Paul was big and blond and his fair complexion had been burned red except for a white strip at his hairline. He gave Hope a quick up-and-down with his eyes before turning to Dylan and shaking his head. “I’ll see your five and raise you ten.” He opened the refrigerator and stuck his head inside. “Would you like a beer, Hope?”
“No, thank you.” Although she couldn’t imagine why, she had a feeling that they were betting on her.
“Dylan?”
“Yep.” The word was barely out of his mouth before a Budweiser was lobbed at him. He caught it in midair and popped the top.
“Remember me?” Wally asked as he came to stand before her. Like his father, he’d been burned by the sun, but that was where the resemblance ended. He was clearly his mother’s child.
“Of course,” she said. “You rescued my purse.”
“Yep.” He nodded and looked at his mother. “Where’s Adam?”
Shelly pointed in the direction of the bathroom and Wally went out of the kitchen. “Hope’s writing an article for a Northwest magazine,” she informed the men.
“What kinda article?” Paul closed the refrigerator door and hung one arm around his wife’s neck.
“Hope is into flora and fauna.”
Dylan raised the Bud to his mouth and watched her over the top of the can.
“I’m working on a nature article. I want to get some pictures of native wildlife and indigenous vegetation.”
Dylan lowered the beer as one brow lifted slightly. “At first glance, I’d never take you for a nature lover.”
“You don’t know me.”
“True.” He moved to the sink and set the can on the counter, next to her elbow.
“If you want to see nature,” Paul said, “you might want to camp out at the falls. Now that’s some beautiful country.”
Dylan stood so close his arm bumped hers as he turned the water on. Her pulse picked up a beat or two, but she stood perfectly still and refused to let him know he made her nervous. “I might do that,” she said.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Have you ever camped out somewhere other than a motel room?”
Well, there had been that one summer at Girl Scout camp. “Sure, I camp all the time. I love to commune with nature.”
He chuckled and reached for the lemon dish soap. His T-shirt brushed her bare shoulder. “Careful,” he whispered next to her ear, “your nose is growing.”
Heat radiated from his big body and she slid a few steps down the counter and walked around him. Okay, so he did make her a little nervous. He was just too big, too masculine, and too good-looking, and he probably knew it, too. And she suspected he was trying to make her nervous.
“Remember that writer last summer?” Shelly asked. “What was he writing about? I can’t remember.”
“He said he was a survivalist,” Dylan answered.
Paul scoffed. “Yeah, but he had his pack filled with ready-to-eat army rations.”
“You should write something like that, Hope,” Shelly suggested. “All kinds of stuff is written by men, mostly Grizzly Adams he-man stuff. You could go on one of those survivalist treks. It might be interesting to read something like that from the point of view of a woman like you.”
He-man stuff? Survivalist trek? “Like me?”
Shelly made a palms-up gesture as if nothing needed to be said.
Paul said it anyway. “An indoor woman. If you went on one of those survivalist treks, you could write about eating wild onion and snakes.”
Her disgust must have shown on her face, because Paul quickly added, “Hell, it tastes just like chicken.”
“That’s true,” Shelly interjected.