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Because they knew it couldn’t be anything else.
Just like they’d both know it didn’t mean anything when they got rock hard from the physical contact. When the stories slowed, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a little too long. When they realized how close their faces were together. When they realized how easy it would be to taste each other’s beauty.
Luca stared at the plate of fish, breathing deeply on the dusk’s calm.
Did all that stuff have to happen? No. Of course not.
But it could.
And right now, he just didn’t trust himself.
“I should probably get back before it gets dark,” he said, pulling a little torch from his pocket.
“Fair,” laughed Artair, sneakily throwing another fish for Bowie, who raced away after it.
The man looked him over in the silence that followed, before giving a long, slow sigh.
And Luca didn’t need to ask what the matter was. Because it was exactly the same for him.
Both of them wanted the perfect evening of campfires and cuddles. And, equally, they both knew where that might lead.
Which is probably why Artair chuckled under his breath as they each waved goodbye. And why neither made any attempt to give a farewell hug.
FOUR
Wild Seeds
Lush canopy stretched to even lusher paths.
Not that path was the right word. For in this wilderness, there was no road to limit Luca’s wandering. Instead, he weaved through the buff furrows of Douglas-fir pines, like a gentle gathering of Christmas trees. That festive aura was only enhanced by the smattering of western yew, already decorated with their distinctive red berries, bowing out like bells around the softer seeds.
And yet, beautiful though this scene was, it still wasn’t right for what he had planned—a grand theatre of earth and wood, bringing forth its ancient inspiration.
Not that Luca was worried about that.
It would be here, somewhere.
Just waiting for his arrival.
As his boots forged their path, a bubbling stream guided him down the slopes. Chipmunks darted up trunks and jackrabbits bounded through grass. The early afternoon chorused with robins and goldfinch. When the trees broke into clearings, he caught glimpses of grazing elk and great granite mountains.
He came to a stream, one among many, and filled his metal canteen with contents so clear it was practically invisible. When he splashed a handful against his sweat-beading forehead, it still carried the kiss of high mountain peaks, like the snowmelt of early spring was staying long into this slow and peaceful summer.
Deeper in the woods, the sky became shaded and the soil gathered more moisture. There, he came to a family of red-trunked trees, their mighty russet towers as wide as Luca was tall, with broad leaves cascading down stringed bark and resting over a cool covering of ferns.
The breeze smelled of dew and rich soil. And something else, too. Something that brought back memories of graphite sliding across paper. Of fawn-coloured wood curling against neon plastic. Of trapper keepers and erasers and blue-lined notebooks—clean and waiting for their first entries.
Luca breathed deep the heady smell. The trees were red cedar, bringing the nostalgic kiss of recently shaved pencils.
Perfect.
Luca sat on a throne of fallen cedar, the great trunk shoulder height and moss covered from years of rest.
It was later in the afternoon, probably just after three. It wasn’t the sun that told him that, barely visible through the canopy that shaded the babbling stream. It was the shift in the air. In the falling away of the peak heat. In the way the moisture of evening was starting to gather among the bracken.
By morning, it would lay as thick fog and clear dew. But now, it simply made the air sweet—adding a depth to the birdsong and an ease to the ever-present rustling.
Not that Luca was participating in that tranquility.
