“Load up!” the bus driver called.
Silver couldn’t wait any longer. Owen wasn’t coming.
She forced a smile at the bus driver and set one of the innertubes back in the pile beside her and carried hers to the huge rack piled high with them in the back of the bus, where the driver was tying them down with bungee cords.
The skid of gravel sounded and she turned, startled.
A pickup truck peeled into the parking lot and she stood frozen as she watched Owen get out, and rush around the back to yank the tailgate down.
“Oh, he’s with me!” she said to the bus driver as she rushed to grab the innertube for Owen. She put it on the rack and the driver began securing it with the others.
Owen was wearing bright green swim trunks, no shirt, just scars and muscles all on display, and a backwards baseball cap with sunglasses, and a streak of white sunscreen down his nose. He carried a little cooler and a backpack that looked waterproof. That man strode toward her with the confidence of a demigod.
His greeting grin settled every ounce of anxiety inside of her.
“You look so damn cute,” he said as he settled a baseball hat over her head.
It pushed her sunglasses down her nose a little, so she shoved them back up and grinned up at him. “Hi.”
He laughed. “Hi. Sorry I’m late.” He looked up at the bus driver. “You got room for this back here?” he asked, holding up the little blue cooler.
“Absolutely. This is the only cooler on this trip. Looks like you know what you’re doing. You a local?”
“Yep,” Owen said, settling the cooler onto the back corner of the rack to be secured down. “I appreciate you!” he called as he pulled Silver by the hand toward the door of the bus.
She stared in shock at their hands. Hers was so petite compared to his big strong one wrapped so confidently around hers. He was holding her hand. He was really holding her hand! A fluttering sensation consumed her stomach.
He pulled her onto the bus and sat right in the front seat behind the driver. She settled beside him, and tried not to freak out.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he was huge and had lots of muscles, and everyone was paying attention to him, and he was smiling over at her, and everything was wild. He was really here! With her!
She pointed to the angry red cuts on his chest and shoulder that were already half-healed, thanks to his shifter healing. “Those look much better.”
“I got up and ate three times last night. That helps. Plus boars have extremely fast healing.”
“Oh you’re a boar shifter,” she said lightly, like she didn’t already know. “Why is your healing faster than others?”
“Probably because all boars do is fight, so the evolution of our kind took one look at us idiots and said, ‘they need to heal fast, or they’ll all be dead within two generations.’”
She giggled at the self-deprecating way he spoke of himself and his people. She liked that he didn’t take things too seriously.
The chatter of the bus wasn’t as overwhelming as she’d thought it would be. Everyone was happy and here for a good time, and the kids were excited, especially a little girl across the aisle from them of age six or seven. She had a little pink life jacket on, and her dad was telling her all about the fun they would have on the river.
“Did you eat?” Owen asked.
The question interrupted her watching the father and daughter.
“Oh, I had coffee for breakfast.”
Owen snorted and pulled a footlong sandwich from his backpack.
“That sandwich is huge.”
“That’s what she said. That’s why I was late. The sandwich place didn’t open until ten apparently. You have to try it.”
“Oh, do you want to eat half?”
Owen snorted and pulled out another one. “I have two more in there in case we get hungry on the river. I hope you like roast beef.”