Love in the Vineyard (Tavonesi #7)(23)

He held her hand for longer than he needed to once he’d helped her from the Jeep. When he released her hand, the corner of his mouth turned up in a sexy, irresistible grin.

He brushed his arm across her shoulder as he reached in for the plastic tote bag she’d brought.

“You don’t want to carry this bulky thing up the trail,” he said, handing the bag to her. “The guidebook says it’s a moderately strenuous hike.”

He hauled a high-tech backpack from the back seat, unzipped it and motioned to the tote bag she clutched. “You can put anything you need for the hike in my pack.”

He eyed her attire. And she could’ve sworn she felt heat touch her as if he were brushing warmth along her body with his gaze.

“Do you have a jacket in there?” His grin faded and he looked all serious backwoods hiker. “It’s not the Alps, but I’m told the weather can change rapidly on this mountain, especially near the top.”

The balmy spring temperatures they’d had earlier in the week had dropped ten degrees. Not cold by East Coast standards, but there was a definite chill in the air. She reached into the tote bag and retrieved the windbreaker she’d bought at the thrift shop the day before. Down in the valley, the cotton T-shirt, shorts and zippered hoodie had seemed warm enough. Now she was glad she’d spent the five bucks on the windbreaker. She rolled up the jacket and handed it to him.

He stuffed her jacket into the pack along with water bottles and some granola bars, and then he pulled a guidebook out of the front zippered pocket. “I’ll have a look at our route while you change your shoes.”

“I’m wearing these.”

She’d bought the designer brand tennis shoes when she got the windbreaker. They were a bit snug, but none of the other shoes in the thrift store fit at all. She could’ve worn her work boots, but they were too heavy for walking.

“Let me see the bottoms.”

She turned the sole of one foot up to face him.

“Those could be slippery. There could be hardscrabble on the trails.”

“Scrabble?” She stifled a giggle at the absurd image of people setting up game boards in the woods. Clearly her nerves were getting away with her, as was her imagination. “Do you mean scree?”

“If that means loose rocks, then yes.” He pressed his lips together. “Maybe we should just go back and take the short path at Meadow Wood. I’ve been on it; it’s flat and manicured.”

“I’m not a sissy.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t implying you are. But I do apologize—I realize that perhaps I didn’t prepare you sufficiently for this outing.”

Sometimes his formal English made her smile inwardly. And his accent made the simplest of sentences sound intriguing. But it was the deep gazes he held her with that sent shivers into her core. He couldn’t have sufficiently prepared her for this outing if he’d wanted to.

“I should’ve told you it’s a bit over four miles.”

“Four miles isn’t so far.” She walked two miles on the weekends around the local park.

“Four miles one way. The elevation gain is only six hundred meters, but there are some pretty steep switchbacks.”

Now he was speaking a foreign language. Switchbacks and elevation gain? She tried to remember how many meters there were in a mile.

“We can always go a short way and turn around,” he said gently.

He seemed to be able to read her thoughts. Or her face perhaps.

“I’ll be fine. It’s not like we need pickaxes or anything.”

“I’m hoping not.” But his grin didn’t reach his eyes. He was still surveying her tennis shoes.

When she didn’t say anything else, he shrugged and slung the pack onto his back.

She was in the woods with a man. And she was one hundred percent out of her element. She sucked in a breath, inhaling the aroma of the forest of evergreens stretching a shady canopy over their heads. A knot of tension that had clenched around her ribs loosened as they walked in the dappled light to the trailhead.

They stopped in front of a sign with park information. He traced a finger along the bright red ribbon of color marking the trail.

“If we make it to the top, we’ll see Mount Tamalpais to the south and Mount Diablo to the east. It’s clear enough today, so we might even see the Sierra Crest and Mount Lassen. I’ve heard people say you occasionally can see Mount Shasta almost two hundred miles to the north.”

She heard the anticipation in his voice and vowed she’d make it to the top; she wasn’t about to be the reason he didn’t get to accomplish what he’d set out to do. And she’d never seen such a perspective. She’d come across the country on a bus. If she’d flown she might’ve had a better sense of the terrain, but back in those days flying wasn’t in her budget. Wasn’t now either. But she imagined taking Tyler on a plane. He’d love it. She resolved to save money from her new job and treat him to one of the local plane tours for his birthday.

Next to the map, a dense block of text surrounded a photo of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife. The couple had that old-fashioned stern look that early photographs always seemed to capture.

Adrian consulted a pocket-sized guidebook he’d pulled from his pack. “It says here that in the 1880s, Stevenson and his wife spent their honeymoon at an abandoned bunkhouse of an old mining camp. It’s gone now, but there’s a marker farther up the trail.” He turned to her. “I’ve read some of his accounts of that time. Imagine living for two months with makeshift cloth windows and having to haul water in by hand.”