Need You for Always (Heroes of St. Helena)(30)
“Thank you for your concern,” he said, leaning against a nearby picnic table. “We could have talked about this, say, a few hours ago when I was sitting alone at my table, reading the instructions for how to microwave my made-fresh meal.”
She hit the rock again and a spark the size of a flea ignited, then fizzled in the wind. She swore, then commanded the wet twigs she was calling kindling to combust. When that didn’t work, she narrowed her gaze—at him. “What did you expect me to do? Feed you?”
“Depends.” He smiled, and man, she was cute when she was flustered. And she was flustered all right—he could almost see her feathers ruffling when he gifted her with a wink. “Would you be wearing that skirt?”
“Yup.” She waved her blade in the general direction of his boys. “And my knife.”
She was crazy. Crazy and bossy and so damn adorable he found himself shrugging. “I’m pretty good with knives, better with lace, and a ninja at stoking up fire.” He pushed off the table and walked closer to the pit, studying her piss-poor excuse for a tinder ball. “Need help?”
The look on her face said she’d rather singe off her dominant hand than admit she needed help from him. With anything. Which was really a shame because Dax was having fun. And that restless feeling that had been suffocating him all week was gone, replaced with a lightness that he could only attribute to excitement.
“You just admitted you can’t work a microwave,” she pointed out.
“And you just waved your knife in my face, which in my world is a call to arms.”
She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even meet his gaze, but still managed to project that screw off vibe that had him grinning.
He leaned in, getting close enough that he could smell her shampoo, close enough that he could feel her heat seep through his clothes, and whispered, “Don’t worry, Emi, you’re safe. I don’t want to shock you with the size and heft of my combat-ready blade.”
She swatted him away like a pesky bug and went back to striking her flint—and ignoring him. Three more failed attempts and she glanced to her right, so Dax leaned over her shoulder too, grinning when he saw a wilderness survival book. It was opened to a picture of a mother and child making a fire. Below the diagram was a list of what one should have on hand in their pack. Dax wanted to point out that matches and a lighter should be at the top of the list, but refrained.
“We had a deal,” he said, taking the top sticks off of her pile and restacking them to make a proper pyramid. “I didn’t order takeout. And what’s up with not returning my calls?”
Emerson looked up at him and worried her lower lip—she had amazing lips. “I’m not avoiding you,” she said and he lifted a single brow on that lie. “Okay. I am avoiding you. But not for the reasons you probably think.”
“Then you’re not avoiding me because of that kiss?”
“Okay, so it is just what you think. But it’s also because my week went from crazy to insane,” she admitted begrudgingly, smacking his hand away when he tried to discard some of the wetter wood shavings. “I was going to return your calls today.”
He could have called her on that lie too, except the way she emphasized the plural made him feel like he needed to get a life. One that didn’t include playing cloak-and-dagger with the crazy cute girl. “What if I was calling you to say I was lactose intolerant?”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “You’re a man, you’d never admit that.”
“I would if it were a deathly allergy.”
She paused, giving him all of her attention, and even though he knew she was messing with him, he still felt himself falling into those emerald-green pools. “Is that why you were calling? To tell me milk hurts your belly?”
He scoffed. “No, I was calling to ask you for a ride to PT today.”
Her expression went soft, then flooded with guilt, and suddenly Dax felt like a jerk. “I know I said I’d give you a ride, but I can’t today. I have to learn how to make fire, then help my sister with a diorama on the three-toed sloth, and I still have to prep for tomorrow, all before I turn into a pumpkin.”
The strain in her shoulders and the exhaustion beneath her eyes said she was telling the truth. His little army of one needed a break. Yet instead of offering her some creative recreational ideas for how to blow off steam, the go-to for him in these situations, Dax found himself reaching for the bright blue rucksack at her feet.
He looked at the zipper, knew that opening it would be willingly following her down her rabbit hole of crazy, and hesitated. Dax could make fire with a candy wrapper and a ray of sun while cuffed and held at gunpoint—in a blizzard.
That wasn’t the problem.
Making fire would be stepping into the role of hero, and he’d long ago given up that title. But something about the determined set of her jaw, the way her tired hands continued to strike the knife even though he knew she’d never get that wet tinder lit, had him unzipping the bag.
It wasn’t like he was saving an orphanage of children from armed rebels. He was lighting a barbecue, for Christ’s sake. Nothing that would require gratitude past a hot little kiss.
“I can reschedule for tomorrow,” he said, digging past the flashy camping gear to locate the useful tools in about two seconds flat. He grabbed the flashlight, its battery, and a piece of steel wool, and tossed the rest of the useless weight to the ground. “Maybe after dinner.”