had reached another stopping point, and for a moment there was an awkward pause. One her subconscious apparently decided to fill.
“So are you out in the desert with anyone?”
He hesitated. “Like a date?”
She blushed. “Or a buddy, or someone who can go for help if you get trapped by a boulder or something?”
“No buddy, although I did text Kris my GPS coordinates, so she knows where I am if I don’t return on schedule.”
“Oh. Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess.”
“I do it all the time,” he said dismissively. “I’ve been coming down to Southern Utah since I was a kid. It’s like my backyard.”
So no girlfriend? Rori had no idea where the question came from, but she barely stopped herself from asking it. It didn’t matter if he was dating someone. She wouldn’t let it matter.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You can ask.”
Ask? “Ask what?” Had he read her mind?
“About Luke,” he said carefully. “And Kris. I can tell you’re holding back a question.”
Well, if that’s how he wanted to interpret her awkwardness, Rori was more than happy to go along with it. “Are they happy?”
“Yeah,” he said gently. “They are. I hope that doesn’t hurt you to hear, but at the same time, I’m pretty sure they would still be dancing around each other if it weren’t for you.”
“No, I’m happy for them,” she said honestly. “And while Luke would have made a great husband, I’ve already made arrangements with my matchmaker for a man that will fit the bill just as well. I’m glad that Luke and Kris can build on a lifelong relationship. I think they’ll be happy together.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, his voice suddenly much more stiff. “I’m starting to see that, too. I think I’m the last to see it, but that’s not a first.”
“On the contrary, you seem like a man who picks up on things rather quickly.”
“Nah,” he said. “No more than any other guy.”
Something was wrong. Somewhere in the past ten seconds something had shifted between them, and Rori wasn’t sure what. More than that, she wasn’t sure why she cared so much.
“Oh, wow. I just got a great shot,” he said out of the blue.
“Yeah? Wish I could see it.”
He hesitated. “Well, you could. I could post it to Facebook.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but I would need to get off the phone with you first.”
“Sure. No problem. We’re done anyway.” Or were they?
“Cool. Well, watch my wall then. You should see it pop up in a minute or so, and then you’ll see the view I’m looking at tonight.”
“Sounds good. It was good talking with you.”
“And you,” he said. “Always good to hear your voice.”
Okay, it was just outright stupidity that her heart fluttered at that. “You, too. Bye.”
“Bye.”
An instant later he was gone and Rori was staring at her phone. “Why do I feel like I just got ditched?”
No one answered her, of course, and after a moment of telling herself all the reasons she shouldn’t care enough to try to answer the question herself, she pulled Mike’s profile up on her phone. Sure enough, thirty seconds later a picture popped up.
A perfect picture unlike anything she’d seen—and that was saying a lot.
In the foreground was the entrance to cave. Beyond that entrance lay a scene so picturesque she would have sworn it was Photoshopped. The next layer was a redrock arch, its color somehow visible in the night, but the real star of the picture was the sky. The stars—so many stars. And a cloudy mist that went from the top of the frame all the way to the horizon line. She’d never seen the Milky Way look so clear and even multi-colored.
So this was what Mike Cannon did on his day off?
Rori took a slow breath, and decided she was probably better off not knowing as little as possible when it came to Mike Cannon. If she had met him a few years earlier things would have been different. She would be seducing him and telling herself that their common ground was greater than everything else. She would convince herself to give him a shot.
But no. Rori had been there and done that. She knew how everything played out because she had lived it. Multiple times. The phase of her life where she wasted time on common men with seemingly good hearts was over. In the end the money always got in the way. One way or another the relationship couldn’t survive.