expensive frames.”
At his continued stare, she blushed into the moonlight and lowered her face. “Sorry. Can’t stop the ol’ gob from rattling on.”
“What?” he asked softly.
His index finger gently touched the bottom of her chin, lifting until her face pointed toward him again. His sweet breath ruffled her eyelashes, starting a strange hum deep in her sternum. It was vaguely familiar. Old though, back from when they were kids. She just couldn’t place exactly what it had meant.
Her mouth started to spew gibberish without her control. “Gob. Mouth. Chattering on. I never shut up, I know. Phil used to tell me that all the time. Drove him crazy how much I talked. And here I go again. Just can’t shut up. I sound…”
Ridiculous.
Mikey must’ve thought she was a complete fool. An old fool in a midlife crisis working with a bunch of college kids. Or worse, a deadbeat, like his dad had always said. A poor deadbeat, just barely a step above white trash. Even though Sara’s family was in the same suburb as the Frosts, Sara’s dad was a middle-tier businessman and their house was half the size—Mikey’s dad had been thrilled to get out of that Virginian town and into the wealthier section of Connecticut.
“Sorry,” she said again, shaking her head and trying to reclaim her hand.
“Please stop apologizing, Sara. I remember the same things you do. And I miss them just as much. Let’s stop worrying about what people think, and just be us. We always had our own thing going. Now’s no different.”
She leaned into his warmth and pushed away all the negative thoughts that seemed to accost her whenever she lost even the tiniest bit of faith in herself. Steeling her resolve, and putting her faith in her old friend, she clutched Mikey’s arm tighter and walked with him into the trees, enjoying the feeling of the darkness swallowing them up.
“Where to?” Sara asked.
“We can go overlook the valley. The moon’s large, so we should be able to see the river below. It glitters. It’s beautiful.”
She felt his breath feather across the top of her head and smiled up at him. “So, what have you been up to?”
She felt the shrug more than saw it. “I went for a stint in the Special Forces. My dad kept pressuring me to fall in line, so I did; just not with his business. I learned about survival there, to some degree, then started learning more. After a while, I sorta became good at it.”
Sara laughed, patting his arm. “Still modest to a fault, then? Apparently you’re great at it.”
Their feet crunched as the path turned wilder. Warmth filled her chest, here with her old friend. She leaned into Mikey’s comfortable heat. “So how did you end up here?”
“I wanted to try and keep my line of work within the survival realm. I asked a few ranches if they’d have a need, and this one and one other said they’d give it a try. I chose here because of the wilderness. It’s close enough that I can take classes into it for hands-on demonstrations. Also, once a season I purposely get lost, and then try to get rescued.”
Sara stopped, facing him. “You what?”
She could barely make out his cheeks lifting upward in a smile. “Get lost. You know, forget where home is. I’ve always been good at that.”
“Oh, you knew where your home was, all right. You just preferred mine because my mom waited on you hand and foot! Don’t think I didn’t know what was going on, Mikey Frost. She stopped getting me things unless I was as polite as you. She still does, too. It’s so irritating.”
“Lazy.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m lazy? You are the laziest guy I’ve ever met! You used to nearly pee your pants because you didn’t want to get up to use the restroom. You’d go hungry because you didn’t want to go to the kitchen. Are we remembering different people?”
He laughed and brushed her hair back from her forehead. “You win,” he said. “Your mother was way nicer than mine.”
“To you, maybe.” Sara looked at his outline for a moment—the large shoulders reducing down into thin hips. The triangle, as Christie called it. “Although I guess that was before all the muscle. Lazy men don’t have all of this.”
She laid her hand on his bicep and traced the groove of substantial muscle. She squeezed it, though it didn’t have much give, feeling his heat soak into her palm. He watched her