Page 7 of Lost With You
That’s what she told the girl in the mirror, anyway.
She grabbed her discarded clothing and headed outside, where Dylan was busy pulling a bungee cord over an aluminum canoe he’d hefted onto the roof of his Jeep. She rounded the back of her van and saw that he’d changed into swim trunks and a T-shirt with a faded Bridgewater State logo on the back.
She pulled her gaze from the naked nape of his neck. “Is that the canoe we’re taking on the trek? It seems small.”
“We’re taking a bigger one, made of birch bark. It’s in the shed. I just applied a last coat of pitch.” He hooked the end of the cord around the roof rack, tugged it for tautness, and then turned toward her. “It needs a day to—”
His gaze hit her in the solar plexus. She gripped the latch of the hatchback as he took a good, long look. He’d be seeing a lot of this bathing suit in the next three weeks, if she passed the test he was setting up for her. He might as well drink his fill…even if it made her feel like a lemon drop getting licked all over.
“The canoe?” she prompted, heart racing like she’d run a 5K. “You said it needs a day to…what?”
“To…dry.”
“That makes sense.” She pulled the lever on the van, and the hatch flew up. She ducked under—he didn’t need to see her flush or flutter or catch her breath. She also had to stop her personal belongings from tumbling out. It was dangerous to shift the contents inside Bessie, which was why she kept important things like her laptop in the back seat. She couldn’t risk her most precious asset being crushed by the laundry basket full of true-crime paperbacks, or made sticky by discarded soda cups she kept forgetting to collect and throw out at rest stops.
As she tugged open her laundry duffel to shove in her dusty travel clothes, his shadow fell over her.
“Nice place you’ve got there.”
Her neck muscles tightened. “Hey, it’s home.”
“Really?”
“For now. Bessie has crossed the country several times.” She dragged the summer-clothes suitcase within reach and unzipped it to find something to wear over her near nakedness. “Most of my assignments come fromAmerican Backroads,Mountaineering,American West,Canadian Travel,and Kayaking.I’m on the road all the time. You want to check out my professional qualifications, MacCabe?”
Instead of my ass?
“Not necessary.”
She glanced over her shoulder as she yanked out a wad of familiar cotton. He wasn’t looking at her ass, or her bikini, or her body at all. He was peering at her new life and the remnants of her old, and that made her feel more exposed than ever.
He said, “It’d be a hell of a history project to dig through all that.”
She wrestled into a tank top, though it didn’t make her feel any less naked.
“I assume you have a home?” he asked. “Somewhere?”
“I’m the journalist, remember? I’ll ask the questions.”
His shadow pulled back. She reached for her sneakers and planted her backside on the bumper of the van.
“Leave them,” he said.
“What else am I going to wear?” She lifted them, frowning. “You want me in leather flats?”
He glanced at her toes. She resisted the urge to curl them under.
He said, “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Seven.”
“My sister’s boat shoes should fit.” He squinted toward the sky. “I’ve already tossed them into the front seat of the Jeep for you. I suspected you wouldn’t have any on hand. Though for all I know, you could be hiding a body in that van.”
“Lucky for you,” she said, slamming down the hatch, “I’m not.”
She slipped into the Jeep, fixing her gaze out the passenger-side window to discourage conversation as he filled the driver’s seat and backed out of the yard. She’d been so worried about posing in a bikini under this Viking’s pillaging gaze that she’d forgotten whatelseshe’d been exposing when she’d swung open the van. Her career was about meeting new people, asking about their vocations, their ventures, their lives, but she never invited them to ask questions about her. She’d slipped up. The physical attraction was already too strong to ignore.
Get a grip on yourself, Casey.
