“That’s old history, and none of your business,” he snapped. All at once the tension rose between them again, an invisible force that repelled any risk of intimacy. A retort rose to Joey’s lips, and then she flushed, knowing he had the right of it, she had deliberately provoked him. For a moment she tried to consider rationally why she had shattered their unspoken harmony, and found she could not face the conclusions that came in answer.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured at last. Her flush deepened when he ignored her apology, and she ducked her head between her shoulders with a firm resolution to say nothing more for the remainder of the day.
She came up out of her thoughts to find him looking at her, his face still rigid but his eyes belying that hardness. They were almost yearning.
“I’m sorry I pried,” Joey repeated, dropping her gaze to the gravel path at her feet. “You’re right—it wasn’t any of my business.” The words dried up in her throat, and silence fell between them again.
Joey never quite regained that sense of belonging she’d felt before her questions had disrupted the truce between them; they had almost reached the lakeshore when Luke called a halt. It was only then when Joey realized how the weight of a fully laden pack had made the distance seem far longer than it had before, her stomach made known its needs with embarrassing boldness.
Luke looked up, his face relaxed almost into amusement. He’d found a convenient rock to sit on, propping his feet on another with long legs stretched out between. Joey released the hip belt of her backpack, struggled out of it, and set it down with a sigh of relief. A few moments later she had a pair of slightly compressed sandwiches in hand.
“No point in eating jerky and nuts if you can have roast beef,” Joey said lightly, holding the larger sandwich out to Luke. He looked at it a moment, nostrils flaring, and then shook his head.
“You eat both. You’ll find you need them.” At her dubious expression, he smiled. It was a real smile, albeit a small one. “Believe me, you’ll need more food on this trip than you’d ordinarily eat in a month.”
“What about you?” Joey frowned.
“I’ll take care of myself. I had a very large meal yesterday.” As if that provided adequate explanation, Luke leaned back in a bone-cracking stretch and turned his face into the late-morning sun. After a moment of vague annoyance Joey shrugged and bit into the first sandwich. She supplemented it with juice from one of her plastic bottles and found room for most of the second sandwich, just as Luke had predicted.
As she finished, Luke got up and headed for the lake, gesturing for her to stay put, she watched until he disappeared. When he returned, his hair was wet, painting his broad shoulders with watery brush strokes. “We’ll rest here for a while, let you digest a bit. The first camp is a few kilometers beyond the cabin, we’ll stop early tonight.” He looked up and down critically, nodding to himself. “So far, so good.”
Joey swept him a mocking bow from her seat on a rock opposite his, and he almost smiled again.
They took an easy pace after the meal. The lake danced in and out of view, a perfect echo of the achingly blue sky above. Gradually the sense of peaceful oneness with nature—and even with Luke—returned, and Joey resolved not to shatter it again.
They passed by the place where Joey had confronted the town roughnecks, she shuddered and felt Luke’s presence as an unassailable protective force at her side. He never touched her and seldom spoke, but it didn’t seem to matter, and for once Joey felt content enough to let the miles pass on in silence. The most delicate birdcall pierced the air with the intensity of a siren amid the profound quiet, even the fall of golden aspen leaves seemed to whisper secret messages. The forest embraced them, and the mountains rose up like distant guardians, and all was right with the world.
There was still a good hour until sunset when Luke led her to the place he had chosen for their first night’s stop. Luke set about making camp at once, and Joey helped where she could, they put up the small tent and rain fly, and Luke set her to clearing an area for a fire while he collected tinder, kindling, and dead wood for fuel.