Chaos Theory (Nerds of Paradise #2)(42)

Will felt its reverberations deep in his chest. He frowned over the feeling, not because he was feeling it, but because his reaction to Melody hadn’t started in his dick. He wasn’t sure what to do about that. Not that he was sure what to do about anything where Melody was concern—

“Wait, rain?” He blinked himself back to attention, turning to look at her as they walked.

“Yeah.” She glanced up.

Sure enough, the clouds overhead had thickened. Come to think of it, there was a distinct dampness in the air. Rain was on the way. And here Will had thought Wyoming was arid.

“Did you ever camp in the rain?” Melody asked.

“Yes.” He sighed. Looks like he was going to get to repeat that experience. “I remember one Boy Scout trip in particular where it poured.”

“Oh?”

He should have resisted her prompting for the whole story, but he couldn’t. “Dad was one of the chaperones for that trip. I’ll never forget the way he yelled and yelled at everyone. He had one kid in tears.”

The sudden memory of that trip hit him so hard that he pressed his lips together, immediately done with the telling.

Melody watched him, waiting for the rest of the story for several yards. Then her amused smile faded. “Your dad was a real prick, wasn’t he?”

Will opened his mouth to tell her no, he just held people to high standards and expected the most from his children, but the words didn’t come out. He kept his eyes straight forward, taking in the deep greens and browns of the forest, filling his lungs with woodsy air and the scent of coming rain. He even focused his attention on the damp, squishing feeling of his still-wet boots. But there was no escaping the truth.

“He still is,” he muttered, then picked up his pace as if he could flee from his moment of disloyalty.

Melody sped up with him, keeping right behind him as they navigated a scattering of boulders. He waited for her to say something, to point out how a son shouldn’t be saying that about his own father, or egging him on to even greater insults. But for once, Melody remained quiet.

Eventually, fat drops of rain began to tumble out of the sky.

“Ugh,” Melody grunted. “Just when my boots were starting to dry out.”

Will stopped walking and blinked up into the raindrops. “It’s not too bad yet.”

Melody caught up to his side, breathing heavily enough that he kicked himself for pushing her. “What’s this? Optimism from my Darling Clementine?”

He pivoted to look at her, one eyebrow raised. “Darling Clementine isn’t any better than plain Darling.”

She laughed with that low, throaty sound he would forever associate with her. “I kind of like it.”

“Just don’t start calling me Clementine.”

She laughed even harder. “I like that even more.”

Will shook his head—which was feeling uncharacteristically light—and went back to surveying the area where they’d stopped. “Feel like testing out your lean-to skills?”

Melody gasped. “Yes! Absolutely.”

He reached to undo the buckle of the straps stabilizing his backpack. “Okay. Look around for small logs or saplings or branches we can use to build this thing.”

“I’m on it.”

Melody climbed out of her backpack and set it on the ground, fished out her multi-tool, then marched off, looking for branches. “Stuff like this?” she asked, moving to pick up a thick, fallen branch.

Will straightened from his own pack to see. It didn’t matter that the afternoon had turned gloomy and damp, or that she was dirty and smudged from hiking all day, Melody was a ray of sunshine in the middle of the forest. It took him a second to remember he was supposed to be assessing the branch, not her.

“Yeah, that looks great,” he said, then cleared his throat. Concentrate, he told himself.

In the end, it took way too long, in Will’s opinion, to build a shelter that was hardly adequate to keep them dry once the rain picked up.

“It’s not bad,” Melody insisted as they lugged their half-soaked backpacks under the lopsided shelter. “At least all those branches are keeping the rain out.”

“For now.”

Will took one last long, hard look at their shelter. It was as simple a design as they could throw together. They’d found two logs that were big enough to use as posts. He’d dug holes to secure those in the ground, found another big branch for a crossbeam, then rested a dozen long branches against that. Melody was right about the copious amount of pine branches they’d been able to find or cut down being their saving grace. They’d even set up a pile of the remaining building materials to be lit for their campfire.

“It would be nice if we could build a bigger fire without running the risk of burning the whole thing down,” Will said once he was sitting cross-legged under the sloping roof.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, right?” Melody said. She’d already taken the pads and sleeping bags out of both of their packs and build a cozy little bed in the back of the shelter. A single, cozy little bed.

Will eyed it warily. “We’re bundling up together tonight, aren’t we?” he asked, unsure if he should fight against it or offer to sleep out in the rain.

“Yep,” she answered with a victorious grin. At least she didn’t harp on the point. “You know as well as I do, Clementine, that we’ll have a much better chance of staying warm and dry if we snuggle.”