Trapped with the Woodsman

by M. S. Parker

  “Ha, ha,” I said, moving closer. I’d done some digging around online as we drove from the hospital to the medical supply store recommended by the physical therapist and had seen advice from fellow users. Once I got to the steps, I turned around and gripped the railing with my right hand. Then I went up backward. It was an unusual way to do it, but it worked.

  Once I was on the small porch, I grinned at Breanna. “This might not totally suck after all.”

  She snorted. “Just wait until you have to wash your hair one-handed.”

  “Party pooper,” I muttered. I hadn’t even thought about that.

  She just laughed.

  I opted to go for sponging myself clean the first night home. I had some dry shampoo that I used on my hair. It hadn’t been the perfect fix, but it had sufficed, giving me a little more time to adjust to the cast and my fancy new crutch.

  But come morning, I laid on the bed with the knowledge that if I didn’t get a real shower, I was going to scream.

  I hadn’t had one since the day I’d gotten hurt, and it was driving me nuts.

  Inside the bathroom, I fumbled out of the loose nightshirt I’d pulled on the night before, then reached for my brush so I could deal with the tangles before climbing into the bathtub.

  For some reason, as I watched myself drag a brush through my hair, I found myself remembering that night. Roman. His hands in my hair, his voice a raw whisper, your hair is beautiful.

  I want to see your eyes as I fuck you.

  My nipples went tight and hard, and a punch of need slammed into me.

  Deliberately, I made myself recall the picture of him and his wife, smiling at each other.

  That was enough to cool my suddenly overheated skin, and I finished the job of brushing my hair. Still irritated, I pulled a water proof sleeve over my cast and climbed into the shower, moving gingerly. The crutch could be worn in the shower, thankfully. It was definitely a tight fit, but I managed easily enough.

  I was glad I’d gone for the tub/shower combo instead of a separate one when I was working on the house’s remodel. I’d gotten the house far cheaper than one would expect, all because of some cosmetic issues that I’d fixed for under ten grand.

  Sometimes, I thought of the house as the last gift I’d ever receive from my father. He’d grown up the only child of two very wealthy people. My grandparents on his side died before I ever had a chance to meet them, and they’d left their entire estate to my father.

  He’d liquidated it at some point in his life before he married my mother, tucking the money away for his future children. He and Mom had always planned on having several kids, but that hadn’t happened, and when I was twenty-one, I took full control of the money he’d received when he liquidated.

  It was because of that money that I’d been able to go to my school of choice and get this house, all without signing a single loan.

  Thoughts of my father made me melancholy, and my heart ached with missing him.

  Sniffing, I turned the water on and set about getting good and clean.

  Breanna called me on Saturday, offering to come up from Denver with Chinese.

  “I just took one of the pain pills,” I told her, wishing I had held off. But I’d knocked my broken wrist against the wall, and it had resulted in a persistent, nagging ache.

  “Well, crap.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t want to get all the way up there, and have you fall asleep on me.”

  “Chances are I’d be asleep before you got even halfway here,” I told her dryly. “How’s that sexy man of yours?”

  “Ryder is absolutely wonderful,” she said, the delight in her voice evident over the phone. Even without looking at her, I knew that her eyes would be glowing, and she’d have a smug grin on her face.

  A tug of envy shot through my chest, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, telling myself not to think that way.

  I’d already figured out the dating game wasn’t for me. Maybe I’d set my stakes too high, or I just had no dating savvy, but most of the guys I’d been out with had pretty much disappointed me almost from the get-go. Not all of them. My college boyfriend, Royce, had been pretty amazing, but at the same time, I’d known there was no future there. We’d have fun while it lasted, and once I realized how things were, I’d called it off.

  An image flashed through my mind.

  Roman.

  Immediately, I banished it. It was almost simple, even. All I had to do was think of the picture of him and his wife.

  His wife, the deceptive piece of shit.

  “Maybe he and I can both come up tomorrow, and we can all go out to lunch,” Breanna said, unaware of my distraction.

  I focused back in on the conversation. “Sure. That sounds good. I’m dying to get out of the house.”

  Even though I had indeed had lunch with Ryder and Breanna the day before, come Monday morning, I was all but crawling out of my skin. I was going stir-crazy, and the only thing that would help would be getting back to my routine.

  The doctor had told me I was free to return to work on Monday if my ankle wasn’t hurting, and although it was still a little achy, I’d been walking without the crutch since last night.

  I’d be fine as long as I didn’t have to handle any sort of trail duty for the first day or two. Just in case, when I dressed, I put on an ankle brace I’d used a few years ago when I’d developed a high ankle sprain. The extra support would come in handy, and when combined with the hiking boots, I was pretty sure that even if I stepped in a snare again, I would get through it relatively unscathed – except for my hands of course.

  I gave the cast on my left wrist a look of acute dislike as I pulled the front door shut behind me and headed for my Jeep. Hawthorne had been true to his word and brought the vehicle to my house while I’d still been in the hospital.

  I hadn’t heard from him since then, and that made me antsy.

  I had heard the warning in his voice loud and clear when he’d advised me we’d be discussing my actions. This wasn’t just going to drift away after a few days.

  I had screwed up, and it was time to pay the piper.

  On the drive to the park, I coerced my thoughts away from the upcoming confrontation, admiring the beauty of the country around me and thinking through the various jobs I might be assigned until they’d deemed me suitable for my regular duties.

  I managed to successfully distract myself all the way to the park.

  Maneuvering my Jeep into a space in the cramped lot, I took a deep breath, then gingerly lowered myself to the ground, keeping my left hand cradled against my middle so I didn’t jolt or reflexively grab at something.

  I bumped into a couple of fellow rangers on my way to clock in and took their ribbing with good-natured calm. Just as I went to clock in, Hawthorne appeared. “I need to talk to you, Lexi.”

  “Okay. Just let me clock in–”

  He shook his head. “You don’t need to. Come on.”

  Dread curled inside me, and I turned away from the computer and followed him to his small, cramped office.

  He gestured to a seat. I would have preferred to stand but didn’t want to argue.

  Slowly, I sank down into the hard seat with its pathetic vinyl cushion.

  “You need to take a few more days off,” he said in a firm voice. “We’re still discussing how to handle last week’s incident, and until we come to a decision, you won’t be allowed to work.”

  Panic hit. Hard. “But I–”

  He shook his head. “There’s no point in arguing. What you did was serious, and there will be repercussions.”

  I lowered my eyes and stared at my hands.

  “Lexi,” he said in a gentler voice.

  I looked up at him reluctantly.

  “I’m trying to convince the folks higher up the ladder to just give you a one-week suspension without pay. I’m hoping they’ll go for it. You’re young, and this is the first problem we’ve ever had from you. But it will be best if you just go home and wait until you h
ear from me, okay?”

  He gave me an encouraging smile and rose. “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

  I’d rather he didn’t, but I wasn’t about to tell him.

  I’d rather slip through the side door unnoticed, so nobody was aware of my current humiliated state, but as he came around the desk, I pushed myself up and gave him a polite smile.

  I’d get through this with my shoulders back and head held high. Even if it killed me.

  It wasn’t until we were nearly at the door when I remembered something. Slowing to a halt, I looked at Hawthorne. “Were you all able to find the snare?”

  “We looked,” he allowed, the corners of his mouth tight. “But we didn’t find one.”

  “It was just up the trail from the station where we stayed the night. Right past a fallen limb that was blocking a lot of the path.”

  “We found the limb – it’s been removed.” He shoved his hand through his hair as he continued. “But there wasn’t any sign of a snare.”

  “But–”

  “Three of us went out,” a new voice interjected.

  My spine automatically stiffened as Stilwell placed himself at my side, giving me a condescending smile.

  “We looked in that area and spread out for a bit just to check.” His eyes held mine, and I saw the smirk in the back of his gaze. “Are you sure there was a snare in that spot?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  Shifting my attention back to Hawthorne, I found him watching me with an unreadable look on his face. “The snare was there,” I insisted.

  Hawthorne just nodded. “I’ll go out there with one of the guys and double-check, okay?”

  It was the best I was going to get.

  Ignoring Stilwell, I told Hawthorne, “Call me if you find anything, okay?”

  Sixteen

  Lexi

  I managed to keep a fragile hold on my temper until I was well away from the park. But by the time I reached the halfway point between the park and my place, I was about ready to explode. In a fit of anger, I gripped the steering wheel tight as I shouted, “Fuck!”

  That didn’t help much, so I just screamed, a long, wordless noise of pure anger.

  Stilwell had really tried to fuck me over this time, to the point that I might end up losing my job.

  There was no denying that I bore some of the blame, but if he hadn’t sent Roman my way, none of this would have happened.

  If you’d used your common sense, none of this would have happened, I reminded myself.

  It was that knowledge alone that kept me from whipping the car around and speeding back to the park, so I could get in Stilwell’s face. He’d had it in for me pretty much from day one. I even remembered the exact moment I realized he was out to get me. It had been right after one of the mandatory meetings, and I’d said something that Hawthorne had approved of, eliciting a rare smile from him.

  Stilwell came up to me not long after that and suggested that Hawthorne and I were screwing.

  I’d been disgusted at first, but then he made a move on me, and the disgust quickly became fury.

  After I informed him that I’d rather have sex with a monkey than with him, he’d looked so pissed, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried to hit me. That would have been rewarding, because I would have knocked his lights out for trying.

  The asshat was probably all but drunk with delight over what he’d brought about.

  But then again, maybe not.

  In my mind’s eye, I saw the look on his face as Roman reminded him – in front of Hawthorne – who’d suggested I take him out into the park. That memory made me smile, despite my persistent anger with Roman. If I did still have a job after this, it would be because of Roman’s interference. What a bitter irony. I was only in trouble because of Roman, and yet he’d stepped in and explained the events that brought him to me that night in the park.

  I felt a tug in my chest at the thought of Roman, and I sighed, now oddly melancholy. I’d never felt the sort of attraction that I’d felt toward Roman – still felt, to be honest.

  And it was useless and pointless and pathetic, because he was married.

  Talk about some shitty luck.

  I spent most of Monday wavering between brooding and raging like a crazy woman.

  By the time Monday night rolled around, I was tired and had a headache the size of Mt. Elbert. I had also moved on to the self-pity stage and decided to cope with ice cream, bourbon, and a movie marathon.

  It must have helped because I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

  Waking up…that was a different story.

  I would definitely remember waking up, considering I felt dog-sick and my headache was now about the size of Kilimanjaro.

  After washing down some anti-inflammatories to deal with the headache, I practically crawled into the shower. My sore ankle ached a bit, but for the most part, it was no longer plaguing me. I thought briefly about going for a walk but decided to give my ankle a few more days before starting back on my regular exercise routine.

  Since I couldn’t sweat my headache away as I would have liked, I went to my gym and did circuits on the weight machines, pushing myself hard. It took forever since I could do little on my left side, but I did my best.

  After a brief stint in the steam room, I felt almost human.

  Now, after a day to think, brood, and steam over everything that had happened, I told myself I needed to figure out a way to prove what had really taken place in the forest. I needed my boss to believe that I had been injured due to a snare. It wouldn’t change the outcome of whatever disciplinary action was taken, but there was more at stake than just my job.

  There was somebody poaching in the park, and that had to be dealt with and investigated.

  I didn’t know why it took me so long to find the simple answer to my problem. Maybe it was because I was still in avoidance mode when it came to thoughts of Roman.

  He had seen the snare.

  He could back up my story.

  Maybe he could do it in person, with Stilwell looking on so the bastard looked like the jackass he was for suggesting I’d made up a story about an illegal trap set in the national park.

  The problem was I had no idea where he lived.

  But in this day and age, some digging could turn up almost everything, so I hit the internet.

  I came up with more than a few possibilities, and it took what felt like forever to eliminate them, especially since I could only guess at the proper spelling of his last name. There was Sayer, Sayre, and Saier to begin with. And considering there was also the possibility that he could have used only his first initial, my list grew pretty long pretty fast.

  It wasn’t until almost four that I decided to reach out to a friend who worked with the state police. Lauren and I had met during a search and rescue op, back when I was still in college. I’d been a newer volunteer and Lauren had been assigned as the senior member of one of the groups I’d searched with. Being the youngest of the group, she’d grouped the two of us together, and over the three-day search, we’d gotten to know each other.

  I was hoping she might be able to help me out, but when I put in the call to her, it went straight to voicemail.

  Despondent, I went back to my search.

  I clicked away from the general search and did an image search. After fifteen or twenty pages of results netted me nothing, I went over to a news search.

  It was on the second page that I lucked out.

  Local area fallen Army Ranger to be honored at Memorial Day event in Lyons.

  I almost didn’t click on the article when I saw the ranger’s name listed in the meta description – Ryan Sayer. He wasn’t who I was looking for. But I figured it was unlikely to be a coincidence, so I clicked on the link.

  The article was two years old, and the picture that had been published with the article was missing, that familiar red X in its place, signifying either that the picture had been deleted or was in the wrong direc
tory somehow. The text for the image reads MSG Ryan Sayer. I skimmed the article and at the bottom found mention of a brother…Roman.

  Satisfied I had more of an idea where to focus my search, I closed the article without reading any more of it.

  As it turned out, it was easier to track down the town where Roman lived than it was to get his actual address.

  There were no R. Sayer or Roman Sayer of Lyon, Colorado in any of the white page sites I searched.

  It grated on me, but I finally found a Cassandra Sayer – Roman’s wife.

  She had a Facebook page, and I wavered about sending her a message, asking her to have her husband contact me. In the end, I didn’t. I felt too awkward to even think about sending a message to the wife of the man I’d stupidly slept with just a few days earlier.

  A little more digging netted me their address, but it was too late in the day to go out there.

  Frustrated, I went to bed with the plan to get up early enough, so I could make the drive out to Lyons and hopefully catch Roman at home.

  It was a quick, easy drive and the morning was bright. After a couple of warm days, the chill had returned to the air, and there was frost on everything.

  A few fat, fluffy white clouds were drifting across the sky as I pulled into a gas station just inside the town limits.

  I’d slept fitfully and was guzzling caffeine to compensate. I needed both a refill on my coffee and a bathroom break because of said coffee.

  I was standing in line waiting to pay when somebody came inside. Out of habit, I glanced over then away.

  It only took a second for recognition to hit.

  Whipping my head around in an epic double take, I watched as Cassandra Sayer approached. Unfortunately, I wasn’t at all subtle about my interest in her because she noticed and eyed me curiously.

  My mind went blank.

  Finally, after a few more seconds, I managed to summon up my nerve. “Hi. You’re Cassandra Sayer, right?”

  “Yes…I go by Cass, though.” She cocked her head as she studied me. “Do I know you?”