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She smiles, pleased. “Sorry, hearing you say cuckoo was just too entertaining.”
“Clock!” I say. “A clock sings cuckoo and has hands that move but can’t hold stuff.”
“Is there a famous clock in Jackson Hole?” she asks, already looking up the info on her phone. She turns the screen to me. “A clock tower in town.” She looks down the road. “How should we get there?”
“Walk? We, contrary to the tower, can, and it’s only about a mile.”
She hooks her thumbs in the straps of her backpack and says, “Let’s do it.”
Blake sets a brisk pace and I fall into step next to her, studying her beautiful face. In the warm morning air, her cheeks are flushed and her lips are parted, giving the impression she’s out of breath. Is it from walking or something else?
A million thoughts run through my head about what might happen later today if I get her to lower her walls.
“You’re staring,” she chides.
“Just enjoying the view.” I laugh and force myself to focus on the road as we get closer to town.
It doesn’t take us long to locate the clock tower. It’s a tall stone-and-wood structure with a small courtyard around it.
Blake stops in its long shadow. “Do you think we have to get to the top for the next clue?”
I stare at the clock silhouetted against the blue, cloudless sky. “I’m not even sure it’s open to the public. Let’s circle the building first.”
Blake nods, and we loop around the tower in opposite directions.
We meet again in front of a red balloon tied to a low bush and holding another clue.
I gesture to it. “I’ll let you do the honors.”
She frees the balloon with a teasing grin. “You’re just afraid there’ll be another ridiculous word for you to read aloud.”
“Nope, because you’re reading.”
Blake sighs but unrolls the parchment all the same. “Think of a country you would go just for the SAKE of it. No, it’s not yet time to eat, so don’t cheat. Come meet me on Cache Street.”
I stare at the map app on my phone. “Cache Street is that way.”
“All right, let’s go. We can figure out the riddle on the way.”
As we walk down the road, Blake keeps checking the parchment to solve the riddle. “Think of a country you would go just for the SAKE of it… Sake of it…” Blake says, quietly pondering.
“Not sake, but saké! We need to find a Japanese restaurant.”
We find another red balloon waiting for us tied to a street sign right in front of the restaurant.
She takes it and groans. “It’s another riddle. How many of these do we have to solve?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I have no clue?”
“Oh, I see what you did there.”
“Read on, Sherlock.”
She unfolds the paper and recites, “Where does a king go to get his crown replaced? You don’t have to come in. Don’t look so disgraced, under the stoop I am placed.” Blake sighs. “So it’s definitely somewhere hateful.”
“Where kings go to replace their crowns? A jeweler shop?”
“No, too obvious. Either king or crown must mean something different.”
