For a moment, all Chelsea could do was stare at it, but when she glanced at Eli, she saw his little smile of triumph. “We could have come here on a day trip.”
&n
bsp; “And miss the sunset?” He was at the trunk and unpacking the gear.
She stood with her arms folded over her chest and glared at him while he set up the tent and spread two sleeping bags inside. When that was done, he got out two canvas chairs and a big blue cooler, then handed Chelsea a small backpack.
She stepped back, hands raised. “Oh, no you don’t. I don’t hike.”
“Open it.”
When she did, she saw that all the new camera equipment Pilar had bought was inside.
Eli sat down on a chair. “Think you remember how to use it?”
“The last camera I used—other than my phone, that is—had film.”
Smiling, Eli reached into the cooler. He knew that about her, which was why he’d requested a retro-looking camera that would remind her of ones she’d used as a child. He held up a beer. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.” Chelsea sat down on a dry place and removed the pretty Nikon Df camera and an 18–200 lens and attached it, then pointed it toward the lake. For all her protests, she instinctively turned the band on the lens to zoom in and out, snapping at every stop.
Eli drank his beer and watched her as she fiddled with the silver knobs and clicked away. When he glanced away for a moment, she quickly turned the camera toward him and he heard the rapid fire of the shutter.
He looked back at her. “So why did your parents want you to visit me?”
Chelsea put the short macro lens on the camera and began adjusting it to photograph arrangements of pebbles. “I’d rather hear why you brought me to this place.”
“To get you away from all the distractions. You hungry?”
“Starving—as I have been since I first saw you. Ow!” She swatted at a mosquito. “Are there large animals around here?”
“Lots of them. Bears and deer. And a few dinosaurs. But the government has them in electrical cages. I hope they hold.”
“If you’re trying to be funny, you aren’t succeeding.”
Eli got more supplies from the car and began clearing an area to build a fire. “I want you to tell me about yourself. Hold still.”
“What?”
“Don’t move.”
Chelsea froze her body into place but her face moved into a form that told him what she thought of him.
Slowly, Eli stepped around her, picked up a stick, and flicked a rather fat snake away from her. The two of them watched it slowly move away into the woods.
“I’m leaving,” Chelsea said and went to the car. It was locked. She glared at him. “Give me the key.”
“Nope,” Eli said as he squatted down to tend to the fire. “I have you all to myself and that’s where I plan to keep you.”
“This is kidnapping.”
“Probably,” he said, unperturbed. “I had Jeff get all the things needed to make s’mores. Remember how much you always liked them?”
“When I was eight. I’m grown-up now and I like adult things.”
“Do we change?” Eli said as he looked at the fire. “Most of the time I feel like that kid who just wanted to save the world.”
“Isn’t that what you do?” Her tone was angry and she hadn’t moved away from the car, but she knew Eli wasn’t going to give in. If he was nothing else, he was stubborn. Nothing could make him get off course once he’d made up his mind.