“The sun will be down soon,” she said. “There are trees out there besides.”
He nodded again, because he wasn’t Lila Mae’s father, and he didn’t want to question every decision she made.
Her phone chimed, and she glanced at it. “That’s the Two Cents app. I bet the food is almost here.”
She finished pulling the blanket off the bed, and Trap moved over to take it from her to fold it. She put the bed away and closed the picnic basket just before someone knocked on her door. She took the two steps to open it, her smile wide as she thanked the man for bringing their pizza and pasta.
This delivery driver left without a conversation, and Lila Mae grinned at Trap and said, “Let’s go load up.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her too, strappy sandals and sunscreen-less and all. While his exhaustion had run deep this week, he felt re-energized by spending some alone-time with Lila Mae out by the river.
He wondered if it would have much water in it, because the heat had been brutal. Trap supposed he’d seen water in the river in town, though this was the western branch of the river when it split before it came through Three Rivers, and he really didn’t have much experience with it.
He finished folding the blanket, picked up the picnic basket, and followed Lila Mae outside to her UTV. He put the picnicbasket in the back next to the boxes and containers of pizza, and then he put the blanket on the backseat.
“You want me to drive?” he asked.
“Sure,” Lila Mae said, and they performed a little dance as they moved around each other so he could go to the driver’s side. She got in beside him and slid all the way over on the seat, so she sat in the middle with the length of her thigh pressed against his.
The key still sat in the ignition, and Trap turned it to start the motor. He backed away from Lila Mae’s house and got them on the road leading south toward the Intake Center, and then the community center shed he was currently working on, and then the hospital that he had already passed to Ruby.
He, Jason, and Sawyer had already worked on all the roads and infrastructure here at the ranch, and he knew he could get all the way to the river if he stayed on this road.
Lila Mae’s ranch was eight hundred acres, with the river probably three or four miles back. He made the drive in about fifteen minutes, the wind pulling at her hair, which she’d let down and loose over her shoulders, and kept gathering into the palm of her hand to keep it from whipping her in the face.
The road ran right along the western edge of her property and the fence, and Trap noticed that it probably needed some work, though she wasn’t planning on keeping cattle out here. Trees bordered the river on both sides and made a natural fence for the southern part of her property. He pulled past one giant cottonwood, and between elms and junipers, and came to a stop before the land started to slope down into the riverbed.
He cut the engine. “It looks like it’s pretty low.”
He got out and turned back to Lila Mae, who scooted out his side of the UTV. “Was that tree down last time you were here?” he asked, nodding to the big slippery elm which now spanned the width of the river.
“I don’t think so,” Lila Mae said. She looked around like she’d never been here before. “I honestly can’t remember.”
Trap nodded and scanned the area. With dusk almost here, he’d need to pay attention and not lose his head just because he was with Lila Mae.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Animals.” He looked at her. “No one has lived here, sweetheart, for fifteen years, and you don’t come down here very often. Do you know what kind of animals we have in the Texas Panhandle?”
A cute frown appeared between her eyes. “No, sir.”
“Well, there are a lot of things,” he said. “Pronghorns, jackrabbits, burrowing owls, mule deer, bison. And then, of course, you’ve got the more predator-type animals: coyotes, bobcats, foxes, mountain lions.”
Lila Mae looked at him with alarm. “Mountain lions?”
He nodded across the river. “I see some holes over there. Those are probably prairie dog dens or ground squirrels. There’ll be mice and voles, all kinds of stuff out here. This is where hawks and eagles and owls look for prey.” He moved to the back of the UTV and picked up the picnic basket. “We’ll be fine. We just have to pay attention.”
Trap scanned the landscape through the trees. “Can you grab the food and the blanket?”
“Yes,” Lila Mae said, and she hopped into action.
The blanket was ridiculous, but Trap didn’t say anything. The ground out here was forested because of the trees, andsodirty and filled with foliage debris, leaves, and twigs and branches that had fallen down. It looked wild because it was.
Trap walked for a minute or two, and finally found an old log that had fallen parallel to the river. “We can just sit here,” he called over his shoulder, and he put the picnic basket on the ground and sat beside it on the log.
Lila Mae picked her way through the area in her strappy silver sandals, with the blanket tucked under her arm and her hand gripping her skirt to hold it up higher, the pizza boxes and plastic containers balanced in one arm.
Trap launched himself right back to his feet and headed over to Lila Mae. “While I love those shoes, I should’ve insisted you change.” He took the blanket from under her arm and waited for her to pause so he could take the food.
