by M. S. Parker
“That guy is only happy when he’s causing me trouble.”
“You, specifically?” Roman cocked his head, eyes narrowing slightly.
“It seems like.” I shrugged restlessly and crouched in front of my pack, searching for something I could eat for breakfast. “He isn’t all that great a guy in general. Nobody really seems to like him – I hear the other guys talking about him all the time. But I’m the only one he really goes after and causes problems for.”
“Any idea why?”
I pursed my lips as I looked up at him. Deciding to be blunt, I admitted, “I think it’s because I have tits.”
“Ah.” Roman’s gaze lowered briefly. Heat washed over me. But his eyes quickly returned to mine. “Personally, those tits don’t pose a problem for me.”
“If maybe I’d been receptive to his advances, they wouldn’t have as much of a problem for him. But not only did I not want to sleep with him, I’m here doing the same job he does. He’s made no effort to hide the fact that he’s a sexist pig. As far as he’s concerned, women belong at home.”
“Why haven’t you reported him?” Roman asked.
“You got any idea what kind of shit women deal with when they complain about sexual harassment or sexism in the workplace?” I pulled out a couple of granola bars and a bottle of water. “Especially in a field like this. Doing so would just cause me more grief, and it’s easy enough for me to ignore him.”
I tossed one of the granola bars to Roman. “Here. Nice and full of protein.”
He made a face. “Yum.”
“They’re pretty decent, really. I order them online. Better than a lot of the protein bars out there.”
“Sold.” He tore into it, and after devouring half of it, he asked, “Mind if I ask what it is you’re doing out here?”
“Looking for proof.” I sighed and opened the granola bar. I gave the task more focus than it really needed, but even though I thought things between us were level again, I’d never really shared a lot of myself with anybody. Other than my dad. It went against my nature to open myself up. “I love this job, Roman. I’ve always wanted to do this, and now I’m worried…”
“You think if you turn in proof that there is poaching going on here, it will help you out with your supervisor.”
I looked back at him, the granola bar and my hunger temporarily forgotten. “Yes.”
He paced over to me and hooked his arms over my shoulders.
“I can always tell your boss that I saw the snare,” he offered.
“I don’t want you fixing this for me.” I shook my head and looked away. He was so close, the scent of him filled my head, and I wanted to lean against him and press my face to his chest, just breathe him in and enjoy the simple warmth of his presence. I didn’t allow myself to do that, though. “Even if you were the reason I went against protocol, I still made the mistake. It’s up to me to find a way to fix this.”
I could sense the intense way he was watching me and suspected that he really wanted to argue. He didn’t though.
After a moment, I glanced back at him.
He cupped my cheek in one hand. “Okay. If you feel like you have to fix this, then okay. But I want to help.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Help, how?”
“I’m going out with you. If we don’t find anything today, then we rest, regroup and start looking again tomorrow or the day after. But I want you to wait for me – no taking off without me.” A cloud passed through his eyes. “I understand the need to handle things on your own, but you know how dangerous poachers can be. You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”
“You know,” I said slowly. “The main reason I came out to your place the other day was to ask if you’d maybe take a look around here with me.” I trailed my fingers along his cheek, letting myself smile. “Then you pulled your Oscar the Grouch routine, and I re-evaluated.”
“Hey…” Roman winced. “I apologized for that, didn’t I?”
Nodding, I rose onto my toes and pressed my lips to his chin. “I’d love for you to come along with me, Roman. Thank you.”
Twenty-Six
Roman
“We’re getting close to a stream,” Lexi said, pausing to glance back at me over her shoulder. “It’s probably flooded from the snow melting. I don’t know if we’ve got any chance of finding something there, but if we don’t, we can hike north for another hour or two, maybe, then head back.”
I calculated the time it would take to do that, then get back to our vehicles and decided we had more than enough time to finish before dark. “Sounds good to me.”
As she moved along the trail, muscles flexed in her calves. She carried her pack easily, like she’d been doing this all her life.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked her.
“Doing what?”
“Hiking. Being out here.”
She shot me a grin. “I practically grew up in these woods. My dad gave me my first hiking backpack when I was five – and yes, I carried stuff in it.” She wrinkled her nose as she added, “Sure, some of it was stuffed animals, but I was also responsible for carrying my own clothes and my sleeping bag. If I couldn’t fit everything I needed into the pack, my animals stayed home.”
I laughed, amused and somehow touched by the idea of a younger Lexi trucking along in the woods behind her dad, stuffed animals secured away in her backpack.
“You were close to him, weren’t you?”
After a long, quiet moment, she said, “Yeah. Yeah, we were close.”
“What about your mom?”
Her response was a scathing snort. “My mom. I don’t even know where to start on my relationship with her. She…tolerated me. After a while, I realized she’d never really love me, and I just kept my head down around her.”
There was an odd note of pain in her voice, and I wanted to pull her to a stop, get to the root of it. I was terrible when it came to talking about personal shit, though. I had no idea where to start, or if she’d even welcome any questions I might ask.
“I was close to my parents,” I said, the words coming almost reluctantly. “I can’t imagine growing up with parents who weren’t…” I fumbled, unable to figure out where to go from there.
“It wasn’t that bad.” She had to duck under a low-hanging branch. “Mom resented me, but Dad loved me. I just learned to go to him when I needed things or if there was something I wanted to do. He was a good dad. He pretty much made up for me having a mother who sucked.”
“When did they divorce?”
She stopped and looked back at me, head cocked. “They didn’t.”
I was confused now.
Lexi hitched up a shoulder. “Mom and Dad had initially wanted to have a big family, fill a house with boys and girls. But there were complications while she was having me. The doctors made it clear that I’d be the only child she could have.”
I waited for her to go on.
Instead, she just turned around and resumed walking. “The creek is just ahead.”
I could hear it. But I had lost interest in the hike. Moving to catch up with her, I caught her arm and tugged until she looked back at me. “Are you telling me she resented you because she couldn’t have other kids?”
“Pretty much.” She gave an easy shrug, and her pretty gray eyes held mine with little to no sign of emotion.
But I didn’t believe it. There was hurt lying underneath that cool, tough exterior. I could practically feel it.
“She was wrong.”
Lexi’s lashes swept down.
I closed the distance between us, the toes of my boots touching hers. Reaching up, I cupped her chin and guided her head up until she was once more looking at me.
“She was wrong,” I said again, making sure she heard the intensity in every word.
“I know that.” She offered a sad smile, then leaned in and kissed me. She was gone in just a blink.
The feel of her mouth on mine was enough to make my brain start to me
lt, but I focused on her voice as she continued to speak. “She was wrong, and I know…and it’s okay. I’ve dealt with it. She sends me a card on my birthday and at Christmas. I do the same, and one on Mother’s Day. Sure, it’s not a great relationship, but it is what it is.”
“It shouldn’t be like that.”
She finally looked back at me. “No, it shouldn’t. But I figured out a long time ago that life isn’t fair – that sometimes life gives you some shitty stuff to deal with and you can either piss and moan about it or accept it and move on.”
I moved to her and covered her cheek with my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She placed her hand over mine and squeezed lightly, then let go. “Come on. Let’s check out the creek and see what we’re going to be doing next.”
The creek was a bust. Both of us found spots where we thought there might have been traps, but there was no sign of anything else, not even tracks that we could follow in hopes of maybe locating the poachers’ camp.
They had to have one. It had been quite a hike to get to the spot where that snare had injured Lexi. It didn’t make sense that they’d leave the relative privacy of the woods via the main trailhead. It was too exposed, and there was too much of a chance of discovery, either on their way in or way out.
It made more sense that whoever was doing it had a base camp somewhere remote, someplace that wasn’t as likely to catch attention. It was entirely possible they’d have somebody coming out to meet them. If vehicles were left in one spot in the park for too long, it was bound to catch attention, so it made sense to me that the poachers probably had somebody else helping them out.
An idea danced in the back of my mind, and I considered it, then tucked it away. It was worth exploring, but not now.
Up ahead of me, Lexi stopped in the middle of the trail. It forked right in front of her, and as I drew even with her, I saw a despondent look on her face. “Nothing.”
“We might have to give it a couple of trips out before we find anything,” I said, covering her shoulder with my hand. “Maybe they heard you’d gotten hurt and pulled out for a little while. It would be the smart thing to do.”
“I’ve considered that.” She made a face. “And if that is the case, then more than likely, it’s somebody who is affiliated with the park or the SAR groups. The typical poacher coming in here isn’t going to be aware of everything that’s going on, especially not one ranger tripping and hurting her ankle.”
“You didn’t trip. You got caught up in a snare. There’s a difference.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that, but the snare effectively tripped me.” She hooked her thumb around the strap of her pack, staring out into the trees with a brooding expression. After a few minutes, a soft smile bloomed across her lips. “You know, the first time I hiked out this far, I was fourteen. Dad and I spent a weekend out here, just me and him. We sat up until it was probably almost midnight and Dad told me ghost stories. I was almost too scared to go to sleep.”
“You miss him.”
She nodded wordlessly. She slanted a look over at me. “You know, I’ve done a lot of talking about my family. But other than what you told me about Ryan, I know next to nothing about you.”
I started to tell her there wasn’t much to say but realized that wasn’t fair. She’d talked easily, openly about her father and had even confided in me about the problems with her mom.
I stared off at nothing for a long time, trying to coax my tight throat into relaxing.
“My parents were killed in an accident back when Ryan and I were still in school.” Memories of that rainy, cold night danced through my mind. “We’d just won the regional football championship. They were in a car behind us – Ryan and I had wanted to ride the bus with our teammates.” Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, then looked back at her. I never talked about my family. It was surprising how easy it was to open up to Lexi. “We were on this narrow, two-lane road. The bus driver saw the car coming – the driver was drifting over the lane. He honked at the guy, but…”
She linked her fingers with mine. The simple act of comfort caused a lump to form in my throat. I tightened my hand around hers just slightly, still staring into the trees. “The driver ended up drifting over the line again, but the opposite one. He was about to go off the road when he overcorrected and went smashing in the car my parents were driving. They were driving fifty-five, and the cops suggested the evidence pointed to him driving over seventy. They all died on impact.”
“I’m sorry, Roman.” She leaned her head against my arm.
I nodded. The phrase so often seemed trite, empty, even when people truly meant it. But I took comfort in hearing it from her. Maybe because she knew what it was like to lose somebody.
“Anyway.” I cleared my throat. “Ryan and I went to live with my dad’s mother. She was older and didn’t really know how to handle two grieving teens, but she did her best. She died not long after we turned twenty-one.”
“So, it’s just you now.”
“Yeah.”
She moved to stand in front of me, leaning against me. The packs kept us from really being able to embrace, but she rested a hand on my hip just below the sturdy strap that secured the lower half of my pack, balancing the weight of it.
I curved a hand over her neck and pressed my lips to her brow. I lost track of how long we stood there like that.
She was the one to pull away, looking up at me with an expression of tenderness so complete, it made my chest ache.
I was falling for this woman, and I was falling fast.
A few months ago, the idea would have terrified me, but although I was scared, everything with Lexi felt incredibly right.
“We should start heading back,” she said, her voice husky.
I nodded, but instead of turning around, I lowered my head and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
This tough, mouthy woman had gotten under my skin.
We broke apart, and I stepped aside, gesturing for her to lead the way. She was more than capable of handling these woods, and it was clear she knew her way around them far better than I did.
Still, I couldn’t push aside the nagging worry I’d been carrying with me ever since I realized she was out searching for evidence of the poachers.
I made up my mind, then and there, that I’d take care of her.
It was a need that burned inside me, and I wasn’t about to ignore it.
While I knew Lexi was more than capable of handling herself out here in the woods, and in other areas, I couldn’t banish the urge inside me, one that insisted I look out for her.
We barely knew each other, and up until the night Cass’s plane had gone down, I hadn’t even been aware that Lexi existed.
And it didn’t matter.
I was going to watch out for her.
I couldn’t stand it if something were to happen to her.
Twenty-Seven
Lexi
About halfway back to the trailhead entrance, I told Roman I wanted to follow a different trail, one that would cover a more rugged bit of territory. There was still a trail, but like the one that had led to the ranger cabin, this one wasn’t used much.
I saw evidence of black bears in the area and started to move more slowly, although my mind wasn’t entirely on the task. I kept thinking about Roman – recalling everything from the tense moments when we’d first met to how he’d squeezed my hand earlier when telling me about his parents.
There were feelings blooming inside me that I couldn’t even begin to define. I wasn’t any good at it. I’d only had one semi-serious boyfriend, and that had been early on in my college career. I’d been going for a double-major at the time, and he was pushing for more and more of my time. It hadn’t been all that hard for me to end it, telling him that I needed to focus on college at that moment.
I realized that I could barely even remember what he looked like and found myself laughing to myself.
“What’s so funny?” Roman asked
behind me.
“Nothing.” I continued to smile, but it faded as I thought about what my thoughts might be like in a couple of years. Would memories of Roman fade as fast as they had with my college boyfriend? I couldn’t even begin to imagine forgetting about Roman – forgetting anything. Even if once this was over, we never saw each other again, I couldn’t imagine not having the thoughts of him that blazed so brightly fade, not even a little.
Something on the trail caught my eye, and I forced my thoughts back to the matter at hand.
“What’s that?” Roman asked behind me as I crouched in front of a fallen tree. It had fallen a long, long time ago and another younger tree was struggling to grow in the empty space its death had provided. It was maybe up to my hip, branches spreading out. The first spring buds hadn’t even started to open.
What had caught my attention was thick, sticky-looking and so dark brown it looked black.
I wrinkled my nose when I recognized what I was looking at. “Chewing tobacco. Gross.”
I rose to my feet and looked around, brooding. I didn’t see any sign, other than that disgusting mess, that anybody had been on the trail in the past few hours. But one thing was sure.
“Whoever decided to go spitting that nasty stuff onto my trail, they were here after the snow. Otherwise, it wouldn’t still be hanging there like that.”
Roman came around me and crouched down, balancing on his heels without any sign of wobble, never mind the big, heavy pack he was carrying. He leaned in, getting a lot closer to that mess of nasty, chewed-up tobacco than I’d get. “After the snow, yeah, but it’s not super-fresh either. Doubt they were out here today,” he said, rising back up to his feet with smooth, easy grace.
I made a face. I didn’t want to know how he knew that, but some evil, twisted bit of curiosity had me asking, “Why do you say that?”
