“Are we getting formal?” he asked.
“Decent.”
He put the food on the table, then grabbed his pants from the chair and put them on. But he didn’t bother with a shirt
After plumping up his pillow, he brought the food to the bed and sat back down.
She picked up one of the bottles of water, giving him a sidewise look. They had just made love. Now they were sharing a meal, and that felt almost as intimate.
She wanted to talk about the two of them, but she didn’t want to push him into a discussion he wasn’t ready for. Not when they’d just found each other again. The connection was too new—and too fragile. And she wasn’t going to kid herself. He could pull away from her if she didn’t handle this right. So, she let him set the pace.
Pointing to the packages on the quilt, he said, “We’ve got beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, and apricot leather.”
“What’s that?”
“Ground up fruit, mixed with sugar and hardened. It’s pretty good.”
He opened one of the beef sticks and handed it to her. “Excellent protein. But you’ve got to have good teeth.”
“I do.”
She tried some of the meat, then took a swallow of water. He did the same and opened the peanut butter crackers.
They focused on the simple meal, sharing the crackers and the fruit leather.
But she sensed tension building inside him.
After a sip of water, he cleared his throat. “I guess the first thing we need to do is figure out what Dr. Montgomery thinks I know.”
Cash laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “He could have killed me right away if that were all he wanted. He was going to do that—to shut me up. But I got out of there with the money and the treasure. He wants to know where I hid it.”