Gray looked back over his shoulder for the fifth time that morning. Aoife wrapped her hand around his and squeezed tightly. “Stop,” she whispered. “If you look back one more time, I’m going to make you turn around and go back there. Elton said they’d be fine, and we’ll be back by autumn. I promised Teca.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just still not entirely comfortable with just leaving them, you know?”
“You didn’t have to come,” Aoife said.
“You wanted me to come,” he countered, looking down at her with a faint, wry smile. “I wanted to stay with you.”
Her fingers tightened around his hand again and he leaned in to let his lips brush her temple. She shivered, pleased and suddenly a little warmer than she’d been before.
“That means a lot to me,” she whispered. “You know that, right?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Gray nodded. “I hoped it did, anyway.” He sighed and let go of her hand, sliding his arm around her shoulders. “Though I am going to mention that this is going to be a very, very long walk if we can’t somehow secure transportation. Michigan isn’t close, much less its west coast.”
“We’ll be all right,” she said, hoping that she wasn’t wrong about that. “We’ll find something. We’re not going to walk the whole way.”
“Well, if we make it to the lakes, we might be able to float part of the way,” Gray said, half teasing and half musing. Aoife laughed.
“Don’t joke, we could. I know how to handle a boat.”
He smirked. “Maybe we should alter course, then. There’s a marina only a few miles up the highway and it’s on the waterway. Might be able to make that work.”
“Did we pack enough food for that?” Aoife wondered, glancing at his pack. They’d planned to hunt and forage if they could on their trek to supplement what they’d brought along.
“There’s fish,” Gray said with a grin. “It’s worth looking.”
He was certainly right about that. “Okay,” Aoife said. “Let’s go and see where the path takes us.”
Gray grinned even wider and squeezed her. “All right, then. That’s what we’ll do.”
