style="font-size:15px;"> “If you feel like taking off your hiking boots, don’t let me stop you.”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. Then she blew him a kiss and moved away from the edge of the platform. Yeah, they would get their groove back. Jack Chance wasn’t going to rain on their parade.
Within fifteen minutes, he had a feast spread out on the platform. He’d even brought a tablecloth, which impressed Naomi to no end.
“Pretty fancy for camping, Griffin.” She sat on the far side of the checkered cloth he’d spread out on the platform. And she was, happy day, barefoot.
“You’re camping, but I rode in on a horse, so I can provide more luxuries.” He was proud of the cheese, cold cuts and sliced bakery bread he’d brought for making sandwiches. Shoshone’s little grocery store wasn’t huge, but it carried quality stuff. He’d included only mustard because mayonnaise didn’t keep as well.
“This is wonderful.” Naomi took one of the paper plates he’d provided and made a sandwich.
Luke waited until she was finished before putting his together. “I considered bringing wine, but I didn’t want to sabotage your eagle research, so I brought sparkling water instead. Which reminds me, do you need to check on the birds?”
“After we finish lunch. The webcam does the bulk of the work, but someone should be monitoring the nest on a regular basis and taking some digital still shots. The professor gets the constant webcam feed, but he makes good use of my personal notes and the stills, too.”
“How did you hook up with him?”
“He put an ad in the paper, and out of all the people who answered it, he picked me.”
“Of course he would.” Luke was quickly becoming her biggest fan. “You have the credentials and you’re extremely personable. I’m surprised you haven’t landed a job with one of the national parks yet.”
“Everyone has budget issues, and I’m relatively new to the profession. The parks are struggling to keep their veterans employed, and that’s what they should do. I can wait it out. I don’t have lots of bills, and I can stay with my folks and pay a small amount of rent. I also have some savings.”
He nodded. “You’re like me. I don’t worry if I don’t have a job right this minute, because I know I’ll find something eventually. Whereas my dad got a job with an electronics company right out of college and never left. He thinks if he did, no one else would hire him.”
“And you don’t want to live in fear like that,” she said.
“God, no. Fear makes you afraid to take risks.” He bit into his sandwich. It was about a thousand times better than her energy drink.
“Have you ever been engaged?”
Now, there was a question right out of left field. She should know that he wouldn’t do that. “I’m not into marriage.” He glanced at her. “How about you?”
“A guy asked me once, but I couldn’t see him as the father of my children. So I said no, but I did my best to be gentle about it.”
“So that’s your criteria? A guy has to pass muster as the future father of your children?”
“Well, I need to love him passionately, and we need a good sex life, but yeah, I’d want to be able to picture him as my future children’s dad. Animals in the wild use that yardstick all the time and it’s not a bad one.”
She sure wouldn’t consider a wanderer like him as a viable father of her kids, which was a good thing, really. “I take it you are planning to have kids, then.”
She laughed. “I’m planning and my parents are praying. I’m an only child, so if they’re going to have grandchildren to spoil, I’m their only hope.”
He was also an only child. His mother had made some noises about grandkids, but his dad had cautioned him to live his life for himself and not worry about providing grandchildren. Luke had heard the unspoken message—don’t make my mistakes.
Naomi gazed at him. “Did you think I wouldn’t want kids?”
“I don’t see how you’d manage a family and still be so involved with wild-animal research.”
“People do manage it. There’s a woman who took her little boy out on the boat while she studied whales. If I could get a job at Yellowstone, then being married and having a family would be no problem at all because it’s so close to Shoshone. My folks would help when they could, and I know a bunch of people around here. Child care would be a breeze because I’d have a support system.”
He stared at her as a million contradictory thoughts battled in his head. “That kind of thinking is so foreign to me. I’ve never thought in terms of having a support system.” He was both attracted and repelled by the concept.
Something that looked dangerously like pity flickered in her blue eyes. Then it was gone. “If you’re a really strong person, I guess you don’t need one. When I was in Florida, I had friends, and I cobbled together a loose kind of support system. But it wasn’t anything like I have here.”
“So does that mean you feel tied to this place?” He was still sorting it out.
“Not at all. In fact, it’s the opposite. Let’s say I did get a job around here, found the right guy, had a couple of kids. And then I had some fabulous research opportunity for a few weeks. Being here would mean I could consider it, because I’d have backup. Backup in addition to my husband, of course, whoever he might be. I’d have other people I could count on, too.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It seems a little too cozy for me.”
“I’m sure it does. You’re a lone wolf. I shouldn’t describe this as a one-way street, either. If I expect to count on others to help me, then when they need backup, I have to make myself available.”
“Aha.” He knew there had to be a catch. “So you could end up being tied down by them.”
“For a little while. It’s supposed to even out. If I ask my parents to babysit, then I have to be willing to watch their house and feed their dog if they go on vacation. It’s a trade-off.”
Luke shuddered. “I couldn’t deal with that.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’ve created the life that you have, isn’t it?”
He met her gaze across the tablecloth, littered with the remains of their lunch. “Yes. I like it.” He allowed himself a slow perusal of Naomi Perkins, from her bare toes to her golden ponytail. He and Naomi might be headed down different paths, but right now, they occupied the same place and time. “I’ll tell you what else I like.”
Her skin had turned a sweet shade of pink as he’d studied her. “What’s that?”
“The idea of you naked on this tablecloth.”
Her breath hitched. “That’s quite a change of subject.”
“We needed one.” He started moving the food off the red checkered cloth. “All
