“Dagneau Adventure Tours.”
Keeping a straight face was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Those boys had moments of competence, but they’d inherited the business from their father and were in it solely to thumb their noses at nine-to-five jobs. He thought they were idiots, personally. “Did you research Dagneau Adventure Tours before you signed up?”
“They had a great website,” Hailey said.
Tori nodded. “And they offered the specific package we were looking for.”
“What package was that?”
He watched Hailey try to jam her friend’s ribs with her elbow, but Tori easily evaded it. “We wanted an adventure geared toward celebrating being single. Like, no couples stuff.”
So the pretty blonde was single. Not that it mattered, but it was a tidbit of information his brain seemed to want to file away, just in case.
“In the future, you should get referrals and ask for references,” he said. “You shouldn’t take the company’s word for it when it comes to your safety. Especially when it comes to the outdoors. Nature’s pretty, but can be a real bitch at times.”
“Thank you, Jeremiah Johnson,” Hailey muttered, and when she blushed under his hard look, he assumed she hadn’t meant for him to hear it.
“Tell me what the itinerary was, starting with where you parked,” he said to Tori, choosing to ignore the implication he was some kind of hermit backwoodsman.
Once she’d laid out the plan for the day, Matt was faced with another decision. It was really six of one, half dozen of another as to whether it made more sense to help them find their group or take them out of the woods. But Hailey looked as if she’d had enough adventure for the day and, even though she didn’t seem to like him very much, it went against his nature to see a woman miserable and not try to make it better.
“I think it’s closer to head back to your car than to try to meet up with your group. Especially since your car won’t be moving away from us while we’re trying to catch it.”
Tori waved her hand. “Lead on, then.”
Hailey hesitated. “It seems wrong to just leave. What if they come back to look for us?”
“They deserve it,” Tori said. “For leaving us.”
“Maybe the idiots in charge do, but not the rest of the women.”
Matt sighed. Leave it to the Dagneau boys to come up with a way to get a bunch of single women into the woods. He made a mental note to have a closer look at their business and maybe rustle through their paperwork as he pulled his satellite phone out of the holster on his hip.
“Your phone works out here?”
“It’s a satellite phone.” It was a personal phone, in addition to the work cell phone he’d been issued. “My family spends a lot of time up here and I don’t like being cut off from the world.”
He started walking as he called into dispatch and asked them to relay to the Dagneau brothers that two of their guests had been lost and found. When he was done, he put the phone away and then looked over his shoulder to see how the women were faring.
They were still where he’d left them, and he was already too far away to make out their expressions. He held up his hands in a what are you waiting for motion and then had to wait while they caught up.
“We weren’t sure if you wanted privacy for your phone call,” Hailey explained. “Sorry.”
He hadn’t missed her wincing as she approached, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He certainly wasn’t carrying her back to her car and he couldn’t get his truck close enough to where they were to make a difference. By ATV he could, but it would take longer to go get it, get back and make individual trips with the women than it was worth. She’d have to suck it up.
“Let’s go, ladies.” He set off down the path, keeping a slightly slower than moderate pace and pointing out rocks and roots in the path.
*
HAILEY WAS NEVER going on an adventure again. Okay, maybe not never, but it would be a while and next time it wouldn’t involve hiking boots or bug repellant.
Only by sheer force of will did she bite back the complaints about her feet hurting. And the bug bites. And the fact she was starving. For reasons she couldn’t even begin to explain, she didn’t want their flannel-clad hero to think any less of her than he already did.
But she didn’t do a very good job of killing the sigh of relief when Matt stopped and gestured toward a fallen log. “Sit a few minutes. Have a drink. You do have water, right?”
Nodding, Tori pulled a bottle from the small backpack she was wearing and offered it to Hailey. They sat side-by-side on the log and shared the water bottle back and forth, and she arched an eyebrow when Matt pulled a flask out of his back pocket. If the guy was drinking, maybe they shouldn’t be following him around the woods.