Page 98 of Tumbleweed Temptation
“Oh, we are, but I’ve been out here before plenty of times. Patrick would always bring me out to hike up there. Said it was like being closer to God.”
“Neither one of us is really dressed for that.” He paused at the base of the trail and put the Jeep in park.
“And ordinarily, I would be walking the trail. But I’d like to point out we are in a Jeep. You can’t tell me you have never taken it off-road.”
“I have never taken it off-road. Last thing we need is to snap an axle or something out here. Or get stuck on a rock. That wouldn’t exactly cheer me up.”
“There’s a road, but I’ve never taken it. My car would never make it. But we can try. Trust me that it’s worth it.”
“Really. It’s worth being broken down in the middle of the desert at night.”
“You said you trusted me,” she pointed out.
“You said you’ve never been on the road,” he countered.
“Well, one of us is going to have to take a leap of faith,” she said. “Or we could just go home.”
He looked across the car at her. She held his gaze then put it into drive. “Show me the road.”
The drive up wasn't as bad as he expected, a few big rocks, a few pits that yeah, her car never would have made, but the road curved around the hill, reducing the grade.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Park right over there.”
The incline she indicated seemed a little steeper than the road they’d traveled, but his Jeep handed it okay. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he put the car in park, then dropped his head against the back of the seat.
“The top comes off, right?” She’d opened the door and was already unhooking the latches in the glow the dome light.
“Might be a little cool for that,” he said, reaching up to unhook on his side.
“Is it a lot of work to put them back on before we drive?”
Too late for that question, because they were lifting the panel off together, and lowering it to the backseat.
“There,” she said, settling back into her seat. “This view. And it’s a perfect night for it. So clear.”
“We can see the stars from below,” he pointed out.
“But up here, they seem closer, and you can look down in the valley to see the play of the shadows. It just feels wilder up here somehow. More—apart from everything.”
“And Patrick used to bring you up here? He never really struck me as the hiking type.”
“Well. Hiking might put the wrong label on it, but he likes being outdoors. I mean, he hunts. We never hunted, he and I. I don't think he thought I’d like it. But I had some bad times when I was younger, you know, so he would bring me up here to kind of distance myself from my everyday self, and to kind of—release those issues.”
“Did it help?”
“I wouldn’t bring you here if I hadn’t thought it did.” She turned her head sideways on the head rest to look at him, and reached across the console to take his hand. “We wouldn't talk, really, just sit up here and be.”
“Patrick was a hippie, wasn't he?”
“Patrick’s been a lot of things.”
His brain didn't work the way she seemed to want it to. When he was quiet, his brain raced from one thought to another. He wasn't good at “just being.” But she’d made the effort to bring him out here, and he was going to give it a shot. He looked up at the stars overhead, tried to let the crisp fall evening air relax him, not stress him.
Tried his damnedest not to relive that funeral.
Ginny squeezed his hand. “You’re not relaxing.”
“I can’t imagine you’re any better at this than I am,” he said. “We are too much alike.”
