He shot a glance at her feet. “Size…eight?”
Not bad for a guesstimate, she had to admit. “Seven and a half. But I read online that your feet can swell when you’re hiking, so maybe the eight would be best?”
He grinned. “Did you do all your hiking research through Google?”
“Well…yes. And I found this picture of these cute shoes—” she pointed to the bright-pink sneaks she’d bought last night, “—and thought they’d work great.”
“What the model wears for the catalog and what works in reality…” he scanned the stack of boxes, then pulled one out and handed it to her, “…are two different things. We’re hiking a mountain, and although the weather is great here in the parking lot, it’ll get colder in the higher elevations. We need to be prepared for rain or snow, even if the weatherman swears there won’t be any, because what happens at elevation isn’t always the same as what happens below, which is why the boots are a better choice. Here, try these.”
She took the box and pulled out a pair of dark brown boots. They were thick and rubbery, with heavy soles, like Trent’s. “Can I ask why you have shoes and shirts in the back of your car?”
“Because you never know when a damsel in distress is going to need a pair of hiking boots.” He shot her a wink, then rooted inside the box marked PANTS as he talked. “Actually, I did a trade show a few months ago and just haven’t had time to unload the demo stuff from my car. We only had a few pairs of shoes at the show—that’s a new area for us, and we were test driving them at the show. You lucked out that I had your size.”
“I’m hitting the hiking lottery.” Kate leaned on the back bumper, slipping into the hiking boots.
Trent tried not to notice how close she was, how a shift of a few inches would make him touch her. The heat from her body and the light scent of her perfume captivated him. His gaze kept returning to one errant curl that had escaped the ponytail, and begged for him to brush it off her cheek.
“Uh, here’s some hiking pants. They’ll be more comfortable than your jeans.”
She arched a brow, then pointed to her feet. “Hey, Mr. Makeover, you might have wanted to tell me I was changing my pants before I put the boots on.”
“Oh…yeah. Sorry.” He’d been so distracted by her presence that his mind had skipped over that fact. Focus, Trent, focus. “Do you want a GOA shirt too?”
She glanced down at her own faded dark blue shirt with a logo for a local cookie shop. “But this is my lucky T-shirt.”
“Well, lucky or not, you should wear this under it to keep you warm.” He pressed a long-sleeved Henley into her hands. “Dare I ask, why this is your lucky shirt?”
She took a breath and let the story spill out of her, talking a mile a minute. Clearly, Kate had had caffeine today too. “Ten years ago, I was at the farmer’s market when I struck up a conversation with a woman who had purple hair. She turned out to be an agent, and meeting her led to my first book contract. When I met her, I was wearing the shirt, and when she made the call and said I got the job—”
“You were wearing the shirt.” The story amused him and made him wonder what other tidbits he didn’t know about Kate. She was so…quirky and fun, so unlike the other women he had dated over the years.
“Yup. See?” She spread her arms. The words Life’s Better with Cookies danced across her chest. “Lucky.”
He shifted closer, curious about everything from the shirt to her favorite kind of cookie. All the details he had either forgotten or not bothered to pay attention to when she’d been his. “And why do you need to be lucky today?”
“Trent?” A female voice drew his attention away from Kate. A young woman stood in front of them with a huge backpack slung over one shoulder. “I’m Carissa, the photographer. We met once before.”
Kate grabbed the clothes from him and hopped off the back of the truck. “I’ll go change.”
Trent turned to greet the short redheaded photographer, but his gaze lingered on Kate’s retreating form. What had she meant about wearing the good-luck shirt today? To protect her from bears? Encourage Trent to answer all the questions he had yet to answer? Or something else altogether?
Even as he and Carissa exchanged small talk, Trent’s mind wandered back to Kate. Her silly T-shirt and the unwavering belief that it brought her luck brought him back to a funny conversation the weekend before finals. Calculus had never been his strong suit, and Trent had poured hours into studying for the exam. The complicated math equations had come easy to Kate, maybe because she had a way of seeing the whole picture, whereas he got mired in the details. They’d been sprawled on a blanket under a tree in the courtyard, books open, highlighters and pens marking and noting the things they needed to know. He’d started to stress about memorizing the equations, and Kate had stopped him.
“You’ve got this,” she’d said. “You’re smart and you have great instincts.” Then she’d handed him a bright green pencil and closed his fingers over it. “If you forget that, even for an instant, pull this out.”
He’d turned the pencil over in his palm. “Why green?”
“Because my father always told me that’s the color of ground wires. They keep everything else from going haywire. Maybe it will help you too.” She’d smiled and gone back to her studying, confident she had solved his problem. Even though he’d thought it was silly, Trent had taken the pencil with him to the exam, and when the exam had gotten tough and he’d started to sweat the answers, he’d switched to the green writing tool.
In the end, he’d scored a 91 on that test. Maybe because he’d studied. Or maybe because of Kate’s grounding pencil. Whichever it had been, there was something about Kate’s quiet faith in signs and superstitions that he found…endearing.
“So, does that work for you?”
Carissa’s voice drew him back to the present. To business, not reminiscing. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Great. I think the waterfall will make a great backdrop for your photo. The couple I’m working with wants their photos done on the bridge. How about I meet you at the falls when I’m done? Say, a couple of hours?”
He nodded. “Perfect. See you there.”
Carissa gave him a nod, then headed across the parking lot to meet up with a young couple who were holding hands and exchanging kisses as frequently as giggles. The woman’s diamond ring glinted in the sun.
Trent had never been a PDA kind of guy. But as Kate came up beside him and stood several inches away while the other couple celebrated their love, a part of him wanted to swoop her into his arms and kiss her until they were both breathless.