“Like figure out if someone’s been tracking us,” she said, following my thoughts too well.
“I doubt that’s happened.” But in truth, I had no fucking idea. IT ops were not in my wheelhouse. I learned the tech I needed for my job, used the tech when it was necessary, and counted on IT specialists to understand the tech so I didn’t have to.
“What if they have, and they can put us together? Then you can’t use your credit cards, either.”
“Did you ever tell Devlin about me?” Stupid question. He knew about me. We’d met, in a sense. “My name, my Army career, any details.”
“No, never.”
That landed like a punch in my gut. But it was good news, and I was a grown man, so my fucking ego would survive. “And about Mai?”
“I mentioned a high school friend. No name. Devlin wouldn’t even know I’m still in touch with her.”
I clicked her seat belt into place. I couldn’t help myself. With the possibility of a real threat bearing down on us, I went into mission mode. Observe every detail. Use every safeguard. Check, recheck, strike. Be brief, be bright, be gone.
I closed her door and hightailed it to the driver’s side of the car. “We’ll drive a few more hours and find a good place to set up camp,” I said as I pulled out of the parking lot at a reasonable speed. The last thing we needed was to attract the attention of local law enforcement.
“Camp? Do you have a tent?”
I nodded. “Picked up camping gear when we stopped for supplies. They only had one air mattress.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
I grinned, liking that I’d made her think we’d be sleeping together. “There’s always...” I glanced over my shoulder.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. In eight hours together, I’d intimated climbing into the back seat with her twice. I didn’t need a shrink to explain that one to me. Our hormone-soaked, sex-fueled, heartbreaking summer romance had started in the back seat of a car.
7
SAVANNAH
Iwoke up very much alone in the middle of a double-size air mattress. By the gray light, I judged it was early morning, pre-dawn. I untangled myself from my sleeping bag and glanced over the edge of the makeshift bed. Ben’s sleeping bag was rolled up and tied, ready to go. After his teasing about a shared bed or, heaven forbid, back seat, he’d behaved like a complete gentleman and slept on the ground. I hated him for that, but I refused to spend one second contemplating that fucked-up mixed message between my body and my brain.
The infuriating man, whom I definitely did not want sharing my bed, was nowhere to be seen.
From outside the tent, sizzling, maple-smoked bacon beckoned. That solved the mystery of where my tent-but-not-bed companion was. I slid off the mattress, rolled and secured my own sleeping bag, and pulled a pair of jeans, a bra, and a T-shirt out of my backpack. I quickly changed out of the gray sweatsuit I’d slept in. I wouldn’t mind a quick shower to wake me up, but my protector-turned-drill sergeant had allowed time for quick showers in the national park’s public facilities last night. I doubted he’d be that indulgent again.
Besides, he’d locked us both into the women’s buildingbecause he refused to let me out of his purview, and I did not need a repeat of that. I’d had my own shower stall and dressing room, but standing naked under water, knowing he was doing the same on the other side of the thin wooden wall, had been intense. And it was probably the reason for a restless night’s sleep full of erotic dreams that hadn’t evaporated with the morning light. Then again, the sun hadn’t officially risen yet, so there was still hope.
I pulled on my boots and stepped out of the tent. The air was cool and crisp and heavy with the scent of pine trees. And the view, even through the gray haze, was stunning. Beautiful blue pine cones crouched in close around the small ring of our campsite. Majestic purple mountains along the horizon in every direction. A navy blue sky edged in pink just above the highest peaks. We were in a national park somewhere in Idaho, which was technically part of the Pacific Northwest, as Ben had told me as we drove last night. He’d traveled here before on a weekend camping trip when he’d been stationed an hour outside of Seattle.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Ben said quietly.
“It’s not that late,” I quipped, then bit my lip. He was putting his ass on the line to help me, so maybe I didn’t need to be hostile from the very first exchange of the day. “I meant you should have woken me if we needed to get going.”
He quirked up one side of his mouth and glanced at the bacon frying on the camp stove. “Ididwake you.”
We stared at each other. I couldn’t look away from those deep brown eyes that didn’t miss a thing. I sure as hell hoped it was too dark for him to see me blush as the memory of one of my dreams flashed into my mind.I was staring up into those eyes as we shared one shower stall, his naked body pressed to mine.
I ripped my gaze away from him and focused on the distant horizon. “Purple mountains majesty,” I blurted out because it was the first thing that popped into my addledbrain. I cleared my throat. “It fits. It’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”
I glanced over my shoulder.
He hadn’t stopped watching me. One side of his mouth slowly arced into a half-grin. “Not gonna touch that with an 80-meter rappelling rope.” He angled his head toward a plate of eggs on the picnic table next to where he’d set up the stove. “Come eat, before it gets cold.”
I glanced to the west, in the direction of the campground’s restrooms. “First, I need to use the facilities.”
“Not on your own. Give me a few minutes to put the food in the trunk. We don’t want to come back to find someone else eating our breakfast.”
