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She leaned forward in her seat, bracing a hand against the sun-warmed dash, and scanned the desert mountains and flat, rocky terrain. The desert lilies, creosote, and yucca. So many plants, and so many lizards, but not one hint of Anna.
Something shiny peeked around a bend up ahead.
The cristala power plant.
“Didn’t we already pass that?” Shay said, jutting her finger across the car.
Roman leaned away as if she had germs. “I can’t tell when your hand keeps getting in my way every five minutes.”
She scowled but dropped it. “Are you sure we aren’t going around in circles?”
He shot her an irritated look, the gold in his eyes glinting. “This is a flat, straight road, pup. Have you seen the map?” He tapped the edge of the screen set in the dash.
“Pull over.”
He eyed her. “Don’t tell me you need to pee again.”
“If you’d rather I piddle in your nice, fancy car—”
He abruptly pulled to the side of the road, the rough shoulder jostling the car and making her bounce. Dust billowed across the hood in a cloud—the only cloud in the whole area, not a single one marking the sky of perfect eggshell-blue.
She waited for it to clear before unbuckling her seatbelt and opening her door. “Let’s go.”
“I thought you said you needed to pee.”
“I lied. We’re going to take a walk.”
He cut the engine and got out, grabbing their backpacks from the back seat. He tossed Shay’s at her without warning, and she fumbled and dropped it.
“Very smooth,” he crooned.
She glared but picked it up and put it on.
“Where to, pup?” He put his arms through the straps of his pack, and Shay tried not to stare at the muscles in his arms that shifted with the movement—way too visible, thanks to the ripped sleeves of his band tee.
What a stupid shirt.
“Higher ground,” Shay replied, tucking a strand of hair behind an ear. Using Roman’s shampoo was a colossal mistake she would not repeat. She now smelled like him, so whenever he wasn’t hovering behind her like a cloud she couldn’t get rid of, he still haunted her, his scent everywhere. It didn’t help that she liked it. Damn these cologne and shampoo companies for making men smell so mouth-watering. “I want a better view.” She pointed at the rugged red mountains to the west. “Let’s start there.”
They started walking, the crunch of dry ground under their hiking boots the only sound for over an hour. Even with the wide distance they managed to cover, there was nothing to report but more desert plants—more creosote, prickly pear, mesquite…
The quiet out here was unsettling, especially with Roman looming behind her, his shadow falling across hers every now and again on the cracked and parched earth. The dry air crusted Shay’s hair with grit, and sweat made her clothes cling unpleasantly wherever they touched.
The toe of Shay’s boot snagged on a bump in the earth, and she pitched forward, catching herself with tired, quivering legs.
She cursed under her breath, her toe aching where she’d stubbed it.
“You okay there, pup?”
She adjusted her lopsided pack and kept moving. “Fine.” She wiped the sweat off her brow before it could run into her eyes. “I think we should talk to pass the time.”
“Talk?”
She looked over her shoulder to see Roman taking a swig of water as he scanned the horizon. He moved smoothly and effortlessly, as if they hadn’t been walking for what seemed an eternity in heat so dry it sucked the life out of you.
“Yes, talk,” she said, turning back around before he could notice her staring. She might’ve caught him ogling her ass earlier that day, but she looked at him as often as he seemed to look at her. Maybe even more. “We might as well get to know each other better if we’re going to be stuck out here for the next five days.”
“Four.”
