“Kelan says fate’s the life plan we write for ourselves before we come alive.”
Rocco gave her a small smile and shook his head. “Kelan sees things in a different way. I don’t know that he’s right.”
Fiona drew a long breath. “I wouldn’t have written losing my mom the way she went. I wouldn’t have wanted Lion kidnapped. I wouldn’t have had my friend murdered. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have picked King for my father.” She took a step closer. “I don’t want to live in this dark place. I want to go back to the sunshine, which I still believed in, until a few days ago.”
Rocco nodded. “At least you can still remember the sunshine.”
Fiona blinked at her sudden tears. “How do we get out of this, Rocco?”
He sent a look over her shoulder to the trunk. She looked where he was looking, but saw only the piece of furniture. “They say it’s a choice.”
“What is?” she asked.
“All of it. What we choose to see. What we choose to feel. Life, even.”
“Will it pass on its own?”
Rocco’s face tightened. His nostrils flared. “You ask me like I know the answer.”
“You’ve been in this place longer than I have.”
“It hasn’t passed yet.”
“Do you want it to?”
He stared at her, as if shocked at her question, then looked out the open window. “Maybe not.”
She went to stand beside him and look out at the sunny September afternoon. “Is it guilt, then, that holds us here?”
He frowned. “What are you guilty of?”
“Being King’s daughter.”
“Lion’s King’s kid, too. Do you blame him for his parentage?”
“No.”
“Then why blame yourself?”
“If I weren’t here, if I went away, Kelan wouldn’t be in danger from King anymore.”
“Yes, he would. You’ve seen the ink on his arm, right?” She nodded. “Well, he would bring war to King, the likes of which have never been seen in this world if he lost you because of that bastard.”
Fiona sighed. Maybe it was a choice. Maybe that was the secret cure. “I choose sunshine, Rocco.” She said it, but she didn’t feel it.
“Just like that?”
She nodded.
“Well, then. Good. Get out while you can.”
“I choose sunshine for you, too.”
“Don’t work like that, kiddo.”
“Maybe it does.” Maybe she could will it to be so. She’d have to once she left Kelan.
*
Val leaned against the driver’s door of his SUV while he waited for Ace. It was ten after one. He wondered if she was going to stand him up.
No sooner had he had that thought than her old beater pulled into the small parking lot of the trail.
Ace got out of her car, wearing the diner’s apron. “I’m glad you’re still here. We got slammed just as my shift was ending.” She untied her apron and tossed it in the back of her car. Val took in her garb. It wasn’t what he would have selected, but it worked on her. Her platform black-buckle knee-high boots looked like some futuristic girl vamp warrior gear.
Made him wonder how kinky she liked to get in the sack.
And that gave him an instant hard-on.
He grinned at her, then tried not to, which made his grin bigger. “Hi,” was all he could manage. Of all the girls in the world, why did he get tongue-tied with this one?
She leaned over and braced a foot on the floor of her car so she could unbuckle her boot. Her hips had a gentle curve to them that her low-rise jeans emphasized. Especially with her butt sticking out toward him like that. Her shirt hiked up, revealing a thin strip of ink on her back, but he couldn’t make out the pattern. God, he wanted to lift her shirt and have a good look at the art she’d covered herself with.
When she got her boots off, she sat on the driver’s seat and started lacing up a pair of regular hiking boots. Far less exotic. Val missed the vamp boots.
“I’ve been looking forward to this hike for a week. It’s why I only worked a half shift today. I saw some pics of the trail on the internet.” She put her feet down and looked up at him.
For a second, he saw her kneeling in front of him, ready to take orders. Sonofabitch. It was going to be a whole lot of no fun climbing a mountain with a hard-on, but his had been persistent since she got out of her car, so he was just going to have to deal with it.
She tied a light jacket around her waist, grabbed a water bottle and a big camera, then locked her car. “Ready?” She smiled at him, flashing those sharp canines at him.
“Oh, yeah.”
She held her camera up and snapped a pic of his face as they walked toward the trailhead. He smiled at her, and she snapped that pic too. Lowering the camera, she caught an image of his boots.
“Can you hike in those things?” she asked.
“I got around the Hindu Kush just fine in them.”
“You fought in the war?”
“I did.”
“What branch?”
She took a pic as he said, “Army.”
“What was your MOS?”
It surprised him that she knew to ask what his specialty was using that term. Most civilians just asked what he did in the war. “Sniper.”
They walked a few steps in silence. She seemed pensive now. Gone was her light mood. She was as changeable as a spring storm—and as beautiful to watch.
The path was wide and covered in gravel, making the hike an easy one. She caught a pic of the trailhead sign, then turned to look at him. “Are you a good guy, Val?”
He stopped walking. “I guess that depends on who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I try to be.”
She watched him a long minute, then looked away and snapped a few more pics as they started up the trail. “There’s a waterfall halfway up.” That thought seemed to cheer her up.