Page 40 of The Darkest Chase
“Except we have tents, so we don’t need them.”
Shaking my head, I break the pack open and fish out five of the folded blankets, a small concession to their potential usefulness, and tuck them back into her pack.
I immediately pitch a box of cheap-looking hunting knives, still wrapped in the store plastic. They look like the kind of novelty things where the blade would break off the hilt with any pressure and probably leave a nasty cut behind.
“As far as dangerous goes, we won’t be taking on any particularly steep trails, but even experienced hikers still slip and fall,” I say. “Ravines can pop up out of nowhere when it’s this overgrown. You think you’re going through a break in the brush, and suddenly the earth is gone and your ass is bouncing down a rocky grade. Gopher holes, tree roots, buried rocks, they’re all waiting to snap your ankle. Then there’s the wildlife. North Carolina has cottonmouths, diamondbacks, copperheads, and they don’t take too kindly to being stepped on if they’re hiding under the leaves. Mountain lions. Coyotes. Plus, the simple risk of getting lost. You think you’re navigating by the sun and you know the way home. The next thing you know, you’re turned around and it’s night, it’s getting cold faster than you’d like, and you’re fatigued and low on water with no damn clue where the closest creek is. And that’s just the natural dangers, mind you. You know as well as I do that stumbling on the Jacobins without warning is a good way to get a face full of buckshot.”
Her eyes are saucers.
I’m pretty sure she’s stopped breathing.
“So hiking alone is always a bad idea, even when you’re good at it?” She swallows. “You sure know a lot about the woods for someone who just moved here.”
“I’ve been around long enough, but I guess a few years still counts as being new in a place like this—and what is this?” Frowning, I tug on a vacuum-packed bag wrapped tight around something rectangular and heavy as hell. It won’t come out, and I wiggle it, giving it another yank.
The clothes she packed underneath it go flying as I yank the bag free.
T-shirts, jeans, a thick parka, and some very interesting lacy things sail through the air while I stare at the label on the bag. It’s dense-packed cubes of instant high-protein survival food, the kind of stuff you’d find in a doomsday prepper’s bunker—and probably enough to feed five people for a week.
I’m about to ask Talia a smartass question, but she lets out a strangled sound and darts past, grabbing at a pair of panties made of the most translucent, sheer pink net I’ve ever seen, with delicately embroidered lace edging.
The bra matches. So do the stockings when they vanish into her clutched fists, so flimsy they disappear into nothing past her fingers.
I’m not fucking breathing anymore.
I’m trying not to stare.
But goddamn, you mean to tell me that’s the underwear she packed for a camping trip?
That’s her style?
Makes me wonder what I glimpsed past her flannel and what other little secrets this shy girl keeps locked up. If there’s more fire under her fluttering and nervousness than I realized.
Not your business, man. Focus on the mission.
Not on the drumming in my pulse and the reckless throb of my cock taking an interest in things I’ve got no right to.
Outwardly, I’m a perfect gentleman, averting my eyes from her brilliantly red face while I unzip one of the side pouches on the bag and hold it open for her.
Her fingers brush mine, all warmth and softness, as she stuffs her garments inside, fumbling my hand aside so she can zip up.
After the soft rasp of the zipper stops, she pulls back, her warmth leaving my side while she mumbles, “…sorry. You didn’t have to see that.”
“Didn’t see a thing,” I growl. “Nothing besides this thirty-pack of D batteries.” I heft the big brick of boxed batteries out of the bottom, followed by a six-pack of flashlights. “You had the right idea. You just overpacked.”
“I just kept thinking, what if we lost things? What if we needed backups?”
“Miss Talia, with everything in your pack, if you lost one thing, you’d lose everything, so having this many spares wouldn’t do you much good. Better to lighten the load.” I toss two of the flashlights back on top of her folded clothes, then steal one of the battery packs from inside the box. I pick up the parka, too, twisting my lips. “You don’t have a thinner jacket?”
“At home?” she offers. “I just thought—you know…”
“Hypothermia,” I guess. “This time of year, it’s not a big concern unless you fall down in a river after dark.” I start to toss the parka back down—then stop and hold it out to Rolf, letting him sniff. “Here, boy. Get used to her.”
Rolf prods his nose at the parka.
He snorts and shakes his head roughly before backing up to settle on his haunches, giving me a disgusted look.
Talia lets out a disappointed laugh. “He’s never going to like me, is he?”