I wasn't pretending. I wasn't going to pretend. And I wasn't going to let her apologize for knowing things.
The diner had emptied out around us. West was stacking chairs on the far side of the room, working his way toward us with the patience of a man who'd close when he closed and not a minute sooner.
"I should go," Breanna said, looking at her fitness watch. "I need to prep my sampling kit and charge my headlamp batteries."
"Where are you staying?"
"The inn. Across the street."
Bobbi's place. That was good. Bobbi would take care of her, ask the right questions, not push.
"Seven tomorrow," I said. "I'll have the raft ready."
She closed her laptop and pulled her glasses off, and the shift was immediate—without them, her face was different. Not lesssharp, just less guarded. Like the glasses were part of the armor, and without them, she was standing a half step closer to the world than she meant to be.
"Bishop."
"Yeah."
"Why are you doing this? The trip tomorrow. You own the company. You could send any of your guys."
I looked at her across the booth. The checkered floor and the blue countertop and the hot pink barstools and West stacking chairs in the background—all of it peripheral. She was the fixed point.
"Because you asked the right questions," I said. "And I want to see what you find."
It was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. The whole truth was that she'd walked into my shop and asked about my river and known things about it that I'd never thought to wonder. Something in me had locked into place like a compass finding north.
But she wasn't ready to hear that yet. So I gave her the part she could handle.
She nodded and slid out of the booth. She tucked the laptop under her arm and the glasses into her shirt pocket, and I watched her walk to the door. West watched me watch her, and neither of us said a word about it.
The screen door slapped shut behind her. I sat in the booth for another minute, looking at the coffee mug she'd left on the table. There was a faint lipstick mark on the rim—barely there, almost nothing.
I finished my sweet tea and left cash on the counter. West picked it up without looking at the amount.
"Same order Thursday?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He nodded. That was it. That was all that needed saying.
I drove back to the cabin with the windows down and the night air coming in warm and heavy with the smell of the river, and I thought about a woman in reading glasses who talked about fireflies like they were the most important thing in the world and apologized for it every time.
Tomorrow, I was taking her to Hadley Bend. Tomorrow, she'd see what I already knew was there. And she'd stop apologizing. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not the day after. But eventually.
I had time. I wasn't going anywhere.
