by Jadyn Chase
Wyatt paused there and turned his face up into the sun. It lit him up from his hair all the way down his chiseled legs to his shoes. I could almost believe the sun came through just to bless him with its light.
All at once, his arm shot up. “There! See that?”
He pointed to a vertical cliff soaring over our heads. It cut my line of sight to create one sharp edge to the horizon beyond the treetops. Far up those precipitous walls, I could just make out some black dots bored into the cliff face.
“Are those the holes?” I whispered.
Wyatt nodded. His face glowed with the light pouring over him. “I figured you could camp here. This will give you the perfect vantage point to record them.”
I looked around me. “How am I supposed to find this place again by myself?”
“You won’t be by yourself. I’ll show you the way.”
I had to grin back at him. “That’s a good one.”
“I’m serious,” he exclaimed. “What’s so funny about that? You won’t get lost.”
“I won’t get lost because I’m going to mark this place on the GPS. I’ll be able to find it on my own without any help from you, Mister.”
He blinked at me in affected innocence. “I wasn’t going to try anything. I promise.”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. Do you think I was born yesterday?”
He stood back and watched me haul the GPS unit out of my bag. “I don’t think you were born yesterday. I definitely don’t think that after the way you were gambling at the Watering Hole the other night.”
I punched the coordinates into the unit. “There. Now you can scuttle along home to whatever you were doing and I’ll set up camp here.”
“You don’t seriously plan to sit around here for the next twelve hours by yourself doing nothing, do you?” He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and swaggered. “That’s nonsense. Come on. Let’s go for a walk. Then, when you’re ready to set up camp, I’ll help you drag your stuff out here.”
“And then?” I asked. “What will you do then?”
“I shall retire like the gentleman I am.” He gave a flourishing bow.
I slapped my thigh and howled. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
He straightened up and smiled at me. I swear butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth when he looked at me like that. “Come on, Piper. You’ve got the whole day ahead of you. Why did you text me if you didn’t want to spend time with me, and don’t pin it on your bats because I know better.”
I blushed to my eyelashes. “All right, but I’m trusting you not to pull a fast one on me when the time comes.”
“I couldn’t pull a fast one if I tried.”
He started back to the Jeep, hefted my backpack out of the seat, and trucked it to the clearing. He propped it against a tree. “There. I promise I’ll get you back in time to set up camp before nightfall. Is it a deal?”
I pretended to look over my shoulder again. “You better not tell anybody about this. My credibility as a feminist who can handle her own business would be ruined.”
“I certainly hope you’re joking about that.” He breezed past me, but he slowed down when he reached me so I could walk at his side. “How am I supposed to prove to you what a gentleman I am if you’re so hot to prove your feminist cred?”
I beamed at him. I didn’t seem to be able to stop my cheeks glowing. “I guess I won’t. So where are we going?”
“Up there.” He pointed to the clifftop.
My eyes popped. “What? How are we going to get up there?”
“I know a back way.”
He led me into the dense thicket once again, and this time, he didn’t come out of it into any easy pathway—not at first. He went ahead of me and pushed branches aside. He made the going a little easier for me with his broad shoulders.
I found myself studying the contour of his back and neck. He exuded masculinity in every pore. My mind traversed strange territory on that hike. What was a man? What made someone more a man than any other?
I couldn’t think of Wyatt without thinking how undeniably male he was. Sure, I’d known dozens of men in my life—possibly even hundreds. I had a father and brothers and uncles and cousins back home. I worked with men. I had male friends all my life. I even dated them and kissed them and even fooled around with a few of them.
None of them made me think MAN the way I did observing Wyatt’s back and waist and legs. I scrutinized the way the hair cascaded off the back of his neck, down his vertebrae, into the neckline of his t-shirt. That arrow pattern blended into the muscle between his shoulder blades, down his lumbar area to his jeans. His body created a timeless display of male anatomy like Michelangelo’s David.
I shook those thoughts out of my head. I couldn’t think of Wyatt like that. He was nothing but a mountain hick who knew about local bats. In a few days, I would go back to Charlotte, and I would never see him again.
He might be hot, and his body might be enticing, but that was all. What could he and I ever really have in common? I worked at a Wildlife Sanctuary doing academic research and negotiating with State and Federal officials. Wyatt living in the backwoods and worked as a builder on a barn. Our two worlds could never meet.
Still, he certainly attracted me and not only with his body. His smile, his face, his conversation—they all combined to form a picture I found nearly impossible to resist. Even as I made up all these excuses about our differences, I knew he wasn’t stupid or even uneducated. His manner, his vocabulary, his whole way of relating told me he harbored a deep intelligence in that brawny body of his.
I got so engrossed in my thoughts about Wyatt that I lost track of where we were. I didn’t notice the passage of time until I started alert and looked around.
Deep forest surrounded us on all sides. The lush canopy blocked out the sunlight and left us in the cool shade. A well-worn trail wound around for miles. The narrow path rose and fell, twisted and turned over rocks and tree trunks, forded streams and climbed in undulating curves.
Where were we? More than once I opened my mouth to ask, but the back of Wyatt’s neck stopped me. Where was he taking me? Did I trust him to take me there? Did I really think he would put me in danger?
The day grew warmer and the climb got steeper. Sweat ran down his neck and disappeared into his t-shirt. It reappeared as a damp patch between his shoulder blades. That completed the picture of him as the quintessential male.
How could I get to this day and age without noticing maleness all around me—maleness like this, at least? How could I meet and interact and relate to so many men without really thinking and comprehending what it meant to be a man? Why did Wyatt strike me as such a different species of man than all the other men I knew and had ever known? I didn’t understand my own thoughts well enough to articulate them.
After a long, arduous hike, he emerged from the trees onto a rocky peak overlooking the wilderness. We traversed granite boulders to the cliff’s very edge. When I peered over the side, the sheer wall plunged straight down to the woods below. It must be the same cliff where the bats lived.
I surveyed the wilderness spread out at my feet. “This is amazing. How did you know this was up here?”
“This is Smokey Ridge. Clan Kelly lives over there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s where I’ve been working these last few weeks, so it was easy to get over to Whistler’s Gulch from here.”
I couldn’t stop drinking in the sight with all my attention. “This is amazing.”
He laughed. “You said that already. Anyway, I thought we could hang out up here for a while before you have to go back to your lonely sleeping bag.”
I lowered my eyes to the valley falling away to nothing. “You said you were born in Whistler’s Gulch. If the Kellys live over there, how did you…..?”
“My aunt and uncle and cousins live over there. My family lives in the Gulch. There’s Kellys scattered all over this mountain.”
I nodded, but I still found it hard to believe.
Most people—like me—considered these mountains deserted. I should have realized a social structure as complex as this would take up residence in the backwoods where no one would disturb them.
“There are all kinds of Clans in these mountains,” he went on. “We’re just one. Do you see that over there?”
He drew near me and pointed near my shoulder. His arm brushed mine in the most innocuous way. It sent a quiver of burning thrill through my insides when he touched me like that. Did he mean to do it? Did he have any clue the effect he had on me?
I didn’t want to believe he could have any effect on me at all. He was a stranger—a nice stranger, but still just a stranger.
He pointed to a hazy blue cloud on the northern horizon. At that distance, the bluish-green sea of foliage carpeting the mountains changed to a muted tan color. Other than that, I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features.
“That’s Granite Gorge. Clan Hodges lives up there. And over there….” He pointed southeast into the vacuum of forest covering endless mountains. “That’s Cochran territory.”
I smiled at him. “You know everybody around here.”
A cloud darkened his face. “Almost.”
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked. “I didn’t mean to.”
He shook his head. “Never mind. There’s another Clan up there.” He waved northwest. “Clan Lynch—they’re our enemies. They always have been and they always will be. They’re always causing trouble trying to start a war.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A war—you mean like a real live Clan war?”
“Sure. They’ll do anything to needle somebody until they get the reaction they want. The rest of us just want peace, but they’re bent on stirring up a hornet’s nest of hostility wherever they can. As a matter of fact….”
He cut himself off and didn’t finish. I waited for him to say something. “As a matter of fact what?”
“Nothing.” He dropped down onto the rock and propped his boots on the ledge. “I’m hungry. Sit and down and let’s eat some lunch.”
I gaped in shock when he pulled a wrapped package out from under the rock. He opened it to reveal a bunch of sandwiches, cut-up apples, and a plastic container of chocolate cake.
He handed me a sandwich. “I only brought water. I would have brought beer, but I didn’t want you to get dehydrated on the way down.”
He set a plastic bottle of water between us. I stared at everything. Why did this surprise me? “Did you put all this here?”
He shrugged, and a flush of color tinged his cheeks. “I figured you might want something to eat when you got up here.”
I cocked my head to study him. “You planned this. You planned this whole thing.”
“Not really. Okay, yes, I did. When you said yesterday you wanted to see the other bat nests, I figured there was an outside chance you might wind up here, so I thought what the hell, right?”
I picked up the water bottle and turned it over in my hand. Even that spoke of a depth of planning and consideration I never would have expected from any man, not even him. He must have realized I wouldn’t want to drink beer or any other fluid after a hike like that.
He understood me in a way no other man ever did. He saw through me to my own inner motivations and preferences. He actually thought about me and what I wanted. He planned this trip down to the drink, and he carried it out to a T.
He munched his sandwich and looked out over the view like this was the most natural thing in the world. I went over the sequence of events, one piece at a time. Sometime between yesterday afternoon when he mentioned showing me the other bat holes and this morning when I texted him, he planted this food and water here so we would have something to eat when he brought me up here.
He shot me a sidelong glance. “What’s the matter? Is it no good?”
I glanced down at the forgotten sandwich in my hand. I brought it to my mouth and took a bite. I was eating his planning and his care and his attention. I chewed it slowly and gazed at the places he pointed out to me.
He finished his sandwich and washed it down with a swig of water. Then he leaned back against the rock and stretched out his legs. He laced his fingers behind his head. “Ahh. I love it up here. I like to come up here just to sit and think, you know?”
“Do you stash picnics for yourself so you can eat your lunch up here?”
“Naw,” he replied. “I bring it with me from the Kellys. It’s quicker that way. I only put this here so we wouldn’t have to carry it up from the Gulch.”
I nodded. Of course. I swallowed my mouthful of sandwich. It tasted delicious with homemade pickle and crispy lettuce. I still couldn’t work out when he put this together and brought it out here, but I guess that didn’t matter. He did it. He did it for me.
What if he thought something about what this all meant that I never realized? How could it mean anything when we only just met the other day? I would ascribe something like this to long-standing couples—maybe even married couples—not strangers.
Was he trying to send me a message of some kind? What could that message be? Was he trying to imply a relationship where none existed?
“Listen, Wyatt….” I began.
He cut in just in time to interrupt what I was about to say. “Well, you know all about me. Why don’t you tell me a little about you now?”
My head swung up. “Me? What about me?”
“You’re a biologist from Charlotte out here studying bats. That’s all I know about you. Tell me something more.”
I cast my gaze down at my hands in my lap. Without the sandwich to keep me occupied, I didn’t know what to do with them. “There’s not a lot to tell.”
“Do you have a boyfriend back home?”
My eyes shot to his face. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because you’re out here on a picnic with me in a secluded neck of the woods. You’re sharing my sandwiches and water and hopefully my cake. If your boyfriend found out, we would have a situation on our hands.”
I cast my gaze down again. “You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t have a boyfriend back home, or a husband or a fiancé or anything like that. You’re safe.”
“How is that possible?” he asked. “How can you not have a boyfriend at the very least?”
“What does that mean?” I fired back. “What if I don’t want a boyfriend?”
“You—not want a boyfriend? What’s the matter? Are you into women or something?”
“No!” I hauled off and punched him in the shoulder hard. “You dirtbag!”
“Ow!” He clutched his shoulder half laughing and half howling. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Then mind your manners or I’ll leave you up here to finish your cake by yourself.”
He snickered and settled down again. “I find it astounding that a beautiful, intelligent, healthy woman like you doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Well, I don’t, so you can drop the whole subject.”
“No prospects?” he asked. “No one interested or asking you out on dates?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“Well, I’m on a date with you, aren’t I?” he returned. “I think I better know the lay of the land.”
“We are not on a date!” I roared.
He cringed and raised his hands to protect himself from another attack. “Take it easy! If it’s not a date, what do you call it?”
“A date is when both people know ahead of time they’re going on a date. It’s not a spontaneous hike into the woods and sitting down having a picnic.”
He nodded and returned to his casual position. “I see. My mistake.”
I scrutinized him closer. “You thought this was a date? Is that why you put this food here?”
“Can you blame me?” he asked. “Do you think I go around asking out every biologist who turns up at the poker tables in Norton?”
I bit back a smile. “How many biologists turn up at the poker tables in Norton?”
“None, as it happens, but that just proves my point. I don’t bring women up here. You’re the first, so I thought I’d make it a pleasant experience for everybody concerned.”
I turned my attention back to the view. “You thought it was a date.”
“Isn’t it?”
I nodded without turning around. “I guess it is.”
He relaxed next to me. I thought I sensed him moving closer to me on the ledge, but I might be mistaken. Would I mind if he did? Why did I make such a case against this being a date? Wouldn’t I want to go on a date with him if I thought of it beforehand?
The truth is I probably wouldn’t have gone on a date with him. If he came right out and asked me to go to dinner and a movie, I probably would have said no. Now I was on one with him and I couldn’t ask for a better date. It exactly suited my tastes. Maybe he knew that all along, too.
Was that the reason I didn’t have a boyfriend—because men asked me out on official dates—real dates to dinner and whatever? I went on dozens of hikes that ended in picnics with Jack Fulton from the Wildlife Sanctuary. I never considered any of them dates. I knew he liked me. He probably would have asked me to marry him if I ever gave him an opening, but I didn’t. Why?
A soft brush of skin on my forearm drew my attention back to Wyatt. I turned around to find him sitting right next to me. His wrist traced a delicate arc over my elbow in such a way that I couldn’t mistake the subtext.
His bright blue eyes swam inches away from my nose. Sweat clung to his cheeks and beard, and that powerful energy of a man radiated off him and consumed my whole awareness.
“Do you kiss on the first date?” he murmured.
I couldn’t answer. He captivated me in that moment. I couldn’t speak to save my life. I found myself spinning into those eyes, in a bottomless pit of something deep and dark and fertile. What was happening to me?
He hovered before me, so close, so enticing so….so male. The ethereal tingle of his skin touching mine overwhelmed my senses as never before. My sight and hearing and sense of smell concentrated to a pinprick between his eyes so I couldn’t look away. All the time, the overpowering maleness of his presence shattered everything I knew about myself.
