by Kait Nolan
Courtesy of the extra backup condom in his wallet, they’d spent quite a while longer exhausting each other before finally stumbling back to their cabins a few hours before dawn. At the memory, a blush heated Audrey’s cheeks.
Sam squealed and knelt on her bed, clutching a pillow in her arms. “Oh my God, tell me everything!”
“That’s personal.”
“Oh, come on! Girl code! Those who are getting lucky must share the delicious details with those who are regrettably single.”
“No sparks between you and Charlie?”
“Please. He’s like my delightfully playful brother. Actually, my brother’s a Navy SEAL, so he’s a helluva lot more playful. If I wanted to short sheet somebody or make an underwear raid in the middle of the night, Charlie’s my man. But he’s not a candidate for warming my bed. For now, I must live vicariously through you. Is what’s underneath the clothes as impressive as what I imagine?”
Shimmying into a pair of light cargo pants, Audrey gave in. This was one of those female rituals she’d always envied from the outside. How often did she have anything worth sharing? “It’s better. His job does amazing things for that body. As to the rest…God was generous with the good genes.”
Sam muffled an envious scream in her pillow. “I’m not going to ask if he was good. You’re glowing.”
Audrey felt amazing. She hadn’t even cared that her PT took extra time or that she was feeling sore muscles in places she’d forgotten she had. After they met for a late breakfast, she and Hudson would be putting their heads together to figure out exactly where they could find some privacy to work them out even more. Her vote was for somewhere they could be clothing optional the rest of the week. It seemed a shame to cover up any of that magnificent body of his. She wondered how long a box of condoms would last.
“You two seem to have gotten pretty close since we’ve been here. Are y’all gonna keep in touch after camp?”
And just like that, her erotic fantasy collapsed. She tugged on a shirt and didn’t meet Sam’s gaze. “We’re adhering to a strict, no talking about the end of camp policy.”
“But—”
A brisk knock on the cabin door cut her off.
Not caring who was on the other side, Audrey called out, “Come in.”
The door opened and Hudson all but bounded through, the grin on his face almost as bright as the sun slanting through the windows. He crossed the room in two strides and scooped Audrey off her feet, spinning her in a circle and kissing her senseless in a matter of seconds.
When he collapsed back on her bed, cushioning their fall, she gasped out, “Well, good morning to you, too!”
“John moved his hand. Rachel was talking to him yesterday, asking him questions, and he squeezed hers back.” The eyes that had been stormy and gray seemed lighter as he smiled up at her.
“That’s wonderful!” Audrey didn’t know a whole lot about traumatic brain injuries or comas, but she hoped that this was only the first in a long line of victories for his friend. And she hoped it merited the explosion of hope it had inspired in Hudson.
“We’re going to celebrate,” he announced.
“Well okay then!”
“How do you feel about camping?” He laced his hands behind her back, keeping her sprawled out over the top of him.
As Audrey couldn’t find reason to complain about the position, she relaxed. “Like in a tent, packing in all our gear, away from civilization kind of camping?”
“Like shared sleeping bag and all the s’mores you can eat away from civilization kind of camping.”
Alone time. Hell yes. “I’m game.”
“How fast can you be ready?”
It turned out Audrey could get ready a lot faster than they could gather up the requisite gear from camp. But after lunch they set out with loaded packs and a map of the surrounding area. Camp Firefly Falls had a section set aside for primitive camping, but it wasn’t secluded enough for their purposes, so Hudson had arranged for a permit to camp in the national park on the other side of the lake. The hike in took about three hours, as they stopped for frequent breaks. Audrey knew that was for her benefit and appreciated that he didn’t seem to resent it. Hudson himself seemed so hyped up, he could’ve run a marathon, pack and all. By the time he’d decided on a campsite—a lovely copse of trees about fifteen yards from a stream—she was more than ready to get things set up and start dinner.
At his direction, she began assembling the tent poles.
“John, Steve, and I used to do this all the time growing up.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned his friends without a shadow of pain. “Yeah? You all grew up in Syracuse, right?”
“Within half a mile of each other. We started out with pup tents in the back yard. Graduated on up to a tree house when we were ten. Then Boy Scouts.”
He continued to talk as they put up the tent, telling stories about their adventures. Every word built a picture of rock solid, life-long friendship that was as foreign to Audrey as the dark side of the moon. She wanted that. Ached for it somewhere down deep. It was far too late for her, but she wanted that for her children someday. Children she could suddenly picture with clear gray eyes.
“—but really, all we needed was a sleeping bag, pocket knife, flashlight, water, and peanut butter sandwiches.”
Audrey swallowed against a throat gone dry and forced a smile. “I hope we have something with a bit more substance for dinner.”
“S’mores, of course. I haven’t looked to see what else they packed, but the kitchen staff assured me it was a rustic, romantic dinner for two.”
“Romantic, huh?”
He offered a faux casual shrug as he threaded the pole through the loops on the nylon tent. “I might’ve let slip I wanted to impress a girl.”
“You impress me daily.”
“I’m about to impress you more. I brought a surprise.”
“Oh yeah?” Interested, she watched as he wrestled something out of the bottom of his pack.
“I made a run into town. That’s part of why it took so long.”
Audrey angled her head to read the side of the box. “You bought us an air mattress?”
“I figured we had plans.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Besides, it’s not good for you to sleep on the hard ground. I want you to enjoy this trip and be as comfortable as possible. Even if I risk being accused of glamping.”
Audrey’s heart gave a painful squeeze. He’d gone out of his way—again—to make sure she was taken care of. She knew he didn’t think of himself as a hero, and yet he kept proving that he was, day after day, with the big things and the small. He made her feel valued and cherished in a way no one ever had. How could she ever walk away from this man? The hero of her heart.
Because she didn’t want to make a big thing out of it, she injected a lightness to her tone as she slid her arms around his shoulder. “I appreciate your willingness to risk your man card on my behalf and will be happy to reward you appropriately later on.”
“I definitely like the sound of that. Especially since I haven’t even shown you the best feature of this thing.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
Hudson’s lips curved in a wicked grin. “It’s self-inflating.”
“Thoughtful and expedient. I do love a man who can plan.” And as he set about unrolling the air mattress and flipping on the blower, Audrey was forced to admit—to herself, at least—that she’d fallen in love with this one.
~*~
“If we don’t unzip the door, do you suppose we can pretend it isn’t morning?” As Audrey’s bare shoulder was only a couple of inches from his mouth, Hudson pressed a kiss there.
With a sleepy, satisfied purr, she stretched back against him, then winced.
He propped up on an elbow and looked down at her, worried he’d overdone it. “You okay?”
She grimaced. “I’m afraid I do a very good impersonation of an arthritic octogenarian first thing in the morning. It take
s a lot of stretching and PT exercises to get me moving.”
“Let me help.”
Hudson took it as progress when she only smiled. “First time I’ve done them naked, with company.”
He knew they’d have to pack up and head back to camp soon, but he wasn’t in any hurry to leave their private little oasis. And Hudson, Jr. was ever hopeful of one last repeat performance. “I’m a firm believer in positive reinforcement for completing your mandatory PT.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I have been known to reward myself with chocolate for breakfast. But we finished that off last night with the s’mores.”
“I expect we can come up with a suitable replacement.”
A feline smile curved her lips as her gaze dropped to his crotch, where his cock was already stirring again. “Mmm, yes please.”
“So polite.” Hudson took the leg she offered and followed her instructions for where and how to stretch it. Before releasing it, he dug his fingers into the muscles, massaging the stiffness. Audrey made a sound very close to the moans of pleasure he’d coaxed out of her when they’d made love at dawn.
He’d miss this. He’d miss her. And that had his brain treading perilously close to that whole topic of life outside of camp that they were avoiding. But maybe…maybe they didn’t have to. “Why were you in Syracuse?”
Her lashes fluttered back open. “What?”
“Two years ago. Why were you in Syracuse?”
Those blue eyes went sharp on his. “I was driving cross country from Toronto to Yale for a seminar.”
“Yale?”
“Mmm. It’s where I went to graduate school.”
Over the past days, it had been easy to forget she was a girl genius. She didn’t talk about work. But Ivy League grad school at nineteen. Damn. “What exactly does one do with a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale?”
“Research usually. It’s what I was doing before the accident. I wound up in Chattanooga because they offered me a teaching position that I could still manage around my surgeries and physical therapy. Most of my classes are online. But I’m healed up, so it’s time for me to rejoin the real world professionally.”
“And you’ll have to leave Chattanooga to do that?” Hudson kept his voice casual.
“Yeah. The next logical step is taking a tenure track position at a large research university.” She paused, beginning to work the other leg. “I interviewed for a position at UC Berkeley right before I came to camp.”
“California.” It might as well be Australia.
She sighed with an utter lack of enthusiasm that had an unreasonable surge of hope burgeoning in his chest. “Yeah. If they offered me the job, it would be a big feather in my professional cap, get me back on the fast track, almost as if the accident never happened.”
“But?” Please let there be a but.
“I don’t actually like California. They don’t have real seasons out there. Not like I’m used to. And…”
Hudson’s heart began to pound as he waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he prompted, “And?”
“And—this is practically heresy in my family—I don’t know if I still want the things I wanted before the accident. With everything my parents sacrificed for my education, I’m pretty sure they’d have a cow if I walked away from all that. But I’ve gotten to where I like the slower pace. I’d never have had the time for something like Camp Firefly Falls in a research position. It’s all about publish or perish, eighty-hour work weeks, and always pursuing the next grant. I…can’t imagine going back to that.” She gave a little laugh. “Which is a moot point. They haven’t offered me the job, and considering I’ve been out of mainstream academia for two years, they probably won’t.”
It sounded like a misery to him. He began to massage her other calf. “What do you want?”
She was silent so long, he didn’t think she’d answer. “Marriage. Family. A life. When I’m ninety, I don’t want to be in a place where I’ve got academic accolades out the wazoo but no one to sit by a fire and read with. If I were in a different discipline and my research held the potential to be life changing, maybe I’d feel differently. But that’s not what I do. What I’ve done. Not that I couldn’t change my area of research to something more impactful, but…figuring out the why of things just doesn’t seem as important as it used to. And I haven’t figured out what to do with that. It’s a scary thing finding out that the path you’ve been certain of your whole life isn’t necessarily the right one.”
“Did you really pick that path or did your parents kinda shove you on it?”
She considered the question. “Hard to say at this point. I was on board from the beginning. I’d still be on board if not for the accident. I guess, in a way, I’m grateful it happened.”
“Really?”
She tugged her leg free and sat up, brushing a quick kiss over his lips. “It brought me you.” Her hand slid into the hair at his nape. “However long it lasts, I’m beyond grateful for that.”
Emotion tangled in his chest—a bittersweet mix of regret for the brevity of their time and a longing for something he hardly dared hope could be a possibility. She was a gift. A reminder that not all the world was darkness and despair. Hudson laced his hand with hers and brought them to his lips. “I’m grateful for you.” For more things than he was prepared to say. So, he laid her back and showed her instead.
Much later, they strolled back into Camp Firefly Falls holding hands like a couple of giddy teenagers.
“Not gonna lie. I’m going to hog every drop of hot water in the shower,” Audrey declared.
He hooked an arm around her shoulders as they went up her cabin steps. “You could share. Really, it’s the environmentally responsible thing to do.”
“You cannot possibly—Can you?”
Hudson shrugged. It seemed worth the ache in his balls to try for the chance to see her naked, wet, and soapy. “Looks like Sam’s out. We could hang a sock on the door.”
“You’re incorrigible.” But she grinned as she said it.
The phone in his pocket buzzed as several texts hit at once.
Audrey dumped her pack. “You get that. I’ll go start the shower and let the water warm up.”
Admiring her very fine backside, Hudson fished out his phone to find two missed calls and several text messages from Rachel. They all had the same theme, with an increasing level of urgency. Call me.
He dialed immediately. She picked up on the second ring.
“Rach? I’ve been out of cell range. What’s up?”
“Hud, I…” At the strain in her voice, his hand tightened on the phone.
“Rachel?”
“John’s gone, Hud.”
The denial was swift and automatic. “No. No. You said he was getting better. He squeezed your hand.”
Audrey came out of the bathroom, her hand covering her mouth.
On the phone, Rachel was still talking, her tone choked. “The doctors warned us this was a possibility in the beginning. A probability.”
“No,” Hudson snarled. “There are things they could have done, kept him going until he could get better.”
“Hudson.” Rachel’s voice was gentle. “You know how he felt about life support. He didn’t want to be hooked up to machines, and he filed a do not resuscitate order.”
In some dim, distant part of his brain, Hudson recognized that he was out of line. That taking his grief out on John’s widow was beyond a dick thing to do. But that realization was drowned out by the grief that battered him like hail.
John was dead.
Yesterday, he’d been alive. He’d been alive and responsive for the first time in three months. And instead of getting in his Jeep and driving home, Hudson had taken that news as a sign from God that he could let go and live again himself. That his friend was on the mend. That they’d have more time. He’d missed Rachel’s messages. And he’d missed his chance to say goodbye.
Chapter 12
Audrey’s heart cracked right in two a
s Hudson stood there, broad shoulders rigid, hand white knuckling the phone. It was obvious that his celebration yesterday had been premature, and the worst had come to pass. Tears clogged her own throat on his behalf. This would break him in a way nothing else could.
“Did he ever wake up?” The voice that had been full of fun and laughter just minutes before now trembled.
His shoulders slumped at Rachel’s answer. For a few more minutes, he listened, grunting monosyllabic responses as a muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’ll be there.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, Audrey crossed the room. She wasn’t even sure he saw her. But she slid her arms around him anyway, needing to do anything she could to comfort him. “I’m so sorry.”
He stood rigid, his breath ragged. She held him tighter, willing him to take what she offered. At long last, he wrapped around her, burying his face in her hair. He began to shake, the force of the emotions he was holding back almost too great to bear. Audrey wanted to tell him to just let go, that he didn’t have to be strong with her, that he could grieve. But she didn’t know how he’d respond. Instead she stroked his back, hoping the fact that he wasn’t alone was, at least, a little bit of comfort.
“I’m going home.” His voice was muffled, thick with emotion.
“Of course, you are.” He’d hardly stay at camp after this. The funeral would probably be in a few days. “When?”
He pulled away. “Today. Now.”
Even expecting it, Audrey couldn’t stop the visceral rejection of that. No. She’d just found him. She wasn’t ready to let him go. But she swallowed back the protests. This wasn’t about her. “Okay. I’ll help you pack.”
Recognizing that he needed to move, she towed him toward the door. Hudson dropped her hand to scoop up his pack and followed. They didn’t speak on the walk to his cabin. Nor did they touch. With every step, she could feel him retreating from her, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Charlie wasn’t at the cabin, and she was grateful to have a little while longer alone with Hudson. They went through the motions, gathering up his stuff. When he would have just shoved it all into his bags, she stopped to fold things, wanting to delay his departure and not at all sure he was in any shape to drive. She didn’t dare ask if he was okay. He clearly wasn’t.
