Thehalfanhour Agent Reyes sectioned out for us to be out of the motel turned into two hours between my shower and demand we stop for breakfast at a diner down the street.
For a man with control issues, he was doing fairly well letting me get what I wanted since the plane. His concessions didn’t come without an argument of course, but in the end, I got my hike and my triple pancake breakfast.
We arrived at Cedar Ridge Preserve around noon when the sun was at its highest and hottest. The rays warmed my exposed shoulders and legs as I got out of Reyes' car, dirt kicking up beneath my flip flops. Hand over my eyes to shadow the sun, I looked to Agent Reyes and the jeans he was wearing even though I’d warned him otherwise.
He said we wouldn’t be out here long enough for it to matter, and that was his first mistake of the day.
If my new plan went right, this preserve and these trees would be my final resting place, and James would be leaving here distraught and alone.
“We should get a map and pick out which trail you want to do. Two, if we have time.” Reyes let his sunglasses slide down the bridge of his nose so his observant eyes could peek above them. Probably searching out a friggin’ map.
“No, sir. We’re going sans map. It’s more fun that way.”
He pivoted his hard-slit glance over to me, cocking an eyebrow up to his hairline. “Getting lost is more fun?”
“I don’t look at it as getting lost. I look at it as finding my own way.”
“I don’t know what about me in our interactions thus far has hinted to you that I’m a man who enjoys ‘finding my own way’, but I can assure you that you’ve read the situation incorrectly.”
“I know.” I waved him off, strolling towards the preserve. “You’re a control freak.”
Catching up to me in two easy strides of his long legs, Agent Reyes pushed his sunglasses back up in place so his eyes matched the blankness of his straight-lined mouth. “I’m not a control freak.”
“You’re a freak of some sort,” I muttered.
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
With a growl deep in his chest, Agent Reyes strode ahead of me and snagged a map out of the welcome center stand. My eyes were rolling without thought, and I came up to peer around his shoulder since I couldn’t see over it to save my fucking life. This man was tall.
I plucked the map out of his hands and scurried away, tucking the thing into my back shorts pocket. Reyes' perfect posture fell out of position just a fraction, his steel-cut jaw clenching to the side.
“Give that back.”
“No.”
He towed one step into me, and I countered back. He reacted with a souring grumble that got blown away with the passing breeze. It tousled his hair in a mess of dark locks that made him look like he did before bed—unkempt and rugged.
If I had to have an opinion on it, I preferred him this way.
“This is your apology to me, and we’re going to do it my way which means no map.”
Agent Reyes cast his shaded gaze out over the vast expanse of greenery, tension evident in his wide-set shoulders. Wow, someone really has issues letting go.
I slouched with an exaggerated sigh. “I’ll have the map in my pocket the whole time in case we get lost. It’s not like we won’t have it. We’re just going to try and not use it.”
He lent his focus back to me, his square jaw wound so tightly, it might have cracked at any second. “Have it your way.”
“I always do,” I quipped.
He wasn’t amused.
The blister of the sun lessened as we entered the first trail, a canopy of mossy trees and twisting branches shading our journey. Neither of us spoke for a long while, leaving only the whisper of the wind through the leaves and Mother Nature's peaceful rustle. Birds sang and nature chirped as we walked in a world only touched by man’s molesting hand in order to keep it neat and tidy.
The air was fresh and smelled like morning dew even at mid-day. It stuck to my skin, a warm tickle that soothed my wayward mind as we walked in silence.
I’d always liked the idea of dying surrounded by nothing but soil and rocks, the earth beneath my pale body absorbing the life it had given me. My breath and blood watering the dirt and giving back the life I’d stolen by being born.