Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
He got them most of the way down, but I had to help with the final bit, which I didn’t mind in the least. I was more worried about the makeshift bandage around his left knee, along with the deep abrasions along his shin. “What happened? Did you fall?”
“Sort of.” He looked over at where Darcie and Ash were rubbing themselves dry, with Grace and a damp Aaron putting together everyone’s hot drinks, then nudged his head so I’d lean in closer. “It’s really weird, Lunes.” Low volume, quiet words. “The stitching on my boot gave way on one side.”
I frowned, looking over at where everyone had left their wet boots out on the veranda. Though the kitchen door was still open, I couldn’t immediately spot his, so went out there on the pretext of closing the door and saw what he was talking about. The leather flapped on one side, creating a gaping hole.
“It wasn’t bad manufacture,” I murmured when I returned to him. “Not with that kind of a tear, and not with how you are in terms of buying and maintaining your outdoor supplies.”
“I checked them before and after the tramp I did with Nix and Vansi on the way up here,” he confirmed, still in that low tone that would reach no one else. “My boots were in perfect shape. The only way for it to have given way so significantly is for someone to have cut the stitching—and even then, the glue should’ve held it together. It had to have been cut almost but not quite all the way through.”
My heart thudded, and the two of us held gazes for a moment, neither one vocalizing what we were thinking. That this had been done on purpose. But why? And by who?
“Make sure the boots don’t get lost,” he muttered, leaning close as we heard the sound of feet thundering down the stairs.
Phoenix entered the kitchen only seconds later, bustling over to look at Kaea’s knee, with Vansi beside him. Given that he was a doctor, and she an ER nurse, I backed off.
Ash and Darcie headed upstairs to change at the same moment, as did Aaron. Grace, meanwhile, was walking out of the kitchen with a pile of damp towels and discarded clothing in her arms. Probably going to throw them in the washing machine.
No one was paying any attention to me.
Slipping outside, I took both of Kaea’s boots and, running quickly around the veranda, hid them under an overgrown blackberry bush I’d photographed earlier that day. They’d stay dry due to the overhang of the house and no one would find them without going to that specific spot and crouching down to search under the bush.
I was back in the kitchen before the others who’d left.
When Kaea met my gaze, I gave him a slight nod. “I’ll go find you dry clothes.”
It wasn’t a hard job—he traveled light and packed neatly. I picked out a pair of gray sweatpants along with a thick black hoodie. Easy for him to get on and off. And even if I knew Kaea wouldn’t care, I didn’t dig around in his underwear. He could go commando or ask one of the guys to grab that.
I was looking for a pair of socks when my eye caught on the edge of the scarf poking out of the side pocket of the pack. I spotted three pairs of carefully balled-up socks lined up by his sneakers a heartbeat later.
I should’ve left.
I didn’t.
Walking over, I fingered the material of the scarf, images flashing behind my eyes until they screeched to a sudden halt—on a memory of Bea sitting by the campfire, that scarf wrapped around her hair and sunflower earrings hanging from her ears. As if she was some ’70s hippie child born into the wrong era.
“No,” I whispered, tucking the scarf back into the pocket. But I knew what I’d remembered and I knew it was correct. My memories were always correct when it came to the visual. But why did Kaea have Bea’s scarf?
Maybe it had just been forgotten there all these years. If he was carrying around a pack from that long ago, then why not? Especially if he’d never managed to pull it out while checking on the first-aid kit. But even as I considered that, I knew it to be nonsensical.
Kaea was fanatical about maintaining his gear, would’ve gone over the pack multiple times by now. He’d also have pulled out and updated the kit prior to every single hike. Man was safety conscious to the point of being anal.
Yet his was the shoe that had broken.
* * *
—
Kaea was in the living room by the time I arrived, on one of the long and deep sofas with the low backs and cushions that might’ve once been hard but had softened with time and use. He had his legs stretched out in front of him, back braced against the arm, and a jerry-rigged ice pack on his knee.