“I found more than I expected.”
His gaze held a fraction too long. Then reset. We weren’t discussing the previous night.
"Good," I said, setting my cup down. The porcelain clicked against the wood. "I’d hate to think I was dealing with an amateur."
Owen and Naomi stepped onto the deck. I didn't look at them.
Owen was complaining about the lack of signal near the Acacia grove. He moved toward Nick, looking for a logistical concession. Nick didn't even shift his weight. He just waited for Owen to finish—a silence so heavy it felt like a physical barrier.
"The ridge is hit or miss," Nick said, his voice as flat as the horizon. "If you need a signal, stay at the lodge. If you want the ridge, get in the vehicle."
I took a sip of my coffee. My chest tightened—satisfaction, sharp and cold.
Nick adjusted his radio. "Vehicle's ready," he announced to the group, though his eyes stayed on me for a second. "We’re heading to the north ridge. Keep your arms inside the frame."
It was an instruction, delivered with the kind of weight that made an invitation feel like an unnecessary redundancy.
We moved side by side, our shadows stretching long and thin across the gravel. We didn't touch. We didn't even drift toward each other. But I matched his stride without thinking, our paces locked.
At the jeep, he moved ahead to check the interior. He stepped back to give me space to climb in. He didn't offer a hand, and I didn't move as though I expected one.
Behind us, Owen muttered something about signal strength while Naomi climbed into the back with the resigned efficiency of a woman who had accepted the day’s itinerary under protest.
I settled into the passenger seat, the leather stinging the back of my thighs through my khakis—a sharp, grounding heat that I did my best to ignore. When Nick climbed into the driver’s side, the cabin seemed to shrink around us, the air suddenly occupiedby the scent of his soap and the weight of a silence we hadn't yet negotiated.
He didn’t look at me as he turned the ignition, but as the engine thrummed to life, he reached across the console. His forearm brushed the edge of my space as he adjusted the vent on my side, directing the first forced breath of air toward my face.
It was a small, clinical gesture, entirely unnecessary and still intimate enough to irritate me.
"Thirsty?" he asked, his chin tilting toward the heavy metal canteen wedged between the seats.
Behind us, Naomi laughed under her breath at something Owen said, the sound quick and dry enough to remind me we were not alone.
"I'm not," I said, though my throat felt like it had been lined with the very dust we were about to kick up.
"Drink, Wilder. The sun doesn't care about your stubbornness, and I'm not stopping because you’ve decided to prioritize your pride over your hydration stats."
The audacity. The sun-drenched, fully weaponized audacity of this man. I am going to throw this canteen at his head.
I took the canteen, making a point of grasping the cold steel at the base to ensure our fingers never made contact. The proximity was enough; the mere reach of his shadow across my lap was sufficient to reset my internal clock to a rhythm I didn't recognize. I drank, the metallic taste cutting through the lingering bitterness of the morning coffee, the landscape shifting from olive to gold.
His grip on the wheel stayed steady as he drove the way he did everything, no show, no swagger, just exact control.
Every time the jeep jolted over a hardened rut, the hair-breadth of space between my shoulder and his sleeve vanished, then reappeared, the jeep making a mockery of the distance we’d both agreed to maintain. He didn't look over, but his breathingshifted—a slow, deep inhalation that seemed to draw the very air out of my lungs.
He navigated a dry wash, his forearm tensing as he fought the steering wheel, the muscle corded and tan against the faded leather. In the back, Owen and Naomi were locked in a low-frequency debate about whether the day’s plan was ambitious or clinically deranged, their voices a distant, irrelevant hum compared to the pressurized silence in the front of the cabin.
As we climbed toward the ridge, we didn’t discuss what had happened in the suite. The silence between us felt less like distance and more like restraint.
Owen and Naomi had gone quiet in the back, either lulled by the heat or wise enough not to poke the tripwire stretched across the front seat.
A burst of static cracked through Nick’s radio, then died. He eased off the accelerator and let the jeep roll to a stop. The motor dropped away, leaving only the tick of cooling metal and the heavy, radiating heat of the hood. Owen started to ask a question, but Nick lifted one hand, listening.
A beat passed.
Another.
Only then did he turn in his seat, his arm draped over the steering wheel with that unnerving, unhurried stillness, and look at me.
