LOST WITH YOU - Lisa Ann Verge Page 0,2

hair. “I have a full load of classes.”

“What about other professors, then? Someone else in your department must be free for the next three weeks.”

“How many historians do you know who can paddle 200-odd miles and portage twice as many pounds?”

With his hands shoved in his hair, she had an eyeful of the way his sleeves stretched around the balls of his upper arms. The fact that he was an academic did explain the button-down shirt and neat gray pants, like he’d just come home from a faculty meeting, but the slim, carved body beneath was definitely an anomaly. She supposed there couldn’t possibly be too many professors at that university who looked like they could bench-press her without breaking a sweat.

Another thought came to her. “Can you do the journey by yourself?”

“The canoe is too big for one paddler to carry.” He dropped his hands from his head and seized a dishrag on the counter to wipe his hands dry. “And there’s too much gear for one man to haul across portages efficiently.”

“You look like you can handle the weight.”

“It’s bulk, not weight. I’ve considered this.” He tossed the dishtowel into the sink. “I can’t do it alone.”

She groped for another solution, but came up with nothing that made any sense, even as the implications began to sink in.

She sank back against the counter. “You’re canceling the whole expedition.”

“I have no choice.” Sunlight painted his face white as he stared out the kitchen window. “It’s over.”

Her stomach dropped to her knees. This couldn’t be happening. She’d driven six hours to get here. She’d risked Bessie’s tires, battery, and failing alternator, all in the effort to nail one of the biggest assignments she’d ever been given. She’d gone all in.

She had nothing else lined up.

“I can offer you strong coffee or weak tea.” His shoulders flexed. “Unless you want to get the hell out of here and back on the road.”

And go where? Her ribs tightened as she contemplated her future. She’d given up the lease to her apartment six months ago because she’d been practically living in her car anyway. Her sister had a spare room where she could crash between assignments, but once Casey had landed this one, she’d stopped pitching for work as frantically as she had before. Once you land a whale, you stop fishing for minnows.

“That’s…a pity.” She glanced deeper into the cabin, to the living room and a table covered with papers. “Are those your plans?”

“Ex-plans.”

She didn’t ask for permission. She pushed away from the kitchen counter and entered the dimmer living room. On the table, weighed down by stones, lay a laminated copy of a very old map. Dylan came up behind her, along with the scent of fresh-cut wood, of cotton starch warmed by sunlight.

Refocusing, she said, “This is the map of the journey.”

“Yes.”

“What’s the significance of this trail?” She ran her finger across a dotted line that had been added on top of the laminate.

He shifted in a rustle of cloth. “You don’t know?”

“My editor likes to be coy. She sends me off with a minimum of information and instructions not to do any searches online until after I meet the subject of the article. She wants me to come at the story with a fresh mind.”

“Bit of an asshole move.”

“Right?” She slid a fraction away from the aura of his presence. “She’s very good at what she does, though. So I take it as a challenge.” Challenges kept her mind occupied, her hands busy, her feet on the road.

Dylan leaned over the map. “This is my estimation of an old bootlegger’s trail. The original map is a French fur trader’s sketch from the seventeenth century. I believe the two paths are aligned. That’s what I’m setting out to prove.”

Interesting thesis. “How long have you been working on this project?”

“A few years.”

She followed the dotted line he’d marked up an ever-narrowing lake to a series of rivers and an X on a spot marked Owl’s Head Rock. The path then broke and picked up again halfway across the park. In between, she noted miles and miles of uncharted, unmarked forest. She sensed the weight of a story underneath the details he’d shared. Mystery, adventure, and danger. Exactly the kind of content American Backroads was looking for and a perfect recipe for an article that could go viral and kick her career to a new level.

“You said the expedition would take three weeks?” Her heart pressed up against her throat. “Is that