Free Ignited by Ruthie Knox Page A

flogging.”
    She ducked back into the Airstream for her bathroom stuff and took herself off for a shower in the bathhouse. An older woman was at the sink, blow-drying her hair.
    “Morning,” the woman said.
    “Good morning.”
    “That you in the Airstream, with the sit-up guy?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Nice.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Airstream’s not bad, either.”
    Ashley smiled, even though she didn’t feel like it.
    The water was hot, the pressure strong. The walls and ceiling had been painted a sort of industrial mint since she was last here, years ago. Stanley took good care of his place, but he wasn’t big on aesthetics.
    When she got back to the campsite, Roman had switched to push-ups. The back of his shirt had soaked through. His arms trembled.
    “Would you like me to build you an obstacle course while you’re finishing up here?”
    He ignored her.
    “I bet Stanley has some old tires I could set out. You could use the bathhouse as your wall-climbing thingy. Pole-vault over the muddy area by the tent-camping sites.”
    His body sank toward the earth, then rose again. Again. Again.
    “I’ll make up a fifty-pound backpack, and you can wear it on your twenty-mile run.”
    “I already ran.”
    God . “How far?”
    “I don’t have any way to know.”
    “Was it still dark when you started?”
    His head came up, and his eyes found hers. He sank. Rose. Sank. Rose. “What do you think?”
    She broke eye contact and kicked at a pinecone in the dirt. “How did you sleep?”
    Roman shook his head and looked down.
    “Tent’s on a bit of an incline, isn’t it? I tried to tell you.”
    “It’s fine.”
    “It looks like the stick you used to prop it up didn’t hold. Did it fall on your head and wake you up?”
    Nothing.
    “I tried to tell you it was a bad idea to set up a brand-new tent in the dark.”
    “That pole was defective.”
    “Or maybe you were defective, thinking you could just slap that puppy together without reading the directions. ‘I’ll just push this through the sleeve. How hard can it be?’ ”
    “Give it a rest.”
    But she wouldn’t. Not until he did.
    “I bet you woke up a hundred times, and every time, you were crunched up at the bottom of the tent, and you had to crawl back up onto your sleeping pad like an inchworm.”
    He ignored her.
    “I slept like a baby,” she said mildly. “In case you were wondering.”
    “Wasn’t.”
    Sank. Rose.
    “If you want, I can give you some tips today. How to pick a good spot for your tent and stake it out so it doesn’t fall on your head in the night. Camp craft stuff.”
    “I know camp craft.”
    “Really? Because your tent—”
    “Shut up.”
    Sank. Rose.
    He wasn’t nearly as irritated as he wanted her to think, though. Not with all that light behind his face.
    “I’m just saying. If we’re going to be doing this for the full two weeks.”
    “We’re not.”
    “Hey, we might be. I’ve still got ten days to change your mind.”
    “You won’t last that long.”
    Would she? Ten more days of this—the prospect unsettled her. Ashley wasn’t sure how much longer she could postpone the inevitable. But she wanted to go to Ohio, Wisconsin … she had people to see, people she wanted Roman to meet. This was her time, her chance to changeRoman’s mind and convince him Sunnyvale was too important to destroy, too essential to be taken from her.
    If she failed, she’d promised to forget about the Key deer and get out of Roman’s way. He’d knock down Sunnyvale, and she’d go on with her life. Somehow.
    Ten days.
    “I’ll last as long as I have to,” she said. “And in the meantime, you should know how to start a fire and all that. Without cheating. A proper fire, with an A-frame and one match, little piles of tinder and kindling and all.”
    Another few push-ups, and he said, “I know how to start a fire.”
    “Just like you know how to put up a tent?”
    Roman dropped to his knees. Finally .
    When he levered up his torso and