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Bree smiled. “Exactly. They’re kids getting excited about caterpillars and probably some gross story about peeing on a tree to keep away a bear. And they’re fine. Whatever you did, whatever you suffered through to protect them? It worked.”

“I’m totally going to try that!” Sam yelled.

Noah chuckled. It was the first time Bree had heard him laugh. Even Tanner turned around at the sound.

“We’ll check with your mom first. And you definitely have to make sure there is an adult around.”

Noah looked over and winked at Marilyn, causing her to blush. Bree bit her tongue to keep from teasing her about it.

“Noah and I have been spending a little bit of time together,” Marilyn said so softly Bree could hardly hear her.

“Spending time together as in dating?”

Marilyn flushed even more. “Not really. I mean he did have dinner with us once last week before the fire.”

Bree nudged her hip against her friend. “That sounds a little bit like a date.”

“Mostly he comes by after the kids go to bed at night.”

Bree tried not to do a double take at that news. Certainly, they were both consenting adults, and although Marilyn may be technically still married to Jared on paper, it was safe to say the marriage had ended sometime around when he’d dislocated her shoulder, broken her nose, cracked her ribs, fractured her wrist and sent her into a coma.

If Marilyn could find a little bit of happiness with Noah—and vice versa—then damn all the people who would judge her for it. But Bree was still a little surprised.

“Good for you. I say get as much action as you can.”

Marilyn’s jaw dropped and her eyes got wide. “Oh, my God, it’s not like that. Noah doesn’t come over to have sex.” Although the woman didn’t look too distraught about that idea. “He’s been teaching me self-defense moves.”

Now, that sounded like Noah.

“Well, there’s no one better you could learn them from,” Bree said, meaning it.

“I know.”

“And heck, that sort of is dating for Noah.”

“I know,” Marilyn whispered again.

Tanner and Noah got everyone moving forward again, focusing more on the smaller, gentler animals rather than predators. They answered any questions the kids or Barb or Francis had, while Bree and Marilyn brought up the rear.

They’d gone about another thirty minutes when Tanner stopped and pointed out a group of marmots lying out on a rock, far enough from the humans not to be threatened. Noah handed everyone his binoculars so they could take a closer look at the large ground squirrels.

“Marmots are pretty cool,” Tanner said. “They eat grass and flowers and live in groups of between ten and twenty. During warm weather, they pretty much spend all day eating and lying out in the sun, getting fat.”

“Sounds kind of boring,” Sam said.

Tanner rubbed the kid’s hair. “The amazing thing about marmots is that they hibernate over half their lives. At least six months out of every year, they’re underground, living inside a hole, just trying to survive.”

“They stay inside a hole for six months?” Eva asked. “They don’t come out to eat or anything?”

Tanner tapped her on her nose. “Nope. They just hunker down, breathe in and out, and survive. That’s it.”

“Boring,” Sam muttered again.

“I have no idea how Tanner knows all this stuff,” Bree murmured to Marilyn. “I’m not sure if it’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen or the sexiest.”

She glanced over at Marilyn, but she was just staring out blankly ahead of her.

“You okay?” Bree asked.