Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Force of habit.” I unsling my pack and unclip Rolf’s leash. “Rest. I’ll set up camp.”
Talia takes a quick look around the glade.
It’s barely ten feet across, an intimate pocket of tall grass and bright sunny buttercups almost walled in on all sides by trees, save for the far side where it ends in a short rock face.
A small spring bubbles out from the rocks in a tiny, clear pool lined with mossy stones. It’s the perfect place to set up. Close to the vantage point, yet far enough down the slope and shielded enough so we won’t be visible.
“It’s pretty here,” she says with a small smile. “I like it.”
We really are different, aren’t we?
I’m thinking purely about the tactical advantage.
Meanwhile, she sees magic everywhere.
Rolf walks over to the tiny pond and plunges his tongue into it, lapping away. I drop to one knee in the center of the clearing and start pulling up grass. Talia stands, coming over and kneeling next to me.
“Let me. You showed me how before.” She smiles. “I don’t want to be lazy. There’s probably other stuff you need to do that I don’t know how to help with.”
“You sure? You can take a break. I’m used to doing this solo.”
“Extra hands make everything faster.” She shrugs and starts pulling up brisk handfuls of grass, piling them to the side like I showed her. “I hate being useless, anyway.”
You aren’t useless, I want to tell her, but I don’t think she wants to hear that from me.
So I leave her to it while I work on our tents, pretending I’m not sneaking glances her way.
She’s diligent and focused, very serious about her job.
Hell, I feel like I spend half my time around this girl trying not to smile.
I don’t want her to think I’m patronizing her.
There’s just something about the way she throws herself into the smallest things with an intensity that’s too charming.
Now and then, she glances at me like she wonders why I’m watching her.
She probably expects me to avert my eyes and pretend I wasn’t.
Most men would.
I hold her gaze while I work, arching a brow.
There’s a deep, deep pleasure in watching how her eyes widen when she realizes I’m not feigning any secrecy.
Too fucking fun.
Especially when she blushes every time, fumbles, looks like she’s about to stammer something out right before she turns away and hides her face. It happens more than I can count, this shy little song and dance that could go on for hours.
Did I mention I’m not a nice man?
When I get the first tent sorted, it pops up into a full-sized camo-colored dome in my hands, and I have her full attention.
She turns back with a gasp, her arms full of dry branches.
“How’d you do that?”
“Magic. Next, I’ll pull a scarf a mile long out of my ear.” Smirking, I practically toss the lightweight tent to one side and hold up the other. “It’s just a popup tent. They’re easy.”
“Do it again!” She dumps the wood in the middle of the fire circle.
I can’t help it.
A chuckle rips out of me and I’m shaking my head.
“All right, all right. Watch.”
I find the wire coils and twist them just right. The flat disc balloons out again into a 3D dome in seconds. Talia belts out pure joy.
“That’s so cool.” Then she gives me a shy look through her lashes. “And hey, you laughed.”
I snort, moving to set the other tent down with enough space between them for privacy. “Yeah. I do that sometimes.”
“Doesn’t seem like it happens often,” she points out.
“Usually, there’s no reason to.”
“Why is that?”
I stare at her.
I don’t answer.
I don’t have one I think she’d want, anyway.
So I just go back to setting up camp.
After another silence, Talia goes back to making those cute sounds of exertion while she works, ripping a few small sap-filled green branches off the trees around us.
I toss her my lighter, and by the time I’m done putting out the rest of our supplies, setting out Rolf’s food and water bowls, and spreading my sleeping bag, she’s got a good fire going.
When I pull out a long cord strung with over five hundred soda can tabs, though, she looks up from stealing my camp stove and blinks at me.
“What’s that for?”
“Security.” I start weaving the string through the trees around the clearing at about knee height, a foot out from the inner edge. “If someone gets too close, I’ll hear the tabs rattling. It’s not so loud that if we accidentally hit it, it’ll alert anyone far away to our presence.”
She nods briskly, then her face falls.
She’s remembered what we’re really here for.
And she’s much quieter as she finishes setting the fire, putting our dinner on to cook while I line the clearing with the string of tabs.
Sunset comes fast out here in the hills, and by the time we’re parked around the fire with bowls of soup and warm bread, it’s already getting dark.