Page 35 of The Perfect Deception

“Hold on,” Dina said, as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She knelt and took a pic­ture. “It’s beau­ti­ful out here.”

They con­tin­ued walk­ing, Dina stop­ping ev­ery few min­utes as she no­ticed a pretty leaf or weed or view. Adam waited with­out a word each time. Af­ter pho­tograph­ing a brown leaf float­ing on the stream, she turned the cam­era on Adam. He stood star­ing off into the dis­tance, hands thrust in the pock­ets of his navy down jacket, a pen­sive look on his face. Against the stark brown leaf­less trees, he made a strik­ing shot and she fo­cused the cam­era, in­tent on cap­tur­ing the shot. The click made him turn, and he frowned.

“Did you just take my pic­ture?”

“I did. Do you mind?”

“I wasn’t look­ing at you.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It was a strik­ing setup. Do you want to see?”

When he nod­ded, she showed him the photo. His frown deep­ened. “I wasn’t smil­ing.”

“I know, it was can­did. You look good.”

He raised an eye­brow. “Next time, tell me you want a pic­ture and I’ll smile.”

She raised her phone. “Okay, smile.”

The smile he gave her re­minded her of why she called him “Mr. Flashy­pants.” It was broad with white teeth and re­minded her of a car sales­man. His mus­cles stretched, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. She took it any­way, since she told him she would, but in­side, she pre­ferred the other one. When she showed the smil­ing one to him, he nod­ded.

“That’s more like me.”

She dis­agreed.

They walked along the stream un­til the path veered into the woods. Within the shade of the trees, the air felt sev­eral de­grees cooler and Dina bur­rowed deeper into her pea coat.

“Cold?” Adam turned and stopped in front of her.

She nod­ded and he ad­justed her scarf, the backs of his fin­gers ca­ress­ing her cheeks and jaw. His warm breath tick­led her nose and up close, she could see flecks of sil­ver and brown in his eyes. A small scar marked the top of his cheek­bone, be­neath his eye, and with­out think­ing, she touched it.

He froze, a sharp in­take of breath mak­ing Dina re­al­ize she’d ac­tu­ally made con­tact. As if the tex­ture of his skin be­neath the tip of her fin­ger wasn’t enough ev­i­dence.

“I’m sorry,” she said, draw­ing her hand away.

“No, that’s okay.” He took her hand and held it against his cheek. She could see his pupils di­late, feel the rasp of stub­ble be­neath her palm.

“How did you get it?” she asked.

“A fight in the third grade. Tommy D laughed at me for talk­ing to the girl ev­ery­one used to make fun of in class. So I decked him. He got me back and we both got de­ten­tion.”

Dina couldn’t help smil­ing. “Aw, you were her knight in shin­ing ar­mor.”

He red­dened. “You’re the only one who thinks that.”

“Not true. She prob­a­bly thinks so as well. Now that I know who my com­pe­ti­tion is, I’ll have to give you my rib­bon to carry or some­thing.”

At his look of con­fu­sion, she con­tin­ued. “In me­dieval times, a lady gave her knight a fa­vor, such as a rib­bon, and he’d joust for her.”

Tak­ing her hand from his cheek, he raised it to his lips and kissed the backs of her fin­gers. “So you want me to fight for you?”

This was go­ing in a whole di­rec­tion she didn’t want to tra­verse. So she laughed. “We’re too old for fight­ing. But it’s sweet you de­fended her.”

A look crossed Adam’s face and she couldn’t be sure if it was em­bar­rass­ment or re­lief. He squeezed her hand. “Your fin­gers are icy cold.” He rubbed them be­tween his, try­ing to warm them up, which was weird, since the rest of her was on fire at his prox­im­ity. He pulled her back onto the trail and con­tin­ued their walk. His hand was warm and larger than hers and some­how, it fit.

Their feet crunched on the gravel path. Deeper in the veg­e­ta­tion and hid­den among the trees, deer popped up their heads and watched them pass, the younger ones bound­ing away be­fore they got close.

“Did you get in many fights as a kid?” she asked, as the si­lence stretched be­tween them.