Still, when he drove into the trailhead parking area and his headlights picked up the sight of her waiting on a bench overlooking the town, a brown furry dog at her feet, he was aware of a fierce burst of something warm and bright he hadn’t known in a long time. It felt suspiciously like happiness.
Leo barked a soft greeting when Sam parked and headed toward them. He reached down to pet the dog at the same moment he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek in greeting.
“You smell delicious,” he said, then could have kicked himself for the spontaneous words. That sounded very much like a come-on, after he had just told himself to keep things friendly.
“I probably smell like a kitchen, since I’ve been cooking all day.”
“You know us men and our stomachs.”
She laughed. “Yes, but I also know you can’t possibly be hungry. You just had a divine meal, which I happened to have fixed myself.”
“Men don’t always have to be hungry to want to eat,” he pointed out.
“Are you talking about food or sex?”
So much for casual friendliness. He shrugged. “Either. Both. Does it matter?”
She shook her head but he saw she was fighting a smile. “Come on. Let’s work off some of that...hunger...on the trail.”
She took off, the dog trotting ahead of her on a leash. He didn’t even have time to hand her a flashlight. She didn’t really need one—the moon was huge and full and lit up the terrain with a pale, unearthly glow.
The trail wasn’t steep but the climb was steady. This part of the route was also only wide enough for one across so they didn’t have much chance to talk.
He didn’t mind. It was probably better that way since he couldn’t seem to keep his big mouth shut. Despite all his good intentions, everything he had said to her since he pulled up to the trailhead had been provocative.
After maybe fifteen minutes of hiking, she paused at an area where the trail widened and the trees thinned, presenting a vivid view of the glimmering lights of the valley below. She pulled a water bottle out of the deep pocket of her jacket. Even as she drank, she didn’t release her hold on the dog.
“You’re not letting him off the leash?”
“Not yet. He’s obviously a runner or he wouldn’t have wandered down Main Street the other night. I don’t want to take the chance of him losing his way, not with all the pitfalls up here. Bear, cougars, coyotes. Moose.”
“Moose?”
She flashed him a look. “For your information, a bull moose could take out a Jeep if he had enough mad on.”
“Yet you have no problem hiking up here in the dark.”
“I’m tougher than I look, soldier. Besides, wouldn’t you have been sorry to miss that view?” She gestured below them.
They stood, her shoulder brushing his arm, and admired the lights of the valley spread out below them.
“Beautiful,” he answered. Lame as it seemed, he wasn’t only talking about the vista. In the moonlight, she seemed otherworldly, too, glowing with life.
“I don’t know how anybody could ever want to leave this place.”
She spoke almost reverently and he gave her a careful look. “You haven’t ever wanted to go anywhere?”
“Been there, done that,” she said, settling onto a slab of granite that looked as if it had been carved out of the mountainside.
“Oh?”
She was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the wind moaning in the tops of the pines and rustling the new leaves of aspen trees around them.
“After college, I lived for two years in Europe while I was in cooking school,” she finally said.
Wow. He hadn’t expected that. “What part of Europe?”
“France first and then Italy.”
She spoke with a reluctance, her tone guarded, and he had to wonder what she wasn’t saying. “You didn’t enjoy it?”
“Parts of it, I really loved. The architecture, the art, the food. I mean, how can you not love all that fabulous food?”
“But you didn’t stay.”
“I planned to, but...I finally decided it wasn’t the life for me.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated. “I missed my family too much.”
Even through his envy at all she had, he sensed that wasn’t the whole story.
“Don’t take them for granted. Your family, I mean,” he said when she didn’t seem willing to add anything else. “If you get along with them, consider yourself lucky.”
“I do. Believe me I do. You mentioned a brother. What about your parents?”
“Don’t have any. It’s just the two of us.”
“You had to have had them once. It’s kind of a biological imperative.”