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“Did your brother leave?” I asked, doing my best to scan the home and see into the kitchen to make sure we were alone.
Corbin frowned. “Yes. He has things to do.”
At any other time, I would have overanalyzed his frown and worried for the next ten years while I pieced together its meaning, but right then I only cared that his obnoxious twin left. If being alone together made Corbin upset, I’d deal with it if I didn’t have to listen to his brother’s sardonic comments.
Cyrus seemed like a nice enough guy, but he obviously tried too hard. Corbin might be on the gruff side to people, but I appreciated his honesty. He didn’t wear emotions on his sleeve for the world to see, but you uncovered them piece by piece. The reward was worth the effort. I trusted Corbin, even though I’d only known him a few days.
And even if our first meeting was less than ideal when he looked me in the eye and promised to keep me safe, I trusted him all the way to my soul. It was unexplainable, but I didn’t plan to question it.
“Are you ready to go to on a treasure hunt?” Corbin asked, already walking to the kitchen.
I followed along because that’s what I did most often. Follow Corbin. “How do you know I buried it?”
He turned, giving me a look that, quite frankly, said I was a moron for questioning him. “I’m observant, babe.”
Damn. I thought I had been slick in how I’d hidden the thumb drive. I’d even driven around the block a few times and made a couple passes through the town to put anyone off my tail.
I stared at him, our movements frozen as my stomach twisted. Did he notice the way he affected me? The way my body instinctively moved closer to his? How the cocky smirk of his, which I’d hate in any other person in the entire world, made me swoony?
I wanted to nod my head and agree with whatever Corbin said and then promise to follow him anywhere.
But that was not something I did. Men were cool, but I would not change my entire life for one. Deborah in accounting met a man online who she fell hopelessly in love with. They were married three months later and then three months after, he cleaned out her bank account and left her. When I fell hopelessly in love, I planned to do it with my brain attached.
Plus, it wasn’t like I had time for romantic thoughts. Corbin was only here because he took pity on me since someone wanted to put a bullet through my head. I was officially on the run. As in, I might die tomorrow. Even tonight’s dinner was iffy.
On the other hand, thoughts of death were sobering and macabre.
I had to live a little. Time was literally running out. Right?
My thoughts made me sound like a deranged person, but I always did the same thing—what everyone expected of me. I showed up to work on time, got my work done before my deadlines, and didn’t murder Bob. The man shared a cubicle wall with me and talked too loudly, typed too loudly, and clipped his toenails after lunch in his cubical. I swear once I had a toenail scale the wall and land a foot from my trash can.
What did those careful calculations get me?
A boring life with too much Netflix and no boyfriends. In college I kept a diary, but since graduation my life become so mundane I had nothing to write about. I’d given up the practice years ago.
But that didn’t mean Corbin was the man for me. Sure, I found him exuberant and hot, but he might not feel the same. I didn’t even know if he liked me as a person?
“Babe?”
I glanced up, startled by his comment, and found him staring at me with that smirk, which made me want to kiss him. And a couple of other things.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Did you hear me?”
I scanned the kitchen, my gaze stopping on the refrigerator, the tile floor, and the little lace curtains on the back door, which definitely did not fit Corbin or his brother Cyrus. It was like an eighty-year-old woman put them up after buying them from a catalog.
“So, no,” he said, shaking his head and opening the door. He waited until I stepped outside.
His arrogance annoyed me. It wasn’t the sexy turn-on like I normally found it. I didn’t like being laughed at and I had a feeling that’s exactly what he did.
“Excuse me. I have a lot of my mind right now. Like not being murdered. What did you say?” I asked.
His eyes widened, but he shut the door and met me on the little porch. “I asked if you went to the cabins or the church. Which trailhead did you bury the thumb drive at?”
“Oh.” if that’s what he wanted to know, he only had to ask. “The one by the cute little church.”
“Okay,” he said, grabbing the small shovel off of the porch, which I swear was not there the night before. “Let’s go digging.”
