More than One Night

by Heatherly Bell

“Are you out of your mind? Why are you going on a night hike? When’s the last time you went on a hike of any kind?”

  Don’t remind her. She hadn’t exactly been little miss athlete growing up and Ryan knew it well. Still, she’d been active for years and she was going to own this hike.

  “I’ll have you know I hit the gym four times a week. Okay, two.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “One of my employees set off on a night hike and he isn’t back. I’m...worried.”

  “Let me guess. Sam.”

  “Yes. He means well. He’s got this great idea and he’s just trying to scope it out first.”

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’m on my way.”

  “I’m okay. Trust me. I’ve got this!”

  “Jill, no—”

  She ended the call. Big brothers had a knack for being overprotective, and given her history that might be expected but Ryan was simply overreacting. It kind of ran in the family. Sam was right that she would have to get her hands dirty eventually. Today was the day.

  She would be a part of this park and the extreme sports set if it killed her, which it just might.

  Never much of a runner, Jill started off at a slow pace. Endurance was more important than speed, or at least that’s what she’d told herself as a teenager when she couldn’t run a mile in under twenty minutes. Her classmates laughed and asked whether she could also walk that fast.

  The first rustling sound in the trees had her picking up her pace. Mountain lions and coyotes lived on Wildfire Ridge. Occasionally they even came down to the adjacent neighborhoods and homes around the base of the hill, but this was their territory. And she was the trespasser.

  When the sun made its final crest over the slope, she pulled her trusty flashlight out. Swallowed the pebble in her throat and lit the way ahead. Better to see danger ahead than be ambushed, right? So even though she half feared she’d see a pair of amber eyes belonging to a mountain lion glowing behind a shrub as she approached, she let the light shine like a beacon. And just in case Sam was lying somewhere bloody from an attack, she’d want him to know someone had come.

  She started calling out his name every few minutes, hoping there was no one else out here that went by the name of Sam.

  * * *

  Sam didn’t know where he was. There’d been an explosion and now he was alone. Tim and Dave were gone. Sam had been driving. Must have hit an IED. He tried to remember more and couldn’t. He patted his gloved hands down the length of his body. No blood. No missing pieces. But he panicked when he couldn’t move his legs. He was numb. God, no. Sweat poured off him in the blazing heat of the desert. No...no...no.

  He shook it off. No. He wasn’t on the side of the road having been thrown from a Humvee. His leg hurt but the point was that he felt something. And man, it was so much better to feel pain than to feel nothing. To be numb.

  He was going to be okay.

  When he’d taken a header, he’d managed to reinjure his right leg; the one that had taken most of the work to repair in PT.

  Two hours in this ditch and Sam finally heard the mewling sound of a big cat crying out in the night.

  “Now? Now you choose to show yourself?” He pulled out his Buck knife from the sheath strapped to his good leg and spoke through gritted teeth. “Come on over here, sucker, because I’m in a bad mood and I could use some company.”

  His cell phone worked only to give him the time so he could know how long he’d been stuck here, his bad leg injured from having slipped down the ravine. Naturally, he couldn’t get a signal. He’d stretched as far as he could in every direction and held it over his head. No go.

  As the temperatures continued to fall, Sam accepted facts. He was stuck here all night. In the morning, when he’d have light and a better view, he would make a splint for his leg and crawl up the ravine. Maybe he’d get a better signal or maybe he’d walk with a hitch in his step all the way back. Either way. He reached into his bag and, flashlight between his teeth, found the collapsible tent and set it up near the rock he’d almost landed on. It would at least keep him warm if not comfortable.

  “Sam! Sam!”

  He heard Jill’s voice, so now he was hallucinating. Then the sound of the big cat again. Perfect nightmare scenario. Jill and the mountain lion. Someone he’d die to protect and his ability to protect had been decimated. He hadn’t had a waking nightmare in a while and thought he was past all that.

  “Oh god. Was that a l-lion? H-hello? S-Sam? This isn’t f-funny.”

  When the flashlight hit the tree branches above him, he realized this was no waking nightmare. It was Jill and she sounded out of breath. She’d hiked six miles out here?

  “Jill? What the hell?”

  “Sam!” Her flashlight followed his voice down the ravine. He flashed his into her wide eyes as they blinked and took him in. “Oh god. You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Fine was probably overkill but he wasn’t in the business of worrying people, least of all her. He’d just promised her he’d tone it down and now look at him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to help people. Save them. It was extremely humbling to be in this weak position in front of the last woman he wanted to see him this way.

  “You shouldn’t have come. Where are the guys?”

  “They went into town because, unlike me, they thought you’d be all right. Figured you could handle anything that happened.”

  “Well, they were right. You can go back. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “No way. I am not leaving you, Sam Hawker! You’re high if you think that.”

  “Not high, but I wish I was.” He groaned a little and bit it back.

  “What did you hurt?”

  “My leg. Probably just sprained badly. I need to make a splint for it and then I can hobble back. It might take me a little longer.”

  “Really? It might take you a little longer, will it?” She snorted. “Hang on. I’m here to save you. Sit back and take it like a man.”

  “I don’t need saving. I just need a good solid straight branch.”

  “I’m coming down.” She swung one leg down the ravine, cresting the giant root of a tree.

  “Stay up there. I mean it.”

  The big cat mewled again and for the life of him sounded much closer.

  “Jill, get down here. Now.”

  But he hadn’t needed to tell her because Jill heard the cat, too, and she pretty much skied down the ravine on her butt cheeks.

  “Mmph.” Her momentum pushed her forward and she landed with her face practically in his crotch. “Oh, hi,” she said to his dick.

  He shone the flashlight in her face so she could better see whom she was greeting. It was difficult not to laugh even in this humiliating situation. One look at her wide eyes when she realized whom she’d said hello to and he really did laugh.

  She straightened and started waving her hands above her. “That lion sounds hungry. We’re in his territory. Don’t forget to appear larger than you are.”

  “You go ahead and do that. I’ve got a weapon.” He patted his Buck knife.

  “You won’t have to kill it. Ryan should be right behind me—I’d say about twenty minutes or so. Maybe sooner because he’s faster than I am. I called him and told him to send a search party if he didn’t hear from me. I doubt he listened. I’m sure he drove up here right after I hung up on him. You drew a great map.”

  “I only drew one map.”

  “Yeah, and I took a photo of it with my phone and left the other one taped to my trailer door.”

  “Smart.”

  To recap. This girl could handle her scotch, didn’t give up easily, had the guts to follow him out here alone at night, the intelligence to first call for help, leave a map and, oh yeah, she was gorgeous and kissed him like she wanted to inhale him.
/>   Why did he have to meet the best woman for him at the worst time in his life?

  That would be because if not for bad luck he’d have no luck at all.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “No, of course not. For that, you might have to accept that you need help.”

  Those words hit him like a sledgehammer to the heart. He needed help, but not from her.

  “What happened to your leg?” She touched lightly, rubbing from his thigh to ankle, eliciting a different kind of ache altogether.

  He leaned his head back, resting it on a rock. “I probably reinjured it.”

  “Reinjured?”

  “It was first injured in Iraq.” He closed his eyes. “But it wasn’t a big deal. The bigger deal was my compressed spine and the fact that I couldn’t walk for a while.”

  “Couldn’t walk?”

  He figured he might as well scare her off now and permanently. These uncomfortable feelings, the pinch in his chest to realize she’d come after him because she was worried—this was all stuff he didn’t need or want. It was one thing to be physically drawn to her but another to feel close. Intimate. As if she understood who he was. She didn’t know who he was, but maybe she should.

  “Roadside bomb. It threw me forty feet but my injuries were mostly internal. Compressed spine. I had surgery but there’s still some residual pain. I’ll probably be a cripple by the time I’m fifty, but I was lucky.”

  Tim and Dave not so much, but Sam wasn’t going to talk about them. Ever.

  “Oh, Sam. I’m sorry.” She rested her head against his chest. “That must have been so hard.”

  He felt her pity, wafting through the scent of the night, thick as a forest. The last thing he wanted. “I thought I told you. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

  “I’m not feeling sorry for you,” she protested. “It’s simply compassion. Empathy.”

  “Or pity.”

  “Not pity. Remember, I know what it’s like to be pitied. I also know what it’s like to be physically stuck for a while. But I still can’t imagine what you went through in that desert so far away from home.”

  “Sounds like pity to me. Look, I walked into the service of my own free will. Feel sorry for someone else. For the people who live there and have no choice. I had a choice.”

  “Can’t I do both? I admire you for your courage. For trying to help.”

  “And for failing? Do you admire that, too?”

  “It’s not about failing.”

  “War is always about winners and losers.” He winced, the nerves in his ankle shooting radiating pain through his leg. “There’s no in-between.”

  She didn’t speak for several minutes, during which time he took the opportunity to listen for the cat. Or for the sounds of people arriving. The crunch of boots on twigs and branches. Their voices in the distance. He heard nothing but the sound of her breathing. They were in this pit alone and she was so close he could smell her hair, a flowery scent that reeled him in every time.

  “How long was it before you could feel your legs again?” Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his chest.

  But he heard her loud and clear. “About a year.”

  She sucked in an obvious breath and every muscle in his body tightened.

  “Watch it,” he warned.

  “I just didn’t know.”

  “If I seem like I take chances and I’m on the move a lot, it’s because I know what it’s like not to be able to move. Again, I told you. I’m lucky.”

  “You don’t sound so lucky some days.”

  “So I’m not Mr. Personality.”

  “Actually, you’re fine with me most of the time. Zoey thinks you’re great. I just think you could have been nicer to Hunter.”

  “Why? Should I lie to him or tell him the truth? Which do you think he’d rather hear?”

  “Why would you lie to him?”

  “Never mind.”

  There was no point in discussing this. Not with a civilian. No point in explaining that war wasn’t like it was portrayed on TV or in the movies. War was grown men screaming like little boys. Grown men crying for their mothers. That was war.

  “Is it regret? Is that what you’re feeling?”

  “That’s a beginning.”

  He didn’t know why his tongue was so damn loose tonight. Sure didn’t have to tell her every small thing about his life so she’d know who she was dealing with. But the night was quiet now. She was soft in his arms, her hair tickling his nose. Memories came back to him of how he’d initially struggled in PT because he had no possible end in sight. Once they’d given him his medical discharge papers, nothing remained. He was done. Nothing left to work toward. Nothing except the memory of that night. Of her. She meant normal to him. She was like a red beacon shining in the distance telling him one day he might feel whole again.

  “Was your family told about the accident?”

  Accident. Is that what she called it? An accident was unexpected. Unplanned. One could argue he should have expected this. He’d been in a war zone, after all.

  “No choice. The US government didn’t ask my permission but simply contacted next of kin. However, they couldn’t make me see them. And I didn’t.”

  “Sam—”

  “Did I mention I got some of the best medical treatment in the world?”

  “But you needed someone there for you.”

  I did have someone there for me. Someone I’d met only once. You’re never going to know about that, either.

  “I didn’t need two people there who would say ‘I told you so.’ And then I’d have to admit to myself something I’ve never wanted to admit out loud.” He hitched in a painful breath. “They were right.”

  She raised her head from where it had been lying on his chest to meet his eyes. He caught sight of the fire in green eyes lit only by the glow of the full moon.

  “They weren’t right. You were right to follow your conscience. And they were wrong not to support their son, even if they disagreed.”

  “It’s not that simple. They stuck to their beliefs even if it meant giving up their only child. You have to admire that about them.”

  “Both you and your parents sound incredibly stubborn. What about love, Sam?”

  “What about it?”

  “When you love someone, you have to take the good with the bad. We’re all just doing the best we can. But if we don’t love each other, what do we have?”

  “You have people who are related to each other but don’t talk to each other.”

  “And you have an employee who doesn’t have an emergency contact.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Now I know everything I need to know about you. Everything that matters, anyway.”

  “And you better run. Fast. Because I don’t know how much longer I can keep away from you. I’m trying.”

  “Sam—”

  He heard voices calling out in the distance.

  “Jill!”

  “Sam!”

  “Our rescue crew has arrived,” Sam said, squeezing Jill’s hand.

  Jill stood. “Guys! Over here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Even though there was at least one mountain lion somewhere around here possibly circling them and hoping for a snack, Jill was a little sorry to see this side adventure come to an end. Ryan arrived with Michael, Ty and Julian in tow. The four guys perfectly executed Sam’s rescue plan. Sam instructed them the entire time, encouraging them and praising them for following instructions to the letter.

  Good grief. He had to be a leader even now. Strong even when injured. He slayed her.

  Tonight, he’d broken her heart bit by tender bit. He was so much more than she’d ever imagined. Broken, just as she’d once suspected. B
eautifully broken. And Zoey got to be right again. Sam really was the wolf licking his injured paw in a corner. Unable to let anyone touch or help him. At least, not for what was aching inside.

  “Should we get some medical attention for that leg?” Ryan now asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Sam said as he favored his left leg and hopped up the short steps into his trailer. “Think I just sprained it.”

  “Nice try, but you need to get checked out,” Ryan called out, then pointed to Jill. “You.”

  “Don’t start with me.”

  “I asked you to wait for me.”

  “Sorry.”

  But if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been in that quiet place with Sam where he’d told her more than she’d ever thought he would. More than Ryan had ever shared.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ryan shook his head. “I’m glad you were with him until we got there. It’s...a tough place for a soldier to be alone. Might have brought back memories.”

  She hadn’t thought of that, and her heart filled as she wondered if that was why Sam had talked to her. Maybe she’d helped push some of the worst memories away.

  “I was glad to be of help to someone.”

  “You’re a help to all of us.” Ryan ruffled her hair as if she was eight years old.

  “Thanks, Ry-Ry,” she said, in a valiant effort to make him feel ten again.

  “You’re taking him to the hospital.”

  That wasn’t a question. “Yes, I will take care of it.”

  “Do it no matter what he says.” He waved and was off.

  Once the guys were all finished telling Sam what a rock star he was, Jill had him alone in his trailer. He lay back on his cot, one arm flung over his face, his leg elevated. Looking none the worse for wear. He was so gorgeous and strong even now. Intense blue eyes that cut her to the quick. No surprise she’d risked so much for one night with a stranger. With this man.

  I don’t know how much longer I can keep from falling for him.

  “What?” he asked as if he wondered why she was still here.

  “Do you have ice?” She went to the small fridge and searched the freezer. Found ice, wrapped it in a dish towel and brought it to him.