by Sierra Rose
Abby and I stared at them incredulously as the four of us closed ranks. Not only was it a bear, but it was clearly very interested in what we were doing in its meadow, and it seemed it might have a bad case of rabies, even though I wasn’t sure grizzlies could be infected with that. A few seconds later, it dropped down to its feet and let out another hair-raising growl.
We all took careful steps back at the same time, unwilling to become breakfast for the beast.
“Where the hell is Ferdie when we need him?” James muttered under his breath.
Abby’s eyes narrowed as she backed cautiously away. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’d offer Ferdie to the bear?”
James flinched and wrapped a protective arm around me as the animal growled its displeasure and hunger again. “Abby, at this point, I would offer you to the bastard if I thought for one second that Nick would let me get away with it. I do not want to be eaten by a fucking bear!”
Abby pulled out bear spray. “I came prepared. I guess Yogi’s eyes are going to be burning for a while.”
“Wait. Let’s try to scare it away first. Start screaming and waving your hands,” James said, keeping the thing warily in his sights. “If we look bigger, the bear will retreat!”
Then, never losing eye contact, Nick reached carefully into his pocket and took out a granola bar. Abby started unwrapping sandwiches from the cooler and tossed them toward the bear. Moving as quickly as he could, Nick unwrapped it and held it out, shaking it and hoping the foil wrapper would get the bear’s attention. A second later, he threw it over its head.
We all held our breath, and time itself seemed to stop. Then, calmly, the bear swiveled around and headed over to investigate the treat.
We exhaled in one accord and backed away more swiftly, all except James, who turned on a dime the second the bear took its first sniff of the granola.
“I-I kind of want to touch it,” he said, stepping toward it with a look of wonderment on his face, the kind of pained curiosity one wears when staring at a tragic car accident one can’t pull one’s eyes away from.
Without breaking stride, Nick grabbed him by the hair and pulled him along with us. “Fuck that, and fuck camping! We’re going home...now!” he said.
“We’ve handled much worse,” James said. “I’m not going to have Abby hold this over my head; that I chickened out.” He let out a long sigh. “Listen, I’ve been chased by natives in the jungle. If I can handle them, I can handle this.”
“Let’s go back to the campsite,” Abby said.
“But there are bears!” Nick said.
“People camp in bears country all the time.”
I held James’s hand and we all went back to the campsite. We were all coming down from that burst of adrenaline, exhausted with the relief that we were not mauled to death by a bear.
We actually had fun the rest of the day and even tried to fish. We talked and laughed and had a great time. Took a lot of pics too. This is what Abby wanted. She wanted to create wonderful camping memories like she had when she grew up. I’d gone camping a few times and always enjoyed it. When night came, we sat around the fire and told all kinds of stories. We ate Smores and hotdogs. And finally, we went to sleep, after we bear proofed the place. It started to rain, but Abby was sure it would blow over. My weather app said we would only have a little rain. So I snuggled up next to James and fell asleep.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
I woke up to water dripping on my face. And I swear it felt like I was floating. I sat up and quickly assessed the situation. I grabbed my flashlight and realized we were all in a big giant puddle of water, about three inches of water. Waking up to a flooded tent in the middle of the night is never fun.
“Um, guys!” I said.
James splashed around. “What the hell?”
“I’m soaked!” Nicked chimed in.
“I guess Mother Nature threw us a curveball,” Abby said.
James smirked as he held up his soaking wet pillow. “Go camping, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
“It did have its good moments,” I said, pushing back the wet hair from my face. “I loved swimming with you at the lake today.”
He smiled at me. “We did have some fun. When we weren’t facing dangerous beasts or biblical floods.”
“I feel like a beached whale in this puddle of water,” Abby said.
“Are we done?” Nick asked.
Abby shot him a tiny smile. “You look adorable when you’re mad.”
“Please honey. Answer the question.”
Water dripped down her face. “I think we are.”
“About time!”
We all high-fived. It was finally time to go home. I guess we weren’t prepared for whatever Mother Nature threw at us.
James squeezed my hand and shot me an adorable look. “Hey babe.”
“Yeah?
“If we can survive bears and floods, I think we can survive anything.”
We all chuckled.
NOT TOO LONG AFTER that, we were back in the car with asphalt flying beneath our wheels, leaving our nightmare in the woods and heading quickly toward the safety of the London skyline.
Abby had passed out in the front seat, which was understandable since none of us had much rest the night before. Nick drove with his eyes locked on the horizon, one hand steadily on the wheel and the other on Abby’s leg as he sped us swiftly home. James, in the back seat with me, placed his arm around my shoulder, and I rested my tired head against his chest.
“I don’t want to go back,” I murmured.
He looked down in surprise, then kissed me softly on the top of the head. “It was nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Even if it wasn’t the vacation you were hoping for.”
I touched his cheek. “But it was. Because I was with you.”
He smiled and I could see him downplaying the emotion he felt.
“Oh, babe. That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. But I’m thinking you shouldn’t have given the Alps trip away.” He said it softly, even though there wasn’t much need to lower his voice. The windows were open, and between that and the radio, it was relatively easy for us to have a private conversation. “I know you were looking forward to getting away. And I know you hate to go back earlier than planned.”
“It’s not that.” My shoulders stiffened, and I sighed. “I mean I don’t want to go back to that office, to that job....with him,” I dared.
The implication was clear, but he didn’t know how to address it. His head bowed for a second, and his dark hair spilled forward as he gazed down at me with an indecipherable look. “So quit,” he said.
“Can’t you do something to change it?” I fired back before I could stop myself.
His eyes widened in surprise, but I didn’t back down. I’d put it out there, and one way or another, he had to face it.
“James, you know as well as I do that your brother is tearing your father’s company apart at the seams, ruining all your dad worked for. How can you just sit back and let that happen?”
Nick’s eyes flickered to us in the rearview mirror, but he said nothing.
James remained similarly tongue-tied for a second before he struggled to defuse my sudden outburst. “There’s nothing I can do, Della. I don’t work there—”
“You choose to avoid it,” I replied curtly. “Robert doesn’t have any more claim to the place than you do.”
Some strange emotion flickered through James’s eyes, but he was quick to push it aside, quick to replace it with frustration that came through in his voice. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said shortly, with a harsh edge that effectively ended the discussion. “Dad will be back anytime now, and he’ll set everything right. In the meantime, everything is okay. We fixed things, for now.”
I glanced up at him, staring deeply into his eyes, then lowered my gaze back to the road. “Yeah, for now, I guess,” I said with a quiet sigh, but I didn’t believe it would last ver
y long at all, not with Robert Cross at the helm of a ship he was quickly sinking in the absence of its true captain.
That was the last any of us spoke on the ride home. Nick navigated his way quickly through the streets of London, and less than twenty minutes later, we were parked in front of James’s apartment and piling out onto the curb.
“Well,” Abby said, shaking back her hair and wearing a surprisingly cheerful, perky smile, “I don’t think we’ll be trying that again anytime soon.”
Nick looked down at her in exasperation, then scooped her off her feet. “That’s right, you little sadist,” he said with a giant grin. “No more camping for you, bets or not.”
“How about if we try a cabin?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Guess you’ll have to win the next bet.”
They both laughed.
James and I watched them for a second, before he looked down at me with a tentative smile. “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. It’s just... Well, I’ve thought much about that, uh...issue, but I can’t just—”
“No, you’re right,” I cut him off quickly, slipping my hand into his. “You don’t work there, and even if you did, your dad will return soon. It was unfair of me to ask anything more.”
As if on cue, the door pushed open, and the old man I’d seen before swept outside.
“Ferdie?” James stared at him in surprise. “I was sure you’d have gone back to—”
For some reason, the man didn’t seem at all like the controlled, dignified gentleman I met upon our departure. This time, his skin was pale, his tie was askew, and there was a manic look in his eyes as he burst out of the house and rushed down the stairs. “Master Cross,” he blurted, then instantly gentled his voice, “James...”
James stiffened instinctually; the use of his first name by one of his staff spooked him even more than the crooked tie. “What is it?” he asked softly, bracing himself with dread. “What happened?”
Ferdie’s eyes softened with unspeakable pity as he gazed down at his young charge.
With that same bracing instinct, Nick put a hand on James’s shoulder, and I gripped his side.
“It’s... Your father, Master Cross,” Ferdie replied quietly. “I’m so sorry, James. He’s... Your father has passed.”
To be continued...
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