Page 67 of Love in Tandem
“No. My stuff. Our stuff.” Zach pointed over her shoulder. “It’s all gone.”
Charlotte whipped around, tripping over a tree root, then finding her footing as Zach rushed past her. “Are you sure?” she yelled, chasing after him.
“Do you see our bike anywhere? Our bags? Our trailer? This can’t be happening.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“How?” Zach spun in a circle, waving to the vacant camping site. “How is this going to be fine?”
“I don’t know, but freaking out isn’t going to help.” It sure didn’t help the night she was tied up in the barn. “Are you sure you left everything here?”
“Am I sure I left our tandem bicycle and trailer crammed full of all our camping gear and belongings next to this tree as opposed to that tree?” Zach feigned deep concentration. “Well, gee. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s hiding behind a different tree. One that has a twenty-foot circumference.”
“Sarcasm? Is that how we’re going to handle this?” she said, tossing his own words back at him.
“You have any other suggestions?”
“Just have a little faith, okay?”
Zach gouged his hands through his hair and stared at her. “What do you think is going to happen if we don’t finish this challenge on time? What, you’ll just pack up your guitar and find a governess position where you can sing to the von Trapp family children while your mother miraculously recovers? Sure. Sounds great. Can’t believe I was ever worried. Let’s just laugh our way back home, where we can buy a round of drinks for the entire town who thought we could actually finish this race.”
“Are you done now?”
“No.” Zach turned and kicked the tree closest to him. “Now I’m done.”
“Good. Because I promise you—somehow, some way—this is going to work out. It always does. Did we not just survive a wild hog attack less than twelve hours ago? Trust me. Better yet, trust God.”
Zach tipped his head back in a biting laugh. “Trust God. Sure. Because he never disappoints, does he? Look, babe,” he said, not giving her a chance to respond, “if you want to host a revival here with the squirrels, go for it. Power to you. Me? I’m going to find a park ranger and figure out how to file a police report. With a little luck, maybe we’ll get everything back in time to finish this race so you can keep your job and I can get to California.”
Oof. Charlotte hugged her arms around her middle, his words a sucker punch straight to the gut.
He still planned on going to California.
Well, of course he still planned on going to California. What had made her think otherwise? Those kisses they’d shared? Those kisses she’d initiated? Those kisses he’d been going out of his way to avoid ever since? “We’re never going to be a real couple, are we?”
He held her gaze, his dark eyes filling with something she couldn’t quite name. Frustration? Remorse? Pain? He made a fist and tapped it against the rough bark of the tree next to him as he dipped his head. “And there you have it, Charlotte. The wall between us.”
“Great news,” Sophia hollered out the driver’s side window as soon as she saw Joshua step onto the front porch. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun, squinting at her approach down the driveway. “I was able to get the rest of the week off from work. I told them it was a family emergency. I mean, technically it is. We’re getting down to the wire here.”
Sophia braked and turned off the car, then raced to the back seat, dragging out her luggage. “I figured it’d be easier for me to just move in for a bit. No point driving back and forth when you need my help here, right? I hope you don’t mind I brought along my sister’s cat.”
She lifted the blue carrier, where a slew of pitiful meows had started the moment she left Charlotte’s driveway, and plopped it in the yard. “You won’t even know he’s here.”
Joshua might not, but D’Artagnan certainly did. He raced around the side of the house in full-on Kentucky Derby mode. “Uh-oh.” Before Charlotte could reach the carrier, a gray flash of fur escaped—little sneak must’ve been chiseling his way out the entire ride over—and darted for the nearest tree.
“D’Artagnan—stop!”
“Patches—no!”
Sophia and Joshua shouted and chased after both animals.
On the plus side, Patches made it up the tree before D’Artagnan caught him. On the downside, Sophia doubted Patches would ever set paws on this earth again so long as D’Artagnan was alive.
“Joshua?” Sophia stared up into the thick branches towering over them while D’Artagnan circled the tree, barking and searching. “Please tell me you’ve already found the two hundred fifty thousand dollars, so when I inform my sister that I lost her cat, I’ll have some hope that maybe, just maybe, she won’t kill me on the spot.”
She waited for him to say something. “Joshua?” Sophia said a minute later when he still hadn’t spoken a word. “I need you to say something encouraging here.”
D’Artagnan sank to his stomach in the grass, focus still locked on the tree. But at least he’d stopped barking. Which is why Sophia had no trouble hearing the resignation in Joshua’s somber tone.
