“Where did she get a breeding pair?”
“What?”
“Of pink unicorns?” Travis asked.
“I thought you weren’t listening.”
“Didn’t I tell you that I’m a good listener?”
They exchanged smiles. They had been children and it had only been for two weeks, but they both remembered every minute of that time.
“Do you know what Layton plans to do with this room?” he asked.
“I have no idea. Why?”
Travis went to the windows to look out at the big parking lot. “Where do you buy your outdoor equipment around here?”
“You mean like fishing gear?”
Travis smiled. “I was thinking more of climbing paraphernalia and kayaks. Where do the local guides get their equipment?”
Kim was blinking at him. “Guides?” she said at last.
“Edilean is surrounded by some incredible wilderness. I saw online a place called Stirling Point.”
“It’s the outdoor make-out point,” Kim said, but Travis just looked at her. “The playhouse is the indoor and the—”
“I get it,” he said, his face serious. “I saw online that there’s hiking, boating, your fishing, and some climbing in the preserve. Where do people buy their gear?”
“I don’t know,” Kim said yet again in answer to his questions. “Virginia City, Norfolk, maybe Richmond. And Williamsburg must sell that stuff.”
“But nothing here in Edilean?”
“No kayak store anywhere.”
Travis didn’t smile. “Interesting. So where is your friend’s unicorn studio?”
Kim opened the connecting door to a big, airy room, this time with the windows along the back, looking out into the woods. Like the other one, the room was empty. It had been restored and the floor rebuilt. All the windows were new, some with the Pella stickers still on them.
“This is great,” Travis said softly. “Really great.”
Kim went to stand in front of him. “I want to know what’s on your mind.”
He turned away for a moment. “With every word I hear about Layton, the more concerned I am. You said he’s a bully. He—”
“No,” Kim said. “I said he bullied Jecca. That’s what parents do. They say it’s for our own good. My mother bullies me. Doesn’t your father use anything he can to make you do what he wants you to?”
“Incessantly,” Travis said, “but that’s beside the point. I don’t know if I’ll get my mother to agree to this, but maybe I can rent these two rooms as a sports shop.” And get someone to run them, he thought.
Kim’s heart instantly jumped into her throat. That would mean he’d stay in Edilean. But then she deflated. “Oh,” she said. “You’d fake it. You’d get your mother to lend you some money so you could pretend to open a store so you could be around Mr. Layton.”
Travis was perplexed by what she’d said, especially about the money, until he thought of the car Penny had bought for him. To tell Kim the truth would mean telling her about his father. He didn’t want to do that and see her eyes change.
“More or less,” he said.
They heard a car door slam.
“Stay here,” Travis said as he went into the narrow room to look out the front windows. He came back to Kim seconds later. “It’s a man. He looks like a block of granite with a head on it.”