Isaiah looked down at her feet. “Good, you’re not wearing heels.”
Sofia raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you know you like me in heels.”
Isaiah’s eyes flashed with delight, and the side of his mouth twitched. Her stomach did a flip. “I certainly do. But it’s not the appropriate footwear for today.”
“Oh no. Please tell me we’re not going hiking.” Sofia had already warned him that when she’d found him that day in the woods, that was a once-a-year outing for her.
“Not exactly,” he said evasively.
Sofia narrowed her eyes at him, though anticipation trickled through her. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but she’d missedhim all week, and she was glad he had finally turned up again—and that she hadn’t had to go groveling to him.
She didn’t regret the decision she’d made to remain friends, but the reality of it was becoming more and more impossible with each minute she spent with him. She was drawn to him like a hummingbird to nectar.
“Fine. I’m trusting you. I take it we’re going in my car?” she asked, turning back toward the door.
“You got it.” He followed her out, and they settled in her Subaru. Sofia took a moment to enjoy a few sips of her coffee before she put the car in drive.
“All right, Mr. Mysterious. Where to?”
“I’m going to need your phone.”
Sofia eyed him warily but pulled her phone out of her purse, unlocked it, and handed it to him. She looked over and saw he was downloading an app. She put the car back in park.
“Geocaching?”
“You know what it is?”
“I’ve heard of it, but no, not really.”
Isaiah launched into a tale of meeting Ben and Henry Hadley at the museum and finding a birdhouse geocache in the woods behind the Emerald House. He talked animatedly, and Sofia was glad he’d seemed to find something he enjoyed doing that week, even if it was without her. If he was ever going to get his memories back, it wasn’t going to happen through sitting around at the Emerald House all day.
Then Isaiah mentioned that he’d been skilled with the mapping software Ben Hadley had been using at the museum.
Sofia’s eyes widened with surprise. “Really? That sounds like one of the strongest intuitions you’ve had yet. That has to be a good sign that your memories are coming back, right?” She tried not to sound too hopeful, but the news excited her.
She’d put them back in the friend zone but only because she wanted to focus on finding out who he was and getting his memories back. The news felt like the first solid step toward that, and hope bloomed in her chest as instantaneously as the tulips had in her yard.
“I have to admit it felt really good. Like a piece of me clicked into place.”
“That’s amazing, Isaiah,” Sofia said, warmth infused in her voice.
They locked eyes for a moment, then Isaiah cleared his throat and spoke.
“Back to the geocaching.”
Sofia nodded, the sizzle of the moment dying down but not completely. “So, we’re going to… go traipsing through the woods, looking for a birdhouse?”
“Give me a little credit,” Isaiah said. The app finished downloading, and he began studying a map on the screen. “According to this, there are five hidden on or around Main Street. We can eat, find them, do a little shopping, see if anything triggers my memory…”
Sofia immediately put the car in drive and whipped it out of the parking lot.
“What was that for?” Isaiah asked, grinning.
“For not making me tromp around in the woods.”
Sofia kept her back straight and didn’t even crack a grin as she sped toward Main Street. She cheered herself on her restraint because she could see that devilish smile of his out of the corner of her eye, and her stomach flipped at the sight.
They foundthe first four geocaches quickly, with Isaiah navigating, but he’d passed the baton to her for the last one, insisting she give it a try.
