She maneuvered a value-pack with a shelter, a sled and who knew what else into the cart while he considered the possibility of frost-bite on his happy friend. The portable heater that went in next made the idea of ice-fishing more palatable, but the activity involved far too much clothing for his goal. In the tackle aisle her fingers skimmed shelves and her lips moved silently, as she read and compared price tags. She knew what she wanted.
“Didn’t know P-H-…Dees fish.”
“Sometimes, if you want a DNA sample, you have to get it yourself. I bet there are other things about me you don’t know.”
“Thirty-four B.”
She bobbled the cardboard box in her hand, but once she clutched it securely, she turned, her chest vibrating somewhere between shock and laughter.
“Right?”
“Yes, darn it, and I don’t want to know how you knewthat.”
“Expert recon.”
“Well, Mr. Expert, this P-H-D has always wanted a salmonid gutter.” With her hip cocked to the side in clear challenge, she flourished a box with the awesome logo Spineless Wunder Boner. “Afraid this won’t fit in the cart. Looks like you’ll have to carry it.”
If this woman wanted him to roll through the store with a boner, she had better weapons at her disposal by shaking those tight jeans, but he set the box front and center on his lap, words facing out. “That good?”
“Yah, y’betcha.”
All $1,263.28 of gear fit onto their credit cards and into the back seat of the Perfect Ten. Filled with a wild boar sandwich, fueled by coffee and possessing two fresh South Dakota fishing licenses, he slouched in the passenger seat. Alone, he might’veburped. Grace presumably had standards. Although the way she knew fishing gear, maybe she knew how to burp. “Where to?”
“I checked fishing reports. It’s early, but Pactola Lake has six inches of ice in places.”
“Good roads?” He stroked the wood inlay on his door. His baby had carried them this far, but a frozen lake in the Black Hills might be asking too much from her forty-year-old suspension.
“I chose it because Highway 385 is dry and clear all the way. She’ll make it.” The ignition fired, and she confidently maneuvered the clutch and gears while she twisted to look out the rear and back out of the space. The sunlight falling sideways through the window picked reddish streaks out of her dark hair and lit the line of her jaw like a church painting. He could watch her all day.
A thousand miles ago, he’d known Grace could handle pretty much anything and wouldn’t leave if the road got hard, but every day he fell more in love with her, and not only because she treated him like a man instead of a hobby kit. His emotions must be so obvious, the words should be tattooed on his neck, but she didn’t seem to realize. She didn’t make kitty eyes or giggle, or whisper in his ear to try to get him to admit it first, like other women.
He used his sleeve to wipe dust off the dashboard, but he might as well wipe his eyes. He was deep in sappy territory. Obviously, she wanted a relationship, or she wouldn’t have slept with him. She’d been clear on that from the beginning. And he felt as pumped as a twenty-year-old when he remembered how she’d screamed his name. So if his legs weren’t the problem, and the sex was crazier than full-moon monkeys, why wasn’t she hinting for the L-word?
He needed a job.
If he was careful with his disability checks and his traumatic injury insurance payout, he’d be comfortable in Salito, but Seattle was a different economic game. He couldn’t court her on her city turf and expect her to support him, too.
They reached the lake. Drivers of the other vehicles were presumably inside the handful of shelters spread across the ice. Beyond the cluster of shacks, dark open water stretched the reservoir’s length. The sight excited him. Risk—maybe small, but not the insulated life of Walter Reed or the boredom of the passenger seat—lurked close by.
“Wheels or legs?” she asked.
“Too cold.” He didn’t know what extreme temps would do to his micro-processors and hydraulics. “Chair again.”
His cold-weather pants flopped like one of those fish Grace wanted. As he knotted each pants leg, she spun, arms raised to the sky, and blew clouds of steamy breath. Her bright orange-and-silver striped coat and the blue-green knit scarf filled his world with color.
Her cheeks flushed when she stopped. “I hear trout calling our names.”
“Graaaace.” His falsetto made her laugh, his favorite sound. “Eat me!”
“Dream on.” She pressed her lips to his with the speed of a familiar lover, and the touch warmed him in ways he didn’t think even a roaring fire could.
At first he stayed close since Grace had to trudge with the gear sled, but the wind-scoured ice beckoned like a giant crystalline runway. He imitated his 442 revving and eyed her. “Race?”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“Watch!” He was off, friction so decreased that his wheels hissed when he flicked them through his hands. Then he arched and bounced on the back of his seat to pop the front wheels in the air.
“Rey!”
