“Yes,” she said, and smiled grimly. “How’s that for honesty?”
She didn’t expect him to laugh out loud but that was exactly what he did, tossing back his head to do so. Finally, still grinning, he shook his head, his eyes lit with . . . affection? “I like you, too, and your smart mouth,” he said.
“Are you saying I’m a smart-ass?”
He smiled. “If the shoe fits.”
She thought of the woman he’d been talking to on his phone, who’d had a sure and confident voice as she called Parker out on his shit. Zoe didn’t know what shit exactly, but there’d definitely been a tension there, one she assumed was sexual.
But he seemed to be flirting with her now, and Zoe didn’t know how to take that. “And you . . . like smart-asses?”
“Yes.”
“So you like women who are bitchy to you?” she asked.
He smiled. “Don’t have much experience with that problem.”
She could believe it. “Is that your way of saying women usually fall all over you?”
“Well, not all of them,” he said with a false modesty that made her want to laugh. She tried to hold it back but couldn’t quite manage it.
“See?” he said. “I’m irresistible.”
“You’re something,” she agreed. “But I don’t think irresistible is it.”
“Admit it. I’m growing on you.”
“That’s one thing you’re not going to do,” she said firmly, and she meant it, too. At least her brain meant it, but her body didn’t seem to be on board with the plan. After all, she’d been burned by a mysterious man before, badly, one who’d turned out to be a big, fat liar.
She wasn’t going there again. Ever. Nope, she needed transparency from a man. And Parker, for all his bad-boy, cowboy ’tude and cocky swagger, wasn’t anything close to transparent.
At all.
And that made him downright dangerous to her. He was the kind of man that messed with a woman’s heart, so it was a good thing hers wasn’t available to him.
But if she’d worried about living with him and his knowing eyes and way-too-hot bod—now she also had to work with him.
Except the oddest thing happened when they got into the air.
He wasn’t a know-it-all. He didn’t try to flirt or drive her up a wall.
None of that. He asked her questions about Idaho as they flew, as though he’d done research on the area. He mentioned some of the other places he’d been—seemingly everywhere—and knew a lot about . . . well, a lot. He asked her about the wind patterns and the different techniques required for flying out of the high-altitude Sunshine airport, and she was fascinated in spite of herself.
He was driven, focused, sharp, and . . .
“Damn,” he murmured softly beneath his breath, and pulled out a set of binoculars when they were at altitude, locking on something out the side window for a long moment.
He looked badass to the core. Who the hell was he? Because right now, focused and still, he sure as hell didn’t look like a guy on a break from work. He looked like a guy who kept secrets, dark ones.
Another wolf in sheep’s clothing . . .
At that thought, she panicked—inwardly. Because outwardly she was cool. Cool as ice.
Or so she hoped. “Rocky Falls is coming up on your right,” she said.
“What else is out here?”
“White Mountain,” she said. “And Angel Lake.”
He didn’t react, and she knew she hadn’t given him anything of interest.
“And then there’s Cat’s Paw,” she said.
He turned his head and looked at her. “That’s not on the map.”
“No,” she said. “It’s mostly just national forestland, but years and years ago the locals called that specific area Cat’s Paw and it stuck.”
“Why the nickname?”
“Because mountain cats used to be so prevalent there—before poachers and too many people nearly wiped them out,” she said.
“Can you circle around and fly over the same spot again?”