Detour Ahead

He suppressed a laugh. Any minute now he expected her to pull out half a roast chicken and a bottle of wine. She turned to him once more. “It’s enough to tide us over until we can have a real meal.”

“Sounds great. I’ll look for a place to pull over.”

A few miles farther on, they spotted a sign for a roadside park. “Pull in there,” she directed.

He parked under a shady oak and they carried the food and two bottles of water to a picnic table. The air smelled of freshly mown grass and the wild irises that bloomed on the bank of a stream running through the little park.

While she arranged the meal on the table, he walked over to the stream and stooped to rinse his face and hands. He spotted bunches of watercress growing at the water’s edge and picked some.

“What’s this?” she asked when he offered her the greens.

“Watercress.” He tore off some of the crisp herb and popped it in his mouth. “The same stuff they use to make fancy tea sandwiches.”

She grinned and helped herself to the greens. “I guess if we run out of food, you’ll be able to forage for us. Do they teach that kind of thing in chef’s school?”

“The Culinary Institute didn’t take field trips to pick wild greens, no.” He took a seat on top of the picnic table, his feet on the bench below. “I learned about this stuff on my grandparents’ farm.”

“And where was that?” She sliced off a thick round of summer sausage and offered it to him.

“Arkansas. I spent every summer there.” He grinned. “I couldn’t wait for school to be out so I could go.”

“Where was home the rest of the time?” She topped a cracker with cheese and popped the whole thing into her mouth.

“New Mexico. A little town not too far from Farmington.”

“Is your family still there?”

He nodded. “My mom and dad and two sisters.” He grinned. “I’m the black sheep, moved all the way out to D.C.” His tone was light, but the words weren’t too far from truth. He’d always been the different one in his family, the one who was never satisfied.

“That’s practically on the way to San Diego, isn’t it?” she asked. “We should stop and say hello.”

He shook his head. The last thing he wanted right now was to see his dad and have to listen to another lecture on getting his act together. If he told his father he was thinking of opening his own restaurant, the old man would have a stroke. No matter that Craig knew exactly what he had to do to make this work. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Sure we do. The wedding’s almost ten days away.”

He helped himself to more sausage. “Where is your family from?” he asked, anxious to change the subject.

“Dimmitt, Texas. Can you believe it? They’re all horrified that I’ve gone off to the big city to consort with politicians and lobbyists and other evil-doers.” Her eyes widened in mock horror and he laughed again. In fact, he’d laughed more in the past three hours than he had in the past three months.

“You have a nice smile,” she said, helping herself to a grape. “Much better than that scowl you showed up with this morning.”

“Yeah, well…” He looked away. “I guess I wasn’t looking forward to this trip much.”

“Because of me…or for some other reason?”

“For a lot of reasons, I guess.” He rolled his shoulders. “Bryan’s my last single buddy. Makes me feel…I don’t know. Out of step.”

“Yeah.” The wistfulness in her voice surprised him. He looked at her again. She rolled a grape back and forth between her palms, seemingly unaware of the movement. As if she felt him watching her, she looked up. “Are you seeing anyone? I mean, anyone special?”

Something in her voice sent a prickle of awareness down his spine. “No, you?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

The atmosphere was charged like the air under a high-voltage line. Suddenly they weren’t only two people on a trip together, but a man and a woman. Both unattached. The word itself implied something unfinished. Two halves looking to be made whole.

Now where had that thought come from? He launched himself off the table, eager to put some distance between himself and these disturbing feelings. But she was right behind him, running past him to the creek, where she kicked off her shoes and began wading in the shallows.

He followed, the cool water lapping at his ankles, gravel massaging his toes. Holding her arms out like a tightrope walker, she picked her way across a half-submerged log toward the middle of the stream. “Careful,” he called.

She looked back over her shoulder, eyes bright, teasing. “Come on,” she called. “It’s fun.”

He shook his head. The log was green with moss. Probably slippery as hell.

She walked out farther, and struck a ballerina’s pose, balanced on one leg. His heart pounded as she teetered back and forth. He checked the water—it looked deep under where she stood. Did she know how to swim? Would he have time to save her in the swift current? “Come back before you fall,” he said, his voice gruff.

She laughed, a musical sound in harmony with the cadence of the tumbling water. Sunlight spotlighted her hair and touched her skin with gold. “Come and get me!” she called.

He told himself he wouldn’t let her bait him. He would turn around and go back to the car and wait for her to follow. They didn’t have time for silly games like this.

But the next thing he knew, he was taking one tentative step out onto the log, and then another. The moss was cool and slick beneath his feet, but he could feel the rougher bark beneath it. He kept his eyes on her, telling himself not to look down. She beckoned, like some wild water sprite. “We’d better go,” he said, even as he continued feeling his way toward her. “We have a lot of miles to cover.”

“We needed a break.” She turned her back on him and walked even farther out on the log.

He decided he really would turn around now. What did he think he was going to do when he reached her anyway? He’d already decided giving in to the desire she stirred in him was a bad idea.

He started to pivot to face the other direction, but as he did so, he felt the log shudder, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of windmilling arms.

In an instant, he lunged forward and caught her, steadying her against him even as he fought to stay upright himself. Heart pounding, breath coming in gasps, he clung to her until they were both still. The only sounds were the rasp of his own breathing and the gurgle of the creek as it slid beneath their makeshift bridge.

She smiled up at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted. “Thanks,” she said. “I guess my sense of balance isn’t much better than my sense of direction.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” he asked.

She nodded. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She had movie-star eyes, dark and impossibly luminous. Looking into them, he forgot all about the miles they had to cover or the disaster they’d narrowly avoided. All his senses were focused on the feel of her in his arms. She was the stuff of bedroom fantasies and early-morning dreams.

“Are you going to stand there staring, or are you going to kiss me?”

Her voice was breathy, as beckoning as her gestures had been moments before.

His lips were on hers before she’d finished speaking. She tasted like fresh fruit and peppery watercress. She rose on tiptoe, angling her lips more fully against his, opening to him, her tongue teasing across his teeth. He slipped both hands behind her neck, his fingers sliding up into her hair as he deepened the kiss, losing himself in the sheer pleasure of the moment.

The sound of a car door slamming shattered the spell she’d cast over him. He flinched, and braced one foot behind him on the log to keep from falling. Marlee opened her eyes and blinked. Voices were approaching. “Looks like we have company,” he said.

She nodded, and slipped out of his arms, avoiding his gaze. A blush stained her cheeks the color of ripe strawberries. Still clutching her hand, he led the way off the log, but she broke away from him as soon as they were on land again, and headed for the picnic table, where she began gathering the remains of their lunch.

He stopped to collect their shoes from the bank, then followed more slowly, letting himself cool down a little. What exactly had happened back there, other than the closest thing he’d ever known to spontaneous combustion?