Page 41 of Love at First Flight

“I believe she did say, ‘Dex is good with birds, right? Have him go up there.’” Jon eyed him with greater scrutiny. “Everything okay with you? Is your pet crow giving you problems? You’re still the bird guy, right?”

“Yeah, she’s been fine.” Better than fine. After discovering the yellow marble on the nightstand, Selah fawned over it for Harper’s benefit, who then flapped to Dex’s desk and returned with a pen cap to add to the collection. So it seemed Harper was now giving Selah his stuff. Not that he minded.

Jon nodded, then seemed to think about it some more before replying, “And how’s Selah doing?”

“Fine. Why?” This was also better than fine, but he wasn’t going to give Jon the details, as much as he wanted to tell the whole world about his incredible luck lately. Happiness had taken up residence inside his chest, and it wanted nothing more than to burst and cover people in heart-shaped confetti. On the other hand, Selah was right—he’d just gotten out of a longish relationship with someone he’d proposed to and had planned to marry. Him already feeling serious about Selah might give the impression he couldn’t trust his own emotions, and, considering how it all turned out with Ava, he sometimes had his doubts.

Also, he never thought of himself as the type of guy to sleep around. For one woman to jump into his bed not too long after another one vacated it, made whatever he felt for Selah seem less significant, which wasn’t the case at all. She wasn’t just any woman in his bed, she was someone much better than he could have hoped for. In the end, it was better to keep this part of his life private, especially considering that much of his previous romantic life was currently not private at all.

Jon gave him a smirk, tilting his head knowingly. “I saw that news story you guys did. It was definitely something.”

“Oh God.”

“Was she mad?”

“Who?” Dex asked.

“Selah.”

“No.” He threw Jon a confused look, since he didn’t understand where any of this was going.

Jon merely made a pointed look at his neck again, his eyebrows lifting as he made a “Humph” sound of amusement. “Okay, well, good for you, then. Glad to hear things are working out between you two.”

“What the hell does that—” Dex stopped, stooping to inspect his neck in a side mirror of one of the park ranger’s vehicles beside him. There were some scratch marks he’d failed to notice earlier, going up one side of his neck due to some of Selah’s over eagerness in bed. He rubbed at them as if they were ink marks and would disappear with aggressive scrubbing. The irritation to his skin made the evidence more pronounced.

“Dex,” Chris said behind him, causing him to almost jump out of his skin, like he’d been caught at something.

“What?”

“What happened to your neck? Did that crow of yours do that?”

“No. I just... must have happened while I slept.” It at least happened in bed, so it was technically true. Jon, who continued hanging around, hid a cough-laugh behind a fist at Dex’s awkward situation.

“Okay, good, because you’re our bird guy and hikers are reporting there’s some injured hawk on the trail at the top of the ridge. Go check it out and see if we can’t find some rehabilitation center to take it.”

“It’s probably going to take me most of the day and a lot of those rehabilitation places are pretty maxed at capacity. This iswhywe should have something here.”

His boss waved him off. “Look, I know. But you know how hard it would be to pull something like that off. If it makes you feel any better, the attention you’ve been pulling into the park is having an effect, so maybe you are onto something. By the way, some morning show on the East coast sent me an email trying to get ahold of you. I forwarded it to you, so you might want to reach out to them. Bring more of that good attention and donation dollars our way while the attention is hot.”

“Something is definitely hot,” Jon said under his breath as Chris walked away.

“Hey, Chris,” Dex called to his boss, “I might need some help, and Jon volunteered. Okay if he comes up the ridge with me?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Chris replied.

Dex gave his friend a shit-eating grin because he was only too happy to return the favor.

Jon released a big sigh before saying, “All right. Come on, bird guy, let’s get moving. That hawk isn’t going to rescue itself.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Oh my God!Is that a hickey?”

This was exclaimed by her sister Naomi, when Selah showed up to work after spending much of the previous day avoiding her sister and questions like this. She’d done her best to cover the mark on her neck with makeup. To be fair, Selah wasn’t a makeup artist like Hailey, and she’d probably rubbed off half the cheap concealer by the time she arrived at the farm. She didn’t respond, choosing to zip her fleece jacket to the very top and popping the collar, as if this was a solution to making the hickey disappear from sight and everyone’s attention.

Her mom grabbed her, yanking the collar away to inspect her neck like she was a dejected show dog. “Selah María Moreno,” her mother said whiletsking. “What do you think you’re doing? I raised you to be a good girl. Your passengers are going to be here any minute. What will they think?”

She looked to the heavens, praying for strength. “Okay, can everyone stop? I’m a thirty-year-old woman. I’m going to do whatever I want.” She most certainly had done whatever she wanted to Dex. If that made her a bad girl, she was more than happy to be one with him. In fact, she was hoping to be both a bad and good girl several more times.

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