Page 43 of Demon Loved
“Big enough,” he said. “Anyway, there’s something peaceful about working with plants. It’s good to watch them grow and flourish.”
Not for the first time, Brianna reflected that Bill Garrett was quite an unusual guy. No flaunting of his wealth, no pretense, just someone who’d been lucky enough to inherit a bunch of money but wasn’t about to let it change him into something he wasn’t.
“My mother would love to hear that,” she remarked. “She’s always puttering around in the garden.”
And then Bree wondered if that had been entirely the wrong thing to say. After all, Bill hadn’t met her parents, and there was no reason for him to. You didn’t introduce a guy you were seeing to your parents until things were pretty serious, and she knew the situation with him was anything but that.
Or…maybe it was serious, in some strange way, but not in the way most people would probably think.
But then he startled her by saying, “Your parents seem very nice.”
She came to a stop then and stared up at him in surprise. “You met them?”
“I did,” he said, looking singularly unperturbed. “That is, I didn’t know they were your parents at first. We bumped into each other while we were watching you play at the folk festival.”
All right, that explanation made a little more sense. The crowd had been big, but it wasn’t so big that you might not run into someone you knew…or someone that a person you knew was acquainted with. And her parents would have done their best to be near the stage, just as Bill probably had.
She hadn’t seen them standing near each other, but that didn’t mean much. The crowd had been one big blur to her, probably her mind’s way of trying to prevent her from paying attention to any single person’s reaction to her performance.
Still….
“Why didn’t you tell me you met them?” she asked, and now he looked a little confused.
“I suppose I didn’t think it was all that important,” he replied. “We spoke a little, but mostly, we were just listening to you play and sing. And afterward, I headed off to Vino Zona because I thought you might like a drink as a way to decompress. Was that wrong?”
No, it wasn’t. He’d known exactly what she needed, and she had a feeling that if he’d brought up how he’d seen her parents in the crowd, she would have tensed up again, wondering if she should ask him what they’d thought or whether she should dismiss the encounter.
Really, this was a silly thing to get worked up over. He’d told her now, when the stakes were a lot lower, so she should probably just let it go.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Maybe even a little funny that you were standing near them out of all the people in that crowd.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” He slid the backpack off his shoulder, unzipped it, and then pulled out a bottle of water. “Do you want some?”
They’d only gone about a half mile, but she was still a little thirsty. “Sure.”
He handed it over to her, and she drank about a quarter of the bottle before giving it back.
“You can open a fresh one,” she told him, since he was now looking a little hesitant.
“That would be wasteful, wouldn’t it?”
And he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank a bit more than she had.
Well, at least now you know he isn’t worried about swapping spit with you, ran through her mind.
She brushed away the thought as best she could. Sharing a bottle was one thing.
Sharing a kiss?
That was something else altogether.
No point in shaking her head at herself, not when Bill had already returned the half-drunk bottle to the backpack and replaced it on his shoulders.
They set out again, with her keeping to the same leisurely pace. She didn’t have any real intention of doing the entire fourteen-mile hike, not when they’d have to wade in the creek at some point to keep going, so there was no reason to push themselves. This was all about getting out in nature and enjoying the sights, and sticking with the easy but still scenic part of the route, which was just a little over three miles.
He seemed content to be quiet and pay attention to the nature all around them, and she was grateful for that. Of course she liked talking to him — he was easier to talk to than any other man she’d ever known — but when she was out on a hike like this, she wanted to pay attention to her surroundings. They could save the conversation for drinks afterward, or dinner, or whatever they decided to do.
If anything at all. He hadn’t said anything about that on the drive here, so maybe he was expecting to just head back to Jerome after they were done with their hike and call it a day.
