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“Who cares how it looks?”
“I care.”
He grunted and faced her. “You’ve got to get over how things look, Reese. That’s your problem.”
“Oh, it is?” She glowered at him.
“Yeah, it is. You want to look perfect, be perfect, but … people will like you no matter what.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Help me, please.”
He did, in fact, have to grab her by her butt and yank her up.
“Hunter, I can’t even lock my ankles around you because of my boot.”
“I got it.” He pulled a bungee cord out of his pocket; he’d brought it for precisely this reason. “We’ll just tie them together with a bungee cord. It will be more comfortable for you, and you won’t worry about me having to hold your feet every second.” He made quick work of tying her ankles together by her calf muscles.
She hemmed and hawed and grumbled about the whole situation. “Of course you’re prepared for this.”
He paid no attention to her sarcasm. He pulled out his phone and told her to pose for a selfie.
“Why are you capturing this on film?”
“You didn’t even smile. Would you force a smile, please?” He held up the phone and grinned.
She gave him a courtesy smile.
He snapped the picture and triumphantly put it back in his pocket. “That’ll do. Let’s go.”
“I hope I don’t kill you.”
He walked through the caves and then across the little field that he and Trent had been over a year before. So many memories washed over him. “This is where Liberty and Trent ran into each other last year.” Hunter kept going, pushing all the memories of arguing with Trent out of his mind. He and his brother had been pros at ticking each other off.
“How long are we going before stopping?”
“Probably ten to fifteen minutes from here. Trent had these coordinates that he kept writing over and over, and most of them were here.”
“Okay.”
He was glad she wasn’t complaining, but he knew it wasn’t easy for her to be carried. “I consider it part of my penance to pack you around.”
She relaxed and leaned her head against his back, resting her hands on his neck. “That’s true. Penance.”
He grinned, but something else niggled at him. “Can I ask you a question without ticking you off?”
“Sure.”
He’d been rehearsing how he would ask this question since their conversation last night. “So what is it about Roger that is holding you back? And I’m not saying this to bother you. I’m curious. He asked you to marry him, but you don't wear a ring. You say you’re not engaged, but you’re going to be engaged. You have this vision of a life with him, and I’m totally cool with that, Reese. I am. I just want to know what’s holding you back.”
For a long time, she didn’t answer. Then she said, “I haven’t told him about … my ex and everything.”
He jolted to a stop and almost tripped. Good thing he was in the cave, because he could reach out his hand and steady himself against the wall.
“Hunter! What the crap!” She held him tighter.
“You haven’t told him about everything with your ex?” Like accidentally killing him. Holy buckets, the girl was smoking crack if she thought that wasn’t an important thing to tell a potential fiancé. “He doesn’t know about your ex? That you…”
“That … I killed him. Right.”
