Chaos Theory (Nerds of Paradise #2)(66)
Melody laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Please tell me they don’t have cameras set up to track us like a reality show.”
“No, just dots on a digital map.”
“Good,” Will said with such finality that Melody laughed harder.
“Why?” Jonathan asked, his glance shifting between the two of them. His grin grew. “There’s not anything going on that you wouldn’t want everyone to know about, is there?”
“No,” Melody and Will answered at the same time.
“Right.” Jonathan handed over one more package of dry socks, then turned and started away. “We’ll still come and get you if you need it,” he said.
“Thanks.” Melody waved after him. She blinked when she noticed the ATV parked near the edge of the woods. They must have been close to the finish line if Jonathan was coming out to them on wheels instead of in the air.
She and Will turned, ready to head back into the forest. They stopped when Jonathan called out, “Oh, one more thing.”
“Yeah?” Melody said, turning back.
Jonathan’s brow knit in confusion before he said, “Will, your dad just showed up at the resort.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jonathan’s news hit Will like a fist in the gut.
“My dad? At the finish line?” He took a step forward, not sure if he wanted to stop Jonathan to get more information or not.
“Yeah,” Jonathan called back. “He wanted me to drag your ass back with me, but something told me you wouldn’t like that much.” He winked rakishly at Melody.
Will didn’t have any spare brain cells left to feel jealous. He was too filled with rage. Who did his dad think he was to show up in Wyoming and try to have him pulled out of a competition that meant something to him?
On second thought, he already knew the answer to that question.
He nodded and waved goodbye to Jonathan, then turned and started off into the woods, more determined than ever to win. The sound of the ATV revving, then driving away, was the only indication he had that Jonathan was gone. Seconds later, the swishing of Melody’s footsteps through the undergrowth as she caught up with him let him know he wasn’t alone. He slowed his march. Frustrated as he was, he shouldn’t be charging away when Melody’s ankle was still questionable.
“You can handle this,” she said when she matched her pace to his, walking beside him. “He’s just a man, and he’s not here.”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
“Let’s concentrate on the race,” Melody went on. She broke into a typical Melody smile, sunshine in the middle of the rain. “It’s just us and Katrina and Ed. We can totally win this thing.”
That. That was the thing that had been missing from so much of his life. That beam of positivity just when everything was looking bleak. Melody’s support was the thing he’d been longing for, the thing with the potential to tip the balance in the struggle he’d been living since he was a kid.
“We can.” He forced himself to smile, to look at her instead of keeping his eyes glued to the forest floor in front of him. “We can and we will win this.”
It was easier said than done. The rain continued through the rest of the afternoon. It never pounded down, but the incessant mist was bad enough. At one point, the patter of the rain on the leaves above and below them seemed to be hiding a different sound.
They were halfway down the ridge, just coming around a pile of boulders, when Will heard talking. He held up his hand to stop Melody.
“What is it?” she whispered.
Will pressed a finger to his lips and peered around the rocks. Sure enough, dozens of yards down the hill, but still visible through the trees, were Ed and Katrina. They were too far away to hear the substance of their conversation, but whatever they were saying to each other, it was in harsh, angry voices.
Melody slid up to his side, searching in the direction he was pointing. She hummed, lips pressed tightly together, a scowl knitting her brow. “Looks like trouble in paradise for them.”
“Cheaters tend not to be the kind of people that get along with everyone all the time,” Will murmured back. Not like Melody.
“What do we do?” Melody inched closer to him.
Will rubbed a hand across the bottom half of his face and thought about it. “Technically, they’re ahead of us. But they don’t seem to be moving fast. We should try to get around them without being seen.”
“Which means keeping to the high ground,” Melody added. “In more ways than one.”
Will nodded. “How quietly can you move with that ankle?”
“As quietly as you need me to.”
He grinned. His confidence swelled. They were totally going to win this thing as long as they stuck to that kind of attitude.
As Ed and Katrina argued below, he scanned the ridge, looking for the swiftest, most concealed path onward. When he figured it out as best he could, he nodded for Melody to follow him. The two of them slunk through the bushes and rocky outcroppings higher on the ridge, moving as fast as they could without drawing attention. It was slow, painful going. Both Will and Melody kept checking over their shoulders to be sure they hadn’t been seen.
It was an hour before they figured they were safe. By then, the afternoon light was already beginning to fade, and evening was setting in. Will’s thoughts started to drift away from their competition and back to what waited for them at the finish line. It didn’t take all his degrees and experience to figure out why his dad was there. NASA must have made an offer. Dad would be there with the “good news.” Will couldn’t hide a grim, humorless smile as he crept on through the forest. It’d been easy to side-step Ed and Katrina, but his dad was a much bigger obstacle. One that he wasn’t going to be able to avoid much longer.