smoking was pure self-defense.
She skirted the edges of the clearing, afraid that if Pat saw her she would be drafted for some project or other and not feeling up to putting on a show of cheerful industry at the moment. Lynn found a lonely hay bale and sank down upon it. Sitting brought pain with it—but so did not sitting. It just hurt in different places.
Wriggling around to find the most comfortable position, Lynn finally ended up perched on the edge of the bale with her legs crossed at the knees. Not that that position didn’t hurt. It merely hurt less than any other she tried.
Extracting her lighter and cigarettes from the pocket of her windbreaker, Lynn lit a cigarette and inhaled.
“How’re the sore muscles?”
Lynn looked up to find Owen standing over her. It was full night now, and the air had cooled dramatically, even though this was the third week of June. She took another drag on her cigarette, started to stub it out, then thought better of it and defiantly inhaled again. Why should she feel guilty about smoking, especially out here in the open air? The only creatures at risk from her secondhand smoke were the no-see-ums, and she could only pray they choked.
“Sore,” she said, and smiled. As if her smile were an invitation he sat down beside her. What Lynn really wanted, needed, was to be alone. But Owen seemed like a nice enough guy, even if he did have a prick for a brother. Politeness wouldn’t kill her, she decided.
“You tried that liniment yet?” Owen’s denim-jacketed elbows rested on his blue-jeaned knees as he glanced at her. The orange light cast by the fire ended some yards away; shifting shadows made it hard to read his expression. Somewhere in the darkness a pony whickered and stomped its feet, echoed by its fellows, one after the other. The forest rustled endlessly. The smell of smoke and barbecued ribs drifted in the air.
“Not yet. I thought I’d use it before I went to sleep.” Lynn patted the too-quaint can in her pocket.
“Good idea. The stuff works better than any insect repellent to help ward off the creepy-crawlies.”
“What kind of creepy-crawlies?” The idea of things scuttling around in the dark while she lay sleeping made Lynn uneasy.
“You name it, and it’s probably out here.” Owen grinned. “What’s a camping trip without bugs and spiders and snakes and—”
Lynn held up a hand to shut him up. “I’d love to find out.” She took another drag on her cigarette.
“Can I bum a cigarette off you?”
“You smoke?” Lynn glanced at him in surprise.
“Yeah.” He accepted the cigarette and lighter she held out to him and lit up. “I quit for years. After—a few months ago I started up again. It helps me to relax.”
“Me too.” He passed her lighter back. Lynn dropped it in her pocket with her cigarettes.
“You enjoying the trip so far?”
“Oh, I’m loving every minute of it.”
Owen laughed. “Why do I get the impression that the great outdoors is not your thing?”
“Maybe because it’s not.”
“Jess said you’re on TV. He said you’ve got some kind of real glamorous job.”
Lynn’s eyes narrowed as she slowly exhaled smoke. “I don’t know how Jess would know—oh, Rory, I guess—but I’m an anchorwoman for WMAQ in Chicago. Believe me, it’s not particularly glamorous.”
“You been doing it long?”
“Four years.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d you get a job like that?”
“I majored in communications at Indiana University. While I was still in school I started working as a gopher for a station in Indianapolis. When I graduated I got a job as a reporter for a station in Evansville. From there I went to Peoria as a weekend anchor, and from there I went to Chicago to work for WMAQ. Voilà.” It was an oft-asked question. Lynn’s bare-bones response had been whittled down over years of answering.
“Impressive.”
“Yeah.” Lynn took another drag on her cigarette. To outsiders, being an anchorwoman sounded like a