“Is that the apple cobbler?” she says. “Do you all smell that too? Oh! Lucky. I almost forgot. We saw the moose again as we were leaving the cabin. And a different one at the retreat center today. Isn’t that crazy?”
Lucky’s all in on changing the subject. He leans into her. “Did you get a picture?”
She pulls out her phone and opens the photo app. “Just the one this morning.”
“Holy shit. You really saw one.”
“Was that before or after you two got yourselves stuck on the lift?” Decker asks.
That one’s aimed at me.
And there’s a little heat behind the question.
Guilt that I haven’t filled him in on what I know makes my ears itch, but I keep a straight face while I answer him. “First thing this morning. Before the lift stopped.”
“It was only down for like three minutes,” Margie says. “And we were so close to the end that we didn’t even get the good views. I’m still in awe of the mountains, and the view from the winery—justwow.”
“Dude, you’re getting reports about when the lift stops at the retreat center now?” Lucky says to Decker.
“Sabrina said Emma said Jonas thinks some of the staff are…doing things.”
Margie’s eyebrows bunch together. “Like playing pranks on the lift?”
The flat stare he aims her way is a cleardon’t play stupidlook.
“Ooooh,” she says. She looks at me and grins, then looks back at Decker. “So I did something really stupid at work today. Our boss sent Rhys to get me to clean it up.”
She launches into a story about how she was listening to a podcast and lost track of what she was doing as she loaded the washing machine and didn’t realize she’d grabbed the wrong soap until I tracked her down, selling it without selling it so hard that no one would believe her.
Which is fucking annoying.
She’s good at spinning a story.
And the whole thing is true. Except for the part where it was her fault. That part isn’t true.
So is she spinning other stories about what she wants?
Dammit, I hate this second-guessing.
The timer goes off on my phone, so I head inside to check the apple cobbler.
Decker joins me.
“You’re messing around with her now?” The injured irritation in his voice says it all.
If I were to guess what the man’s feeling right now, I’d say he’s pissed, and he’s pissed that he’s pissed, because he doesn’t want to play the brother card. He wants to play the suspicious card, but now he’s playing both.
Fuck.
I make myself look my buddy straight in the eye, and I do the exact same thing Margie’s still doing out on the deck with that story, and I tell him eighty percent of the truth. “I’ve been watching her all week, man. Digging into everything I can find. I don’t think she’s after anything except for wanting to get to know you.”
“That’s not your dick talking?”
“My dick is the most suspicious organ in my body. Be glad you know you’re cursed. Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble ifI hadn’t had to learn the hard way not to trust the brain in my pants.”
He cringes. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“Also, you’re welcome for being someone else she can have a crush on so your mom will drop it.”
