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CHAPTERNINE
Gina slid the wrapped egg-and-sausage muffins into a semi-rigid container and secured the lid. She’d made them last night, then warmed them in the oven this morning, wrapped them, and placed them beside a long tube she’d also heated in the microwave. It held water, and it should keep their breakfast warm until they reached the pinnacle of their hike.
She smiled as she put the container in her square-bottom backpack. She hadn’t been hiking in a while. “Haven’t been on a date in a while either,” she murmured to herself. A flash of fear stole through her, but she turned to grab the single-serving bottles of orange juice she’d bought at the convenience store last night.
Blake had volunteered to bring the coffee, and Gina grabbed her plastic baggie of coffee-doctoring supplies, which included packets of real sugar-in-the-raw, as well as tiny tubs of creamer. She had a shaker of cinnamon and one of hazelnut syrup too, because her parents liked their coffee black as tar, and she couldn’t drink it like that.
With everything packed, she closed the top of her backpack and headed for the back door. Even her mother wasn’t awake yet, and Gina let her mind turn somber while she went around the back of the garage to her car.
Mama wasn’t dying any time soon. She’d just gotten older while Gina had been away, and she’d started losing some of her mental capacity. Ella had called last year and said she’d been diagnosed with the early stages of dementia, but she still had so many lucid moments. A great many. When Mama was tired or stressed, she forgot things, and a sense of sadness pulled through Gina.
It was hard watching her parents get older and realizing she’d missed a lot while she’d been away. In the car, she settled her pack in the backseat and then swiped to open her phone. She’d applied to a couple of apartments this week, and she wondered if anyone would ever get back to her. She had no new emails pertaining to the matter, and the text notification at the top of her screen only showed her that Blake was up and getting ready for their Saturday morning date.
She smiled again, laughed at the picture of his coffee pot filling and the caption of,I can’t believe it, but I’m up. This better be the most amazing hike in the world.
“It will be,” she said, sudden giddiness prancing through her. The Wolf Mountain trail was a loop, and they wouldn’t do the whole thing. It was something like six or seven miles, and she hadn’t been out in the wilderness much at all in the past decade.
She noted the change in herself as she got moving toward the Texas Longhorn Ranch, and she let her mind wander through the conversation they’d had at Blake’s house for lunch leading up to this morning.
Yes, she’d finally bitten at him after he’d asked for the second time if this hike would be classified as a date.It’s a date.
He’d grinned and grinned, clinked his grilled cheese sandwich against hers, and eaten. She couldn’t dislike him for wanting to know where he stood with her. He’d admitted things that were hard to say, especially for someone like him. The only person she knew who couldn’t express how they felt as bad as him was…her.
She had feelings for Blake. Real feelings, and she hadn’t told him. She probably should, and maybe today, on the wider parts of the trail, she’d slip her fingers into his and tell him without words. Admitting today’s hike was a date had probably clued him in too.
“Maybe,” she said, making the turn onto the ranch. Blake liked knowing specifics, and he needed a plan for most things. She understood why now that he ran the majority of the ranch by himself. He didn’t really, as he had a slew of siblings and some cousins living and working there too. But he had to oversee it all, and Longhorn wasn’t just a regular ranch. They were that, plus a tourist attraction, a hotel, a restaurant, and an entertainment venue. He had a right to want to know plans and definitions for things.
She pulled up to his house, her headlights cutting through the darkness and illuminating the front porch. His front door opened a moment later, and he exited wearing a pair of gym shorts, a T-shirt that had to belong to one of his younger brothers, and a backpack. He settled a ball cap on his head instead of his trademark cowboy hat, and Gina could only stare as he came springing down the steps.
“Hey,” he said as he opened the back passenger door. He put his backpack there and then got in the front seat. Or tried. He couldn’t fold his tall body into the seat as close as it was to the dashboard, and he groaned as he bent his back weird and straightened again. “This is so close to the front.”
“Sorry,” Gina said. “No one ever rides over there. Well, except for my niece and nephews, and they’re little.”
He moved it back, then got in the car. He looked at her, and asked, “Ella’s kids?”
“Yeah,” Gina said, struck by his handsomeness in these close quarters. She had half a mind to lean over and kiss him but stopped herself at the last moment. She squeezed the steering wheel too hard, but it didn’t budge. “Ready?”
“So ready,” he said, twisting to reach behind him. He pulled out a thermos of coffee and put it in her cupholder. “This is yours.”
“Thanks,” she said, putting the car in gear. Her brain buzzed at her, and her heartbeat trembled. “Listen, I wanted to tell you something today.”
“Before we even get there?” He chuckled and reached to buckle his seatbelt. “You didn’t say this was going to be a serious hike.”
“Did I sound serious?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You sounded like you might tell me my dog died while you were babysitting him.”
She looked at him, his smile so charming and so wide. “You have a dog?”
He laughed then and nodded. “What cowboy doesn’t own a dog?”
“I’m sure there are plenty,” Gina said.
“Yeah, well, Luke came from Chestnut, and Seth Johnson—you remember him?”
Gina nodded, because she remembered Seth. The Johnson family had been pillars in the Chestnut Springs area for years. They ran a ranch to the west of town, and her daddy had told her about Conrad’s accident. “I heard their daddy got hurt.”
“Yeah,” Blake said, his voice sobering. “Anyway, Seth runs a dog rescue operation at his ranch. Becks can’t keep herself away from animals, but Luke said she can’t have a billion dogs. So I took one a few months ago.”
