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  “Why?” Braden suddenly asks.

  My brow wrinkles. “Why? Why what?”

  “Why do guys like girls in camo?”

  I tilt my head and think. I’ve never tried to put the concept into words; I simply know it works. But when I consider his question for a bit, I find my answer.

  “Because I’m not supposed to be wearing it.”

  Braden looks more confused than ever. “I don’t get it.”

  I sigh and turn toward the hillside, drawing my binoculars up to scan the bottom as I try to explain.

  “You know how some guys love the image of a woman prancing around in a men’s white dress shirt? Her hair’s all tousled, so she looks easy and hot? Same concept, just a different demo. To these guys, it’s like I snuck into their closet and slipped on their favorite Realtree T-shirt. Now their manly shirt smells like me and that taps into the whole weird caveman you’re mine thing.”

  “ ‘You’re mine’? Like you’re a possession? All because of a stupid pattern that was designed for function, not fashion? That’s asinine.”

  Hiding a grin, I continue to work my optics over the shady draw at the bottom of the basin, eventually landing on a yearling cow bedded down behind a clump of pinons. “So you’re a white-button-down guy, then. Got it.”

  Braden lets out a choked-off sound, part growl and part cough. “I didn’t say that. I’m not a white-button-down guy.”

  “A trench-coat-with-nothing-on-underneath guy?”

  Another growl. “No.”

  “A pencil-skirt, hair-in-a-bun, naughty-librarian guy?”

  “Jesus. No.”

  “Really? I thought I might have nailed it with that one. Come on, everyone has a thing, Braden. Women and men. The fantasy they’re into. The look that gets them going.”

  He groans quietly, the sound of him asking me to shut up, I suspect. But now, no matter how inappropriate this entire conversation is, I have to know—what turns Braden Montgomery’s crank?

  I reel through a few more stereotypical concepts in my head, eliminating each until a very specific image comes to mind and I give into a sly smile, thinking I may have just figured it out. Slowly, I start to paint a picture.

  “Wait. I know what it is. You’re all about a tight dress with heels, the all-dressed-up-for-dinner-with-her-man look. A bandage minidress. In red.” I labor over that detail for a moment. I’m off base there—red is far too bold for this one.

  “Nope, blue—cobalt blue. Not too short, no crazy patterns or cleavage showing. She’s covered but still showing it off. Simple heels, bare legs, no big jewelry. Just sophisticated and sexy.”

  I pause, trying to decide if it’s a good idea to voice what else just ran through my mind. Ah, hell. Screw it. The guy hates my show and is at the very least irritated with me as a human being, so I’m rather enjoying giving this big bear a poke.

  I lower my voice. “That is, until they get home. Then all bets are off. Along with the dress.”

  I crane my head his way, intent on giving him a smug smirk, but Braden’s expression—the set of his jaw loose and his mouth relaxed—is entirely neutral.

  All except for his eyes.

  His eyes tell me that I just nailed it, identified exactly what redlines his motor. Heated and glimmering, those green eyes stay fixed on me, his eyelids hooded just enough to melt my smug intentions into something else entirely. Like wondering what his big body would feel like pinned beneath mine. Not that I’d have any hope of keeping him there if he didn’t want to be, but Good freaking Friday, those eyes of his mean business right now—and the business in question may be that Braden’s mentally undressed me from my current ensemble and now redressed me in that blue dress and heels.

  And, quite possibly, is nailing me in it.

  He blinks once, deliberately. Then simply turns away, raises his binos, and starts to glass. No denial. No scathing retort. No “fuck off” or “fuck you.” Just nothing. And all that nothing says more than he ever could have had he opened his mouth.

  I realize that my face, my cheeks, even the back of my neck are heated and a touch damp—enough that a sudden gust of wind raises a shiver across my skin. Everything from my heart down to the senselessly base space between my thighs is either trembling or clenching or otherwise reacting to what just went down, and … oh, hell.

  Really? Now?

  Unbelievable. This is when my body decides to perk up and take real, carnal notice of a man? And for this guy? Mr. Jolly Green Giant with a bad attitude?

  What. A. Fucking. Joke.

  In general, guys are my indulgence. Some people watch bad TV or read trashy books when they get bored or lonely and nothing else will fix their mood. I happen to prefer my indulgences a bit more tactile. As in hands and lips and skin, all tangled up together in sweat and release.

  And because I live in a city like Austin, Texas—where the weather stays warm, the downtown scene is never boring, and the average resident is young and single—I’m not at a loss for a tactile fix when I want one. I don’t do it often, but the simplicity of keeping men as an indulgence does have its merits. While I’ve been happily single for years now, before that I was a notorious three-month girl. Relationships that were just long enough to enjoy the newness but never so long as to end up discussing things I find exhausting—like whether to spend the holidays with his family or mine, debating the exchange of house keys, or the requisite-but-tiresome conversation about where our relationship is headed.

  I’m just fine going solo in life; I have everything an established twenty-eight-year-old woman needs: my own house, a legit career, friends and family, and a decent bank account. I also have a healthy imagination and two hands.

  So I’m all good on my own.

  But those hands of mine are currently shaking, tiny tremors I’m determined to chalk up to hunger pangs. Entirely unrelated to the potently male being sitting next to me and instead, low blood sugar–induced. Understandable, given that I just humped it up a steep-grade trail, fueled only by the whole-wheat tortilla slathered with cashew butter that I ate this morning.

  I slip one hand into the inside pocket on my coat and attempt to extract the protein bar I have stashed there as quietly as possible. A learned habit from years spent hunting, because every sound you make is amplified in nature and even the quietest snap draws attention your way—in direct opposition of what you’re trying to do, which is be invisible. Today, it’s a good thing we aren’t actually hunting, because the wrapper doesn’t do me any favors, making a crinkling sound that’s almost deafening given our surroundings.

  Braden lets out a short gust of air—a huff, really—a split-second snort that makes it clear, yet again, how put out he is by this whole ordeal. The ordeal being me.

  And that trembling in my body that I was just fussing about? The involuntary oh, look, a pretty man with pretty eyes reaction I didn’t want to deal with?

  Poof.

  All gone.

  One obnoxious little snort from him is all it takes to huff and puff my appreciation into oblivion. I pluck the still-wrapped bar up with a flourish, hold it right in front of me, and proceed to yank on one edge to tear it open, then give it a good rip to see if I can get him to groan again, all because I have the audacity to eat a snack.

  He does me one better. Groans and huffs. I take a huge bite of the bar, enjoying the mushy pecan pie flavor, then do my best to chew loudly while still keeping my jaw shut. No need to gross him out, just irritate him.

  “You shouldn’t eat that.”

  Silently, I finish chewing. Braden exhales sharply through his nose. I take another bite, doing all I can to draw it out.

  “You’re eating a candy bar. You realize that, right? It’s a candy bar masquerading as a protein source. Same calories, same sugars. It’s just those things are made with brown rice sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. All those shitty things will do is spike your blood sugar and give you a stomachache.”

  Oh, goody. Now he’s going to get
all sanctimonious about nutrition. The fact that my belly does sometimes rumble unhappily after I eat these is not for him to know. Any bellyaching I might experience is easily dealt with by using some of the endorsement money I make from this company to buy some antacids. I open my mouth and lean forward exaggeratedly to take another bite. But a big man paw appears before my face, snatching the bar clean from my hand so quickly I instead end up sucking in a mouthful of clean Colorado air, like a big-mouth bass surfacing to make for some bait.

  I stare slack-jawed at the place where my bar used to be. Are you kidding me? In what universe is it OK to do what he just did? We’ve known each other for a few hours, for God’s sake. In no universe is two hours enough time to yank anything out of my hand. Anything. Only the fact that I’m speechless saves him from me letting him have it.

  Braden snags the bar out of the wrapper and proceeds to chuck it into the forest with the force, speed, and accuracy of an MLB pitcher. OK, now he’s littering. For someone who’s all about being right and righteous, and is employed as a steward of state lands, that’s not exactly a cool thing to do. He flattens the wrapper out so he can point accusingly at the ingredient list.

  “Organic brown rice syrup, organic cane syrup, organic dried cane syrup, organic date paste. Just fancy ways to cover up the fact they’re all sugar. Fucking thing has twenty grams of sugar. Don’t get me started on soy protein isolate. It’s like the Twinkie equivalent of soy, stripped down and fucked up. Do you know there’s research connecting too much processed soy to breast cancer?”

  I yank the wrapper back into my possession. “Thank you for your concern about my breasts. But they’re fine. And these ‘shitty things’ help pay my mortgage, thank you very much.”

  To prove my point, I grab my phone and hold it up at the perfect selfie angle while clutching the empty wrapper in my other hand, making sure the company logos on my knit hat, the protein bar, and my camo coat are all clearly visible in the shot.

  “What are you doing?” Braden barks.

  “My job,” I mutter. I turn my head and tip my chin, checking my hair and giving my best smile before snapping the pic.

  Lowering the phone, I review the picture and spot Braden’s face peeking in from the corner of the screen, scowling a little and looking appropriately broody. A quick internal debate as to whether I should crop him out or not. Leave him in, I decide; he looks hot, scowl and all.

  I start to tap a few keys, reading aloud as I do. “ ‘Can’t beat the view. Or my midday power up snack. #ColoradoElk #scouting #RecordRacks #fulldrawlife #womenwhohunt.’ ”

  My eyes stay glued to the screen, fingers tapping away as I add the names of the endorsers. I can feel Braden leaning in, his head craning toward my phone.

  “Are you posting that? Right now? Out here?”

  “Yup. You want in? Give me your handle.”

  “My what? No. Whatever you’re doing, the answer is no. Jesus Christ.”

  I shrug. “Suit yourself.”

  The signal up here is weak, but one bar is enough to post the picture. I turn my attention to Braden, who’s clearly so horrified he looks close to either screaming or sucker punching his backpack, just to get some frustration out.

  I’m feeling nearly the same, with an added dose of hangry. There are three other energy bars stashed in my pack, but they would probably meet the same fate as the first, so going for those will be a waste of time. I’m relatively sure there’s a small baggie of trail mix buried somewhere in there, but I’m guessing it’s stale and not worth the effort of digging it out.

  My stomach growls. Loudly—like it’s cussing out Braden with the sound. I sigh and take a drink of my water. Best to stay hydrated at the least.

  “Are you hungry?”

  This freaking guy.

  “Are you insane?” I snap. “Yes, I’m hungry! I had a tortilla with cashew butter hours ago, long before I had to chase the Jolly Green Giant up a steep grade. All those calories are burnt off. That’s why I was eating that bar. Because I’m hungry.”

  Braden curses under his breath while jamming his hands into his coat pockets, pulling out what look like small pale yellow dish towels with a honeycomb pattern printed on them. He dumps them in my lap where I’m sitting cross-legged. I draw my hands up, palms out—yes, Officer—and stare down at the packages.

  “Eat those.”

  “Dish towels? No thank you. While I’m sure they are very low in sugar, I’m guessing they don’t taste too good.”

  “Those are reusable cloth wrappers lined in beeswax, not dishtowels. Saves on plastic bags—and bonus, unlike the wrappers on those crap bars, it doesn’t sound like a herd of buffalo crashing through a field full of tinfoil when you open them.” He flicks the top of one of the wrappers. “Homemade fig millet energy bars in this one and some snack mix in the other. Like Chex Mix, but without the additives that will kill you.”

  I continue to stare down at the wrappers, hands still up, now feeling as if this is some version of your crazy house cat leaving a dead mouse on the doorstep in offering, or a wolf who leaves a half-eaten carcass for the taking as some weird-ass sign of submission.

  “Look, I’m sorry.” He lets out a long exhale, resigned. “That was a dick thing to do. I just reacted. I didn’t want you to eat that junk, OK? You obviously take care of yourself, and that stuff is terrible for you. I mean, your body is …”

  My eyes immediately cut his way at mention of my body, and his jaw snaps shut before I get the distinct pleasure of hearing him finish that sentence. My body is what? I can’t even explain how badly I want to know what he was about to say. So much that I’m two breaths away from egging him on, pushing him somehow, getting him to crack. But my sanity dictates that I let this go and just take the Jolly Green Giant’s dead-mouse offering without comment.

  Plus, I’m so hungry. Starving. Hangry.

  Silently, I work on unwrapping the first cloth. Three energy bars are inside, cut to the same size as my prepackaged ones and chock-full of dried cherries, pumpkin seeds, and big quinoa-like nuggets of what must be the millet, and flecked with what I think are chia seeds and orange zest. My mouth waters, and despite wanting to hate these things on sight, after one bite I can taste the difference between this and what Braden previously heaved into the forest. This tastes like real food, a cross between the granola my mom made when I was a kid and a Fig Newton. I almost say so out loud, but given that Braden would likely lose his sanctimonious shit over the latter comparison, I keep it to myself.

  “Thank you. These are good. Great, actually.”

  He nods and I work on opening the other bundle, revealing a mix of popcorn, almonds, and pretzel pieces, all dusted in a spicy herb blend. I toss a piece of popcorn in my mouth.

  “And I appreciate you acknowledging that you’re a dick. I didn’t want to have to point it out myself.”

  Braden snorts quietly. Behind us, Colin and Teagan have finally crested the top, voices carrying as they head our way. When they arrive, Colin looks smug and Teagan looks sheepish, cheeks flushed and her wild-child hairstyle even more mussed than usual. They so got off trail on the way up here.

  I crook a brow and give Teagan a knowing look. “You two get lost?”

  She thrusts her arm out and points in Colin’s direction but doesn’t look his way, barely stifling the guilty grin that threatens to break free.

  “He made us stop every ten steps so he could ask about my knees. No exaggeration. Every. Ten. Steps.”

  A year ago, at the ripe old age of thirty, Teagan couldn’t shake a few nagging aches in her joints, but chalked it up to an aftereffect of a bout with the flu. A few weeks later, she blamed it on her new kettlebell workout regimen. Two months after that, she claimed it had to be a sudden onset of gluten intolerance. Then it was nightshade vegetables. Then a mineral deficiency. Then she decided there was mold in her house. She gave up wheat, dairy, peppers, tomatoes, wine, coffee, and air-conditioning. Nothing helped.

  Six doctors and a
million self-diagnoses later, a specialist finally landed on a real answer: rheumatoid arthritis. A shit diagnosis for a woman who works as a freelance producer to help pay the bills (and only works on my show as a favor to me) but is a different type of artist at heart—a painter and mixed-media designer whose hands are everything to her and which she may eventually end up unable to use the way she wants.

  Despite her remaining as active as ever and having more good days than bad, Colin can’t help hovering over Teagan’s every move. Yes, Colin is a God-fearing army vet who now works part-time as an outdoor sports cameraman and full-time as a pig farmer in the tiny town of Harper, where he grew up. And yes, Teagan is a heavily tattooed agnostic who is part of progressive Austin’s modern art elite. So on the face of it, the two of them together is almost impossible to fathom. But no matter how unexplainable their mutual adoration is, it’s there.

  “So stopping that often must mean there was plenty of time to film b-roll on the way up?” I ask.

  B-roll footage is what fills in the blanks for viewers on shows like ours; it gilds the lily so we can tell the whole story: panned shots of the land and the game, early moments at the truck and trailhead, and anything else that might set the tone for the final cut. Even if I don’t end up back here for my hunt, it’s best to gather what we can now, because, on average, every hour of raw b-roll captured yields only a few minutes worth of usable show content.

  Colin fiddles with his camera.

  “Still need a little more,” he mumbles, finally working up the courage to peer up at me. “How did it go for you two? You guys spot anything good while you were glassing?”

  Too bad for Colin, but his face owns everything. He looks happy—like he always does when he and Teagan are together, no matter how temporarily.

  Maybe that’s why my body is intrigued by the Jolly Green Giant and his bad attitude. Maybe because as much as my indulgences with men are uncomplicated, they’re also fleeting, and maybe I miss the happy buzz of chasing someone around—just one specific someone—then enjoying all the good stuff that comes when you finally have them. Because even if they routinely seem to make a mess of it, Colin and Teagan get the good stuff when they’re together. And maybe I’m just a little bit jealous of that. Maybe.