Chaos Theory (Nerds of Paradise #2)(34)

“It’s a relief to get that pack off,” Melody sighed, groaning as she let her backpack fall to the ground. “I thought I saw a warmer jacket in here earlier.”

“We’ll need to find firewood to start a fire. We’ll have to use the bottled water for now, but tomorrow we need to refill all the containers in the stream.”

“Stream?” Melody raised her eyebrows.

Will glanced up at her halfway through taking the multi-tool and a large bottle of water out of his backpack. “Didn’t you see it from the ridge? At the bottom of the valley?”

“I guess I was too busy trying to figure out where we were.”

She could see he didn’t like that answer, but at least he kept his mouth shut. It irritated her how he didn’t need words to lecture her, or even looks to communicate his disapproval. The man was an expert at disappointment.

Of course, he’d probably learned that from his dad.

The thought wasn’t at all comforting, but it shifted her mood from the edge of utter frustration with him to compassion.

“I’ll look for wood and kindling,” she said as she stretched her back.

Before she could move off, Will said, “Take your multi-tool with you.”

“My what?”

He held up what looked like a giant set of pliers with a dozen other blades and picks and things tucked into the handles.

“Oh, that cool thing.” She bent to rifle through her backpack until she found hers. “I noticed that earlier when we were doing inventory. It’s so cool.” She stood and started fiddling with it, pulling out a sawblade, a serrated-edge knife, and a can opener.

“It’s not a toy,” Will cautioned her. “And those blades are sharp.”

Melody folded all but the sawblade back into the handle. “Just because something is useful, doesn’t mean it’s not a really cool toy.”

Will let out a breath and half opened his mouth, then shook his head. “Don’t wander off,” he said instead.

They spend the next fifteen minutes searching for appropriate firewood. Fire safety was one of the things that had been driven into them the hardest during training, so Melody knew exactly what kind of dead wood to look for and how not to start a forest fire in the process. It was harder than she would have expected to find exactly the right logs to burn, but she figured she’d done okay when she brought her bounty back to their tiny camp and Will didn’t lecture her about her logs being too small or bringing the wrong kind of kindling.

“Put it right here and I’ll show you the best way to stack and start a fire,” he said.

“I know how—”

She stopped, sinking to a crouch and dumping her arm’s worth of firewood next to where Will had placed his. Actually, it might be kind of fun to see how he planned to teach poor, defenseless, fragile Melody how to light a fire.

“The most important element to building a good fire is making sure the flames will have enough air once they get going,” he told her. Everything about him was serious, from the set of his shoulders to the stern look in his eyes, but there was an excitement around him, a genuine enjoyment of what he was doing, that was more than enough for Melody to keep her mouth shut and let him lecture away. “Some people try to stack the wood up without leaving any room for air, but that’s not going to get you very far. You need to make a structure like this.”

He proceeded to build something almost like a teepee with the wood they’d collected, placing kindling around it just so, and lighting it with one of their waterproof matches. Melody sat back, crossing her legs, and just smiling at him as he narrated each step. Boy Scout Darling. She couldn’t get the name out of her head once it was there. Eagle Scout Darling, was more like it. Clearly, he loved every second of what he was doing. He might have insisted he was there to win the competition—and yeah, she believed that he believed that—but the fact of the matter was, Melody had finally discovered something that Will loved.

“We should look for edible plants out here,” she said half an hour later, as the sunlight was quickly fading, the temperature dropping, and water finally boiling in a tin kettle over their blazing fire. “I have my doubts about these freeze-dried meals.”

Will shook his head. “You can’t just go eating any old thing out in the wild. You’re as like as not to poison yourself.”

“I seriously doubt I would poison myself by eating the wrong plant,” she said with a lop-sided grin.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he insisted. “Overconfidence killed the cat.”

“I thought that was curiosity,” she chuckled. “And besides, I have a few college professors who would disagree with you about my ability to know which plants are edible and which are poison.”

“This isn’t an academic exercise.” He checked the kettle to see if the water was boiling yet. “And we’re not in a classroom.”

Melody couldn’t help but giggle. “Nature is the best classroom you can find.” And her master’s degree in botany was a teensy bit more than an academic exercise.

“Let’s not risk it,” Will said.

The only thing that kept Melody from some sort of teasing comeback was the genuine concern in his eyes. That and the fact that he had opted to sit next to her as they boiled water instead of across from her with the fire between them. They had enough fire between them without the crackling flames that were boiling their water. And it was just a matter of time before she burned him so badly by saving his hungry ass with a salad of wild greens. Because unlike him, she didn’t need to spend every waking moment proving herself.