Page 12 of Trail to Trouble
Hunter’s warm chestnut gaze caught hers. Amber flecks flashed in his irises. Her stomach swirled. She hadn’t noticed those in his eyes yesterday, but today they seemed to sparkle. Maybe it was the way the sun shone on him today that caused the brightness of that amber color.
“You’re up. Grab your plate. You’ll need the nourishment for our adventures today,” Hunter said with a full-blown, contagious smile.
Alyssa looked at him with adoring eyes and scanned him over from head to toe. She couldn’t blame her friend. The guy was tall and handsome. Muscular, but not too bulky. He had great hair, too. Not too long and not too short. Thick, wavy, and dark, almost black. And his sun-kissed skin looked inviting to touch. If he was truly a nice person, he’d have the whole package going on.
Hannah slipped out of the tent and walked toward the picnic table. Alyssa handed her one of those blue enamel plates used for camping. With her plate in hand, she stepped over to the fire pit where Hunter waited for her with a pile of eggs on a spatula. He plopped them onto her plate, then scooped up a few strips of bacon for her.
“This looks delicious, thanks,” she said.
His smile reached his eyes, and his white teeth gleamed.
“Got coffee, too,” he said as he pointed at the metal coffee pot, with a tempered glass top, sitting on the cooking rack over the flames, but off to the side.
It looked just like the coffee pot she had in her camping supplies. Almost everybody who camped had that model.
She inhaled, catching just a hint of the eye-opening coffee scent among the mouthwatering bacon aroma. Her stomach growled.
With the spatula, Hunter pointed at her stomach. “You’d better get to it before you starve.”
They shared a laugh.
“I guess so.”
Hannah set her plate down and snagged a coffee cup from the table, and allowed Hunter to fill it. The liquid looked dark—strong, and that was fine by her.
Hannah sat next to Alyssa, who sat across the picnic table from Bianca. Here they’d just spent the night, crammed in a small tent, and Bianca still rolled out of the sack looking like a beauty queen. Her icy blue eyes were outlined with eyeliner, long lashes thickened with mascara, powder perfect nose, and her long, blonde hair was pulled into a tidy bun. When and how had she done all of that, and if she had made herself up in the small tent, how had Hannah not awakened? So, Bianca. Hannah was sure that if she looked in a mirror right now, the results would be quite the opposite of her friend’s. She’d probably find dark circles under her eyes, and hair run amok. Yeah, that was more her speed.
Hunter took a seat across the table from her, stabbed a fork full of eggs, and emptied it into his mouth. He closed his eyes and chewed. His moan of delight almost made her laugh. They were just eggs, but he acted like he was eating the finest steak.
“Like those, do you?” she asked.
He opened his eyes, and the amber hues mixed in with the dark chestnut color danced with delight.
“Nothing like good farm-fresh eggs in the morning,” he reached forward and snagged his cup of coffee, took a swig, “and a strong, dark brew.”
Like her, he was a morning person.
Following suit, she took a bite of her fluffy eggs, then a bite of that delicious-smelling bacon. Meat was her thing. Yeah, the eggs were tasty, but the bacon was delicious. It was thick, yet crisp, but not burned. Done to perfection.
Glancing across the table, she caught Hunter’s stare.
His smile widened. “Like my cooking, do you?”
She imagined the deeply satisfied look on her face had given her away, and she couldn’t lie to the man who clearly wanted a compliment from her.
“Not bad,” she said with a nod.
“I’ll take that. Just wait until you see what I have in store for dinner tonight.”
Bianca said something that she couldn’t quite make out because her attention was solely focused on those chestnut irises holding her attention.
She took another bite of her bacon. Perhaps she should chew more slowly. Prolong breakfast for as long as possible so she could keep staring into those warm eyes of his.
The clink of Alyssa’s fork against her empty plate pulled her attention away from Hunter.
“So, what’s the plan?” Alyssa asked.
“Well, we’ll pack up and canoe to the next campsite, then hike to Pine Loop Falls. It’s a fun falls to see because the water circles around a big rock that juts out, and the falls surround nearly the entire rock. There’s a bridge we can cross to get ourselves in the center of the rock.”
