
“It’s fine,” I finish. “They probably won’t attack unless provoked.”
“Probably,” she says, looking back at the tracks. “Great.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
GIDEON
It’sevening when Andi walks into the kitchen with an armful of clothing and looks over my shoulder at the iPad, where I’m backing up bird data.
“Nosy,” I say, and she makes an indignant noise.
“You’re using it right out in the open where anyone can see it,” she says.
“Doesn’t mean you have to look at my private computer activities,” I say. I’m trying to tease her but I think it comes out a little too serious, and next thing I know, Andi’s bright red and not quite meeting my eyes. I don’t know what to think about any of it.
“Just for that, I’m not offering to toss your laundry in with mine,” she says.
“You’re doing laundry again?”
“I’m out of,” she says, and then stands a tiny bit taller. “Unmentionables.”
We look at each other for a long moment, and I’ve seen her half-naked and had my mouth on her bare skin, and I’ve got no clue what to say.
“I think you just mentioned them,” is what I go with, and glance at the pile in her hands. Sure enough, there are underpants and sports bras in every color of the rainbow and several whimsical patterns. I look at them for a moment too long, then realize I’m looking at her dirty laundry and lookanywhereelse.
Andi just sighs and sort of laughs. “I’m trying to be a lady, okay?” she says.
“How’s that going?”
Andi scrunches her face. “I’m about to wash and hangunmentionablesin the bathroom I currently share with a gentleman, I’ve been taking baths with a washcloth and a sink for the past ten days, and my hair has so much grease in it I could fry a small turkey,” she says as she walks into the bathroom. “I’ve felt more ladylike, I’ll tell you that.”
“There’s a bathtub,” I point out, still talking to her through the doorway.
Andi tosses her laundry in the sink, looks at the bathtub, and then looks at me.
“You could take a bath,” I go on, pointing out the obvious.
She grabs the hand-cranked laundry machine from under the sink and starts filling the tank from the water filter, then gives me the world’s most skeptical look.
“The water’s freezing and in short supply,” she says. “I’m fine, I promise. Or do you need me to scrub harder during my sink baths?”
“We’ve got a stove and a creek,” I say. “No reason the water can’t be hot and plentiful.”
