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He shrugged. “I’ll be okay for a few hours. Let’s get to Denver, and we can pull off for the night.”
“Denver? That’s…” She trailed off and grabbed her phone and tapped in the city from their current location. “Six hours?”
“We have time to make up.”
“Are you sure?”
“That will take us to midnight. Then we’ll get up early and get moving again.”
“I need to get home, but you don’t need to kill yourself to get me there.”
“I know.” He smoothed his hand up her calf. “Now talk and keep me awake. Tell me about Winchester Falls.”
So she did. She dredged up any funny story she could remember about herself and Bells. The visitors who would stay at the Heron provided a few hours of conversation, and by the time they were well into Colorado, her voice was rough from the constant talking.
He was an intent listener. His questions were specific, and he didn’t sound bored. They finally lapsed into a comfortable silence with Metallica as their sound track. The man did love his Metallica.
Soon Boulder, Colorado filled the windshield. The backwash of the city glowed like hot coals under the cool blue of the Flatiron Mountains. She sat forward, both hands on the dash as the city grew closer and the mountains faded into the night.
He’d shaved a good half hour off the time that her maps program had professed, and it was midnight, as he’d predicted, when they pulled into a chain hotel. A shower and blissful sleep recharged them enough to power through Nebraska to Chicago and another night gone, with another five-hour stretch in a hotel bed.
Chicago was alive with a mix of morning and holiday traffic. White and gray buildings speared into the sky, and there was a surprising number of waterways through the city.
They stayed on 90 and hugged the topsides of Indiana and Ohio. It amazed her how fast they could fly through a state. Signs for Toledo, Ohio and Lake Erie drew out conversation again. It was late November, and the land was still fairly lush with greenery.
* * *
“ARE THE ADIRONDACKS like this?” He was honestly interested. The skyline was so different from Monterey.
“Winchester Falls isn’t nearly this citified. Where I live, on the outskirts, cabins carve out little niches in the trees. They’d rather blend in than stand out. Well, until you get to the resorts, anyway.”
“And the Heron?”
Her gaze slid back out the window. “Definitely more about the blending.”
“But you have a dock and all those acres on the lake.”
“Of course we do. Trails and more than enough boats to keep the travelers happy.”
“Sounds really great.”
“It is. Really great.”
The bright and shiny Kendall voice was on. The one she used to manage people. He really wasn’t a fan of that voice.
She turned back to him and patted his hand.
He searched her face for a moment but saw nothing other than the usual friendly eyes and quirky smile. Maybe he was just imagining how weird she got when he mentioned the Heron.
They took a break to gas up and filled a bag of junk food for his never-ending pit of a— Christ. What was she to him? He’d fallen in love with the woman in far too short a time. None of it made sense.
And yet it felt right.
Even with the end point of Winchester Falls, he didn’t know how to make Kendall line up into his plan. His plan had been blown to hell in the last three weeks.
He climbed into the truck, unable to stop the grin when he saw she had her notebook open again, her head bent over her phone as he looked up information.
What would it be like with her in a controlled atmosphere where there was a schedule and a life building? Would they lose this spark between them when the road wasn’t in front of them and a new town in their windshield?
