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“We can buy some jerky or something.”
“You might be able to subsist on pie and jerky all day, but it takes more than that to fuel this machine.”
“You get hangry?”
“Big time. And trust me, you do not want to witness that.”
She laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? All right. We can eat dinner before—” She stopped midsentence and pointed out the window. “Ooh, a farmer’s market.”
He groaned. “Oh, man.”
“Look on the bright side,” she said. “They have food.”
She took no less than one million pictures of anything and everything at the market, but didn’t actually buy much. One of the few things she did buy was totally impractical for a road trip.
“Why are you buying flowers?” Noah asked. “What are you going to do with them?”
“Enjoy them.” She stuck her nose in the bouquet and inhaled deeply. “Wanna smell?”
“No, thanks. We don’t have a vase. Where ya gonna put ’em?”
“Oh, Noah. Sometimes you just gotta live in the moment. Enjoy the now. Stop and smell the roses, as they say.” With that, she broke the stem of a pink carnation and placed it behind her ear.
He shook his head. Not his battle. What did he care if she wasted twenty bucks on flowers that would die within a day? She’d been right about the food. The fried chicken was some of the best he’d ever tasted.
After a jaunt through the booths, she decided on their next move.
“Let’s head east and find a lighthouse.”
“We just drove over a hundred miles west! Now you want to head east?”
“I forgot I wanted to see a lighthouse.”
Why did he get the impression she’d done this on purpose? Just to irritate him.
He grumbled. “Let’s go.” It was only the first day, and he was already counting down the hours until this job was done.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t like this any more than you do. Probably less. Why don’t I drop you at the nearest bus station, and we’ll tell my dad it just didn’t work out.”
The offer was tempting. Very tempting. He highly doubted Daisy was in any real danger. She was right about people making baseless threats all the time. Especially online, where there were rarely consequences for shooting your mouth off.
But he’d given his word. And on the off chance that someonewasafter her, he’d agreed to keep her safe.
“Sorry,” he said. “I made a deal with your dad. You’re stuck with me.”
“You seemed a lot cooler when you were just some mystery Superman,” she grumbled and returned to her phone.
He searched his map app for the nearest lighthouse and set the GPS to Nags Head. They arrived at dusk.
“Oh, it’s so pretty,” Daisy said, jumping out of the car and immediately taking pictures. Of course. “Come on. Let’s climb it.”
“Don’t you have to have tickets or something?” he asked.
“No idea. Let’s find out,” she said, running off to the little booth next to the lighthouse. He had eyes on her, but quickened his pace anyway. She was more apt to break an ankle running in those clunky high-heeled sandals than be hurt or killed in broad daylight. Either way, he should stay close.
“Shoot.” She returned breathless. “We do need tickets, and they’re all sold out for today. We can wait around for someone to be a no-show, or come back bright and early tomorrow.”
He shrugged. “Is the entire trip going to be like this? Nothing planned? No itinerary?”
