Free In a Dark Wood by Josh Lanyon Page B

anymore; his brows were drawn together like he was studying me from a distance and not sure about what he was seeing.
    “I took a step forward and something crunched under my foot. When I looked down it was part of a skull.”
    Laughter, some expelled breaths, Luke still stared, still frowning. “Skull or a bone?”
    “Skull.”
    “Human?” someone else asked.
    “I don’t know,” I admitted. “At the time we thought so, but we kind of wanted to think so, you know? I don’t think it was.”
    I did think it was human, actually, but I sure as hell didn’t want to admit it.
    “So what happened?” a woman asked. The light from the blue lanterns bounced off her glasses and made her look blind. A blind lady insect.
    “Nothing. We freaked out and ran home.” I laughed. It wasn’t a convincing laugh, but everyone else laughed too.
    Everyone but Luke. “Did you tell anyone?”
    I shook my head. “We weren’t supposed to be there. We were afraid…”
    We were afraid all right, and getting into trouble was only a little part of it.
    “Did you ever go back?” the woman asked again.
    Even her voice has a kind of insect whine to it. It hurt my head. I reached for my glass. “No.”
    “Do you think you could find the house again?” Rob asked slyly, looking from Luke to me. “If you had to?”
    “No.”
    Luke asked, with a funny smile, “Would you want to try?”
    * * * * *
    I should have known the weekend would be a disaster when Luke told me later that evening that he would pick me up Saturday at six a.m.
    “Morning?” I said uncertainly, hoping against hope that he’d got the a.m. and p.m. thing mixed up.
    “Well, yeah. We’ll need to get an early start. There’s a lot of ground to cover, especially if we don’t know where we’re going.”
    He was smiling. He had a great smile: his hazel eyes tilted at the corners and his mouth — he had a very sexy mouth — did this little quirky thing. I felt a powerful tug of attraction — something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
    Still, I knew myself pretty well by then, and I wasn’t at my best and brightest before noon on the weekends. Or any day. “Uh…I’m not much of a morning person.”
    “Mornings can be the best part of the day,” Luke said softly, and it was clear he wasn’t talking cornflakes. His gaze held mine; I literally couldn’t look away. My heart did a little flip.
    “Do you have a sleeping bag?” he added.
    “A…sleeping…bag?”
    “We’ll be spending the night, right? Camping?”
    “Uh…probably. Yeah.” Oh. My. God. Did he mean—? Were we going to—?
    “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I’ve got you covered.” His eyes actually twinkled. A cop with twinkly eyes? How much had I had to drink? I checked my glass.
    So, yeah, the upshot: I went to dinner at Rob’s on Thursday night and somehow walked out with a date — my first in over a year — for the weekend.
    “Isn’t Luke hot ?” Rob demanded, when he called on Friday afternoon.
    “He’s pretty cute,” I admitted, massaging my throbbing temples. I tried to focus on the monitor screen.
    “Cute?” Rob exclaimed. “That’s like saying Tom Cruise has nice teeth. He’s gorgeous! That grin. Those eyes. That ass .”
    “Enough with Tom Cruise.”
    “I’m talking about Luke!”
    I rubbed my eyes. Tried to read back what I’d written. Garbage. I mean, really, who gave a flying fuck about Scenic Hudson?
    “I didn’t even catch his last name,” I said.
    “O’Brien.”
    “Swell. He probably comes from a long line of Irish cops.”
    “Sure, and don’t you know the way of it, boyo,” Rob returned in a tooth-peeling brogue.
    “I don’t think he’s my type.”
    “What are you talking about? He’s attractive, smart, funny — and he has a steady job.”
    “He carries a gun.”
    “He rarely shoots people on the first date.”
    “I may beg him to; he’s taking me camping.” Against my will, I was smiling.
    “Camping?” Rob recovered quickly.