Page 48 of The Rescuer

Easy-peasy?Who was he trying to fool, besides himself? Her, apparently.

At least one thing ended up going in her favor. When they touched down at Silver Summit’s private airstrip, Leo was nowhere in sight. Thank God for the fire that was probably still taking up all his time!Well, no, not thank God, Neve.Nevertheless, she was thankful he was too busy to meet her.

After a round of hugs, everyone split up and clambered into their vehicles. When she’d driven Reece and herself to the airstrip yesterday, they had chatted easily about stuff she couldn’t even remember, and she hadn’t felt the least bit of discomfort. Now her mind was full of bristly, poky things, and she didn’t want to face the half-hour drive home with him in the seat beside her.

She could do this, she told herself. She could suck it up until she reached the Miners Tavern, where she would leave him at the back door and finally have time alone with her reeling thoughts.

He walked around to the driver’s side—to open the door for her, or so she thought—and opened his palm. “I’ll drive.”

Who the hell did he think he was? “Oh, I don’t think so,” she bit out.

His brows pulled down. “You didn’t get any sleep on the plane, so if you want to catch a nap …” His eyes fixed on hers expectantly.

She glared back. “What, you think I can’t handle the drive back to town?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Tell you what. Let’s throw down for it.”

“What do you mean, ‘throw down’?”

A devilish gleam lit his mossy-green eyes. “Rock, paper, scissors. You know, like when we were kids.”

“No way,” she scoffed. “I may as well mail it in if it comes to that. Besides, it’smycar.”

“We’ll do best out of three,” he insisted. “Then you have a more than even chance of winning.”

She knew better than to take the bait, just as she knew not to get into a rock, paper, scissors duel with him—especially when she was already in control of the keys—but the distressed girl inside her was pissed off and ornery enough to rise to the challenge. Plus, over the years, she’d figured out they had a pattern, and she wanted another go at him with this newfound knowledge. She always led with a rock, anticipating his scissors, but somehow he always got her with paper or a matching rock. This timeshe would lead off with a bold move: scissors first. Yeah, she wanted to put it to the test.

“Three out of five, and I get to count down.”

“Deal.” He held up his fist.

“And your eyes stay on mine.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes.

His gaze locked on to hers. “Got it. Get your fist up where I can see it.” She complied. “Ready? This is throw number one.”

“I’m ready.” She pulled in a silent breath. “One, two, three!” Their hands came down at the same time, hers with the scissors. His with a rock. “Damn it! You cheated!”

His eyes and mouth went round. “How the hell could I cheat? My eyes were on yours the entire way. I even saw you blink when you made your move.”

“Okay,” she grumbled. “Lucky guess. Let’s go again.” They got ready, and she counted down once more. She led with scissors again—just to throw him off—and somehow he came up with the same damn rock!

“How do you do that?”

“Do what? Read your mind?”

“How do you know what I’m going to throw down just in time to change yours?”

“I didn’t change mine! Again, my eyes were on yours.” He made a stabbing motion with his fingers at his eyes. “Admit it. I’ve known you long enough that I know your next move, and I can read your mind better than you can read mine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Because mine is a steel trap, I might add.” Yeah, he just had to go poke the bear, didn’t he? Asshole.

They went again and tied with rocks. She won the following round, beating his scissors with a rock.

“Ha!” she cried in triumph and turned in a circle with happy feet.

He rolled his eyes. “Knock it off. You won the battle, not the war.”

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