Loving Wild

by Lisa Ann Verge

  “We got a rip. Gotta get this thing out of here!” he shouted. “Keep her on the edge of the current—less pull.”

  Sweat broke out on her forehead, only to be washed away by spray as they careened past a submerged boulder. Dylan plunged his paddle into the river like a spear into a fish, holding tight with two hands while kneeling up, as high as he dared, looking forward for safety.

  They rode the edge of the current, and it was like being on the lip of a water slide—a tenuous balancing act Dylan had been right, the water level was low, and so they rode not too far above the rocky bottom of the river, with its jagged array of granite chips. The only indication of any danger below the surface was a suspicious spray or a knot in the current, not easy to see with the mist the river spewed up all around them, but Dylan seemed to sense where they were and eased them around the dangers.

  Still, even out of the center trough, they shot downstream far too fast. Casey quivered on the edge of control, She thought she might be terrified, but she didn’t have a heck of a lot of time to think about it Nor any time to take deep cleansing breaths. For they were falling, falling, down a slick chute with no eddies to veer into for safety, and no good open place along the riverbank to rest She felt, oddly, as if she were playing a video game, but her joystick wasn’t working right

  The shock of the cold water on her face was enough to remind her this wasn’t a video game. That and the tenseness of Dylan’s muscles as he crouched in the bow, jerking his paddle to one side, then another, all senses alert for reprieve.

  Then, suddenly, he said, “Uh-oh.”

  It was a small sound, but to her it sounded like a shout. “Dylan?”

  “Trouble coming.”

  “Trouble coming? Trouble coming? I’m up to my ankles in the river and you’re telling me—”

  “Hard right, Casey, then a sharp left.”

  “Hard right? But we’ll get sucked up into—”

  “Better than getting splintered.”

  “Dylan—”

  “Hard right Now!”

  She reacted by instinct. She lunged toward the left, twisting her paddle flat against the current. The canoe bucked and slid as smooth as ice into the torrent of the river.

  “Left. Left!”

  She surged the other way, rotating the paddle. The wood strained under the assault. The canoe veered, centered, then veered again, and she heard the scrape of rock against wood as they barreled past another obstacle.

  She saw a flap of bark hanging off the side and said, “We’ve got another rip.”

  Dylan glanced over his shoulder for a second and eyed the flap of bark hanging off the gunwale. “Surface. High up on the canoe. We’ll be okay.”

  “The water’s rising, Dylan.”

  “We’re almost done.”

  “Are we having fun yet?”

  She heard his laugh, high above the water, reckless and wild, a delirious, infectious sort of laugh. She felt it bubble up inside her, too, despite the danger—maybe because of the danger. Yes, maybe because of the danger.

  And for the first time in her life Casey could understand all the daredevils she’d ever interviewed. It came to her with a sudden crystal clarity; they did it for moments like this. For the utter quivering exciting thrill. For the rush of adrenaline and flood of excitement—for the thrill of living on the edge of life itself.

  She was having fun. She was having more fun than she’d ever had in her life. In this flash of a moment, riding these waves with Dylan in the bow, she felt more alive than she’d ever felt before. She was brightly, sharply, tinglingly alive.

  This is why I love this man.

  It was that simple. She loved him for taking her to the edge she’d been afraid to approach. She loved him for teaching her how to risk again. She realized she’d spent three years of her life away from everyone she loved, afraid that death would pluck someone else from her life and leave her mourning. She’d spent three years interviewing men and women who had no fear of looking death in the face—because she couldn’t.

  Dylan had given her back her life.

  “Dylan?” She cried out his name, but the wind of their passage plucked the words from the air. Then Dylan shouted something. His words fragmented against the breeze, against the solid granite wall of the cliff to their right.

  “What? Dylan, I can’t—”

  He jerked to face her. “Left, Casey, left!” They slammed into something. Casey heard a sound like a gunshot, then realized, in the split second before she tumbled out of her seat and sprawled headlong over the gear, that the gunwale of the canoe had snapped. She heard Dylan grunt, then saw him tumble back. The sky whirled above her and then the canoe heaved up and capsized, dumping everything into the drink.

  She sucked in a breath before the river yanked her under. The current seized her legs first and dragged her down so fast it forced her arms up. She shot down the torrent on her belly like a human luge. She couldn’t scream. Her ears ached at the suck of the icy water past them. Everything was white and roaring and her knees scraped the rocky bottom. She struggled to lift her head up above the surface but there didn’t seem to be a surface, just a world of spray and bubbles. The life jacket was useless, it got sucked down as easily as she had. She kicked and scratched, trying to find a foothold, then, just as suddenly as she’d been pulled under, she was spit up and thrown bodily against an obstacle.

  She gasped for air and grasped blindly for a handhold. She pressed her cheek against a rough surface and realized it was a log jutting into the river. She hefted herself up to her chest. Amid the roar she knew only one truth: She had to get out of the water.

  Somehow, she pulled and yanked and clawed herself to the riverbank without dislodging the fallen tree. The riverbank was steep and uneven. She slipped twice. She felt something sharp bite into her knee. She clambered up, gripping the roots of saplings and handfuls of moss, until she’d squeezed herself up and out of danger.

  She clsed her eyes and laid her cheek on a bed of moss. She was trembling uncontrollably. She knew she was in shock. Sensations came to her strangely disconnected. A warm rivulet of blood dripped down her shin. Her palms smarted as if the river bottom had shaved off two layers of skin. Her side ached, where she’d slammed against the tree trunk.

  “Dylan?”

  Her voice came out low, hoarse, shaky. She licked her lips and swallowed, then raised her head and forced her voice louder.

  “Dylan ?”

  She couldn’t panic. She needed to find help. She needed to find Dylan. She winced as she pushed herself to a sitting position to scan the river. No Dylan in sight. No gear in sight. No canoe in sight.

  She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the shot of pain up her side. Think. Think. She had no idea how far she’d traveled downstream. She had no idea whether Dylan was caught farther upstream, or whether he’d been swept on down.

  She headed upstream first. She squeezed through the thick woods, rushing through the brush, peering as far as she could see through the dense growth. She caught sight of some debris caught on a bush overhanging the river—it looked like clothing. She couldn’t get close enough to tell whose it was.

  She stopped and started walking in a tight little circle. Dylan. Dylan. She had visions in her head of Dylan’s broken body caught against a boulder; Dylan’s shirt caught in a bush and his head underwater; Dylan unconscious, slammed against boulders. She had visions of farmland strewn with twisted metal and bits of clothing and seat cushions hanging from trees.

  She caught her lip on the quiver of a sob. No. No, she couldn’t panic. Not now. She called his name. Heedless of the thickness of the woods, the close fit of sapling against sapling fighting for space, she surged downstream. Branches whipped her face, tore at her clothes. She couldn’t panic, not now.

  She started to run. She knew her knees hurt with every jar, but it was a faraway sort of sensation, for her world was peeling into two. She recognized this sensation; she’d lived it before. It was as if she were h
anging back, hovering over herself, watching herself make decisions and go through the motions of searching for Dylan; and this part of her hovering high in the trees was the calm part, the detached part, the quiet part—the safe part.

  She saw herself scan the river. She saw herself recognize a backpack bobbing on the current, rising from deep under the water and then shooting up out of it A tear rent its side and the contents tumbled out with each twirl out of the river, as if it were some sort of predator’s prey being disemboweled, then consumed.

  But there was no Dylan attached to it.

  From a faraway place she heard herself shout. She saw herself hurl through the woods. She saw herself scrape her battered hands on the rough bark of birch trees, and trip on upraised roots. A clock ticked in her mind—How long can a man last underwater? The cold will help, yes. Yes, the cold would help. She’d once taken a CPR class at the community college after her grandfather had had a stroke and had come to live with her parents. How many seconds was she supposed to wait between breaths? She couldn’t remember. She just couldn’t remember—

  “Dylan!”

  The tightness in her chest—Yes, she remembered this. She remembered this pain.

  “Dylan!”

  11

  DYLAN HEARD CASEY’S voice long before he heard her crashing through the woods. He stopped in his tracks and gripped a sapling so he wouldn’t fall to his knees in relief.

  “Casey! Over here!”

  She made a strange sound, a half shout, half cry. He saw a flash of her between the trees. She’s all right. Oh, God, she’s all right. When he’d gone under he’d caught a glimpse of her sliding down the river, but that was the last he saw before he, too, had been sucked under. Then he’d rolled around in the surf, scoured against the granite wall, and done the best he could to struggle to safety.

  He straightened as he saw her, wincing as pain shot through him. He hadn’t taken a moment to catalog his own injuries once he’d scrambled out of the river. He was too worried about Casey. Now, he realized he might have broken a rib or two. He couldn’t tell; he was too cold, and he was more concerned about the woman struggling out of the thicket toward him.

  By the way she was moving, all her limbs seemed to be intact. Blood coursed down both her knees and stained the dirty canvas of her sneakers. Her face was as white as snow under the red welts that crossed her cheeks. She froze to the spot when she caught sight of him. Her eyes were wide and strangely wild.

  All he could think as he stumbled toward her was Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God….

  He should never have asked her to run these rapids. If the water level had been higher, they would have been safe. But this late in the summer the water was low and fast and splintered by debris. She’d gotten so good at it. He’d been too eager to see her smiling wide with her eyes full of excitement, he’d been too eager to encourage the daredevil he now knew lived within her.

  But there was more to it. He’d wanted her to depend on him. He’d wanted her to put her wholehearted trust in him. He’d wanted to look in her eyes when she made that decision. Because if he could get Casey to trust him, maybe, just maybe, he could also get her to love him. For Dylan had come to the inescapable conclusion that he’d fallen in love—all over again.

  Damn him for being a fool, he thought, as he made his way toward her, wincing with every step. But if he didn’t feel like he’d been kicked by a horse, he would fall to his knees and asked the woman to marry him right here, right now.

  Something made him pause as he reached her. She just stood there. Shivering. Breathing hard. Staring at him with those strange, wild eyes while water dripped down her face.

  “Casey…are you all right?”

  Her jaw tightened. One eyelid twitched. A shudder shook her body from head to foot She managed a single croaky word.

  “No.”

  Oh, God. He reached for her. “Is anything broken? Did you knock your head—”

  She slapped his hand away. “No.”

  “What? What?” Then he saw the wide amber gaze she cast toward him, he saw the fear in those eyes, and part of his heart melted. “Aw, Casey…”

  He lifted his arms to hold her, to pull her to his chest—but she lashed out and shoved his arms away.

  In the second before she lunged at him, he saw a flash of indescribable rage in her eyes, and he caught a glimpse of a kind of pain he could not begin to imagine. Then, before he could see anymore, she lowered her head, raised her fists and pummeled his chest.

  While he gritted his teeth against the pain shooting up his side, he tried to seize her by the wrists. She was fast, she was angry, and her knuckles were like eight little hammers on the bruised muscles of his chest and abdomen. He had to stop her from hurting him, but he didn’t want to stop her from feeling her own pain. He had guessed that she’d been suppressing this pain for too many years. He wanted her to feel it and get over it, so she could get on with her life. A life with him, if he had his way.

  So he bit the inside of his cheek as he let her vent her rage on his chest, guarding his weaker side as best as he could. Her wild dark hair swung around her head, spraying the woods with water. He sensed the moment when her cries turned to sobs and her punches weakened. It seemed to take a long time; it seemed he stood forever under these leafy trees while she struggled with her own demons. In the end she sagged, and he opened his arms to her.

  But the fight was not quite over. She pushed away and stumbled back against a tree trunk. “No,” she said, swiping her tears with the butt of a dirty hand. “No, no, no. Don’t do that again, Dylan.”

  He stood with his arms spread out and tried to give her a smile. “What? Hold you? Or let you beat me bloody?”

  He regretted the attempt at humor immediately. He let his smile die. By the sight of her tearstained face, this wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped for.

  “You told me,” she said in a voice hoarse with screaming and tears, “that we could do this.”

  “I thought we could.”

  “You were wrong.”

  She screamed the word, leaning forward as she did so, launching the sound through the woods with all the anger in her heart. Then, just as quickly, she leaned back against the tree trunk and hid her mouth with a trembling hand.

  “No, Casey,” he said softly, tenderly probing his bad side, “I wasn’t wrong. We’re here, aren’t we? We’re alive—”

  ‘But for the grace of God—”

  “Yeah, but we’re alive.”

  “I trusted you!”

  “Did I let you down?”

  “Yes.”

  That, too, a shout, echoing on the granite walls beyond the river. “Casey, do you think for one minute, I’d have intentionally dumped us both into that river?”

  Her brow furrowed, she shook her head, but she seemed incapable of speech.

  “Of course not,” he answered for her. “I want a shower, but I want a hot one. And I like my skin.” He managed a tentative step in her direction. “We can’t control everything that happens. And you can’t spend a lifetime trying to be safe and comfortable, or you’ll lead a dull life.”

  “Rather a dull life,” she persisted. “We never should have done this. You could have been killed—”

  “Yes, and so could you,” he interrupted. “But we weren’t, and the expedition will go on.”

  “Just like that,” she whispered, and it was as if the effort took all her energy. “Just like that,” she repeated. “You fall into mountain water and are pushed a mile or so over gravel until you don’t have any skin left on your knees or hands and all you have to say is, ‘The expedition will go

  Her voice had risen with each word.

  ‘I didn’t lure you out here on the premise that there would be no risk. There is always risk, Casey. In everything we do.”

  “Stop it! You sound like Jillian.”

  “Who the hell is Jillian?”

  “A friend. Someone I need to talk to, right n
ow.”

  “Talk to me,” he said, feeling his own anger burn. “Talk to me, Casey. I’m here, and I’m all ears. Or is it that you don’t consider me a friend?”

  Her gaze skittered away, nervous and fearful. “You can’t help me—You don’t understand.”

  “I’m the only one who can help you. I’m the only one who understands what just happened here on this river.”

  “that not what I’m talking about”

  “Isn’t it? Isn’t this all about choices, Casey? What choices we’re about to make?” He swiveled and gestured toward the river. “We’ve been dumped in the river, we’ve lost our gear, we’re miles from civilization and both of us are hurt and bleeding. What choice do we have? Should we sit here and mourn about the disaster? Should we hide our heads in the dirt? Should we run in another direction? Or should we pick up where we left off and keep going?”

  “Is that what you did,” she asked in a small, angry voice, “after your wives left? Just picked up where you left off and kept going?”

  Then he turned and glared at her, for there was something accusing in her voice, something bitter and biting. And he began to wonder what all this hysteria, what all this anger, was really about.

  “Yes, that’s what I did,” he retorted. “I picked up where I’d left off and kept going. And if you think that’s the easier path, then think twice, lady, how easy it is walking around your own hometown wearing a pair of horns.”

  Dylan jerked away and raked a hand through his hair. What the hell was going on here? What the hell were they talking about? All he wanted to do was crush her in his arms, but she looked as if she would shatter if he took another step too close. Instead they were standing here bleeding and yelling at each other, and it was as if the battering of the accident had ripped open more than flesh. For both of them.

  Softly she asked, “Why didn’t you leave? Why did you stay?”

  Dylan glared at her. He didn’t want to talk about this. He was battered and beaten enough—he saw no reason to probe the wound. But she was calm for a moment. Quiet. Attentive. He supposed that alone was enough reason to talk about the unspeakable.