by Nora Roberts
“Since I doubt you’re claiming I stole it from your father, I conclude you’re a woman who knows her superheroes and her motor vehicles.”
She stopped in front of him. “Where’s the suit?”
“In an undisclosed location. Villainy is everywhere.”
“Too true.” She angled her head, skimming a finger over the gleaming fender while she studied Gull. “Iron Man’s a rich superhero. That’s why he can afford the car.”
“Tony Stark has many cars.”
“Also true. I’m thinking, smoke jumping pays pretty well, in season. But I can’t see selling tokens and tracking games at an arcade’s something that pays for a car like this.”
“But it’s entertaining, and I get free pizza. It’s my car,” he said when she just kept staring at him. “Do you want to see the registration? My portfolio?”
“That means you have a portfolio, and I’m damned if you built one working an arcade.” Considering, she pursed her lips. “Maybe if you owned a piece of it.”
“You have remarkable deductive powers. You can be Pepper Potts.” He stepped over, opened her door. She slid in, looked up.
“How big a piece?”
“I’ll give you the life story while we eat if you want it.”
She thought it over as he skirted the hood, got behind the wheel. And decided she did.
He drove fast, had a smooth, competent hand on the stick shift—both of which she appreciated.
And God, she did love a slick machine.
“Do I have to sleep with you before you let me drive this machine?”
He spared her a single, mild glance. “Of course.”
“Seems fair.” Enjoying herself, she tipped her face up to the wind and sky, then lifted her hands up to both. “Riding in it’s a pretty decent compromise. How did you manage to get this all set up?”
“Staggering organizational skills. Plus I figured I’d grab a few hours while I had them. The food was the easy part. All I had to do was tell Marg I was taking you on a picnic, and she handled the rest of that section. She’s in love with you.”
“It’s mutual. Still, I’d’ve had a hard time planning anything when I managed to crawl out of bed.”
“I have staggering recuperative powers to go with the organizational skills.”
She tipped down her sunglasses to eye him over them. “I know sex bragging when I hear it.”
“Then I probably shouldn’t add that I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a sixteen-wheeler after I hauled a two-hundred-pound bag of bricks fifty miles. Through mud.”
“Yeah. And it’s barely June.”
When he turned off on Bass Creek Road, she nodded. “Nice choice.”
“It’s not a bad hike, and it ought to be pretty.”
“It is. I’ve lived here all my life,” she added as he pulled into the parking area at the end of the road. “Hiking the trails was what I did. It kept me in shape, gave me a good sense of the areas I’d jump one day—and gave me an appreciation for why I would.”
“We crossed into the black yesterday.” He hit the button to bring up the roof. “It’s harsh, and it’s hard. But you know it’s going to come back.”
They got out, and he opened the hood with its marginal storage space.
“Jesus, Gull, you weren’t kidding about big-ass hamper.”
“Getting it in was an exercise in geometry.” He hefted it out.
“There’s just two of us. What does that thing weigh?”
“A lot less than my gear. I think I can make it a mile on a trail.”
“We can switch off.”
He looked at her as they crossed to the trailhead. “I’m all about equal pay for equal work. A firm believer in ability, determination, brains having nothing to do with gender. I’m even cautiously open to women players in the MLB. Cautiously open, I repeat. But there are lines.”
“Carting a picnic hamper is a line?”
“Yeah.”
She slid her hands into her pockets, hummed a little as she strolled with a smirk on her face. “It’s a stupid line.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it less of a line.”
They walked through the forested canyon. She heard what she’d missed during the fire. The birdsong, the rustles—the life. Sun shimmered through the canopy, struck the bubbling, tumbling waters of the creek as they followed the curve of the water.
“Is this why you were studying maps?” she asked him. “Looking for a picnic spot?”
“That was a happy by-product. I haven’t lived here all my life, and I want to know where I am.” He scanned the canyon, the spills of water as they walked up the rising trail. “I like where I am.”
“Was it always Northern California? Is there any reason we have to wait for the food to start the life story?”
“I guess not. No, I started out in LA. My parents were in the entertainment industry. He was a cinematographer, she was a costume designer. They met on a set, and clicked.”
The creek fell below as they climbed higher on the hillside.
“So,” he continued, “they got married, had me a couple years later. I was four when they were killed in a plane crash. Little twin engine they were taking to the location for a movie.”
Her heart cracked a little. “Gull, I’m so sorry.”
“Me too. They didn’t take me, and they usually did if they were on the same project. But I had an ear infection, so they left me back with the nanny until it cleared up.”
“It’s hard, losing parents.”
“Vicious. There’s the log dam,” he announced. “Just as advertised.”
She let it go as the trail approached the creek once more. She could hardly blame him for not wanting to revisit a little boy’s grief.
“This is worth a lot more than a mile-and-a-half hike,” he said while the pond behind the dam sparkled as if strewn with jewels.
Beyond it the valley opened like a gift, and rolled to the ring of mountains.
“And the hamper’s going to be a lot lighter on the mile-and-a-half back.”
Near the pond, under the massive blue sky, he set it down.
“I worked a fire out there, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.” He stood, looking out. “Standing here, on a day like this, you’d never believe any of that could burn.”
“Jumping one’s different.”
“It’s sure a faster way in.” He flipped open the lid of the hamper, took out the blanket folded on top. She helped him spread it open, then sat on it cross-legged.
“What’s on the menu?”
He pulled out a bottle of champagne snugged in a cold sleeve. Surprised, touched, she laughed. “That’s a hell of a start—and you just don’t miss a trick.”
“You said champagne picnic. For our entrée, we have the traditional fried chicken à la Marg.”
“Best there is.”
“I’m told you favor thighs. I’m a breast man myself.”
“I’ve never known a man who isn’t.” She began to unload. “Oh, yeah, her red potato and green bean salad, and look at this cheese, the bread. We’ve got berries, deviled eggs. Fudge cake! Marg gave us damn near half of one of her fudge cakes.” She glanced up. “Maybe she’s in love with you.”
“I can only hope.” He popped the cork. “Hold out your glass.”
She reached for it, then caught the label on the bottle. “Dom Pérignon. Iron Man’s car and James Bond’s champagne.”
“I have heroic taste. Hold out the glass, Rowan.” He filled it, then his own. “To wilderness picnics.”
“All right.” She tapped, sipped. “Jesus, this is not cheap tequila at Get a Rope. I see why 007 goes for it. How’d you get this?”
“They carry it in town.”
“You’ve been into town today? What time did you get up?”
“About eight. I never made it to the shower last night, and smelled bad enough to wake myself up this morning.”
He opened one of the containers, and after breaking o
ff a chunk of the baguette, spread it with soft, buttery cheese. Offered it. “I’m not especially rich, I don’t think.”
She studied him as flavors danced on her tongue. Caught in a pretty breeze, his hair danced around his face in an appealing tangle of brown and sun-struck gold.
“I want to know. But I don’t want bad memories to screw your picnic.”
“That’s about it for the bad. I’m not sure I’d remember them, or more than vaguely, if it wasn’t for my aunt and uncle. My mother’s sister,” he explained. “My parents named them as my legal guardians in their wills. They came and got me, took me up north, raised me.”
He took out plates, flatware as he spoke, while she gave him room for the story.
“They talked about my parents all the time, showed me pictures. They were tight, the four of them, and my aunt and uncle wanted me to keep the good memories. I have them.”
“You were lucky. After something horrible, you were lucky.”
His gaze met hers. “Really lucky. They didn’t just take me in. I was theirs, and I always felt that.”
“The difference between being an obligation, even a well-tended one, and belonging.”
“I never had to learn how wide that difference is. My cousins—one’s a year older, one’s a year younger—never made me feel like an outsider.”
That played a part in the balance of him, she decided, in the ease and confidence.
“They sound like great people.”
“They are. When I graduated from college, I had a trust fund, pretty big chunk. The money from my parents’ estate, the insurance, all that. They’d never used a penny, but invested it for me.”
“And you bought an arcade.”
He lifted his champagne. “I like arcades. The best ones are about families. Anyway, my younger cousin mostly runs it, and Jared—the older one—he’s a lawyer, and takes care of that sort of thing. My aunt supervises and helps plan events, and for the last couple years my uncle’s handled the PR.”
“For families by family. It’s a good thing.”
“It works for us.”
“How do they feel about your summers?”
“They’re okay with it. I guess they worry, but they don’t weigh me down with that. You grew up with a smoke jumper.” They added chicken and salad to plates. “How’d you handle it?”
“By thinking he was invincible. Talk about superheroes. Mmm,” she added when she bit through crisp skin to tender meat. “God bless Marg. I really considered him immortal,” Rowan added. “I never worried about him. I was never afraid for him, or myself. He was . . . Iron Man.”
Gull poured two more glasses. “I’ll definitely drink to Iron Man Tripp. He’s why we’re both here.”
“Weird, but true.” She ate, relaxed in the moment and felt easier with him, she realized, than she’d expected to be. “I don’t know how much of the story you’ve heard. About my parents.”
“Some.”
“A lot of some’s glossed over. My father—you’ve probably seen pictures—he was, still is, pretty wow.”
“He passed the wow down to you.”
“In a Valkyrie kind of way.”
“You’re not the sort who decides to die in the battle.”
“You know your Norse mythology.”
“I have many pockets of strange, inexplicable knowledge.”
“So I’ve noticed. In any case, a man who looks like Iron Man, does what he does . . . women flock.”
“I have the same problem. It’s a burden.”
She snorted, ate some potato salad. “But he wasn’t one for coming off a fire, or out of the season, and looking for the handy bang.”
She arched a brow as Gull merely grinned. “It’s not his way. Like me, he’s lived here all his life. If he’d had that kind of rep, it would’ve stuck. He met my mother when she came to Missoula, picked up work as a waitress. She was looking for adventure. She was beautiful, a little on the wild side. Anyway, they hooked up, and oops, she got knocked up. They got married. They met in early July, and by the middle of September they’re married. Stupid, from a rational point of view, but I have to be grateful seeing as I’m sitting here telling the tale.”
He’d known he’d been wanted, all of his life. How much did it change the angles when you, as she did, considered yourself an oops?
“We’ll both be grateful.”
“I think it must’ve been exciting for her.” Rowan popped a fat blackberry into her mouth as she spoke. “Here’s this gorgeous man who wore a flight suit like some movie star, one of the elite, one at the top of his game, and he picks her. At the same time, she’s rebelling against a pretty strict, stuffy upbringing. She was nearly ten years younger than Dad, and probably enjoyed the idea of playing house with him. Over the winter, he’s starting up his business, but he’s around. My grandparents are, too, and she’s carrying the child of their only son. She’s the center. Her parents have cut her off, just severed all ties.”
“How do people do that? How do they justify that, live with that?”
“They think they’re right. And I think that added to the excitement for her. And in the spring, there I am, so she’s got a new baby to show off. Doting grandparents—a husband who’s besotted, and still around.”
She chose another berry, let it lie on her tongue a moment, sweet and firm. “Then a month later, the season starts, and he’s not around every day. Now it’s about changing diapers, and walking a squalling baby in the middle of the night. It’s not such an adventure now, or so exciting.”
She reached for another piece of chicken. “He’s never, not once, said a word against her to me. What I know of that time I got from reading letters he’d locked up, riffling through papers, eavesdropping—or occasionally catching my grandmother when she was pissed off and her tongue was just loose enough.”
“You wanted to know,” Gull said simply.
“Yeah, I wanted to know. She left when I was five months old. Just took me over to my grandparents, asked if they’d watch me while she ran some errands, and never came back.”
“Cold.” He couldn’t quite get his mind around that kind of cold, or what that kind of cold would do to the child left behind. “And clueless,” he added. “It says she decided this isn’t what I want after all, so I’ll just run away.”
“That sums it. My dad tracked her down, a couple of times. Made phone calls, wrote letters. Her line, because I saw the letters she wrote back, was it was all his fault. He was the cold and selfish one, had wrecked her emotionally. The least he could do was send her some money while she was trying to recover. She’d promise to come back once she had, claimed she missed me and all that.”
“Did she come back?”
“Once, on my tenth birthday. She walks into my party, all smiles and tears, loaded down with presents. It’s not my birthday party anymore.”
“No, it’s her Big Return, putting her in the center again.”
Rowan stared at him for a long moment. “That’s exactly it. I hated her at that moment, the way a ten-year-old can. When she tried to hug me, I pushed her away. I told her to get out, to go to hell.”
“Sounds to me that at ten you had a good bullshit detector. How’d she handle it?”
“Big, fat tears, shock, hurt—and bitter accusations hurled at my father.”
“For turning you against her.”
“And again, you score. I stormed right out the back door, and I’d have kept on going if Dad hadn’t come out after me. He was pissed, all the way around. I knew better than to speak to anyone like that, and I was going back inside, apologizing to my mother. I said I wouldn’t, he couldn’t make me, and until he made her leave, I was never going back in that house. I was too mad to be scared. Respect was god in our house. You didn’t lie and you didn’t sass—the big two.”
“How did he handle it?”