Sinful Ever After (Romance Collection)

by Vivian Wood

  Sighing, I get out of the shower. The reality is that I don’t know and I’m going to have to try not to find out.

  Shaving as best as I can without a mirror, I try to avoid thinking about Rachel.

  It’s not easy, though. Especially when Aiden strolls up to where I hung my hammock, looking expectant.

  “So…” he says, yawning. “Yesterday was pretty nutty. Seeing Rachel again must be fucking weird.”

  Even early as it is, I laugh. “Weird doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  I expect him to press me for details, but he doesn’t. “Do you want to grab breakfast?”

  “Sure. I mean, I’ll go with you to the mess hall.” Eating without Rachel seems inhospitable, but there is nothing saying I can’t go to the mess hall twice.

  I’m quiet as I walk beside Aiden. As soon as we get close to the mess hall, he starts in on me.

  “I’m guessing you were up late last night?” he says, looking at me. “I would have a lot of feelings if I were you.”

  My mouth twists. “She brought back a lot of memories with her. Some good, some… not.”

  It’s hard not to remember the younger version of her. She had shorter hair, though it was the same rich honey color. She wore short pink skirts and checkered Vans most of the time. She laughed at lot, looking up at me as if I set the sun and stars for her.

  And she fit so nicely against me when I held her close. I still remember how her clean scent — lavender and sage — hit my nose when I would bury my face in her hair.

  “Do you maybe want to talk about it? I would, if I were in your shoes.”

  I sigh. My therapist at the VA told me to try to be more open with the people in my life. Other than Nate, Aiden is the only person that I see regularly. He’s also been my best friend for years, going back before Rachel even.

  I try to put my thoughts into words. How do I express the things I don’t want to talk about?

  “The memories… they are too much. They make my throat close up, thinking about what life was like back then. Thinking about how amazing things were before that first IED exploded…”

  “I know, man.” Aiden glances at me.

  I rub the back of my neck as we climb the steps of the mess hall. This early, there is hardly anyone here but the kitchen staff. I glance around and make sure that we are still isolated before completing my thought.

  “Thinking about how dark and bleak things got after that… how I was essentially institutionalized and couldn’t even make myself care about bathing and eating for almost half a year after that…”

  I can’t finish saying my thoughts out loud. But if I could, it would probably sound something like…

  I have to block it out. The good memories and the bad, the wonderful times and the wretched. They are all entwined in my memory and even thinking about her…

  How good she was, how right it felt…

  If I let some of it in, I let it all in. And I can’t do that to myself. I just can’t.

  That Grayson, the one she knew. He died that day five years ago.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Aiden says, cutting through some of the noise that’s building up in my head. I give him a humorless smile.

  “Yep. Me and everybody else in the whole entire world. Everyone else hasn’t lost their shit, though.”

  Clearing my throat, I move toward the food. There isn’t anything hot out yet, so I just grab an oatmeal bar and fill up my canteen.

  When we sit down at one of the picnic tables, Aiden looks up at me.

  “You know that most people haven’t had your kind of life experience.”

  I know what he means, but I deliberately misunderstand his words.

  “And now I’m living a half-life here in Washington, spending my time in the mountains and clinging to whatever scraps of peace I can find. Great use of life experience.”

  “You are being awfully self-pitying today.”

  I sent him a glare. “Thanks for the support.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I am supportive, within reason. But I’m not interested in dragging you through the mud. I’m more interested in what you are going to do now, with Rachel here. I mean, that’s a pretty big crisis.”

  I take a minute to think my answer out.

  “Rachel will just have to understand and learn to keep her distance. I’m unstable and unsteady and… basically a ticking time bomb, ready to implode.” I pause. “Why in the hell am I being put in this position, again?”

  Aiden just shrugs. “Life is unfair, man.”

  I can’t disagree with that one.

  We eat the rest of the meal in silence. Then I have another hour of quiet meditation before the sun nudges its way into the sky. Only then do I label myself as ready to face the day.

  A day where I will have to interact with Rachel again.

  Part of me wants her to fail the physical exam, to go back to New York with her tail tucked between her legs. But I know that if that happens, then Nate won’t know what to do with me.

  And if he doesn’t think I can be a park ranger anymore…

  Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

  So I trot over to cabin seven, knocking on the door. Rachel has to pass this test. She was an athlete in her college days. If she kept up the physique that is burned into my memory, she shouldn’t have a problem.

  What if she didn’t, though? I mean, I think she’s thinner than when I knew her, but… who knows where that thinness comes from?

  I knock on her door again, annoyed. Looking down at the bright blue door, I scowl. Of course she’s making me late on her very first day.

  Just as I’m about to pound on the door for a third time, it opens. She looks sleepy, but she’s still pulled together. Her hair is up in a bun. She wears a pair of black shorts and a pink rain jacket. Her feet look odd, encased in hiking boots instead of heels.

  I really liked her in heels.

  I jerk my brain away from the beginning of remembering what it is about her in heels that I like so much.

  “I’m ready,” she says with a yawn. She pulls up her hood, shivering a little. “It’s so cold outside right now.”

  She has always run hot-blooded, always tucking herself into a jacket or turning up the heat in the car. I don’t think it will do either of us any good for me to say that out loud though, so I don’t.

  I don't comment on the weather either. Scrunching my face up and looking around, I sigh. “Do you want to eat breakfast before or after you run eight miles?”

  Her eyes widen just a bit. Her lips part. “Eight miles?”

  Of course. Of course she’s unprepared. I roll my eyes. “Tell me that won’t be a problem?”

  “Maybe I just need a banana to start.” She frowns. “I didn’t bring any running shoes.”

  Shrugging, I start heading for the mess hall. “I’m sure you will be fine.”

  She’s always fine. Strong and proud, with a backbone made of steel. It probably made rebounding after me a snap.

  I grimace and move faster.

  She follows me. I can feel her glaring at me, feel her eyes on my back. We head to the mess hall where she grabs a banana and I grab four bananas and two breakfast bars.

  “You brought a canteen or a water bottle with you, didn’t you?” I ask, casting a suspicious eye over her form.

  Her cheeks stain with color. “I left it in my cabin.”

  With a sigh, I grab her a glass of water and then hand it over. “Drink this.”

  My tone sounds demanding because it is. She crosses her arms, her hip jutting out. I can tell that she wants to argue. But instead she just takes the glass and drains it. I pluck it from her hand, refill it, and hand it back.

  “For after you run,” I grouse. I’m feeling like a child right now and having difficulty dealing with it.

  Rachel doesn’t say a word. She just accepts the water, looking like I’m handing her a glass of my vomit.

  This is off to a great start.

  I can’t
help but feel conflicted. Part of me wants to shout at her to leave, part of me is more curious and wants her to stay. Well, for a while anyway.

  Sighing, I lead her out of the camp and into the small valley next to it. We walk out onto a worn running path, which forms a lazy loop after about a quarter of a mile. She chows down the banana, stretching for a minute.

  I don't look at her body as she does, at the way her very short shorts fit her body. Nor do I admire her legs. I don't think about her petite stature and how it measures up to my own 6’3.

  And most of all, I definitely refuse to remember the way that she would giggle when I pinned her down, how she would squirm and pretend to try and escape.

  That doesn’t get me hard.

  Nope.

  She peels off her jacket and looks at me impatiently. “How do we do this?”

  Juggling my bananas, breakfast bars, and my canteen, I look at my watch. “When you’re ready, go. You just have to do the whole run in like… I don’t know, two and a half hours or something. This run is a piece of cake.”

  She glares at me again. “I don't see you running.”

  Shrugging, I move to find a place to sit. “There is no question of my fitness. If it makes you feel better though, I had to do this when I first started here too.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Alright. Let’s go. I’m ready.”

  I start the timer on my watch and she starts running. Sitting on the sidelines, my job is only to make sure she doesn’t cheat and eat my breakfast in solitude. She passes by a few times, her breath mostly even and her gaze fixed on some point ahead of her.

  What is she thinking about? One of the things I used to love about her was the fact that I could read her so easily. One look at her face and I could just tell what was going on inside. But apparently now that is gone, replaced by a controlled stare.

  That is, when she doesn’t out and out look like she’s about to kill me.

  An hour and a half later, she comes around the bend, a steely determination in her eyes. She looks as worn out as she should, her breathing uneven. As she takes the final steps I realize that there is a half-moon of mascara underneath each eye.

  She is wearing makeup. Or she was, before she sweated most of it off. I’m taken aback for a moment.

  The old Rachel almost never wore makeup. I look at her now and wonder if there is even a little scrap of the person that I used to know hiding beneath that spiky exterior.

  It hurts just a little bit, knowing that the person that I once knew – once loved – is gone. Vanished under a sea of mascara and expensive clothing.

  She comes to a stop before me, panting and greedily sucking down the water that sits beside me. I look at my watch.

  “One hour, thirty seven minutes.”

  Rachel just nods, hands on her hips. “I think I’ll take that breakfast now.”

  She takes her empty glass and picks up her jacket. She heads back to the camp site, wiping at her brow. I trail behind her, unsure at this exact moment how I should feel.

  On one hand, I’m glad she passed the running portion. On the other, some small part of me thought that maybe she would fail and then we wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

  Definitely not sleeping side by side in close quarters for the next three months, anyway.

  But the small, weak part of me that hoped for that is just going to have to be disappointed, I guess. I follow her to the mess hall where she takes no time to chow down on one of the breakfast bars. She takes a second one, secreting it into the pocket of her coat.

  Then she looks at me, stone faced. “There is a ropes course part of all this, is there not?”

  I nod. “Yep.”

  She’s already heading the direction. “Let’s do it right now, before I get too tired.”

  Raining my brows, I follow her. Once we get to the ropes course, it seems as if she is just trying to get through as soon as possible, her expression nothing short of dogged determination the whole time. As the ropes course is fifteen feet off the ground, she has to accept my help with getting a climbing harness on. Once she’s clipped in though, my bit is done.

  I step away. She goes through the entire thing pretty quickly, doing absolutely everything she can on her own.

  I’m pretty sure that is the exact opposite of the point of ropes courses, but I just bite my tongue and stay out of her way.

  There is one part that she can’t quite seem to get, though. The pipe bridge seems to defeat her. She’s staring down two parallel ropes at the waist and at the foot, stretched about twelve feet wide, with pipes tied across the bottom at challenging intervals.

  She keeps missing the second foothold. “Jesus Christ,” she mutters.

  “I think if you just—”

  “Shut up!” She manages to get to the second pipe and stares at the third.

  “Rachel—”

  She whirls on me. “I am doing fine. I’m getting along just fine without your meddling! Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  Yikes. I definitely don’t remember Rachel ever being nasty to me. She sounds more than a little bit like her mother, which disappoints me in a strange way.

  I put my hands up in surrender, backing off. She struggles through the obstacle, then races through the rest of the course. When she’s done, she unties herself and flings the harness at me, then storms off toward her cabin.

  What set her off, exactly?

  Unable to ask her and unlikely to do so even if I could, I wrap the ropes up and move on with my day.

  Chapter Seven

  Rachel

  When the alarm on my phone wakes me up, I open my eyes in the darkness of the little cabin. Even though I went to bed super early yesterday there is no bedtime that makes this early hour easier to swallow. I wince.

  “Ooof,” is the first thing that leaves my mouth.

  My body aches. My feet are still throbbing. I sit up and pull the scratchy gray blankets back to peer at my feet. Running in my hiking boots was not a good idea, as evidenced by the blisters all over my feet, especially around my toes. Sore, cracking, and a second away from bleeding again, my blisters have seen better days.

  Getting to my feet as delicately as possible, I decide against a shower. From what I have witnessed there is only the one group shower here. The thought of going in there with sores on my feet turns my stomach.

  I make do with a little dry shampoo and deodorant. While I’m taking care of the necessities, I groggily reflect on the fact that I’m here by choice.

  After Grayson, post-Grayson I should say, I was so hurt that it took me a long time to heal. And when I did, I made myself as strong as I knew how. Invincible, almost.

  But then one glance at him, and I start to wonder what he sees. Does he see that I rebuilt myself better, or does he see the spoiled little rich girl I became?

  There is a distinct bitterness in my mouth and in the pit of my stomach, thinking of what I became.

  I am this way because you left me.

  That’s what I want to say to him. But I don’t dare.

  Dressing myself in another new outfit of soft gray leggings and a black tank top, I don my lightweight rain jacket. Then I force my feet into the hiking boots that hurt them so bad yesterday, cringing the whole time.

  It’s painful. But so was learning to live in high heels. Back in college, after Grayson vanished and I made the only decision I could about my future, I had to learn.

  Now I walk in them with confidence. I expect that hiking will be the same… eventually.

  At least I hope so. And with any luck today’s lessons in wilderness survival will allow me to sit down a lot.

  There is a loud knock on my door. I wince and hobble over to answer, taking a long breath before pulling the door open. Getting myself together, I open it with the most neutral look I can manage.

  Grayson stands there, taking up the whole doorway, occupying the space casually. He looks as brooding as he has since I’ve arrived, picking his head. My eyes narrow.r />
  I don't know why, but it bothers me that he’s so… so… put together.

  “Are you ready?” he asks, stepping back.

  Without answering I step outside and close the cabin door. Heading to the mess hall, I notice the first rays of sunlight creeping in, spreading themselves out across the darkened, pine needle covered ground. It’s beautiful in its own right, the way the light stains the blackness, turning it gray.

  I step on some uneven ground and wobble, throwing my hands wide and making a low sound in the base of my throat. My eyes mist over at the way my boots and my blisters collide in this new way.

  Grayson is right there behind me, his touch landing underneath my splayed arms. “Whoa. You okay there?”

  His hands are hot, his touch like fire. I shake him off immediately and grit my teeth. “I’m fine.”

  Grayson drops back, put in his place by my tone. I keep walking toward the mess hall, tossing my hair and holding my head high. I don't feel as confident as I probably look, but that isn’t something that Grayson needs to know.

  I ignore him through breakfast. I would ignore him for the rest of eternity, but unfortunately he is teaching my wilderness survival course. He leads me to the education room, a little cabin behind the mess hall decorated in WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF… posters plastered all over the walls. The extreme situations presented on each poster reinforce the fact that I’m not in Manhattan anymore.

  Grayson enters the cabin after me, seeming wary of hitting his head on the roof. He leaves the door open and glances outside anxiously for the first few minutes we are inside. I wonder what that is all about, but I’m not about to ask.

  The cabin is so small and intimate that Grayson could almost touch both walls if he reached out. He glances around the room and points at one of the four desks. “Sit.”

  Rolling my eyes at the command, I take a seat. He crouches down by a table that is piled high with course materials. He sifts through a stack of papers, selecting a handbook and dumping it on the desk before me. It is a weathered old thing, photocopied and battered.

  It reads, How To Survive In The Wilderness. Nothing groundbreaking there.