Something Wilder(28)

Bradley let out a quiet laugh beside him, nudged him in the ribs. “You okay there?”

“You could do it one day, Walt,” Nicole said. “You’d need a good guide, but it’s not impossible. Look at you and Dynamite. Bet you never thought you’d be out here riding like a real cowboy, either.”

Walter was still anxiously studying the Maze.

Lily turned back to a stretch of dirt behind them. “We’re going to set up camp over there. But first.” She turned to a supply crate that had been left ahead and dug inside, pulling out a small wooden box. “While Nic and I feed and water the horses, I want you to work on this together. You’re gonna need what’s inside here if you want to eat.”

Walt stared at the tiny box in her hand. “Our dinner is in there?”

Terry rolled his eyes. “Yes, Walter, she’s planning to feed us pellets that expand into real food in our stomachs.”

“Cool,” Walt murmured, excited.

Leo tipped Walt’s hat over his eyes. “I think she means there’s a key or something inside.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Without looking at him, Lily handed Leo the box. “The key to tonight’s dinner box is in here. But it’s pretty tricky, so get to work.”

Bradley already looked smug. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Lily, but that slide puzzle the other day was just the tip of the iceberg. Our Leo here can figure out anything.”

“I’ve locked myself out of my apartment four times, and Leo always got me in,” Walter agreed.

Leo straightened, heating self-consciously under Lily’s quiet focus. “You should see me play Tetris,” he joked awkwardly.

Her brows rose in amusement. “I bet it’s fascinating.”

“Riveting.” A tender green vine of infatuation wound its way through his ribs and squeezed. He swiped absently at his chest, as if he could bat it away. Lily was gorgeous and whip-smart and even more capable than she’d been all those years ago, but he knew better than anyone that their lives were puzzle pieces cut from two different pictures.

But as she let her gaze linger on him for a beat longer, the vine squeezed again, harder now.

She nodded to the box in his hands. “Well, good. Because I mean it when I say you won’t eat tonight until you’ve got it out.”



* * *



“I really hate you.” Leo glared at Bradley across the wooden puzzle they’d been working on for nearly half an hour.

“Can we just agree ahead of time to do the dinner dishes to earn the key?” Walter called out to the guides. “My stomach is eating itself.”

“Oh, sugar, you’re doing the dishes, too,” Nicole told him, smiling sweetly.

“If you would just focus,” Bradley hissed. “We have to be getting close.”

Close was meaningless. The puzzle box was only about six inches by six inches and made of wooden planks with a small maze inlaid into the surface of each one. Each maze contained a pin, and the object was to figure out how to slide each pin so its corresponding plank could be removed. The problem was that they had to work together to get every pin into its correct position, and even though Leo could see exactly how it had to be done, with three of their big hands stuffed into the tiny space it was challenging. After more than six hours in the saddle and with the proximity of dinner making their stomachs rumble, challenging became an understatement.

Which, he realized, was the point.

The upside, at least, was that with only the three of them, they were working relatively well together; Terry had gone off on his own, doing who knew what.

“What are you going to do about…” Bradley trailed off, tilting his chin to where Lily and Nicole were off checking on the horses. “I’ve known you for thirteen years and never once seen you look at a woman like that.”

With a dry laugh, Leo told him, “I don’t think that’s going to be the vibe between us this week.”

“What are you talking about? You two were up for a while the other night. Stars, campfire, tents. The scene writes itself.”

“We were just clearing the air.” He shook his head. “She never got any of my messages. She didn’t know about Mom. She thought I just left and forgot about her.”

“Poor Lily,” Walt said.

Bradley waved this off. “You can’t talk about your mom dying if you’re trying to score. You have no game, Leo.”

Leo reached over to free one of Walt’s fingers from where it’d gotten stuck. “She lives in Utah, I’m in New York. If you drew a Venn diagram of our lives, the circles wouldn’t touch.”

“I’m not talking about holding a commitment ceremony out here,” Bradley said. “Just a little fun.”

“It would be… complicated.”

He looked around to make sure Lily and Nicole were truly out of earshot. “We could ask Nicole to take us on a walk tomorrow morning so you and Lily can play a little butter-the-biscuit.”

“Bradley.”

“Clean the carpet. Check the oil. Ride the flagpole.”

“I understood the biscuit metaphor.” Leo held a pin with his index finger and reached around the box to push another with his thumb. “I’m just ignoring you.”