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“Do you ski? Bike?”
She shrugged. “I ski, but it’s not really my thing. I like it once I get up on the hill and it’s so quiet. But you have to get through so many crowds and lines to get up to the quiet part. My first love is hiking. I can be alone. Clear my head. It’s peaceful.”
Gabe felt his heart thump dangerously at her words, but mostly it was the faraway expression on her face. “I know you don’t climb. Are you into camping?”
“Not really. My dad isn’t outdoorsy. I never really had anyone to go with.”
“We could go sometime.”
Her cheeks went immediately pink. Her gaze dipped to her plate. “Maybe.”
“It?
??s a lot like hiking, except you don’t have to go back to the real world within a couple of hours. And we’ve got so many great secluded sites close by. There’s no reason to go to a campground, unless you like a lot of neighbors with generators and RVs. The key is to ask a ranger on your way into a park. They can point you to great flat sites that are near a creek or have a view.”
“It sounds nice,” she said.
“I’ve got a ton of gear. You want to try it? Separate tents, of course.”
Her pink cheeks went red. She set down her fork. “Gabe, I meant it when I said you were sweet. You are. But you don’t have to feel sorry for me. I have great friends. I’m doing okay. You don’t need to take me in. I’ve just never had a real lover, that’s all.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you! Okay, I felt a little sorry for you today, because I knew you’d be hungover and maybe mortified—”
“Maybe,” she scoffed.
“But...can I be honest?” Her flat mouth told him what she thought of that question. “When I met you, I thought you were someone else. Some high-maintenance city girl who’d sneer at a pair of hiking boots unless they were Burberry.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. “I passed as a high-maintenance Manhattan girl?”
“Yes.” He gestured toward her plate. “Until you ordered an enchilada platter bigger than mine.”
She growled, “Shut up. I needed it.”
“I know you did. I’m just saying that you’re nothing like I thought you were. You’re funny and smart and down-to-earth. And I like the way you get shy sometimes.”
“Oh.” She was blushing again.
“And you’re beautiful, of course.”
“You don’t have to say that, Gabe.”
He drew his chin in in shock. “I’m not just saying that.”
“I can pull off cute on a good day. That’s it.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
She nodded, then carefully chewed a bite of enchilada Suiza before setting her fork down again. “I’m not good at graciously accepting compliments. You can add that to your impressions of me.”
“Not like me,” Gabe said. “When you said I was gorgeous, I just accepted that you knew what you were talking about.”
“You’re never going to drop that,” she moaned.
“Never. Will you go out with me?”
She glanced around, her eyes darting from him to the table next to him and then the front door. “Go where?”
“We could go for an evening hike sometime. Or we could go to dinner.” He waited until she met his gaze again. “We could count this.”
