“Good morning!” she sighed, blinking as she stepped into the sunshine. “The coffee smells wonderful!”
“It’s fresh,” he told her, thinking about that small patch of skin he’d just seen.
“Don’t you need to call Carl?” he asked suddenly. “We’ve been gone for over a week and you haven’t mentioned him once.”
“Did you pick these flowers for me?” she asked, ignoring his question in favor of admiring the small glass filled with pink and white daisy-like flowers.
When there was just silence, she glanced over at him. “Did you?”
“Yes. They’re called bitterroot. They are the state flower of Montana.”
Kinsley looked at the flowers again, more touched than she wanted to admit. It took extra effort to swallow past the lump of tenderness. “Thank you. They’re…stunning.” Kinsley took the cup he’d set out for her and poured coffee, keeping her eyes lowered so that he couldn’t see her expression. “I’m sure Carl is fine,” she added.
The truth was, she hadn’t thought about Carl at all. Ever since he’d left her apartment last Sunday night, the only man who had been on her mind was Lincoln. And with every passing day, she fell more deeply in love with him. He was fascinating! He knew how to fish and hunt and do all sorts of nature-like things that would have completely confused her. He’d taught her to load up the camper and set up the campsite. He’d shown her parts of the country that boggled the mind and soothed her wanderlust.
She loved him. She knew that she was completely, utterly in love with him. Her boss. Her friend.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the placid kind of feeling she had for Carl. This was heart stopping, pulse pounding, desire laden feelings that made her mind go blank when he looked at her, and her knees wobble when he smiled at her.
“You don’t want to call him?” he probed, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
“Well, we’re not really close to a cell tower just now, are we?”
He eyed her curiously as she sipped her coffee, eyes closed to better savor the flavors.
“What’s going on, Kinsley? Is everything okay between you and Carl?”
Kinsley turned and looked out at the amazing views, wondering how to explain what had happened. But she knew that she’d have to go with honesty. At least, partial honesty.
“Carl and I broke up,” she announced. She shifted slightly and peeked at him from under her lashes. The intense satisfaction on his features startled her. It was just a flash and Kinsley wondered if she’d misunderstood the look.
“What happened?”
She shrugged. No way was she admitting that she had the hots for him, which was why she couldn’t ethically continue to date someone else.
“It was just…time for us to…” she stumbled, not sure what to say.
“Find someone else?” he offered, inching closer.
She looked up at him. There! It was there again! Her breath caught in her throat as she stared into those dragon-like eyes.
“Yes, something like that,” she whispered, looking away.
“Was Carl seeing someone else? Is that why you broke up with him?”
Kinsley bit her lip, wondering what to say to that. “No.” She took a deep breath and turned away from Lincoln. “No, actually, I realized that I didn’t love him. Not the way a woman needs to love a man she’s going to marry.”
There was a long silence and Kinsley moved to the cooler, pulling out eggs and milk, deciding to make breakfast.
“Kinsley,” he asked, his voice stopping her hands from cracking the first egg. “What happened?”
Lincoln watched her face, feeling as if something momentous was about to happen. But when she said, “I…sort of…cheated on Carl,” he was stunned. Of all the things that she might have said, that was the absolute last.
Kinsley? Cheating? If she hadn’t said so herself, he wouldn’t have believed it. Over the past several weeks, he’d come to know her and had always thought she was meticulously honest and fair.
“You…cheated on Carl?”
Her blue eyes were cloudy with trouble as she nodded. “Yes. Sort of. Not really but…yes. Really.”
“How?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to move away from her or grab her arms and shake her. Because he was shaken! Badly! His belief in who she was, in what he admired about her, was completely shattered! “With who?”
Kinsley shrugged slightly. “You.”
For a long moment, they stood there, the river gently gurgling behind them as the sun slowly worked its way up into the sky. Birds might have been singing, but he couldn’t hear them. Hell, a tidal wave could have been working its way up behind him and he wouldn’t have noticed at this moment.
“I’m sorry but…I’m not sure I understand. You told Carl that you were cheating on him with…me?”
“No,” she tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. “No, I didn’t tell Carl that. Even if I had cheated on him with you, I wouldn’t do that to him. I wouldn’t be that cruel.”
Lincoln was completely confused. And he wasn’t sure that he agreed with her. He shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around it.
“I don’t understand, Kinsley. You said that you broke up with Carl because you cheated on him.”
“Sort of cheated on him,” she clarified quickly, then put her cup of coffee down on a nearby log and moved towards the river, wrapping her arms around herself. “But, if I explain this, then we’ll have to end our trip, Lincoln.
