The Heart's Dangerous Trek

by Maya McMillan

  Her frantic struggling ended abruptly as the sound she’d heard behind the rain manifested itself and, suspended in the air as she was by a pair of powerful arms, Tara's tent was swept away from around her along with all her belongings. She was suddenly out in the cold dark wet night watching her tent disappear over the edge of the cliff.

  “Hold onto my arms. You’re heavier than you look,” the upside down man shouted. “I’m going to swing us a bit. When I say go, pull your knees up and aim for that thicket.” With those words the man reached down with one arm and roughly shucked the sleeping bag off Tara. It disappeared instantly over the edge of the cliff. The young photographer found herself danging in the air in only her nightshirt with her ever-ready camera bag slung around her shoulder.

  Too shocked to reply Tara could only nod. She forced her eyes off the stranger’s monstrously twisted face, noting in the back of her mind the unusual color of his hazel flecked eyes, and glanced where his gaze directed her.

  Suspended upside down from a rope strung across her campsite, the man began swinging even as the flood water rushing down from high up in the mountain continued to grow in its rage.

  “Go!” he yelled over the cacophony of noise.

  Tara tucked her knees wishing she’d taken more than a year of gymnastics and swung for the thicket. The upside-down man heaved mightily and released her. For an exhilarating, terrifying moment, Tara was flying through the ink black night. She landed reasonably on a narrow outcropping of rock that jutted out from the cliff face next to her camp. She immediately looked back to see how her guardian grump was faring on the precarious rope just as it shuddered and dropped, the base he had tied it to being eroded away by storm waters.

  Tara realized instantly the man was about to be dropped head first into the icy torrent and washed over the cliff edge. She glanced in his eyes, preparing to cry out an apology but what she saw there stopped her cold.

  There was not a trace of fear in the doomed man’s eyes. Only determination.

  The shock set her mind loose. Struck with a sudden inspiration Tara found her fingers flying to the camera bag. In the blink of an eye she’d unhooked one end of the shoulder strap. Gritting her teeth she twirled the bag around over her head like a lasso, grieving at the thought of destroying a piece of equipment that was like an extension of her soul.

  “HEY!” She shouted to get the upside-down man’s attention as she released the weighted end of the strap towards him.

  He looked up at her, saw the beg coming at him and snatched it out of the air with catlike quickness. She braced and with perfect timing they both tugged, almost pulling her back into the torrent.

  Just as the rope gave way.

  But it was enough.

  With both of them pulling on the unlikely life line, his momentum carried him over to the preciously small safe zone. He landed with a huff beside her, steadied himself and immediately began scanning up the mountain. She cut off anything she might have said when she heard him counting under his breath.

  “It won’t last long,” he finally said. “We’ll be safe here as long as something doesn’t dislodge above us.”

  “Good, because I don’t think we have anywhere to go,” Tara observed.

  The man gave her a quick glance, then looked around. They were trapped against a sheer granite stone face, surrounded by raging waters on all sides. He slowly unwound the camera bag strap from his hand and pressed it back to her.

  “That was smart,” he bit out, then continued after a long pause. “We had better huddle up for warmth until we can get out of here.” He sunk down and put his back against the wall of granite. Tara stood for a long time trying to think of a good reason why they should not snuggle up. Unfortunately, she could think of none. She sunk down between his splayed legs and leaned back into him.

  There was little to say but Tara had to admit that the bitter cold of the late night was softened by the gruff man’s body heat. Being made of granite-like muscle the man produced a lot of heat. Had circumstances been different, and the man himself any less abrasive, she might have found it a pleasurable, memorable experience.

  “You saved my life,” she eventually said.

  “You saved mine.”

  They curled together in silence again, watching the waters pound away. As the mountain man had predicted the onslaught did not last long. The roaring died down, the torrent let up. In less than 20 minutes the washed barren patch of earth that had held all of Tara’s camping gear was once again navigable.

  “My name is Nick. We can head back to my campsite now. There is enough room for both of us to lay down comfortably for the night. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can salvage any of your gear.”

  Tara was not sure if she wanted to laugh at the thought of his campsite being in any way comfortable, or just swallow down the snarky comment about the man being able to speak more than five words in a row. She settled on nodding, her head pressed against his body.

  He waited a moment more as if expecting something, then uncurled himself, the act pushing her off the narrow ledge they had found refuge on. The four-foot drop was nothing, but his abruptness rankled her.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Why…why is it actually warm in here? You don’t have a fire.”

  Tara lay down on the canvas cloth then noted the displeased look in Nick’s eyes.

  “For one thing because I keep it dry.” He nodded at her rain soaked night shirt. Tara had a niggling suspicion of what he was suggesting but could not believe it.

  That was until he stripped off his own soaked t-shirt and hung it on a branch that formed part of the back of his makeshift lean-to and went to work removing his boots.

  “An old woodsmen trick,” he said, not looking up. “Heat up a bunch of stones and bury them a few feet underground. In the right kind of soil the rocks stay hot for days. The heat permeates up.”

  “That’s why you were keeping the tarp in the same place. I thought it was odd you were sitting so far back from the edge of the lake today.”

  He nodded, smiling at her understanding. “That and I’m lazy. With just a few folds the canvas becomes a tent already warm for the night.

  She smiled at his self-effacing comment, knowing any man that hiked through the night to check on, then save, a complete stranger was anything but lazy.

  His next words, however,turned the warm thoughts to ice.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, strip off. You can hang that thing next to my stuff and we’ll see if we can get some sleep. It’s still a few hours till dawn. We need to be as ready for the day as possible.”

  Tara’s mind was furiously working on a viable comeback but stopped when Nick undid his belt, popped the button of his jeans and skinnied out of them. Not surprisingly, he went commando.

  Tara gasped. Nick’s perfect body seen from afar was one thing, arguably a work of art. It was a different thing altogether when displayed from only a few feet away. This time Tara was not at all inclined to giggle.

  The hunky mountain man carefully stepped out of the sodden jeans and pivoted around, displaying the magnificent ass she had been enthralled with earlier that same day. He hung the pants up next to the shirt. When he turned back his fur- engulfed face showed displeasure.

  “Really, this is my home, and you are a guest. I must insist.” The calm, elegant words belied the look of ire on his face.

  Tara realized she was staring and blushed profusely.

  “I-I…” she stammered.

  “Consider this to be exceptional circumstances. Tomorrow morning we can both pretend it never happened.”

  Tara shook her head slowly. There was no way that was going to happen. Then she realized that she was staring yet again, and also that Nick might interpret her head shake as a denial.

  Lowering her eyes, both to survive the embarrassment and to keep herself from staring any more than she already had, Tara reached back and, with some awkward effort, peeled the soaked nightshirt off her body.

  Hard as st
ripping down in front of a stranger was, getting up and walking past the nude man to hang up the one piece of clothing she had left on earth was harder still.

  Heading back to the spot she’d taken as her own, Tara, could not help but notice that either the little tent had warmed considerably in the few moments since she’d stripped down, or her stripping down had affected Nick more than his face was letting on. She blushed and gritted her teeth to make sure that she kept her eyes focused on the spot of tent floor that she was headed to.

  Tara closed her eyes as soon as she laid down and attempted to appear she was nestling into sleep. In fact, she was furiously trying to calculate how long it had been since she’d had sex.

  She fell asleep still working it out.

  CHAPTER 7

  Tara wasn’t sure if it was the sound or the smells that woke her, but it was definitely the smells - - fish but with several other more subtle aromas, that got her stomach rumbling.

  She slowly rolled to sit up, once again impressed that a bed of pine needles covered by heavy canvas could be so comfortable, and fretted over what to do next. She glanced up at the tree that formed the wind break to Nick’s ‘tent’ and saw that his pants were still hung on a branch nub, which meant the man himself was probably in his glory. She got up and checked her night shirt. It was still soaked.

  Tara considered herself perhaps a little more modest than other women, but not unreasonably so. A polar opposite to Greta who, when they were in high school together, regularly enjoyed disturbing study hall by flashing her boobs at nerds and jocks alike, making her very, very popular.

  She ground her teeth and realized it was exactly as Nick had said. Special circumstances. She got to her feet, took the nightshirt off it’s ‘hanger’ and did her best to go outside and face her own private episode of “Naked and Afraid.”

  She rounded the low slung “tent”, her nose and ears telling her where to look. The thought of seeing Nick cooking in his birthday suit cold comfort for the situation.

  Only the man was not naked. He looked up when she came into view. How he knew she was there boggled her. She held the damp nightshirt in front of her.

  “You had a spare set of clothes,” she stated the obvious, trying not to sound like she was complaining.

  “Yes. Several. I keep spares in different areas along with other supplies. Planning ahead makes a difference.”

  She gingerly stepped over to where he crouched over a flat pit. The sizzling came from fish that were being baked on a huge flat stone.

  “Is…is that sanitary?”

  The man returned his attention to the food. Tara’s stomach growled so mightily she thought it might echo.

  “Yes, and almost done. Pull up a rock.”

  Draping her single, damp piece of clothing over her front Tara did so and watched wordlessly as Nick added a mish mash of seeds and other unidentifiable things to the cooking fish. By the look of it, it had already been dosed at least once before.

  “My own recipe; hard won with a great deal of trial and error,” Nick said, not looking up from his work. “It’s not pretty, but it’ll fill you up.”

  She nodded wordlessly. It smelled heavenly, but Tara didn’t know if it was because it was good, or because she was so hungry she could eat a mop head.

  “Don’t have any plates; you’re welcome to the one bowl I have.” He nodded to the wooden dish beside him. “I don’t get much company so I never invested in proper flatware.”

  Tars smiled and almost chuckled.

  “I hate to rob you of your entire arsenal, but I’m not sure I can eat off a rock.”

  His grunt had a slight chuckle in it. He stirred the mish-mash a few more times with a flat, well carved stick then used the same stick to scoop half the fish into the bowl. He plucked the stick down in the food.

  Tara took it gratefully and manged to show some manners and resisted scooping the contents into her mouth until after Nick had produced a similar stick and used it to scoop the food directly off the rock.

  He gave her a nod.

  “Bon appetit.”

  Tara shoveled the food into her smiling mouth.

  It. Was. Delicious.

  “Oh god, oh god,” she practically moaned with pleasure. “Oh god. This is..this is better than s…”

  Tara caught herself just in time, but not really, and blushed mightily at the shocked stare Nick shot her way. She continued shoveling the food into her mouth in silence.

  Nick wolfed his down in just a few bites, watched her for a moment then brought a canteen over from his rock seat and plomped it down beside her.

  “Water is actually more important than food. I suggest you drink the whole thing whether you want to or not.”

  Mouth stuffed like a squirrel in fall, she nodded.

  “We head out to the Candlelight cliff in 10 minutes. We’ll see if I can climb down and salvage anything.”

  Tara choked on her food and had to cough a little before she could speak.

  “There’s no way this,” she tugged at the wet clothing that kept her in a modicum of modesty, “will be dry in 10 minutes.”

  “No. No it won’t be.”

  “Well, we can’t go until it is. I’m not going to be tromping through the woods in...in nothing! And if I put it on…”

  “You’ll likely catch a cold. Good. I’m glad you know that much.”

  Tara bristled. There was the arrogance again. Well- deserved it appeared, but still as annoying as a nettle between the cheeks.

  “Listen…miss…?”

  Her anger was momentarily dashed as she realized that during the whole ordeal, even after he introduced himself, she had not had the good manners to do the same.

  “Tara, Tara Miles. Listen, Nick…”

  He cut her off with the wave of his huge calloused hand.

  “Miss Miles, I’m going to make this easy for you. You can do whatever you want, but if you want my help we leave in 10 minutes. If you don’t, that’s fine. There is a waystation cabin about seven miles down that trail.” He hiked his head. “There is food there, some clothes that should fit you. If not shoes or boots, then some cold weather socks that will give your feet some protection from the forest floor.”

  Tara was aghast.

  “But…” she sputtered.

  “10 minutes.” Nick turned and walked away.

  The rest of her meal was not quite so tasty

  CHAPTER 8

  Tara hobbled after the mountain man. She took one last look back at their campsite and her one piece of clothing that she had draped over a bush, figuring it would dry faster that way. She had no idea if any of her gear would be recoverable, but was damn sure the night shirt would be wearable by the time they got back.

  “Wait…wait! I can’t keep up-bare feet...lots of rocks and twigs.” She yelled after her not-too-gracious savior and host.

  The man continued on several more paces then stopped dead. Tara’s alarms went off.

  ”What is it?” she shout whispered.

  He held up a hand for silence, then began turning slowly in a circle, one hand cupped to an ear.

  He let his hand down and leaned in close as he finally turned to face her. Tara had to fight the impulse to bend forward and cover her breasts and the patch between her legs. It was pointless. He had already gotten an eye full and chances were he’d be getting a lot more before the day was through.