He didn’t move.
Miranda rolled her eyes in exasperation. “If you’re going to stay here, hand me your knife, then.”
He did. “I should make you get your own knife.”
She rolled her eyes again and used his knife to make a notch in the baseboard, like he’d showed her. Once that was done, Miranda handed his knife back and began to pull the laces off of her shoe to use to string the bow. He was watching her, and it made her nervous. Made her think about sex again, and that wouldn’t do. She needed a distraction. “So, Dane,” she began as she tied one end of the laces to her chosen stick. “What made you decide to run a survival school? I have to admit it’s not what I pictured for you.”
His easy grin began to fade a little, and he hesitated for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. When he answered, it was simple and direct. “I enjoy it. I spent the last year living off the grid.”
“Living off the grid?” she asked, finishing her bow and testing the cord. It was tight, with just enough slack to wrap around a stick. Hopefully that would do. “What does that mean?”
“No electricity, no running water, no power,” Dane explained, his gaze on her hands as she began to set up the fire-making implements. “Just you and the wild. Colt and I had a cabin in Alaska that we built. It was…” He paused, thinking. “It was nice.”
“Not a lot of girls up in the wilds of Alaska,” she teased. “Were you pinch-hitting for the other team or just doing a lot of masturbating?”
He laughed at that. “You have a filthy mind.”
“What? Admit it—that’s the first thing you thought about, too.”
Dane grinned. “I was there to camp. As for masturbating, nah. It wasn’t on my mind at all. By the time I got to Alaska, I was pretty much done with dating. It was nice to have a vacation from everything in my life.”
“You, done with women?” She laughed. She looped a stick through the bow and aimed it over the notch she’d carved in the baseboard. “That doesn’t sound like Casanova Croft at all.”
His look became shuttered immediately. “Yeah, well, sometimes what you get isn’t always what you want.”
Before she could comment on that, he reached over and corrected her hands. “Hold it like this. And don’t forget to put your tinder under the notch so your ember has something to fall on.”
She looked at him in wary surprise. His voice had been cold, efficient. Gone was the warm, teasing note. What had she said that was so wrong? Miranda put a bit of tinder under the baseboard and swallowed down the defensive feeling. She was here to f**k—and f**k with—Dane Croft this week, and if she pissed him off, she could kiss her revenge good-bye. Irritated at herself, she began to saw the bow, turning the spindle and creating friction against the baseboard. It was harder than Dane had made it look, and she gave it another rough tug, causing the spindle to twist again.
An uncomfortable silence fell, the only sound the sawing of her spindle against the wood. After a few minutes of watching her work, Dane glanced over at her again. “So, what about you?”
She glanced up, still sawing at the bow and turning the spindle. It was hard to concentrate on the conversation, especially when she was trying so hard to get enough friction to create a spark in the small notch she’d carved in the baseboard. Crap—why did she get the fire-making task? This was hard. Concentrating on her task, she didn’t look up. “What about me?”
“You wanted to be an editor or something, right? How come you never left town? Bluebonnet’s not exactly a hotbed of activity.” His voice was wry. “I couldn’t wait to get away from here.”
She didn’t like where this was heading. So she remained silent, hoping he’d continue talking until he moved long past what she had or hadn’t done with her life.
But he paused, waiting for her to respond.
“Journalist,” she finally offered, her arms beginning to ache from sawing at the fire-making bow. How long did she have to keep doing this before she got a spark? She didn’t even have smoke yet. Frustrated, she sawed it harder. “And you weren’t the only one who wanted to leave.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She was going to start throwing a temper tantrum if she didn’t get a wisp of smoke, she really was. So she just sawed harder, her teeth gritted. “Couldn’t.”
“How come?”
She didn’t answer.
He wouldn’t let it go. “Did you have to help your mother with her store? She still runs that antiques shop, right?”
That was a little too close to the ugly truth. What sort of game was he playing? Did he want her to come out and admit that the pictures he’d taken had ruined her life? Was this some sort of nasty revenge for somehow offending him? Reminding her who she was? Putting the slut of Bluebonnet back in her place? She threw the fire-making implements down and stood up. “I need to take a walk.”
“Miranda, what—”
She whirled around to face him, glaring. “Leave me alone. Understand? I need to take a walk, and not with you.” With that, she turned and stomped out of the camp.
Christ, but that woman was prickly. Dane stared after Miranda, wondering at her explosion and subsequent exit from camp. What exactly was she hiding that made her so upset? He was tempted to ask one of the other men, but they wouldn’t know anything about her either, being out of towners. Anyone in Bluebonnet could have told him the truth, he suspected. Everyone in town knew everyone else’s business.
And Miranda’s was apparently unpleasant business, at least in her mind. He stared down at the tools she’d dropped on the ground. Then he moved to go after her.
“Dane! Look! I got dinner!” Pete held a fish aloft, trotting back through the woods. “I caught something!”
Dane glanced at Pete, then back at the woods, then sighed and turned back to him. The man’s forehead was beaded with sweat and his pants were splotchy with water. He held aloft a fish, about a foot in length.
“Good job,” Dane said absently, glancing at where Miranda had disappeared one last time before turning back to Pete. “Get a flat rock and I’ll show you how to scale it.”
Pete gave him a funny look. “I have to scale it?”
He chuckled at the other man’s expression. “Only if you plan on eating it. You’re going to have to gut it, too.”