Page 63 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

“Smart.”

“You?” she asked. “Same?”

He offered an assenting dip of his chin. The fire was roaring now, and Adele reached out her hands again, slid from the log onto the ground and leaned against the wood.

“I heard the game is rigged,” he said. “That the winner is chosen before the game ever begins.”

He took from his pocket what looked like a bag of leather strips. He lifted one out and took a bite. She was guessing jerky. Then he offered the bag to Adele.

Her stomach grumbled, and she took the bag, selected a small piece, handed the food back, earning another smile. She took a small bite,just to be polite. But it was actually good, meaty, spicy. She really hoped it wasn’t lion or the flesh of some other endangered animal.

“I heard that, too,” she admitted. Though she stopped short of telling him about the cameras. Knowledge was power, and you never knew how it could be used. They were opponents, here for the same reason. There could only be one winner. There would be no allies in this game.

They chewed in silence. The cloud cover was so thick that it seemed like dusk, though there were still hours before sunset.

“Then, why play?” he asked.

“In case it isn’t?” she answered.

“It’s a lot of money,” he said, shifting down to the ground, as well, spreading his arms wide along the log.

“It is,” she agreed.

“And you’ve got kids. A past to leave behind.”

Even if Maverick hadn’t skewered her with it during the live, it was all out there for the world to see.

Anyway, she wasn’t the only one here with a past.

“As do you,” she said easily. “Why areyouhere?”

He bobbed his head again, took off his hat, his salt-and-pepper hair wild, but it was thick and lustrous. He was older than Adele, certainly, but definitely not old.

“Money doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I’m on the redemption circuit.”

Right. She’d seen a slew of articles about him recently, about how he’d hit rock bottom, was clawing his way back to wellness. How he’d made mistakes and was sorry. Addiction. Rehab.

“My son, Blake, and I have watched every one of your shows,” she told him finally. “He learned so much—so did I. About animals, the environment, insects, other countries and cultures. It was truly great.”

He took another bite of jerky.

“It was a dream come true,” he said. “Imagine getting to do all that,get paid, see the world, everywhere you go kids love you. I was only ever at home outdoors in nature.”

She was surprised by his candor. But she’d known some people in recovery before. If they were doing the work, they were wide-open. Honest.

She offered him a smile. “Swin with the dolphins, hang with the sloths, hunker down with the gorillas in Rwanda. Blake still wants to do all of those things.”

“Turns out I could outrun the bulls but not my demons,” he said. He held her gaze. “You don’t get to run from those. Gotta face them down, apparently.”

There’d been rumors about his addiction, sexual harassment on the set, exploitation of Indigenous guides. The show went off the air; Blake was heartbroken, watching the old seasons over and over.

Then the whole lion thing. Some video of Cody raging about a conspiracy to ruin his reputation. Wild Cody was canceled before canceling was a thing. It was long ago, or seemed so with the pandemic, and then the Miller nightmare, her father’s passing, and she didn’t remember all the details, just another man she thought was one thing but turned out to be another.

What she did recall from the show was how tender, how reverent he was with all the animals, even when he got bitten, attacked, and stung, how much awe and love he seemed to have for the natural world. How peaceful he seemed in his role.

“TheWildCody thing didn’t quite fit,” she ventured.

He laughed, mirthless. “That was a marketing thing. It never sat right with me. But it stuck. I had pushed for Wilderness Cody.”