Page 52 of Take a Hike
It wasn’t a familiar sensation, since she normally was a huge fan of jumping in without a plan and letting any future consequences sort themselves out later. The urge to retreat to think about her emotions felt almost as alien as her urge to stay on his lap until the morning sun peeked over the mountaintops. Shoving the whole tangled mass of confusing thoughts into a corner of her brain to stew over later, she gave Kieran an impish smile and lunged for the driver’s seat.
“Nope,” he said, catching and returning her to his lap with an ease that made her even more attracted to him—a feat she thought was impossible. At what point would her desire for him max out? She was beginning to wonder if it ever would. It would continue to build and build until her head—or other parts of her—exploded. “Not driving my truck.”
“But I haven’t done any off-roading in forever. Isn’t it my turn to take out the last half of the symphony?” She gave him her best puppy-dog eyes, a look she borrowed from her twin, since she didn’t have one of her own. All it did was make him laugh and hug her.
“No.” Sliding out from underneath her, he started to shift over to the driver’s seat but paused to kiss her—hard and quick. “Youron-road driving scares the crap out of me.” Reluctantly, he moved to the other side of the seat.
“C’mon,” she said, even as she pulled on her seat belt, knowing the argument was lost. It’d been a long shot anyway. “I’m a great driver.”
“I know.” He rolled down the window to listen once more, and they both were silent for several minutes. The only sound was the slight whine of the wind, and he closed the window before speaking again. “You’re good, and very fast, and like to push your car’s limits.”
Those all seemed like positives to Charlie, so she asked, “And?”
“You’d probably get us back to town safely, but it wouldn’t matter, since you’d give me a heart attack in the process. I’d be dead anyway.”
She rolled her eyes as he started the truck. “You’re a firefighter. Aren’t all you guys adrenaline junkies?”
“It’s different.”
When she realized that was all he was going to say about the matter, she huffed. “That’s not an answer. Why’s it different to be in a truck with me as I’m driving—verycompetently—down a mountain than it is for you to run into a burning building?”
He shot her a sideways look. It didn’t matter that the darkness made it hard to see his expression. She could positivelyfeelthe irritation in that glance. She didn’t care though—if he wasn’t going to let her drive his truck, he was going to have to explain exactly why.
“Hmm?” she prompted when he stayed silent.
“Because you’re in the truck with me.” He bit off the words like he was mad at them.
She stared at him, all sorts of emotions fizzing around in her belly. “So you don’t care about endangering yourself, but you’re worried about…me?”
He grunted an affirmative—or at least what sounded like an affirmative to Charlie. The butterflies in her stomach turned into huge pterodactyls, and she had no idea what to say in response to that. “Oh. Okay.”
Kieran snorted—one of his amused, choked ones. “That’s all you have to say about that?”
“Uh…” Her brain needed some time to chew on the fact that Kieran actually cared about her enough to worry when she was in danger. It was one thing for him to say he liked her in the middle of making out, but a whole other thing to be protective. Her sisters were the only ones who’d ever cared enough about her to worry about her, so his admission was a bit of a shock. Her brain wasn’t quite back online, but he was still waiting for more of a verbal reaction, so she had to say something. “Um…thanks?”
Although he choke-laughed again, he didn’t press her for more, just started up the truck. As he backed out of their hiding spot next to the large boulder, Charlie sank back in her seat as a pleasant feeling spread from the pterodactyl party in her middle until even her fingers and toes were warm with the knowledge that someone outside her family cared about her. Despite the foreignness of the sensation, it was a wonderful feeling, and she sank into it like it was a warm bath.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to be…content.
Twelve
They spent the drive to Rosehill in comfortable silence—at least, Charlie thought the silence was comfortable, until Kieran parked the truck outside of her hotel. Under the yellow glow of a streetlight, she saw a muscle in his jaw was twitching.
“How did I manage to annoy you?” she asked, feeling an answering twinge of irritation. “I haven’t even been talking!”
He turned to stare at her. “What? I’m not annoyed with you.”
“Oh.” Her righteous indignation seeped away. “What’s with the twitching then?”
“Twitching?”
She gestured toward her own jaw. “The angry muscle right about here. It was twitching.”
To her utter shock, his face flushed. “No, that’s because… Uh, it wasn’t because I’m annoyed at you.”
Now shehadto know what’d made Kieran Byrne actuallyblush. “So what’s making you twitchy?”
“I’m not—” He cut himself off with a grunt, glaring at her with narrowed eyes. “Okay,nowyou’re aggravating me.”
