Great. Now my crush came with bonus competent-cat-dad energy.
I grabbed Kyle from Aaron’s oversized arms and squeezed him to my chest. “You scared me.” I buried my face in his fur, trying to pretend I wasn’t about to cry over my cat being out of my sight for a few minutes.
Aaron gave me some space to have my minor meltdown, then I wrestled Kyle into his harness…he went willingly when I gave him the cricket carcass back, and we continued our hike.
“Wait,” Aaron bellowed a half hour later. We’d slowed as the trail got steeper. I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. He had a sheen of sweat on his face and looked unfairly good despite it.
He marched past me to where there was a sign stuck in the ground with some information about a plant. “Sensitive species, my job as your official guide is to make sure you don’t step right there.” He pointed to a spot on the ground.
He stood in front of it with his arms crossed tightly over his chest like he was a bouncer, then once I walked past him…not touching the precious grass or whatever, he fell in line behind me again.
“Aaron, was that…did you make a joke?”
He grunted. “Don’t get used to it.” I laughed anyway. Normally, Aaron had a stick so far up his ass it would makehis hat fall off. My brother, and the other SAR people, were the same. Maybe all first responders were. Bringing order to a chaotic situation.
The fact that he had a bit of a sense of humor and was willing to indulge my various eccentricities, not the least of which was Kyle, fanned the flames of my crush into something hotter.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. His head was down, watching where he put his feet. He had his thumbs stuck under the straps of his pack, a move that caused the muscles of his forearms and biceps to stand out until they seemed too big to be real. The straps of his pack rested further out than they did on a normal person because his massive man pecs pushed them to the side. I turned back to watch where I was going, but couldn’t help but wonder if there was an opportunity I was overlooking here.
Single man. Single woman. Nothing around but trees, mountain air, and the potential for bad decisions.
Chapter Seven
Aaron
My shoulders relaxed despite my heavy pack. I was so used to being on alert in the backcountry that it had taken my brain and body a minute to catch up. Or maybe I had been worrying too much about Skye.
She had kept her cool when her little frat boy made a run for it. Knowing she could handle herself, even with something as odd as a cat running off, gave something in my brain permission to calm down. To shut off that ‘only I can fix this’ part of who I was.
I could actually look around and maybe feel like I was on vacation.
The trail we were on was a loop, but it had a spot that overlooked the valley at the halfway point. We stopped for another break. “Do not let that menace out of his straitjacket,” I said, easing off my pack.
The menace in question was sleeping in his baby carrier with his head turned upside down. The dead cricket was tucked under one of his ears. “It’s a harness, not a straitjacket, but yes, lesson learned.” She sat on a log and looked out at the view, and despite that it was a tight squeeze, I sat down beside her.
My elbow brushed her bare upper arm as I sat, and a tingle of awareness went down my spine.
Dammit.
I really did not need to have the hots for this girl. Her being Cliff’s sister was enough that she should be off my radar. Unfortunately, my radar had decided she was theonlything worth tracking.
I found the little sunburn on her nose endlessly fascinating. Not to mention, her unique brand of organized chaos. The way we were so different, yet still enjoyed our time together.
My thigh pressed against hers as we took in the scene in front of us. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I nodded. It was a deep, expansive valley of evergreen trees. There was an area off to the left that’d had a wildfire a few years back, so the landscape was marred with black snags, but greenery was growing around it. “Do you need to take some pictures or something for your article?” I asked her to distract me from how good her leg felt against mine.
“I like to enjoy it for a few minutes before I shift gears and see it as a subject for a photo, appreciate the view, you know?”
Social media was so surface level that the depth of what she said hit me hard.
When I was in a new place in the bush, all I did was scan for hazards. Rocks, roots, drop-offs, creeks, steep sections. Not to mention the weather and wildfire risks. My buddy, Jasper, from the SAR had ended up stuck on a mountain in Colorado for a while during a wedding scavenger hunt, of all things, a few weeks ago.
Safety never took a break.
I’d laughed at him, but he’d walked out of it with a new girlfriend, Wren. She was a wildfire fighter who he was willing to lay it all on the line for.
It was rare that I ever took a step back and enjoyed what surrounded me. I guess I could learn something from Skye.
