Something Wilder(66)

Leo let out a low whistle. “He told me he lost it chopping carrots at the ranch.”

“He was absolutely fucking with you.” She grinned. “Anyway, he and Mom met in school in Salt Lake. He was studying history and archaeology, and she was studying marine sciences. Marine sciences!” Lily exhaled a dry laugh. “Then he brought her to the desert.”

“Yikes.”

“Right?” she agreed. “They moved to Hester after they got married and helped my uncle work the ranch in Laramie half the year. What was she supposed to do in either of those places? Duke got to join all sorts of teams going out on expeditions. His life stayed interesting and full; hers just got tiny, and he was gone all the time. Not to mention they were broke.” She touched one of the dates—1987—carved there. “Sometimes I can’t really blame her for leaving.”

Lily’s mother: the one subject she’d never really opened up about. He wanted to tread carefully. “I think you can blame her for leaving you.”

Lily shrugged, dragging her fingers down the wall. “Yeah.”

“How old was Duke when he died?”

She thought for a beat. “Well, it was seven years ago, so… fifty-three.”

“So young.”

She looked at these carvings for a few seconds longer. “Yeah. Hard living.”

“Do you have any contact with your mom?”

Lily shook her head. “She visited a few times. But she never asked me to come with her. I think she just needed to start over.”

This last sentence felt like an old, dusty echo, and ignited a spark of anger in Leo’s chest. “That was my dad’s line, too,” he told her. “It’s bullshit. Once you have a kid, you don’t get a do-over.”

“Honestly,” she admitted, “I was closest to my uncle Dan. He loved horses the way I do. I lived for summers at the ranch with him. It was hardest when he died, but by then I was seventeen, and I could see the future where the ranch was mine and I could do what I wanted for the rest of my life.”

They fell quiet, staring at the carvings in the wood, until a tiny hitch in her breath made him look more closely, leaning forward to be able to catch a view of her face. Quickly, she wiped a tear away.

“Hey, hey,” Leo said, trying to turn her to him. “Talk to me.”

Her face was red and angry, and she stepped into his arms. “Do we really think Duke found the treasure?” she mumbled into his chest. “What kind of a monster does that? Do you know how that money could have changed our lives? To think that he managed to find it and turn it into some kind of game? It makes me feel crazy.”

He tightened his arms around her. “I know.”

“I’m serious.” She looked up into his face. “We’re doing this, we’re moving forward and chasing this thing, but in here”—she tapped her temple—“I’m constantly flip-flopping between ‘This is exactly something my dad would have done’ and ‘There is no way he found the money and hid it again; not even Duke was that big an asshole.’?”

Lily shook her head. “I thought all of his trips and treasure hunts and stupid riddles were a waste of time, and I resented him for it. But look at me now: I’m in a cabin at the bottom of a canyon, looking for his clues on a tree stump. How fucked up is that?”

“Lil,” Leo said quietly, “it’s okay to want this, and go after this, and still be mad, too.” Reaching up, he cupped her jaw. “You don’t have to pick one or the other.”

“Am I crazy?” she asked.

“If you are, then I am, too.”

She nodded, and her eyes dropped to his mouth, expression softening. Abruptly, she tore her gaze away, looking past him and toward the tent-covered window. “I wonder if we should keep going.”

Leo touched her jaw, turning her face back. “I seem to remember someone saying the rain could be dangerous.”

It seemed like she unconsciously pressed closer to him even as she said, “But Nic and the boys are expecting to meet us tomorrow.”

“Nicole will check the weather,” Leo told her, heating under her wavering resolve. “She’ll yell about it but know we were delayed by the storm.”

He bent to kiss her just as she stretched on her toes, meeting his mouth with soft, eager lips. The rain outside felt like it was sitting on this little section of canyon, stuck between peaks, and they both knew further exploration was futile until it let up.

Or maybe they were both happy to have an excuse.

“I guess you’re right,” she said between kisses. “And look how dark those clouds are.”

He hummed against her.

“Sun will set soon…” she said.

It wouldn’t, but he wasn’t about to correct her.

So Leo nodded, sucking on her bottom lip, her jaw, running his hands up underneath her shirt to cup her breasts. “Might as well find another way to kill the time.”

He hurriedly spread out the sleeping bag, and Lily stepped back, undressing while he watched. It was only late afternoon, but the canyon walls cast the inside of the cabin into shadow. Lily stared at his face and he followed the path of her hands as she dragged every piece of her clothing off with deliberate slowness. He could barely suck in a full breath, watching her.