It was a very strange thing to set up camp with Gage. As a ranger Felicity had done this with all sorts of people—friends, coworkers, strangers.
But never a Wyatt.
Which shouldn’t be different or feel weird. The Wyatt brothers were her friends. She’d shared meals and life with them.
Trying to convince herself this was all normal came to a screeching halt when they had everything unpacked. “Wait. There’s only one tent.”
She looked at Gage, a vague panic beginning to beat in the center of her chest. He merely raised an eyebrow, the sunset haloing him in a fiery red that made the panic drum harder.
“Safest if we’re in the same tent,” he said after a while.
She wasn’t sure how to describe the sound that escaped her—something strangled and squeaky all at the same time.
“Problem?”
“No. No. No. Of course there’s no problem.” There was a catastrophic, cataclysmic event happening inside of her, but no problem.
“Afraid I’m going to try something?”
She tried a laugh, which came out more like a bird screech. “I like Brady,” she blurted, as if that had anything to do with anything.
“I’m very well aware.”
“And you like...” She thought of the women she’d seen Gage with. Rare. He never brought girlfriends home.
Still, every once in a while for a birthday or something, the Wyatt boys and Knight girls would get together in town. Go to a bar or something. Gage’s dates were always... “You like breasts.”
He choked out a laugh. “Yeah. Crazy that way. Hate to break it to you, you have those.”
She looked down, even though of course she knew she had breasts. Not ever on full display or anything, but yes, she had them. They were there. And why was she looking at them while her face turned what had to be as red as the sunset?
Had Gage noticed her breasts? Why did that make her feel anything other than horrified?
“If it bothers you, I can sleep outside.”
“It doesn’t bother me.” She was pretty sure she’d have the same ridiculous reaction to sharing a tent with Brady. Sharing a tent was intimate and she didn’t have an intimate relationship with...
Anyone.
But there was one tent up, and perfectly rational reasons for them both sleeping in it. It would be fine, regardless of the jangling nerves bouncing around inside of her. She’d survived those for almost her whole life, even learned to overcome them for the most part.
She was struggling today because people thought she was a murderer. Someone was trying to make it look like she was a murderer. It was messing with her brain in many different ways, not just one.
“Hungry? I can cook up some dinner,” Gage said, acting as though this was normal and fine and not at all scary and weird.
“I hope you know you can’t have a campfire. Backpacking stove only. We can’t go breaking every park rule just because we’re in trouble.”
Gage didn’t respond. His mouth quirked, his eyebrow raised, and he pulled a backpacking stove out of his pack.
Brady never did that arched eyebrow thing. Brady’s lip never quirked in that sardonic way at her. And his eyes never went quite that shade of brown, as if there was a hidden intensity under all that...
What on earth was wrong with her?
She was camping with Gage to avoid being arrested for a murder she darn well didn’t commit.
“Park rules are important,” she insisted, though he hadn’t argued. “People try to get away with all sorts of things that hurt the cultural and ecological integrity of the land and threaten the safety of the park.”
“Believe it or not, I’m well versed in what people will try to get away with.”
“I suppose you think your laws are more important than mine?”
He cocked his head as he set up the stove and measured out water into a pot. “Why do you assume that?”
“Because...” She trailed off because she didn’t have a good answer. Gage had never given any indication he thought his job was more important than hers. Nor had any of the other significant people in her life. Certainly she’d had a few park visitors who liked to sneer at how not important she was to them, but—
“Sit. Eat. Stop...that.”
She blinked at him, startled by him interrupting her thoughts. “Stop what?”
“Whatever it is you’re doing standing there with your mind whirling so hard I can hear it.”
“You cannot hear my brain.”
“Near enough. If you’re going to occupy yourself, might as well focus on the problem at hand, not how much more you’d rather spend a night in a tent with Brady than me.”
“That isn’t what...” But she couldn’t explain in a way that made any sense.
She acquiesced and sat, then took the tin bowl he offered her. She was hungry. Tired, too. And though she knew he couldn’t hear her brain moving, it felt like it was galloping around at rapid pace, and she wasn’t sure why.
She’d sleep under the same canvas roof as Gage Wyatt. So what?
So someone wanted to frame her for murder—she had a big group of people willing to help her prove she hadn’t actually done it. She had Gage to make sure she didn’t spend a night in jail.
They ate in silence, watching the sun go down. It might have been peaceful, but she didn’t feel any kind of peace. Just anxiety and something else. Something edgier and sharper than the sheer manic ping-ponging of anxiety.
“He doesn’t get you, Felicity,” Gage said quietly, staring intently at the bowl in his lap as the last whispers of light faded away. “I’m not saying that to be cruel. I just think you could find a lot better focus for your... It’s not going anywhere.”
It took her a minute to realize he was talking about Brady, and then another minute before full realization hit.
She couldn’t find the words to argue.
“He can’t ever...” Gage swore under his breath. “Brady is too noble to ever see you as anything other than Duke’s foster daughter.”
It should hurt. She should be outraged and embarrassed and feel horrible. Intellectually, she told herself that. But there was no crushing pain of a heart breaking. No heated moral outrage that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
She was under no illusion Brady looked at her and saw the real her. She’d never asked herself why she liked him anyway, why she convinced herself he might someday.
It wasn’t comfortable that Gage had been the one to point out having a crush on Brady didn’t make much sense. Her face was on fire, and she couldn’t find a way to defuse her embarrassment.
She didn’t think Gage’s words were cruel. In fact, she knew he was trying to be kind. Trying to show her it was never happening.
She was in the middle of the stark Badlands with his twin brother of all people telling her things she already knew.
Because she did know. She told herself she didn’t. She told herself she was holding out hope for Brady to come around, but she was aware of the truth.
Brady was safe. In more ways than one. Safe because he wasn’t edgy or volatile. Because he was exactly what Gage said. Too noble to ever consider one of Duke Knight’s daughters in a romantic way.
She didn’t want Brady in reality. She liked the idea of him. Liked pining after him. She could tell herself she had normal feelings for a guy and never actually have to deal with it. Know she’d never ever have to deal with him reciprocating.
The truth was Brady was never going to break his code of honor and see her as different—and she’d known that.
She’d liked him because she’d known that.
“Maybe I don’t need him to get me,” she managed to say, when what she really meant was, Maybe I don’t want anyone to know me.
Gage shrugged. “None of my business,” he muttered.
Which was more than true. Totally and utterly true.
She couldn’t for the life of her understand why he’d brought it up.
GAGE DID NOT sleep well. The tent was small, and it smelled like a woman. He’d never camped with a woman before.
Never will again.
Maybe if you were all wrapped up in the woman it would be nice enough, but with a platonic friend you had some more than companionable feelings for it was too crowded, too all-encompassing. Who’d want to be right on top of anyone like this?
He looked at Felicity, who was fast asleep only a few feet away from him.
She was too pale—he could tell that even in the odd cast the faint light made against the blue nylon of the tent. Her freckles were more pronounced than usual, and though she slept deeply and quietly there were shadows under her eyes.
He felt a stab of guilt, a twist of worry that he’d done something rash without fully considering the consequences. He’d put her through too much just so she didn’t have to spend a few nights in jail.
Jail. Whether it was a holding cell or the facility Ace was at, she’d look worse in there. She was an outdoorsy person. Better to be hiking through the rigorous Badlands backcountry than locked in a cell, that he knew for sure.
Thunder rolled in the distance, making the tent seem all that more intimate.
Felicity’s eyes blinked open, and he knew he should probably look away. Try to pretend he wasn’t a creeper staring at her while she slept.
But he didn’t.
Worse, she stared right back. For ticking seconds that had his breath backing up in his lungs. Her green eyes were dark and reminded him of Christmas trees, of all damn things.
“It’s raining,” she said quietly, still holding his gaze.
“So it is.”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her red hair tumbled behind her, the rubber band she’d had it fastened back with yesterday falling onto the floor between them. She didn’t seem to notice.
Gage couldn’t help it. He reached out, picked up the band and held it out to her. She took it with one hand, patting the unruly state of her tangles with the other.
He watched a little too closely as she bundled it back behind her, fastening the band around it again. Then way too closely at the way her shirt pulled over her breasts.
He looked up at the top of the tent and blew out a breath. Rain pattered there and he focused on counting the drops, on considering how heavy the rain was and if they should hike today or stay put. Anything that wasn’t this totally pointless, impossible attraction to the woman head over heels in love with his twin brother.
Yeah, it figured he was that messed up.
“If we go out today, we’ll have to be very careful,” Felicity said primly.
He didn’t dare look at her, because something about that park-ranger-lecturing voice really did something to him.
He was seriously messed up in the head.
“You know, the Badlands are made up of bentonite clay and volcanic ash. Which means, when it rains the rocks become very slip—” She stopped herself, frowning at him. “What are you grinning at?”
He shook his head, trying to wipe the smile off his face. “Nothing.”
“You’re grinning about something.”
“You don’t want to hear it from me.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded, hands fisted on her hips, though she was kneeling.
He should keep his mouth shut. Go outside into the storm if he had to, but that would be stupid. Almost as stupid as the words that tumbled out of his mouth. “I just remember when you couldn’t string two sentences together—especially around a Wyatt—without turning bright red and running to hide in your room. It’s nice you found your passion. Even if it’s bentite clay.”
“Bentonite.”
“Right. Sure.” He couldn’t help laughing. “You’re doing all right, Felicity. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to hear that from you?”
“Anyone else notice?”
She squared her shoulders as if gearing up for a fight. “I don’t need anyone to notice.”
“But I did notice, is all I’m saying. And I like it.” Which was better than everything he wanted to say, like and I’d like my hands all over you.
Their gazes met and held. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something to that, but no sound emerged.
He should say something. A joke. God, he should tell a joke, but it was as if every coping mechanism he’d built to defuse a tense situation had evaporated simply because he’d spent the night under the same fabric roof as her.
She cleared her throat and looked away. “What’s the plan? It isn’t safe to stay here with a storm. You do have a weather radio, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t think it’d be safe to go hiking through a storm, either,” he said, opening his pack and rummaging around until he found the radio. He tossed it to her.
She fiddled with it and he unzipped the door. They had a rain flap, and he could feel the wind blowing in the opposite direction. He could use some fresh air and a glimpse at how heavy the storm was looking.
He heard the static of the weather radio, then the low, monotonous tones of someone going on about warnings and watches.
“Gage.”
“What?” He reached for his gun, sure that the gravity and fear in her voice meant there was someone coming, a physical, human threat. But as he turned to her, she was pointing at the sky.
And a very distinct funnel cloud.