by Jennie Marts
“I don’t think she will. She just doesn’t want us to mess with her or her babies. That was a false charge; she’s just trying to intimidate us.”
“Well, it’s working.”
“Don’t let it. We need to stay calm and relaxed.”
“Relaxed? Relaxed involves a beach chair and a good book, or a warm fireplace and a nice glass of wine. Facing down a bear does not fall into my relaxed category.” She spoke in hushed tones, barely moving her lips. Her shoulders were tight, rigid with tension, and she shifted the bags she was holding to get a better grip. “Just say when, and I’m ready to take off.”
He settled a comforting hand on her shoulder. Geez, the guy wasn’t even shaking. Her body was shaking so hard, her teeth threatened to chatter. But the warmth of his grip helped to calm her. A little.
“The last thing we want to do is run,” he said quietly. “That will only make her chase after us. And I’m telling you now, that I can run faster than you.”
“That fact doesn’t make me feel better.”
“You’re doing great. Just keep your arms up and keep yelling at her.”
“Get on outta here,” he hollered, waving the bags at her.
“Yeah, go on, you old brown/black bear. You can’t even make up your mind what color you are.”
“That’s it. You tell her. I can tell she’s already backing down—keep insulting the color of her coat—it seems to be working.”
She glanced at his face to see if he was kidding or not, and the amusement in his eyes told her that he was.
Not funny.
They kept moving forward, another slow step at a time, keeping their arms raised and their backs to the path.
One of the cubs in the tree mewled, and the mama bear turned around and lumbered back to her babies.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Sully turned and shifted to let her go ahead of him. “Stay on the path. I’m right behind you. Walk fast, but don’t run.”
She quickened her pace, her gaze trained on the uneven path, trying not to stumble. Sadie pushed past her leg and ran ahead. Following the dog, they came out into the clearing, and she let out a long, slow breath, feeling the tension leave her shoulders when she saw the cabin in front of her.
She’d never been so happy to see anything in her life.
Sully unlocked the door, and she practically ran inside, dropping her backpack on the floor and sinking onto the sofa. “Well, that was an adventure I never want to have again.”
He chuckled. “What’s wrong? You unnerved by a little bear?” His voice was mocking her, but she knew he had to have been scared of the bear, too. Well, maybe not scared, but at least mildly uncomfortable.
“Hell yes, I was unnerved. I was more than that. I was scared shitless. But you didn’t even seem bothered.”
“I see bears all the time. One of the perks of living in the mountains of Colorado.”
Perks? Did he say perks?
“They’re always trying to get in the trash at my house or behind the shop, especially if I’ve been cleaning fish and there are some good smelling fish guts in there.”
“Ugh.” She held up her hands. “Stop right there. I don’t need any more details.”
“They usually won’t bother you if you don’t mess with them. Unless they have a cub or two, then the sows can get a little surly. I was a little nervous this time because you were with me, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
She grinned. Dang it. Even after a near bear attack, he said something sweet. Going to her backpack, she pulled out several Ziploc bags. “I took your advice this time, and I double-bagged everything in separate freezer bags.”
Unzipping one, she pulled out her cell phone and pressed the circular power button. The phone blinked to life. “Yes. My phone still works.”
“Good luck getting any service.”
Hmm. He was right. No bars.
Oh well, at least she had it and wouldn’t lose any of her pictures or have to go through the expense of getting another one. She wasn’t sure the small town of Cotton Creek even had a cell phone store.
Unzipping another bag, she pulled out a notebook and pen. Both were still dry.
She carried them back to the sofa and plopped down in the corner. A cool breeze came through the open window, and the scent of pine trees wafted in, along with the soothing sound of the river. All she really wanted to do was curl up on the couch and take a nap, but she didn’t have time for that now.
Opening the notebook and uncapping the pen, she stared at the blank page. “Are you okay if I ignore you for a little bit? It’s the curse of the writer. When inspiration hits, I’ve got to write. I need to get some of this stuff down on paper for the story before I forget.”
His easy expression fell, and creases appeared in his forehead. “Yeah, sure. Don’t want to forget about the story. Hope you got some good material for the article.”
Her head snapped up at his hostile tone. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’.” He sighed. “I just forgot for a second that the reason you’re here is to do a story. I’ll let you write.”
He crossed the room and opened the front door, patting his leg to call the dog to his side. “I want to hike around a little, see what kind of damage the rain caused and if there was any other flooding.”
Sadie shot out the door, and he followed, closing the door behind him.
…
The F-ing story.
Of course it was about the story.
Sully kicked at a stray rock in the path. Sadie ran ahead, chasing squirrels and finding new things to sniff.
How could he have forgotten about the article? It’s the reason they were here after all.
Last night—and this morning—had been great, but he was kidding himself if he thought this meant anything more than a means to an end for Avery.
They had fun, and the sex was great. Actually, great was an understatement. The sex was freaking fantastic. But that’s all it was. There were no declarations of tender thoughts or sharing of feelings. She’d never even said that she liked him.
He was an idiot.
Although he hadn’t really said that he liked her, either. Probably because he didn’t.
What he felt was more than like.
Everything was happening so fast. He’d only known her a few days for chrissakes, but he already knew. Knew that he’d connected with her on a different level than he’d ever felt for another woman. Even the She-Devil. Not that he hadn’t loved her. He had—at first. But it was more of an easy kind of “we get along pretty good” and she took care of him.
Plus, they’d been so young when they first got together. They’d married too soon, before they’d even had a chance to really get to know each other. And it hadn’t taken long for things to start falling apart.
Which were all good reasons to slow things down with Avery. Except nothing had been slow with her. They’d barreled ahead full-steam since the moment he met her.
Even before he met her. The first time he saw her, when he’d slammed on his brakes to keep from hitting her, he’d caught his breath at the instant spark of attraction. Then the first time he actually spoke to her, she’d been half naked, screaming at him to pull her pants off.
And now he’d had her completely naked and writhing beneath him. He’d had her gasping for breath, and giggling so hard he thought she would wet her pants. And he knew it didn’t matter. Didn’t matter if he’d known her for four days or four years, he was already gone.
Gone beyond fond of. Gone beyond affection. In the same way their relationship had charged ahead, his heart had passed over like, and he’d completely fallen in love with this girl.
Fallen in love with her spunky spirit, her positive outlook, her goofy grin, and her sense of adventure. He adored the way she got so excited over little things like cotton candy, the way she cuddled his dog, and the way she snorted a little when she got to laughing too hard. And the part-timid, part-brazen way she acted in the bedroom was sexy as h
ell.
Yeah, he had it bad. The fact he even noticed any of those things told him he was in way deeper than he should have been. Especially because half the reasons he liked her were the exact things that would keep them from ever really being together.
They’d spent time talking at lunch the day before and she’d told him how she wanted to see the world, explore things, have adventures. He wanted to see his recliner at night, explore books, and the most adventurous he got was when he occasionally sprinkled a few drops of hot sauce on his scrambled eggs at the diner.
They were exact opposites, and even in the unlikely event that she ended up having real feelings for him, his quiet life in a small mountain town would soon stifle and bore her—just like it had with Sheila.
Avery would soon see how boring he really was, she’d get tired of the amount of time he wanted to spend in solitude on the river, and she’d hightail it back to the city faster than he could say “it’s been fun, see ya later.”
And he knew he couldn’t take that again. Couldn’t take being left behind, discarded and disregarded because he wasn’t enough. Enough to make anyone want to stay.
The definition of insanity was doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.
Falling in love with this girl was pure insanity.
No, it was better to stop this now. Before he got in any further over his head.
He needed to go back to the cabin, pack up their meager gear, and get them back to town, where he could drop her off at the B&B and try to forget about her.
He kept a four-wheeler at the cabin, locked in the shed but available to use to portage back to town if he’d floated down the river. It was a good-sized quad that could carry two people and had a custom built dog-carrier affixed to the back so Sadie could safely ride with him.
Yep, they needed to load up the four-wheeler and get back to town. The sooner the better.
He came around the corner in the trail and stopped in his tracks.
Well, shit.
They say lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, but the previous day’s lightning storm had changed the course of his day twice now.
A huge cottonwood tree lay across the road, its trunk split and splintered as if it had been blown apart by a stick of dynamite.
Nope. They weren’t going back today. Even with his chainsaw, he wasn’t taking that thing apart. And the trunk was way too heavy for him to move by himself.
Like the two halves of the tree, he was divided—both disappointed and excited by that fact.
…
“Looks like we’re gonna be stuck here at least another day,” Sully said as he opened the door of the cabin.
Sadie raced in ahead of him and bounded for the sofa.
He stopped, his hand still on the doorknob, struck by the beauty of the woman who lay curled up asleep on his couch. His heart tumbled in his chest, and he struggled to swallow over the sudden emotion clogging his throat.
She didn’t stay asleep for long. Not after Sadie licked her face.
Avery reared back, sputtering and laughing as she wiped the dog kisses from her cheeks.
“Sorry about that.” He pushed the door shut behind him. “I can take her back out if you want to sleep.”
She sat up, stretching and stifling a yawn. “No. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I was just tired because I’d been up half the night shaking the sheets with a sexy mountain man.”
A laugh escaped him. Damn it. He’d spent the last thirty minutes convincing himself that he wasn’t falling in love with her, and she’d just shot that theory to shit within two minutes of him walking through the door.
“Shaking the sheets, huh?”
She gave him a naughty grin. “Well, the sheets and the shower stall. And I guess the rug, because of—you know—that one time on the floor.”
“Yes, I know. I remember.” And it’s not like he could forget. Ever. Last night had been the best sex, er, sheet-shaking of his life.
“What kind of damage did you find?” she asked, patting the sofa next to her. “Were there other places affected by the flooding?”
He crossed the room and sank onto the sofa next to her. “Yeah, not so much the flooding but the storm. The lightning downed a huge tree, and it’s blocking the road out of here. We’re not going anywhere today.”
She pressed her lips together. “Oh shoot, are you telling me I’m going to be stuck in a cabin for another night with the guy who made me see the golden unicorn six times last night?”
He gulped. “Six?”
“Well, six and a half, if you count that one thing.”
“Oh, I count that one thing. You bet I’m counting that.”
“Me, too.” She giggled and gave him a playful push with her foot.
He picked up her foot and held it in his lap, using his thumb to massage her instep.
She leaned back against the cushion and let out a soft moan. “That feels amazing.”
“Golden unicorn amazing?”
“Not quite that amazing—but still pretty damn good.”
Sadie jumped up onto the sofa and curled next to Avery. She stroked the dog’s back. “So, tell me about this cabin.”
He looked around the room, settling back into the cushions of the couch and continuing to rub her foot. “It belonged to my grandparents. My grandpa had this land forever, and they built the cabin on it back in the sixties. It’s gone through some major renovations since then. A couple of roofs, the addition of the bedroom and the bathroom. They added the indoor plumbing when I was a kid, and that was pretty exciting.”
“I can imagine. Did you come here a lot as a kid?”
“All the time. My gramps was the one that taught me to fish. Really he taught me everything about the outdoors. He passed away about ten years ago, left his house and his boat to my brother, and the shop and the cabin to me. My brother was happy; he sold both of his things for a bunch of cash and took the money. I kept both of mine and spent a bunch of money on them. But still, I think I got the better end of the deal.”
She glanced around the cabin then turned her face back to him with a smile. “I think so, too. I love this place.”
“You do?”
“Heck, yeah. It’s so cool. It’s charming and quaint. It seems like the perfect place for when you just want to get away and escape the madness of the world. If this were my cabin, I would bring up a stack of books, some frozen pizzas, and several cartons of ice cream, and camp out on the sofa for days.”
“Yeah, me, too. Except for the ice cream part, that basically describes my last weekend up here. And add in a little beer and some fishing.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
“My wife hated this place. Well, my ex-wife. She thought it was dirty and outdated and was always worried about snakes and bugs. She kept wanting to redecorate and hated that she couldn’t get cell service or the internet out here.”
“What? That’s crazy. That’s the point. Being here forces you to unplug, unwind, slow down, and just enjoy the peace and quiet.”
“The She-Devil did not think that way.”
“The She-Devil?”
“My ex-wife. Her name’s really Sheila.”
“I take it you two did not part on the best of terms.”
“That would be a correct assumption.”
“What happened?”
He sighed. “According to her, nothing. Nothing ever happened. Not in this town, not in our life, not in our marriage. She evidently had bigger plans for her life, and they did not include a fly-fishing shop in a small town in the mountains, with a man she often described as ‘dull’ and ‘too boring for words.’”
“What? She said that? Seriously?” Avery gasped. “What a bitch. Er—I mean—she sounds awful.”
“She was. Still is actually.”
“How could she describe you as boring? I’ve only been around you for four days and so far you’ve introduced me to cotton
candy, taken me dancing, brought me on a death-defying rafting trip, saved me from drowning, and rescued me from both a bear and a snake. Not to mention the whole shower thing and that business with the golden unicorns.”
A huge grin spread across his face. There was no denying it now. He was seriously, undeniably, head over heels in love with this woman.
“Well, I don’t recall ever doing that shower thing with her. She was more of a ‘keep it in the bedroom with the lights turned off’ kind of woman.”
“Hmmph. She sounds like the boring one to me.”
He laughed, a hearty laugh that started in his belly and shook his whole body. “I never once thought about it that way.”
“Well, you should. She doesn’t sound like the brightest bulb in the shop anyway. Did she at least like to fish?”
He laughed again. “No. She did not like to fish. She did not like to eat fish or even talk about fish. She hated fishing, and she hated that I loved it so much and that I spent so much time doing it.”
“How could she hate that? It seems to me like fishing is a part of you. Part of your soul.”
Wow. She got it. Got him. “It is.”
“Tell me. Tell me what fishing is like for you.”
“It’s hard to explain.” He looked out the window, staring into the pine trees as he thought about how to make her understand.
“Part of it is the sport itself—I find it both challenging and relaxing—and part of it is the water. I love the quiet peacefulness of the river, having the majestic mountains standing guard around me while my legs are submerged in the icy water. There’s nothing like the beauty of Colorado in the summer. And when you’re fishing, you don’t just get to look at that beauty, you get to feel like you are actually a part of it.
“And fly-fishing does take some skill. Just choosing the right fly takes studying which insects will be on the water at different times of the day and which ones light on top of the water versus swim down in it. You have to learn to read the water, understand the currents and find the small still pools where the fish congregate. And besides all that, grilled rainbow trout tastes so good.”
“I’ve never tried it.”
“You’ve never tried trout?”
“Nope. I’m more of a salmon kind of girl. Or shrimp. I love shrimp.”
