Page 25 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

Bill was right on time. Not that Brianna had expected anything less of him, but still, it was nice to know he could be relied on not to show up half an hour late with a mouthful of excuses.

She didn’t have a lot of patience for that kind of behavior, not after one of her college boyfriends had been the type of person to have only a nodding acquaintance with anything remotely resembling a schedule.

And she also noted that today Bill was much more casual, in faded jeans and hiking boots and a light blue T-shirt.

A pair of sunglasses hung from the neckline of that shirt, although she’d never seen him wear any before and had figured he must be one of those people who didn’t have a problem with lots of light.

Apparently not. Or maybe he’d come to realize after spending some time in Jerome that the hard, bright sunlight of northern Arizona was a lot different from what he was used to in L.A.

“Ready?” she asked, and he nodded. He’d given a brief glance around the room after she let him in, probably to get an idea of what her furniture and decor were like, but it wasn’t as if he’d been openly staring or anything.

Since she did pretty much the same thing whenever she was in a new place, she couldn’t exactly give him grief for that.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Oak Creek,” he said.

So was she. Every once in a great while, she had a gig in Flagstaff, but most of the time, she had no real reason to go that way, which meant she only went into the canyon for the sole purpose of wanting to soak up its beauties.

“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” she said lightly. “I’ve already got some bottled water and snacks in Sally, so we’re ready to go.”

“‘Sally’?” he echoed, now looking confused. “Who’s that?”

“My Suburban,” Brianna replied. “Don’t ask me why I gave her that nickname. She just felt like a Sally to me.”

His shoulders lifted, but it appeared he was ready to go with the flow, since he only said, “Then let’s get in Sally and get going.”

Smiling, Bree picked up the backpack-style purse she used for these sorts of outings and slung it over one shoulder, then waited while he stepped onto the landing so she could lock the door behind them.

With a key, of course; she wasn’t stupid enough to lock up her apartment by merely touching her finger to a door handle with him standing there.

The apartment had one parking space carved out between the rear of the building and the side of the hill directly behind it, and she led him back there so they could both get in the SUV.

A moment to back out and another to reorient the vehicle so they were pointing in the right direction to pull onto Main Street, and then they were on their way.

Should she ask him what he’d been up to earlier today? That kind of query felt like regular small talk to her, but she didn’t want him to think she was prying or anything.

Probably better to start with the weather. That was innocuous enough.

“I’m glad it’s cooler today,” she remarked as they made their descent toward Clarkdale. “We’ll probably be able to last a little longer.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” Bill replied. “It feels more like fall.”

It did. Not that they probably wouldn’t peak in the upper seventies, but that was still better than the mid-eighties it had been for the past week.

Brianna tended to keep an eye on the weather reports just because some of her gigs were outdoors and it was always good to know if there might be a last-minute switch to an indoor location if it got too windy or started to rain, and from what she could tell, Jerome was supposed to experience a slow cooling trend over the next week.

Yes, autumn really was almost here.

Although they’d driven through Cottonwood before now and on the highway beyond, she noticed that Bill still paid close attention to everything flowing past outside the Suburban’s windows.

And when they passed the turnoff for Airport Mesa and began driving through the heart of Sedona and into Uptown, he was practically like a little kid with his face glued to the window.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked, and he nodded.

“The rocks here are different from the ones in the western part of town.”

She supposed they were. Or at least, even if they were all red rocks, the shapes here were even more dramatic, and they also revealed a bit more of the geological strata that made up the formations, with the red sandstone giving way to paler limestone and granite on their lower elevations.

“Every part of Sedona has its own unique character, I suppose,” she said as they maneuvered around the final roundabout in Uptown and were now heading due north on Highway 89A.

“There are some beautiful formations down in the Village of Oak Creek, too, but we’re heading in the opposite direction today. ”

His brows pulled together for a moment — she had a feeling he was wondering why the village named after the creek wasn’t their destination — but he didn’t say anything. “You were right when you told me the other day that there’s a lot to explore around here.”

“Of course I was,” she said with a grin. “Gotta listen to the people who grew up in the area, you know?”

He smiled as well. “I do know.”

They crossed Midgley Bridge, which Bree always thought of as the true entrance to the canyon, although Oak Creek had been glittering far beneath the highway for a while now.

But the water had begun to climb with them, and now it was there to their right, waters dancing in the sun as the creek made its way over rocks smoothed by millennia of flow and flood.

The landscape grew lusher, with a canopy of cottonwood leaves sheltering them overhead.

A few of those leaves had just begun to turn gold, but most of them were still bright green, making it seem as if they’d entered another world.

“It feels so different,” Bill said.

“That’s because it is,” she replied. “Totally different biome. People come up here all the time to escape the heat — not that it doesn’t get plenty warm in the canyon at the height of summer, but there’s a lot more shade.”

An understatement, to be sure, since there were spots where the road grew almost dark thanks to the high canyon walls on either side and the old, old trees that spread their wide branches in all directions.

Crews came through every once in a while to cut things back, true, but she could still feel a twig scrape against Sally’s roof every once in a while.

Well, to be fair, she sat a lot higher than most modern, low-slung electric vehicles.

“So, where exactly are we going?” Bill asked after they passed the Indian Gardens market, its parking lot crowded with cars, and showed no signs of slowing.

“West Fork,” she said. “The trailhead is about two more miles farther into the canyon.”

And she had to pray it wouldn’t be too crowded. There hadn’t been a lot of traffic on 89A so far, but she’d spied more cars than she’d expected as they drove past Slide Rock State Park, which meant she wasn’t sure what to expect.

Part of being a local, though, was knowing where they could park if the lot at the trailhead was full.

They could go a little farther and then slip down a private driveway onto a property that belonged to the same people who owned the Haunted Hamburger and a bunch of other local restaurants.

That driveway was open season for any McAllister who wanted to use it, and since Bree knew the Suburban was instantly recognizable as hers, she doubted there would be any problem with her leaving it there.

However, the lot at the trailhead was only half full, so she didn’t have to resort to that particular backup plan.

Most likely, a lot of the hikers had come and gone already, which meant that the ten-odd people or so who’d left their cars in the parking lot were probably spread out enough on the trail that the chances of bumping into them were pretty low.

Bree couldn’t even say for sure why it was so important for her and Bill to have some privacy. It wasn’t as though she expected anything to happen between them out here.

Not really.

But she knew she liked peace and quiet when she hiked, and having a bunch of people chattering about the scenery or their dinner plans or whatever didn’t exactly make for an optimal experience.

Talking quietly with Bill was one thing, but getting stuck in the middle of other people’s conversations was something else entirely.

They got out of the SUV and went around to the back, where she’d stowed the pack that held several bottles of water and a few snacks.

“Do you mind carrying that?” she asked. “I mean, I could, but I’ve already got my own backpack.”

“Not at all,” he said, then reached into the cargo area so he could pick up the backpack and slide it on. “Which way?”

She probably should have known he wouldn’t have a single complaint about being the designated pack mule.

Her backpack purse wasn’t exactly for show, either, since she had a first aid kit, sunscreen, and various other useful odds and ends in there, but still, it was good to know he hadn’t even considered that she probably could have carried both.

The GPS app on her phone was running, too, although the West Fork trail was so well-marked and traveled that it would be pretty difficult for them to lose their way. Cell reception in the canyon was crap, but the GPS worked whether or not they were in reach of a tower.

“Over here,” she said as she made her way to the sign pointing toward the trailhead. “Honestly, it’s pretty easy to follow.”

“Good to know,” he replied, then slipped on his sunglasses. “I’m not what you could call the world’s most experienced hiker.”

“Indoor guy?” she asked with a grin. She wasn’t sure she entirely believed that — the muscles his T-shirt showed off could have been acquired in a home gym, she supposed, but his tan looked entirely natural.

“I like to walk,” he said. “And garden. I just don’t do a lot of hiking.”