It left him slightly breathless each time it happened, and he was beginning to wonder if it was desire but wasn’t sure since he’d never experienced it before. Of course, he’d felt lust, a driving need deep inside him, but that was more like instinct than emotion, and this was definitely emotion.
Watching her sort through the first aid kit, and the huge smile that appeared on her face when she found an ace bandage and some painkillers, he wondered if his life was going to change and if that change would be for better or worse. The feelings he was having for Bethany were too human, too much like what a normal man would feel, and he was far from normal.
Feeling the exhaustion of a long day, he laid down on the ground and put his head between his outstretched paws and continued to watch Bethany. He knew that she was aware of his stare, but couldn’t make himself stop, and eventually, she seemed to forget that he was there.
When she took a bite of the stew she’d found in a can and made a face, he wondered what it would be like to taste food the way a human does, wondered what it would be like to feel all the things he’d been denied for his entire life. But most of all, he wondered what it would be like to hold a woman the way a man did.
Shocked at his thoughts, thoughts he’d suppressed a long time ago, he got up and paced around the cave. He was restless, needed to escape the thoughts he was having, but it was still raining hard, and he didn’t want to leave Bethany alone, so he settled down by the fire and closed his eyes.
He heard Bethany put more wood on the fire, then a sigh as the temperature in the cave rose. Cracking open one eye, he saw that she’d laid down on the blanket she’d spread on the ground and closed her eyes. Relieved that she was warm and fed, he allowed himself to fall asleep to the sound of her even breathing as she slept.
The pop and crack of the fire as Bethany feed it more wood woke him a few hours later. When he opened his eyes and lifted his head, he could tell immediately that she was feeling better; there was some color in her cheeks, and her eyes looked brighter.
He stood up and stretched, the silence between them feeling heavy. “Do you feel better?” he finally asked.
Bethany jumped, then smiled at him. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to hearing voices in my head,” she said, her cheeks getting pinker.
He cocked his head and asked, “Do you hear more than one?”
Bethany stared at him opened mouthed, then realized that he was teasing her. She gave him a dirty look, then said, “Very funny.”
If he could have smiled, he would have done so right then. “Sorry, sometimes a little humor helps; you’ll get used to hearing me in your head pretty fast. Jessie had the same problem when we first met,” he said, getting up and stretching.
He could see that Bethany was starting to relax. “First met?” she asked. “I thought you were twins, a black werewolf and a white.”
“We are, but we got separated when our mother abandoned us. I didn’t meet Jessie until after he’d been banished to Swensen’s Mountain; before that, I stayed away from Gypsum Creek,” he said.
Bethany studied him for a minute. “That must have been hard; how did you survive? You must have only been a baby, I mean, a pup...” her words trailed off, and the pink returned to her cheeks.
Shrugging his massive shoulders in a very human gesture, he said, “I survived, and once Jessie and I met each other, my life changed. I’ve got friends and a family now, but I still keep my distance from people I don’t know very well.”
“Is that why I never saw you?” Bethany asked, not realizing that her question was going to be difficult to answer.
He couldn’t tell her that he’d stayed away because she scared him, that his attraction to her felt strange and wonderful at the same time. “No, I just thought you had a little too much going on, and I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” he answered as honestly as he could.
Bethany laughed. “And I guess for a good reason. I did freak out a little bit,” she said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay; that was a pretty normal reaction considering the circumstances,” he said, walking to the opening of the cave. “The rain is starting to slack off, should be gone by morning.”
Bethany put some more wood on the fire, then asked, “Do you think they’re looking for us?”
“Probably, but this storm will have washed our scent away; they may not find us for a few days. We’ll see how your ankle is in the morning, and if you’re up to it, we can walk out of here,” he said.
Bethany flexed her ankle. “It feels a little bit better.”
“Good. I think I’ll go take a look around outside. Will you be okay alone for a few minutes?” he asked, needing to get away from her.
She looked so young and innocent sitting by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, her hair a mess from sleep. It was making strange things happen deep inside him, things he knew would only lead to pain later when those feelings had nowhere to go.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, adding a few more pieces of wood to the fire.
He turned to leave the cave, but stopped when she said, “You never told me your name.”
Chapter Three
***Bethany***
Bethany thought that it was an easy question, but from the way the white wolf reacted, she knew that the opposite was true. He hesitated, looking out the cave entrance, before turning back to her.
“In my life, I don’t have much use for a name, but my mother called me Gabriel. The only memory I have of her is her saying it over and over as she rocked me,” he said, then disappeared out the entrance.
Bethany sat by the fire and thought about living a life where having a name didn’t matter, how solitary that life must be. But then she realized that Gabriel’s life wasn’t that much different than hers had been. Locked in the mansion, her only companions the servants and her father, she’d been just as isolated.
Deep in thought, she didn’t hear Gabriel come back until he set down a big stick he’d been carrying in his mouth down by the fire. “I thought you might be able to use this as a crutch,” he said, “it’s a bit wet right now, but it should dry by morning.”
“Thank you,” she said, her mind still focused on the life Gabriel had been living.
When he sat down across the fire from her, his green eyes sparkling in the firelight, she said, “You and I are a lot alike,” before she could stop herself.
Gabriel cocked his head first one way then the other. “I don’t see it,” he said.
“Well,” she began, trying to put her thoughts together now that she’d spoken. “I’ve lived my entire life locked away from the world, and you’ve lived yours avoiding it. We’ve basically been alone our entire lives.”
“But we’re not any longer,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “I think we should try and get some more sleep.”
Bethany could tell that Gabriel didn’t want to talk about it any longer but wasn’t sure why, so she curled up on her blanket and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. She heard Gabriel making himself comfortable in the dirt and wondered if she should offer to share the blanket but fell asleep before she could.
When she awoke, the sun was shining into the opening of the cave, and the air was thick with humidity. She sat up and looked around for Gabriel, but he wasn’t there, and for a second, she wondered if he had been a figment of her imagination.
In daylight, the experience seemed almost unbelievable, even to someone from a family of shifters. But then he came walking into the cave, a huge fish in his mouth, dropped it on the floor, and wished her a good morning, like it was nothing out of the ordinary.
She stared at the fish, then asked, “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Well, I thought that you’d eat it,” Gabriel said, amusement in his voice.
“It’s still... I mean there’s stuff inside it,” she stammered.
“Just be glad I didn’t bring you a rabbit,” Gabriel said, then walked over and took the stick he’d brought her a
s a crutch in his mouth and carried it over to her. After he’d dropped it, he said, “Try it.”
Bethany got carefully to her feet, leaned on the crutch and took a few steps. Her ankle wasn’t very painful that morning, and she felt a stab of hope. “It feels better this morning, and the crutch helps too.”
“Good, then let’s go clean that fish,” Gabriel said. “You’re going to need a knife.”
Half an hour later, Bethany was sitting by the fire, the fish speared on a stick she’d sharpened herself. She was feeling very proud of herself and wished her brother Dillion could see her, then realized that she was still dressed only in the blanket.
Looking over at her pile of wet clothes in the back of the cave, she cleared her throat and said, “We can’t leave until my clothes get dry. I’m not going back dressed like this.”
“I don’t think we can leave today anyway. The trails are muddy right now, and with your injured ankle, I think it would be wiser to stay here. We can hang your clothes outside the cave; they’ll dry by tomorrow,” Gabriel said, stretching out in the dirt across from her and closing his eyes. “Wake me when you’re finished eating, and I’ll help you.”
The trout Gabriel had brought her tasted better than anything she’d ever eaten, and she wasn’t a bit embarrassed to have eaten the entire thing. When she was finished, she thought about waking Gabriel, but instead quietly hung her clothes on the trees outside the cave.
She cleaned up the cave as best she could, took inventory of what was still in the emergency box, then noticed that the woodpile had dwindled significantly. Determined to do her share, and thinking of the cold night to come, she slung the blanket she’d been sitting on over her shoulder and headed out of the cave, sure that she could find enough wood to stay warm for one more night.
The day had turned warm and sunny, and with the humidity from the rain, she was soon sweating. Looking around her as she slowly made her way from one fallen branch to another, she realized that even though she was lost, and injured, she felt a new kind of excitement deep inside her.
For the first time in her life, she truly felt alive, felt the magic of living someplace as wonderful and beautiful as the Appalachian Mountains. Then she thought of her father and living cooped up in his mansion in the city, her only freedom to roam the grounds of the estate.
She took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, filling her lungs with the scent of freedom, pushed her father out of her mind, and went back to her task of gathering wood. Thinking that when she got back to the cave, Gabriel would be pleased to see that she wasn’t as helpless as he thought.
***Gabriel***
When Gabriel opened his eyes a few hours later, the cave was empty, and for a moment he began to panic, thinking that Bethany had tried to walk out by herself. But then he heard her panting, then a strange dragging sound, then Bethany panting some more.
She appeared in the opening of the cave, leaning on her crutch and dragging a pile of firewood on the blanket. He jumped up and ran over to help her, taking one corner of the blanket in his teeth and pulling with her, until they moved the wood to the back of the cave.
“It’s still pretty wet, but I thought that if we spread it out, it would dry by tonight,” she said, between breaths.
“You should have waited for me. I would have helped,” Gabriel said, visions of her hurt in the woods flashing through his mind. “You could have gotten hurt or lost.”
Bethany sighed. “I only went a little way from the cave. I could see the opening the entire time. I just wanted to do my share,” she said, disappointed that he was scolding her.
Gabriel was silent for a minute, looking at the wood she’d gathered. “And you did,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry, but I’ve seen a lot of people lost in these mountains. They come up here from the city, totally unprepared, think they’re going to hike the Appalachian Trail like it’s a walk in the park. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve helped get rescued from places just like this one.”
Bethany didn’t feel quite as bad when she heard that but still felt the need to defend herself. “I may not have any experience out here, and I may be only eighteen, but I’m not stupid.”
She could see that she’d shocked him a little with her outburst, but she didn’t care; it was time people started treating her like the adult she was. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way; the truth is you’ve shown more determination and skill than most people,” Gabriel said.
Bethany relaxed. “It’s okay, I guess I’m just frustrated. I finally got away from my father only to be trapped at Jessie’s farm for a month. I want to live life, a normal life, meet people, learn new things, test myself for a change,” she said, getting excited just thinking about all the things she could do now.
“Well, you’ve already been doing that as far as I can see,” Gabriel said, then got a crazy idea. “Want to learn to fish? We’re going to need some food for the day, and I think there might be a berry patch not far from here; you could probably manage the walk.”
“That sounds great,” she said. “Just let me spread out this wood so it will dry and check on my clothes.”
By noon, they’d gorged themselves on freshly picked berries and were sitting on a flat rock by the stream. Bethany had her ankle in the cold water, and Gabriel was trying to teach her how to fish but having little success.
“It might be easier if you had a fishing pole,” he said when she pulled her line in empty again.
“How did you catch that fish this morning?” she asked, grimacing as she put another worm on the hook.
“I jumped in,” he said. “But I don’t think that will work for you.”
Bethany looked at the fast-moving stream and shook her head, “No, I don’t think so.”
Gabriel got to his feet and stretched, “I’ll get us some lunch.”
She didn’t even have time to pull her foot out of the water before Gabriel jumped in the stream, splashing her with ice-cold water. “Hey, I wasn’t going in, remember?” she called to him, laughing.
“Just wanted to make sure you knew what you were missing,” he said, then splashed his way over to the deep pool.
Bethany watched as he stood perfectly still in the rushing current, then quickly dipped his head into the water. When he lifted it out, there was a thrashing fish gripped in his jaws, a quick flip of his head sent the fish flying over to where she was sitting.
It landed next to her, it’s body flopping on the rock, and she couldn’t help but scream. But at the same time, she reached out and grabbed the fish. She held on as it thrashed in her hands, “What do I do with it?”
“Hit its head on a rock,” Gabriel called.
She only hesitated a second, before doing as he’d instructed, feeling just a bit sick when she heard the crunch of bones on the rock. The fish stopped thrashing and went still, so she set it down on the bank, a shiver going down her spine.
“That was...different,” she finally said.
“Want another one?” Gabriel asked, amusement in his voice.
Bethany looked over at the fish. “Um, I think one is good enough for now.”
After a lunch of trout and more berries, they found a flat rock near the cave and stretched out in the sun. It was a hot day, but the sun felt good, and before long, Bethany had drifted off to sleep, feeling full and content.
Chapter Four
***Gabriel***
Gabriel watched Bethany sleep, thinking that this had been one of the best days of his life and he wished that it would never end. But like all days, the sun eventually began to sink in the sky, and Bethany stirred as the temperature dropped.
When she opened her eyes, she said, “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” then yawned and stretched.
“I think you needed it,” he said, noticing that she was looking much more like her old self. “We’ve been so worried about your ankle that I forgot about the bump on your head.”
Bethany reached up and felt around on the back o
f her head, winced just a little, then said, “Well, it’s still sore to the touch, but I haven’t been dizzy or anything, so I think it’s fine.”
Gabriel studied her for a second longer just because he could, then said, “Well, then I don’t see any problem starting for home tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll be looking for us by now, so we’ll probably find them first.”
Bethany was quiet for a long time, looking out at the forest and the little stream in front of the cave. Finally, she said, “This is going to sound strange, but I’m almost sorry to go home; this has been fun.”
Gabriel’s heart gave a little lurch, and that same strange feeling washed over him, but this time it was different than the last time it had happened. This time it was that same feeling, but it was laced with what he knew was a mixture of respect and affection. It took him a second to respond as he fought the feelings, tried to block any hope of the impossible.
“I have to say that for a city girl, you didn’t do half bad,” he said.
Bethany beamed at him. “It was nice to be challenged for a change,” she said, getting to her feet. “Are we fishing for our dinner? I want to give it a try again.”
Gabriel got to his feet. “Sure why not? We don’t have anything better to do since you got firewood this morning.”
After a dinner of fish, one that Bethany caught and one that he’d caught, they settled down by the fire. It was a cold night and the cave, which had seemed warm the night before when the storm had been raging, was damp and frigid that night.
Bethany piled as much wood on the fire as she could, but he could tell that she was still cold. Even with her clothes back on and the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, he saw her shiver every few minutes.
Her White Wolf: Wolves of Gypsum Creek (A Paranormal Romance Story) Page 2
