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A flat tire on the Range Rover has them on the bike again. It’s where Kara would rather be, anyway. It’s the first time she’s been curled around him like this since they went from friends to more.

His hand covers hers where it’s curled up his chest and she feathers her lips across the back of his neck, smiling to herself when the bike jerks the smallest bit.

They had plans to stay longer, but she’s more than ready to leave. Carrie and her mother weren’t entirely alone. There are others. The more space they can put between themselves and that community, the better.

It’s become an unspoken rule that getting fully entangled in anyone’s lives isn’t something they’re interested in. They’ve done their good deed. Anything more is asking for trouble one way or another.

Now, it’s just her and Wade and the open road. More than ever, she burns to ask him her most important question. Especially after the harsh reality of how easily she could lose him was projected in crystal clarity the other day.

Carrie’s mother, sobbing on the ground as she mourned her husband, could be Kara one day. Wade almost seems like Teflon, but no one is safe in this world. She knows that all too well. She spent six years without him, after all.

What she witnessed at the cottage is another push to stop putting off the inevitable.

She’s going to ask him once and for all if he’ll stay out here with her permanently.

Deep inside, she already knows the answer.

That doesn’t curb her desire to hear it spoken aloud, and it has to be after she confesses the body count she’s racked up since the world collapsed.

It isn’t like they made plans to turn around and go back.

They have nothing and no one else to go back to.

It is an implied thing already that they’ve run away together permanently, but there will always be doubt until every last hidden truth is out in the open.

He could still change his mind after he knows who she really is.

Until then, she’s left to stew in anxiety and distract herself with an impending hunting lesson in the desert. That’s their mission today, as they put miles and a state line behind them.

She’s falling in love with the West nearly as much as she’s fallen in love with him.

Each park they visit is prettier than the last. This one is no exception with its curved red rocks and winding trails.

There’s something magical about the land out here, she thinks as they pass the main entrance and keep an eye out for overnight accommodations.

The more she sees of it, the more it feels like coming home to a place she never knew could steal so much of her heart so easily.

Doesn’t take long to find an RV park just a mile up the road with what she assumes will be an amazing sunset view.

“What do you think about this for tonight?” Wade pulls to a stop beside the smallest trailer she’s ever seen.

It’s barely taller than him, tiny enough to be pulled behind an SUV. “I think there’s just enough space for two.”

When they pop the lock and break in, there’s only room for a single bed and not much else.

“Can’t stand up in here,” he grunts. “Sure you’re okay with it?”

“We won’t be doing much standing up, anyway.”

Her wink says she’s serious, and the waggle of his eyebrows in return makes her laugh.

His confidence is returning, along with the smirk on his lips and innuendo on his tongue.

She has missed that version of him more than she’d ever admit out loud.

Every tidbit that creeps through his armor just for her is a welcome thing.

They’ll work on clearing these other trailers once they get back. All that’s left to do is make good on that lesson offer.

Finding anything worth hunting is a challenge after they’ve looped through a few arches, and she suspects that’s only going to get worse further west. Not many forests out here. The desert is a harsh landscape, but it’s not impossible. If anyone can make it work, it’s them.

Finally, a cluster of small rodents scurry across the worn path, bigger than squirrels and fatter, too.

“Groundhogs?” she says.

“Prairie dogs? They have those out here?”

She shrugs. “I dunno, but they’re cute. I sort of feel bad about this.”

“We’re running low on supplies anyway. The more we can hunt, the better off we’ll be. Nothing’s going to waste. Probably save more meat with a bow, though. The rifle is overkill.”

He’s right, and she knows it. They don’t have the luxury anymore of relying on trade from other communities. Can’t go to the pantry in Paradise Falls and pick whatever they like for a meal, so she ignores her reservations and focuses on what they need to survive.

“Lesson one.” She hands him the rifle. “Show me how you’d hold it and aim.”

He’s taking this seriously, so she does too, though it instantly feels odd to be on the teaching end of something that’s always come so naturally for her.

“Pick one that’s still. Don’t attempt a moving target yet,” she says softly, watching him find their dinner. “Got your shot?”

He nods.

“Release on an exhale and let’s see where it lands.”

The bullet embeds into a rock a few feet away instead of the animal they’re hunting.

“Told ya.” He winces. “Rifles and me don’t get along. We shouldn’t waste bullets.”

“Pretty sure I saw that hedgehog’s fur ruffle. Try again,” she moves in close beside him. “We have enough bullets to use a few extra today. I’ll teach you a trick.”

He raises a brow, letting her cup his elbow to adjust his arm in the right direction. “It’s not a hedgehog.”

“You naturally aim right a few inches too far, so compensate next time even if it feels wrong, but that’s not the magic part.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the magic?”

“Clench your ass when you let it fly.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not.”

“You squeeze your ass cheeks every time you fire a shot?”

She nods with a shrug. “It gives you some extra momentum. Just try it and see if it helps. Might end up with a gopher.”

He looks about ready to tell her she’s full of it. “If you’re fucking with me, I swear…”

“You wanna get that gerbil or what? I’ll do it myself if you don’t want to.”

“Okay, okay,” he groans.

She waits matter-of-factly while he gives her a good-natured glare, then squeezes his ass in a way that looks more like a hip thrust as the bullet fires. That rodent falls instantly, and she whistles her approval.

“How the hell did that work?” He shakes his head in amused dismay as they walk out to fetch what he’d caught.

There’s more damage to the meat than she’d prefer, but they should have enough for some appetizer-sized snacks.

“Gives you something else to think about when you’d be over-analyzing your aim.”

“So instead of doing that, I’m trusting the aim and worrying about clenching my ass cheeks?”

“Exactly.”

“The army taught you this? What kinda lessons were these? I gotta be jealous?”

She laughs as they head back to their campsite, leaning up to pepper a soft kiss to his lips. “You never have to be jealous. Besides, they didn’t tell me that. I just came up with it right now.”

“I knew it!” he exclaims, full of mock horror, though his half-hidden grin proves he’s not mad.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah, but I know what ass I’d rather be squeezing and it’s not my own.”

“Promises, promises.”

He’ll practice with her rifle the next few times they hunt, but what she’s more excited about now is what happens after dinner tonight.

* * *

The first order of business is clearing the other trailers. Her heart drops when she sees it. Not because it’s hurt or dead, not even because it’s growling at them ready for battle, but because she can see the writing on the wall already.

“Nope.” Kara turns on her heels to aim for the door while a small brown dog guards its long-dead owner. “No way. I didn’t see it. There’s nothing there.”

“I didn’t even say anything yet,” Wade replies. “Doesn’t look like he wants anything to do with us, anyway.”

“I know you. You love dogs. You miss the one we left behind with the kids. You’ll want to feed this one. Help it. Keep it.”

He raises his hands in mock surrender while she pauses in the doorway.

The dog isn’t much bigger than an oversized pumpkin. Scrappy and disheveled, with fur covering its eyes and pretty white teeth flashing while they discuss its fate.

“The door is open.” She tries again as if Wade hadn’t agreed. “He can come and go as he pleases. He doesn’t need us.”

“Okay.”

She sighs, rubbing two fingers between her eyes. “The dog is fine. He lived this long alone, right? The body looks like it’s been lying here for months, and he’s not even skinny, so clearly he can hunt.”

“Mhmm,” Wade replies, over the dim grumble of said dog, who hasn’t left his post lying atop a mostly decomposed corpse.

“It’s aggressive anyway,” she says defiantly, though it’s starting to sound like she’s trying to convince herself instead of him.

She distinctly remembers things being the other way around last time they found a dog, with Wade telling her they shouldn’t help it and Kara attempting to convince him they should. Funny how quickly things change.

“Looks like it.”

“We can’t treat dog bites out here. Could get infected. We made it this far. We’re not getting taken out now by a pint-sized Benji.”

“That would be an embarrassing way to go.”

She narrows her eyes, irritated by how calm he is. Doesn’t he understand they can’t keep this dog? He’s saying all the right things, but she can tell he doesn’t quite believe her reluctance, and that’s annoyed her enough to leave the trailer in a huff for the fire pit.

She putters around, setting up their cooking station as he joins her and they silently prepare their dinner.

“It probably won’t even come out anyway,” she says, suddenly.

“Yeah, probably not.”

“But you left the door open?”

“Yes.”

The trailer containing one very disgruntled little dog is positioned directly in front of them. She watches to see if anything might peek around the corner.