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She eyed him, wondering how a guy who spent his life alone in the woods with a dog had such wisdom about human behavior. Maybe it was that wisdom that had led him to choose a life of forest-dwelling solitude.
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THERE WERE NO OGREShovering outside her hotel door, which made Wynona further doubt Craig’s harassment claims. She didn’t bother to go to his floor to check, though.
Instead, she hurried into the shower and then let the hot water warm her chilled bones.
She might have stayed in there for hours if she hadn’t realized that she finally had time to chat with Wolfgang. Oh, how great it would feel, how relaxing and fun it would be to talk to him.
She put on her PJs and climbed under the covers before messaging him. “Are you awake?” She waited for a long time, staring at the app before opening Tetris. She had intended to only play until she got a response, but she played for so long that her fingers started to feel numb from holding her phone up.
Maybe she wasn’t going to get a response.
She closed Tetris and rolled over. She opened Date Out, hoping that it had failed to notify her, but no, Wolfgang hadn’t answered her. This was disappointing, but she didn’t take it personally. He was probably asleep. “I guess you’ve already gone to bed. Message me later.” She added a smiley face and hit send. She was setting her phone down when it chimed. Excited, she picked it up to read, “Do you live in South Dakota?”
Huh? That was a weird question. And kind of abrupt. Was the app malfunctioning? Had he sent an earlier message that hadn’t gone through? While she was trying to figure out if she should blame the app or accept that Wolfgang had just been a little rude, he typed, “Are you trying to figure out a way to dodge the question?”
Wow, he was salty this morning!
“No, not at all,” she sent. Then, “I was born and raised in Pine Ridge, but my living situation right now is complicated.”
“That’s what I thought,” he wrote back quickly. “I don’t do complicated. I wish you the best, but I’m out.”
She stared at the phone disbelievingly.What?She started to type something and then deleted it. She was speechless.
She was also angry.
What bee had gotten in his bonnet?
He’d always been so sweet. So kind. So gentle-spirited. No way that had all been an act. Maybe he had multiple personalities. If so, she really didn’t like this one.
She put the phone down without saying anything. She knew there was a different message lurking behind the one he’d sent, and because she didn’t know what that message was, she didn’t know how to respond to it.
With behavior like that, he didn’t deserve a response, anyway. Sometimes silence was the classiest response.
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IT HAD TAKEN WYNONAa long time to fall asleep, but once she had, she slept like a milk-drunk baby sloth.
She slept through her first two alarms, but the third one was the charm, and she got up quickly, feeling motivated to do it all again. As she did every evening, she checked her weather app to see if temps were likely to drop below freezing that night. The app was always a little off, as they didn’t predict conditions a couple thousand feetaboveHill City, but they were close.
Oh wow. Tonight would be okay, but tomorrow, temperatures were predicted toplummet.
It was going to be unseasonably cold in the Black Hills tomorrow night. There was even a frost warning for the area.
They were running out of time.
She did not understand why they had to close archery season if all the toads were hibernating.
She tried not to think about Wolfgang as she got ready for the night, but he kept peeking out at her between other thoughts. She tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt, but she knew it was all a big fake out. She would have to deal with these feelings eventually.
After the toads.
After she was done dealing with Tucker.
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NEW FACES GREETED HERat the trailhead. She looked at Tucker, silently asking for an explanation.
