Something Wilder(43)

“Right,” he agreed. “But then, ‘You hate to go, but you will.’ What could that one be?”

Lily shook her head in confusion. “If he wrote this for one of his friends, it might be an inside joke, and we’d have no way of knowing.”

“Unless it’s to lead anyone who finds this to Butch’s hiding spot. It could be universal.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay, so then what is a place we all hate to go, but we will go?” After a beat, Lily shook her head again. “And then, ‘You’ll need to go, but never there.’ Those two lines… I’m not sure.” She tapped the bottom of the page. “I feel like we should be able to figure out where this is. It says ‘Duke’s tree.’?”

They all grew aware in unison and looked up, searching the photos on the walls. After a few moments, they turned their attention back to the riddle. None of the photos showed a tree.

“What does ‘belly of the three’ mean?” Bradley asked, leaning in.

“Duke used to call the bends in the rivers ‘bellies,’?” Lily said slowly, “and this part here”—she pointed back to the full map of Canyonlands—“definitely looks like a three.” She drew her finger along a series of curves in the Green River. “But even if this is the right location, getting to it won’t be like walking up to a safety-deposit box. It’s a literal maze down there. I feel like I’m missing something.” Discouraged, she stood and made her way to the jukebox.

Leo watched her go and considered following. Sometimes Lily wanted company when she was working things out, but more often she didn’t. He resisted the ache in his chest and the urge to stand and move to her. Lifting his beer to his lips instead, he looked around the space, wondering how many beers Duke had had in this very spot. The old man must have loved seeing photos of himself everywhere.

His eyes snagged on the bartender, a good-looking guy in his thirties, and then followed the path of his heated focus… straight to Lily. He was definitely not looking at her like a man who was wondering whether a customer needed a refill. Tossing a rag down, he began to make his way around the bar toward her. Before he’d even registered his own decision, Leo shoved back from the table, jealousy and possessiveness streaking a hot path through him. The chair scraped against the battered wood floor and in three steps he was standing behind her.

Close behind her.

Leo wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by his sudden appearance, but Lily let out a soft “Oh, hi” and now he was stuck there in his self-inflicted moment of machismo. But the heat of her, the awareness of her body so close to his, made it impossible to move away. He rested one hand on the yellowed glass of the machine and ran a finger down the list of songs.

“This one,” he said, tapping the plexiglass over “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” “All the boomers say it’s a banger.”

With a mischievous laugh, Lily clicked F and then 4, and the opening notes of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” warbled out of the tinny speakers instead.

“Ouch,” he said, mock-wounded. “Burn.”

“It seemed more fitting.” Her little smile down at the jukebox told him she meant this with more of a wink than a slap, and he found himself staring at the tiny freckle on the back of her neck. She had two freckles: one there, another just above her left hip bone.

A memory speared him, of a sun-soaked afternoon off, with Lily splayed naked across his bed. As if it had happened only hours before, Leo recalled the sunbeam through the window, warm along the backs of his bare thighs, the feel of Lily’s hip bone under his lips as he kissed that tiny mark.

His heartbeat was suddenly too heavy for his body.

Leo didn’t think she realized how close they were when she bent forward, pressing her ass to his crotch, but on instinct he reached for her hips, gripping her with a quiet “Lily.”

She straightened, startled, turning to face him and leaning back against the jukebox. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What are you doing, Leo?”

He glanced back over his shoulder. The bartender was behind the bar and watching them with a dickish smirk on his face.

“Came over to see if you were okay. You seemed frustrated with the map and riddle.”

“Because you remember how much I love it when someone asks me if I’m okay?” she asked, staring straight at him.

No.

“Or,” she said quietly, “is it that you didn’t want me standing alone at the jukebox?”

She could see it all over his face, and there was nothing Leo could do to reel it in; the memories were flowing now in a rush through his mind: the nights he’d spent lying in bed at the ranch—before she’d given him the time of day—wondering what she would feel like against him. He’d close his eyes and imagine kissing her, touching her skin, tasting the water that ran down her neck when she emerged from the bank of outdoor showers. And, just as sharply, he remembered the dizzying relief of that very first touch: her palm sliding under his T-shirt, pressing like a branding iron to his stomach.

They were all covered in dust, they had a dead man in their wake and were about to descend into one of the most dangerous places in the United States in search of a treasure that might or might not be out there, but Leo hadn’t felt this alive since Lily’d slipped that hand under his shirt and pulled him into the shadows with her. With a startling slap of clarity, he decided right in the middle of a nothing bar in a nowhere town that he would not let go of her so easily this time. If there was a one percent chance that she would take him back, he would try.