Chapter Sixteen
Nate
I steal a glance at Kira, with her knee bouncing as she stares out the passenger side window. Restless energy emanates off her in a wave, but she doesn’t have anything to worry about. No one is going to let her freeze to death, especially me, and once she relaxes, she’s going to have the time of her life camping with Amber and her friends.
“You don’t have to do this, you know?” As we round the corner to McMurtry’s place, I put my hand on her leg and give a little squeeze.
“Yeah, I do. You heard Sam. A person’s word is a big thing around here. I kind of respect that. Even though I think he might have been behind the picture on the side of the distillery.”
“He’s trying to get you to stay. You know that, right?”
“So, you think he did it?”
“No, I don’t think he set you up. He’s not that artistic. But you don’t have to—”
“You know what, Nate?” She turns my way and bounces a little in her seat. “I’m actually looking forward to this camping trip.”
I grin at that. “I think you’re going to have fun.”
I take in her small smile. She might be a mathematician, all logic and order, but she’s also an adventurous spirit, whether she realizes it or not, and I kind of love that about her.
“Faith said there’s going to be a bonfire, so at least I won’t die of hypothermia.” She gestures with a nod to the back of the truck. “And with all the cold weather gear you packed for me, I’ll be just fine. I must say, though, you east coasters are a strange bunch. Camping in the winter is a little out there, but there will be s’mores, and that makes everything better.”
“Technically, it’s not winter or camping.”
She glares at me, as I take the turn around the corner and make the short trek to Albert’s place. “How is it not camping?” she asks, her chin lifted, indignant.
“You’re hardly going to be roughing it.”
“I’ll be in a tent, Nate. How is that not roughing it?”
I laugh at that. “You’re setting up in the woods twenty feet from the McMurtry’s house, twenty feet from indoor plumbing.”
“Indoor plumbing.” She sighs. “I really like indoor plumbing.”
“I’m partial to it myself.” I gesture with a nod. “We’re here.” I ease into the driveway and spot a group of girls, all waving their hands and talking animatedly and bouncing with exuberance. “Looks like they’re pretty excited.”
When Amber spots Kira, she comes running over and gives Kira a big hug.
“I’m so glad you are joining us, Kira,” she says. “I can’t believe this is your first camping trip.”
Faith comes over. “Albert is hauling the gear up the hill for us. He’s over there,” she says, and I pull Kira’s packs from the back. The sun is low on the horizon, and they need to hurry if they want to use the last rays of light to get set up and get a fire going.
I leave Kira with the young girls and the chaperones in the Pathfinder organization.
“Albert,” I say, and he drops the bag onto the small trailer hauled by a four-wheel ATV.
“Hey, boss.”
“…and we’re going to tell ghost stories,” I hear from behind as the girls and their chaperones make their way up the hill.
“Ghost stories?” Kira says. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
The girls laugh and make spooky sounds, and Albert shakes his head. “She’s in for a night,” he says. “All the chatter has given me a headache. Grab a beer later?” he asks as he plops himself onto the ATV.
I nod as he starts it, and I follow behind as he takes the gear up the hill. We reach the small clearing, where they’ll be setting up, and I drop Kira’s packs.
Everyone goes about setting up their tents, and Kira stands there, sweet, vulnerable, and so goddamn adorable, it brings out the protector in me. “Need a hand?” I ask.
She lets loose a relieved breath. “I feel like I should know how to do this.”
I shrug. “It’s out of your wheelhouse. I can’t solve quantum problems, and you can’t set up a tent. But the good thing is, you can solve quantum problems, and I can set up a tent. What a team we make.”
She smiles at me. “Thanks, Nate.”
I unpack her small tent and hand her the poles. “It’s pretty simple, really.”
“Did you used to camp when you were a kid?”
“Robbie, my best friend growing up, loved to camp. I tagged along with him and his family a time or two.”
“Did you tell ghost stories around a fire?”
“No, but we would sneak out at night and scare the girls in their tents after they told ghost stories.”
Her mouth drops. “That’s terrible.”
I grin. “Yeah, I know.”
“Wait. Where is Sam tonight?” She narrows her eyes. “You don’t think he’ll try to scare me, do you?”
“Nah, he’s a lot of things, but he’d never do that.” I pause. “I don’t think.”
“Comforting, Nate. Real comforting,” she says.
“If he does, we can go buy a rubber mouse and put it in his bed.”
“Oh, I want to do that anyway,” she says, and I laugh.
“I really don’t want to get on your bad side.” I flatten the tent. “Okay, put the poles through here.” She gets everything lined up, and I use a hammer to pound the spikes into the ground, giving the tent stability.
She glances behind her, the last fingers of light doused by the black night. “What about wild animals?”
“You’ll be fine,” I say and put my hand on her back. “You have a fire, and they’re more afraid of you then you are of them.”
“Want to bet?” she blurts out.
“I’d never bet with a mathematician.” I chuckle. “Go set up inside.” I hand her other bag over, and she climbs inside to spread out her sleeping bag and organize herself.
By the time she comes back out, all the tents are set up and the girls are working on collecting wood for the fire. I glance at the dry pile off to the side and grin at Albert. He obviously dropped a load off earlier.
“You look like you miss this?” Kira says to me.
A strange sense of longing moves through me, and oddly enough, I can see myself around a big fire, with an even bigger family. I gave up thinking I could have that, but what if…
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“You work too hard. You need more you time,” she says as she pokes me in the chest.
“You know I can say the same to you, right?”
“Maybe you could have a month ago. I’ve never had so much me time in my life.”
I’m reluctant to leave, wanting to be here with her, enjoying the fire, the night sky, the sleepover, but the girls are all settling and getting ready for their stories.
“Okay, go have fun. I’m grabbing a beer with Albert, and I’ll check in on Sam. If you need anything, you have your cell. Just call me.” It takes everything in me not to lean in and kiss her.
She walks away, and I stay back in the shadows for a few minutes. Chatter grows louder as the girls all take their place around the fire and drag Kira down with them. The smile on her face wraps around my heart and tugs. Her life might be in academia out West, but she fits here. She belongs here.
“Let’s grab that beer,” I say to Albert as he powers up his ATV, and I follow him back down the hill. We jump into my truck, and I drive to the Anchor. It’s Thursday night—tomorrow might be a school holiday, but Hooked is still open—so the busy parking lot is a surprise. I note the crowd gathered around Sam’s car.
“Oh, Jesus, what did he do now?” Albert asks.
I put my truck into park and shake my head. “I’m afraid to look.”
I step outside, and a mooing sound fills the night as I maneuver through the crowd and find Sam and Izzy leaning into the back seat of Sam’s car.
“What’s going on?”
“I found a calf,” Sam explains.
“You found a calf? What the fuck Sam?” I shove him aside and look at Izzy.
“It’s true,” she says. “She’s just a baby. I glance into the vehicle and find a small calf in the back seat. She sticks her tongue out and licks me.
As I wipe the saliva from my face, Sam laughs, and so does everyone else. “What is it with you and cows, anyway?” Sam asks. “It’s like you’re a big salt lick.”
“Where did you find her?” I ask, ignoring his question.
“We were just driving down the street, and there she was, wandering down the sidewalk like she was patrolling or something.”
“Patrolling?”
“We found her outside the ice cream shop,” Izzy says.
Sam snickers. “Think she wanted to see where all the milk was going.”
“And you decided to put her in your car and take her to the Anchor?”
“We couldn’t leave her there,” Sam explains.
“We have to get her back home,” I say. “Wherever that is.”
Sam frowns. “We can’t keep her?”
“No, Sam, we can’t keep her. Let’s head to the Veinot’s and see if they know where she might have come from.” I turn to Albert. “I’ll meet you for that beer later.”
The crowd disperses, and I hop into the passenger seat. The muffler roars as Sam starts his car. “You need to get that fixed.”
Ignoring the comment, he peels out of the parking lot, and a few cars follow. “I thought I’d call her Lucille?”
“She’s not yours to name, Sam.”
“She looks like a Lucille, though, don’t you think?”
Since I have no idea what a Lucille looks like, I shake my head. A car comes up behind us, flashing its lights for us to move over. Sam adjusts his rearview mirror.
“Fucker,” he says. “That’s Benny. He’s up my rear end so far he’d better be wearing a goddamn condom.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “Slow down. Let him pass.”
“Like hell.”
“Jesus Christ, Sam,” I say and hold on as he guns it. Poor Lucille, hits the back of my seat, and I turn to check on her. “You okay, girl?” I ask, only to get another tongue across my face. Sam keeps zigzagging to prevent Benny from passing. “Stop drawing attention. Cops find you with a stolen cow in the back seat, and you’ll find yourself locked up for the night.”
“I didn’t steal her; I rescued her.”
“Can’t argue with that logic,” I say, and pull my phone from my pocket. I take a picture of the calf and shoot a message off to Kira, thinking this will be a good story around the campfire. She texts back with a laughing emoji. I grin and tuck my phone way.
“Kira?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“She’d let me keep Lucille.”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
“Her friend is kind of cute, eh?”
“Yeah, she is.”
He taps his steering wheel to the song on the radio, and I glance at him. He’s a joker, but I think he hides behind his humor and sarcasm. Has Sam been hurt in the past?
He pulls into the Veinot’s driveway and hops from the car. Jack comes from the back door, and I call him over. “Any idea who might own her?” I ask.
“Let me make a few calls.”
Sam and I follow Jack into the house, and the scent of freshly baked cookies fills my nostrils. “Hey guys,” I say when I spot Brett and Liam in the room playing video games.
“Martha,” Sam says as he gives her a big hug. She beams up at me, and I grin. “Do I smell cookies?”
She touches his cheek. “I’ll pack some for you.”
“Is that COD?” he calls out to the boys, and disappears into the room to play with them.
Jack makes some calls as I talk weather with Martha, and when he gets off the phone, he whistles.
“She’s a bit of a way from home,” he says.
“We’ll take her back.”
Jack jots down the address, and Martha fills a tin container with cookies and hands them to me.
“Come on, Sam.”
He jumps up.
Back in the car, I pull out my phone and get the directions. “She must have been walking all day.”
“Kira at the campout?” he asks.
“Yeah, I think she’s having fun.”
“Good.”
“I don’t think a campout is going to change her mind, Sam.”
“Maybe you can?”
I stare out the window. “You think she’d listen to me.”
“I think if you gave her a reason to stay, she’d stay.”
“Sam, it’s not like that.”
“You sure about that?” he asks, in a voice so serious it gives me pause.
I open my mouth and then close it again, not sure how to respond. Sam goes quiet as we drive through the back roads, and I leave him to his thoughts, as I’m lost in my own. A long time later, we finally reach the Langille farm and get Lucille back to her rightful owners. It’s late by the time we make it back to the Anchor, but I sure could use a beer. Inside I find Albert shooting some pool, and Sam and I join in. I nurse two beer through the evening, and it’s well after eleven by the time I drive Albert home. In the driveway, he opens his door, and the night is quiet, no sounds of giggling girls in the distance.
“I guess they called it a night. Time for me to do the same,” Albert says.
“Night.”
He shuts the door, and I wait until he disappears inside. Then, I grab my phone and text:
I quietly exit my vehicle, close the door softly, and hurry up the hill to the clearing.
The zipper cuts through the quiet, and a second later, Kira peeks her head out.
“Get in here,” she whispers.
I climb into the warm tent. “Looks cozy.”
“Better now that you’re here.”
“Did you have fun tonight?”
“So much fun,” she says, her voice low. “But I think you being here is against the rules.”
“I’m just here to get you warm,” I say. I take off my coat and boots and climb into the sleeping bag. “Come here.” She crawls in with me, and it’s snug for the two of us, but her body stops shaking as I press mine to hers.
“Mmm, this is nice,” she says and snuggles in closer.
Man, she has no idea how nice this is for me, how I could so get used to this.
“What happened with the cow?” she asks, her voice low and drowsy.
“We got her home. She’s safe. Sam wanted to keep her.”
That pulls a chuckle from her. “He needs a pet. Remember you talked about getting a cat to hunt the mouse?”
“Uh-huh,” I murmur.
“I should have said yes. He’d probably pretend he wasn’t a cat person. But I bet I know where kitty would sleep every night. I think that man needs something to love.”
“Or someone.” I run my hand up and down her arm. “Warming up?”
“Yeah,” she says groggily. “Nate…”
I press my lips to the side of her neck, my heart beating a little faster as she melts against me. Goddammit, it’s getting harder and harder to remember this is just about sex. “Yeah?”
“You’re…I…” A long pause and then, “It’s quite possible that I’ve eaten too many s’mores.”
I scoff and shake my head. It’s not like I was hoping she was going to say she felt more for me, that maybe we could try a real relationship out for size.
Nope, it’s not like I was hoping for that at all.