“We’re going the long way around?” Wren asked, ignoring the call and heading out to the van.

  “Yes, unless you know of someone who can paddle us across the Sound on a big raft. I assumed you wouldn’t want to go on the ferry, what with those big modern engines strapped to the back.”

  “Funny. I assumed we were going the long way because you might drive that big van right through the railing and into the water, what with the tiny city car you usually drive.”

  Gina elbowed her in the side, not wanting to admit she had been worried about doing exactly that last night. She had occasionally forgotten she was driving something three times the length of her own car, so she hadn’t wanted to add a narrow, bouncy ferry ramp to the equation.

  “I do just fine in the van, thank you. Let’s see if you can keep up with me.” Gina scrunched her nose as she replayed those words in her mind. She hadn’t meant for them to sound as suggestive as they did. Wren paused long enough to let Gina know she heard the double meaning as well, and then she nodded at the van and her older blue Ford pickup.

  “I don’t think either of us is going to set a speed record today, but maybe I’ll take you up on that challenge once we get to know each other a little better.”

  Gina opened her mouth to offer a retort but then closed it again because nothing came to mind except I hope you do. Even if they had been separated by the comforting vastness of the internet, she wouldn’t have been able to come up with a less eager sounding comeback.

  She spent most of the drive wondering her way through various scenarios in which she and Wren had a chance to take their sparring relationship into the bedroom. None of them were sound and sensible options, but they were fun to explore. The last ten minutes before they reached the rental place were filled with stern lectures to herself about why sex with Wren was a bad idea. None of her mind’s arguments convinced her body, but the mental exercise cooled her off enough to get through the next part of their excursion.

  After she had turned in the van’s keys—with no small measure of relief—Gina climbed into Wren’s truck and gave her directions for getting to the nearest Best Buy. She looked around the interior of the pickup as they drove, and it was exactly what she would have expected Wren to drive. Bare-bones, but fairly tidy except for the inevitable hay stems and mud stains on the floor mats.

  “You don’t even have a radio,” she said, pointing at the bare expanse of dashboard. She hadn’t thought Wren would add on any extras, but she thought most cars came standard with at least a radio. “Do you sing a cappella while you’re driving, or do you exist in a world where music hasn’t been invented yet?”

  Wren grinned. “I spend my time thinking profound thoughts. A skill which has been lost to the computer generations.”

  Gina gave a snort of laughter. “Profound thoughts, my ass. You’re probably thinking about all the butter you have to churn when you get home, and whether you’ll have enough daylight left over to get down to the river and beat your laundry on a rock.”

  “Well, your ass is wrong,” Wren said, slapping her gently on the thigh, high enough for Gina to know where her thoughts were heading. “I don’t use a rock. I gave in last year and bought one of those high-tech washboards.”

  Wren parked in the Best Buy lot, as far from the door as she could get, probably in case the technology tried to seep out the door and attack her.

  “I’ll wait here,” she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of cash. “Here you go.”

  Gina looked at the bills in her hand and shook her head. “You’re coming, too. We should look at a laptop for you.”

  Wren gave her a look of pure horror, and Gina had to laugh. “Something simple, I promise. You’ll need to keep up with the social media accounts I create for you. Post new content, reply to comments. Easy stuff.”

  “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “For now, yes. But once I come back to Seattle, I won’t have new things to post unless you email me photos and blogs. You need a computer to do that, and then you might as well use it to do the posting yourself. I’ll explain everything to you, so it will be simple.”

  Wren gave her an exasperated look. “Simplicity isn’t the issue. I know I’m capable of doing it. I just don’t want to.”

  Gina shrugged and started counting the money Wren had given her. “You sound scared to me.”

  “Am I twelve? Do you really think calling me a chicken will make me want to do this?”

  Gina looked at her without answering, and eventually Wren made a growling kind of noise and opened her door. “I’ll come with you, but only because I can’t continue to have this conversation. Not because you said I’m scared.” She got out of the truck and looked back at Gina. “And I’m not buying a computer.”

  Gina got out of the truck and jogged to catch up to her. “It’s okay. We’ll just walk past the laptops really slowly today. Next time we can walk through the section. Maybe even touch one of them, if you’re feeling brave.”

  “It’s a matter of principle, not fear,” Wren said as they stepped through the door into the brightly lit version of Wren hell, complete with one hundred television sets all showing a different montage of visual effects.

  She seemed disoriented, so Gina grabbed her sleeve and tugged her toward the far side of the store. “Let me guess—you were raised on a commune by hippie parents who told you technology was evil,” she said as they passed the cameras. She would have liked to stop and browse, but she’d wait until she was here without Wren to comparison shop for new equipment.

  “Not even close,” Wren said. “My parents own SoarInc.”

  This time it was Gina who felt disoriented as she came to a stop next to a rack of phone cases. “Your parents are those Lindleys? Are you kidding?”

  “You’ve heard of them, I take it,” Wren said with a wry smile.

  Obviously there were some underlying issues between Wren and her parents, which had resulted in their daughter turning her back on the entire tech world. Gina tried to curb her excitement about being close to someone who had sprung from the brilliant Lindley family, but she wasn’t very successful. She at least managed to stop hopping from foot to foot.

  “They revolutionized wrapper technology. I used their methods when I first learned how to code, and I designed the most amazing website using…oh.” Using WREN. She put her hand over her mouth, unsure whether she was horrified or about to burst into laughter.

  “Using their Wrapper Encoding System,” Wren finished for her. “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

  Gina pulled Wren to one side, out of the way of a man who was trying to get past them. “I thought you were named after a bird.”

  “Most people do. I usually don’t bother to correct them. Can we get this done and get out of here?”

  “Yes, of course,” Gina said. She had a lot of questions—including Will your parents be stopping by anytime soon so I can meet them?—but they could wait until later. “Right over here.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve heard about WREN, since it was created before you were born. It’s older than I am, and I’m prehistoric in computer years. Do you still use it?”

  “Not WREN, of course, but I’ve always kept up with the latest versions,” Gina said absently as she hurriedly looked through the selection of mobile routers. “Right now I’m using…never mind. Ouch.”

  “What do you mean, ouch?” Wren asked.

  “We want this one.” Gina handed her a hard plastic package and started walking toward the front of the store. “It’s just…well, the newest version is called Falcon.”

  Wren stopped again. “Falcons eat wrens.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gina said, bumping Wren with her shoulder and getting her walking again. She glanced sideways at her. “You must have the most uncomfortable family dinners.”

  Wren had been looking slightly traumatized, but at Gina’s comment she let out a burst of laughter. “You have no idea,” she said. “And trust me, this Thanksgiving is going to be a doozy.”

  Gina laughed along with her, relieved to see her relax. She and Wren paid at the register, and Gina didn’t even mention her intended walk past the computer section. She figured Wren had had enough computer talk for one day.

  Chapter Nine

  Gina slid into the truck’s passenger seat and settled back with the router in a bag on her lap, prepared for a silent drive to the hotel. Wren was most likely still imagining the bird carnage caused by her parents’ falcon, and Gina herself wasn’t in the best of moods. She was leaving the city behind for good now—temporarily, but thoroughly. Her belongings were settled in Wren’s barn, and soon she and her car would be farm residents. She had felt a sense of straddling worlds last night, with her vehicle still bonding her to the city somehow, but now she would be in Poulsbo with no real reason to come back to Seattle. She would have to return to the city regularly for meetings and receptions, of course, and she could come back for personal errands anytime she wanted, but she would no longer feel like a resident once her car left the hotel parking lot. She needed time to process her impending solar-powered doom, and Wren had her own feathered demons to contemplate.

  She gave Wren directions to the hotel and then lapsed into her planned silence, which lasted for the five seconds it took Wren to maneuver out of the parking lot and onto the street. Gina realized she felt tired more than sad, and her mind was spinning with to-do lists that included unpacking, reading and responding to thousands of her followers’ comments, and potentially redefining her entire online content to match her new lifestyle. She needed distraction, not extra time to dwell on the tasks ahead, especially when she couldn’t do much about them until she was back in the apartment with her laptop. She glanced over at Wren, who really did look upset and like she could benefit from getting her mind off their conversation.

  “We might as well use this time for work,” Gina said. “Why don’t we brainstorm some ideas for your blog?” She smacked Wren lightly on the arm with the router package. “Stop making that face. I’m not asking you to talk about computers, but about horses. You just need to think about some riding or training topics, and I’ll do the posting.”

  For now. She didn’t say it out loud, but eventually she’d get Wren to do the basic work of maintaining her farm’s online presence. One baby step at a time, though.

  Wren exhaled audibly. “I really wouldn’t know what to say. I mean, there are plenty of fascinating aspects of dressage, but who’d want to read me rambling on about them?”

  “You’ll be surprised,” Gina said, looking out the front window and remembering the first real connections she had made online. The first moments when she had recognized that she could find friends who shared her interests and beliefs—or who respected her for having them, even if they weren’t exactly the same as everyone else’s. “I guarantee you’ll find people who not only want to hear what you have to say, but who will want to engage with you in interesting conversations. That’s the beauty of the internet.”

  “The beauty of the internet?” Wren repeated, shaking her head. “You really see it as something positive, don’t you? That must be why you’re hugging that thing we just bought.”

  Gina was about to protest, but Wren’s comment had made her realize how tightly she was clutching the bag. It was her link to the online world she had created, and it was the only thing that would make life across the Sound bearable for her. Well, besides Wren. Gina was starting to look forward to the unsettled way her insides felt when Wren was physically close to her, and to the way Wren made her laugh. Computers and her online life were too much a part of her to ever want to lose, but she could do it if she had to. She had a feeling Wren was the kind of addiction that would be impossible to shake once it took hold. Gina just had to make sure she never got close enough to lose herself to Wren.

  “I’m not hugging it.” Gina loosened her hold on the bag slightly and assumed as haughty a tone as she could. “I’m cradling it lovingly, just like you’d do with your favorite pair of riding boots. Now stop stalling and come up with some blog ideas.”

  “Ooh, sorry, but I can’t. I stalled just long enough,” Wren said, turning on her blinker and pulling into the hotel’s parking lot.

  Gina looked away from Wren and at her surroundings in surprise. She had expected a dragged-out, quiet ride, but the few miles had flown by. She frowned, unable to explain to herself why she felt so uncomfortable being comfortable with Wren. The notion sounded ridiculous in her mind, but still, she couldn’t shake her disquiet.

  “Hey, I’m just kidding,” Wren said, apparently misinterpreting Gina’s expression. “Why don’t we take the ferry back to Bremerton, and I promise I’ll come up with some ideas along the way. There shouldn’t be too much of a line at the dock this time of day, and we’ll save a lot of driving time, too.”

  “Um…sure,” Gina said. She had no reason to insist on driving the long way through Tacoma, unless she wanted to admit her conflicted feelings to Wren. No way was that going to happen. “I’ll follow you there.”

  The job of maneuvering through heavy city traffic as they neared the ferry docks didn’t leave Gina with much time for worrying about her interest in Wren. Two days of inching along in her car and the rental van were enough to make her long for the option to be on one of the city’s questionably clean buses. Finally, she edged her car onto the ferry behind Wren’s truck and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d have more driving to do once they reached Bremerton, but traffic would be much lighter.

  She got out of her car, ready to climb the stairs to the ferry’s top deck, and watched as Wren stepped on the truck’s back tire and swung herself into the bed of the pickup. She reached out her hand toward Gina.

  “It’ll be windy up top,” Wren said when Gina just stared at her instead of taking her hand. “And we have the best view from here. Come on.”

  Gina hesitated a moment longer, then took Wren’s hand and stretched to get her foot onto the truck’s tall tire without falling backward. Wren’s grip was just the same as Gina remembered from the day they met. Strong, slightly rough from working on the farm and riding. Confident. Gina managed to follow Wren’s method of ascent, but she was trying too hard to ignore how good Wren’s skin felt against her palm to be able to imitate her gracefulness as well. She pulled her hand free from Wren’s a moment too soon, catching her foot on the side of the bed and falling forward.

  Wren caught her with her hands around Gina’s waist, her face just inches from Gina’s. Gina had thought Wren’s hand felt good holding hers, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of those same strong hands resting just above her hip bones. She caught herself just as she was lowering her gaze toward Wren’s mouth and moved suddenly out of Wren’s grasp.

  She had expected to feel some resistance as she pulled away, but Wren had started moving at the same time, as if feeling the same awkwardness as Gina. Gina had to laugh as they jolted away from each other like they had received electric shocks, both nearly toppling over their respective sides of the truck since there wasn’t much room to back up.

  She looked over her shoulder toward the stairs leading to the upper decks and saw several other passengers watching them. She looked back at Wren, still chuckling. “They probably think we’re doing some weird choreographed dance up here.”

  Wren grinned and bowed toward their small crowd, receiving a smattering of applause and laughter. “Maybe we should sit down before we dance ourselves right off the truck.”

  She sat down on a pile of horse blankets and rested her back against the cab. She gestured at the place next to her, and Gina sat down, keeping at least a few inches of space between them. Her laughter faded a bit as she thought about where she was—sitting on horse blankets in the back of a pickup as she was being ferried to her new small-town home. This moment was about as far from the ideal life she had always pictured as it was possible to get.

  She felt her expression settle into a smile. No, this wasn’t her life’s goal, but she’d get back on track. And right now, she could feel Wren’s warmth next to her even though they weren’t touching. And the view really was amazing. Gina’s car was the last in their row, and from their position in the truck they could see over it, beyond to the Seattle skyline framed in the wide mouth of the ferry. The city was softened by dusk, and the buildings were lit with artificial lights and the glow of the setting sun. Yes, Gina was moving away from Seattle and toward a tiny farm apartment, but she didn’t feel like fighting the contentment growing inside her.

  Wren cleared her throat. “So, I guess I’m ready to talk about this horrid computer stuff.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Gina said. “I really like the positive approach you’re taking to this. Maybe the title of your first post could be ‘I’m the best dressage instructor ever, but I really don’t want you at my farm, so scram.’”

  “Hmm, that has promise. We shouldn’t let people know I’m the best, though. They might be willing to put up with my endearing grumpiness just for the privilege of training with me.”

  Gina gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, that’s a real risk. How about we say you’re just mediocre?”

  “Mediocre and overpriced,” Wren amended. She bumped Gina with her elbow. “Now we’re on the same page.”

  Gina jostled her in return. “Now we’re on the same screen, you mean.”

  “I didn’t mean that in the least.”

  Gina smiled in response, but she couldn’t manage a snappy comeback since her mind was focused on the fiery sensation in her arm where it was resting against Wren’s. Somewhere during their playful pushing, one of them had made contact and hadn’t moved away again. Gina was pretty sure it had been her, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it. And she couldn’t move now, since they had been sitting this way for too many seconds to separate without it seeming awkward. She could handle a little touching, couldn’t she?