Amber scoffed. “I’m not your hiking partner.”
“Once we find a place to hide out for a while, I can put something on your feet. You’re not going to cop out on me now, are you? It’s a little too early for that.”
She groaned. “Just leave me here to die, Scott.”
Scott gave her hand a squeeze. Her choice of words sent an uncomfortable feeling up his arm from where their hands were joined. She’d already made reference to dying earlier with those outlaws. He shook off the weird sensation.
“You’re ready to quit? Check out on life before you’ve even given it a chance?” He smiled even though she couldn’t see him.
“Exactly.”
Scott’s forehead scrunched. Annoyance replaced the odd feeling. “I’ve got news for you, Amber. You’re with me now. Whether you like it or not, you’re my hiking partner, and that means you give a hundred and fifty percent, no excuses. Quitting is not an option.”
Amber’s abrupt stop pulled his arm backward. He spun around, straining his eyes to see.
“What’s wrong now?”
“You don’t understand.”
There was just enough light that he could make out her facial features. Her eyes were wide and pleading. They even shimmered with excess moisture.
“I understand that you’re tired, and I promise we’ll stop soon. It’s almost dawn.”
“No, you don’t seem to be taking me seriously.” Her voice took on a cold edge. “I want to die.”
Scott stared for a second. He ran his hand over his face. After nearly three days without shaving the rough whiskers scraped his fingers.
“I’m not leaving you here to die.”
“But it’s what I want.”
Scott reached for her hand and took a step closer. “No one wants to die, Amber. That’s just the fatigue talking.”
She pulled her hand out of his grip. Anger blazed in her eyes. Through gritted teeth, her words were slow and forceful.
“No, Scott. I want to die.”
Chapter 9
Amber slumped to the ground with a low moan. Her head pounded, her mouth was so dry that her tongue stuck to her upper palate, her stomach growled, her legs throbbed, and the blisters on her feet burned with the slightest movement. Not to mention she was exhausted.
“You need to drink some water.”
Scott handed her the canteen. With great effort, she raised her arm to take it from him. She glanced up at Scott’s image coming in and out of focus. When was the last time she’d slept? Her mind was numb to anything around her. If only she could close her eyes and not wake up. That’s how she’d envisioned her death, but no one would let her die in peace.
Ashley had freaked out when she’d told her of her plan to go off alone somewhere and die. Telling someone had seemed like the right thing to do so people wouldn’t have to wonder and worry about her.
She’d formulated her plan months ago, because it was better than the alternative. A trip to the past had seemed like the perfect solution. No worries about anyone knowing her and talking her out of it, and no one would even understand what she was doing.
Scott didn’t even believe that she was being serious. He simply laughed it off, as if it was so incomprehensible that someone would want to stop living. No doubt he’d never had a bad day in all of his entitled years of life, so there was no possible way for him to understand.
A short while ago when she’d argued with him that she really did want to die, she hadn’t bothered to explain herself. He hadn’t said anything either, and had simply taken her hand and kept walking. It had been light enough to see the annoyed frown on his face.
Amber handed the canteen back to him after taking several sips. There wasn’t much water in it, and Scott hadn’t taken a drink all night, from what she could tell.
Dawn had come slowly, and with it, the ability to see where they were going. They’d made their way to an area with sparse trees that provided some shade. The ground was covered in yellow grass. It wasn’t exactly soft, but it was better than standing. Amber reached to unzip her shoes. Maybe if she could take them off for a while, the throbbing would stop.
“Not exactly the best shoes to be hiking in.”
Scott knelt beside her and helped her peel off her ankle boots. She hissed at the sharp pain when the boot scraped along a blister on her heel. More blisters on her large and small toes revealed themselves when she peeled off her thin socks.
“I think I’ve got something in my pack for blisters,” Scott offered. “Let your feet air out a little, then I’ll put some moleskin over the sores. Try and close your eyes for a while.”
He offered a smile. The cocky grin and twinkle in his eyes that he’d displayed before was gone. He was as fatigued as she was, but he didn’t linger, and stood off to the side near the tree.
Amber curled up in a ball on the hard ground. Her back was too sore from the jostling wagon ride to lean against the tree. Scott removed his pack.
“Here, use this as a pillow. You’ll be more comfortable.”
“Aren’t you going to rest?” Amber looked at the backpack he set next to her head.
It was his pack, and he was going to give it to her for her comfort? Guilt nagged at her, along with a tug on her heart. She’d completely misjudged Scott Kincaid. He’d done nothing but try and look out for her from the very moment they’d time traveled. Even when he’d miscalculated by telling her to hide in the back of the wagon, he’d been looking out for her safety.
Amber blinked away the sting in her eyes. She didn’t deserve any of it. She wasn’t worth all the trouble. Her lids grew heavy until they closed and she shut out the sounds and images around her, as well as those in her head.
Next to her, something moved on the ground and gentle hands lifted her head, then lowered it onto something soft. The change in position instantly eased the discomfort in her neck. Calloused fingers grazed along her cheek, pushing aside strands of her hair. Scott’s soothing voice next to her ear removed any last remnants of tension from her body.
“Sleep well, Amber. Things will look better in a while, after you’re rested.”
A fire crackled and popped somewhere close by. Amber’s body jerked, startling her fully awake. The strong scent of wood smoke made her cough. She blinked away the confusion in her foggy mind. She leaned on her tingling arm to push her upper body off the ground.
Blood rushed into her limb, turning the tingling sensation into jabs like those from a hot needle. Amber shook her arm to bring life and circulation back, then glanced around. Was she back in camp with the outlaws?
Birds chirped above her and a slight breeze rustled the leaves in the trees. While she was lying in a shady spot, the bright sun illuminated the dried grasses on the ground.
She sat up fully and rubbed at her throbbing temples. Every part of her body ached, and a slight shiver passed through her. It hadn’t been all that cold during the night, but probably because she’d been walking and moving around. Now that she’d been lying on the hard ground, there was a chill in the air despite the sunshine.
“Did you sleep well?”
Amber blinked again and focused her eyes to where the familiar voice had come from. Scott crouched in front of the fire, holding a stick over the flames with something charred and black-looking attached to the end. He smiled at her, looking much too chipper and alert.
“How long did I sleep?” she croaked. She cleared her throat in an effort to get rid of the dryness.
“About four hours would be my guess. It probably did you some good.”
Amber combed her fingers through her hair and sat straighter. She gritted her teeth at the pain in her feet when her big toe on one foot scraped against the blister on her left heel. She was still barefoot. Getting back into her shoes would be an ordeal.
She stood, stretching out the stiffness in her back and limbs. All her joints seemed to hurt, worsened with each move she made. She stared at Scott. He still looked at her as if he was trying to fig
ure something out. She turned her eyes, and stared at the backpack on the ground that had been her pillow and kept her head at least somewhat comfortable. Guilt nagged at her again that Scott was in this predicament mainly because of her.
“Did you sleep?”
He shrugged. “A little. Then this nice little lizard decided to wander into our camp, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”
Amber stared at the thing on the end of Scott’s stick. Her nose wrinkled.
“Lizard? You’re going to eat that?”
He nodded. His smile widened. “I bet it tastes like chicken, and you’ve got to admit, anything will be better than those biscuits the other guys were eating.”
Amber shook her head. “Enjoy it. I’m not eating that.”
Her stomach grumbled loudly as if in protest to what she’d said. There was no way she could bring herself to eat a lizard.
Scott stood and moved around the fire, holding his skewered reptile up in front of him. It looked like a nondescript, charred, mini asteroid that had landed on Earth.
“You can have the first bite,” he offered. His smile turned into that annoying grin.
Amber stared at him. His dark hair shone in the sunlight, and his face looked even darker with his five o’clock shadow that was several days old now. While she hadn’t given it much thought before, Scott definitely had some Native American heritage in his background.
She tore her eyes away from him, and looked at something off in the distance. If only he’d act like a jerk again, it would be easier to ignore that Scott was a good-looking guy. Out here in the middle of nowhere, he looked as if he was part of the surroundings. Wild, untamed, rugged, and without fear. There wasn’t a familiar sound to be heard, other than birds chirping and the breeze rustling through the trees.
Amber mentally shook her head. This was exactly the sort of place she’d envisioned coming to when she’d decided to end her life. Somewhere peaceful and pretty, where she could look up at the sky or gaze out at the landscape while she drifted off to sleep. Her hand went to the back pocket of her jeans and felt for the pills she kept there. Most of them were still there, while many had probably been pulverized by the bumpy wagon ride.
“It’s going to get cold before you make up your mind.”
Scott’s words brought her out of her thoughts. She waved her hand in front of her face and wrinkled her nose.
“I said I wasn’t going to eat it. There’ll be more for you.”
“It’s either this or I can fix you some sautéed bugs, but I’m fresh out of butter and garlic. There was a termite mound nearby, and I found an old log that’s sure to have some grubs hiding underneath it.”
Amber stared at him. “You can’t be serious. You’d eat that?”
“There’s a lot of things I’d eat in a survival situation that’s not on my normal menu.” He tore a piece of the charred meat from the stick and popped it into his mouth, making a show of chewing in front of her.
“Tastes like chicken, like I said.”
She turned away from him, facing the breeze. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Scott stepped around to stand next to her. He didn’t say anything, and Amber kept her eyes straight ahead. When his hand touched her arm, her head whipped around to stare up at him.
“Starving yourself is a really slow and agonizing way to die. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Amber’s eyes narrowed. “Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated, Scott.”
For once, his face turned serious. He glared right back at her. “Neither is your talk of dying. What could possibly be so bad that you’d want to commit suicide? Who talks like that?”
His voice rose in anger, accompanied by a fierce, almost menacing look in his eyes. Amber met his challenging stare without flinching. Maybe he deserved an answer, then he could find his way back to Heartsbridge and leave her behind. His chances of getting home would be much better without dragging her along. Amber inhaled to fill her lungs, then uttered the three words she’d said to Ashley when she’d called her cousin to tell her what she’d planned to do.
“Gestational trophoblastic tumor.”
She waited for a reaction. Scott frowned and shook his head. The anger on his face eased somewhat, replaced with confusion in his gaze.
“Tumor?” he echoed. He paused as his eyes pored over her. “You have cancer?”
Amber nodded. Her throat constricted painfully while the back of her eyes stung. She blinked rapidly, then wrapped her arms around her waist and faced away from him. It was always the same. That look of disbelief initially, then the pity. Next he would tell her how sorry he was and ask about a prognosis.
Scott tossed the skewer with the rest of his breakfast into the fire. She stiffened when warm hands clamped around her upper arms and tugged at her to turn around. When she resisted, his hold became stronger, and he moved around her to face her.
“I don’t need your pity,” she spat. “I just want to be left alone so I won’t be a burden to anyone anymore.”
Scott looked down at her. His intense stare beckoned her to raise her head.
“You won’t get pity from me.” His voice had dropped to a low growl. “In fact, I want to throttle you right now and knock some sense into you.”
Amber’s eyes widened. She leaned away from him, but he refused to release her. She glared at him when his angry look returned.
“Let go of me.”
Instead of letting go, he took a step closer until their bodies nearly touched.
“I don’t know what kind of cancer it is you have, and you can tell me later, but I’m not letting go until you tell me why you’re not fighting this.”
Amber’s mouth opened to speak, but she had no response because no one had ever reacted this way to her news. Anger welled up inside her. Anger at her predicament, and anger at Scott for his no-nonsense remark.
“You know nothing about what I’m going through, Scott, so you have no right to judge me.”
His lips twitched and curved upward. It wasn’t a smile, though. It was more of a sneer.
“I know more about what it’s like to be on death’s doorstep than most people.”
Chapter 10
Scott dropped his arms. His jaw clenched. Amber stared up at him, clearly at a loss for a comeback to his words. She was looking for one, it was written all over her face, and he was ready. It would be the same argument he’d given to Cheryl and to his folks a little more than a year ago.
Abruptly, Amber dropped her gaze and turned away from him. She mumbled something about needing some privacy, then rushed off into the bushes, despite being barefoot. No doubt it was more comfortable than walking in her dressy little boots that had left her feet blistered and raw.
Scott turned to the fire. He kicked some dirt over it to put out the flames and to minimize the smoke. Although he was reasonably sure that Jeb and the others hadn’t followed this far, it was best not to draw attention. They might still see or smell the smoke from a larger campfire.
He grabbed his backpack and rummaged through it for some moleskin and ointment for Amber’s feet. If only he had an extra pair of socks, it would help, too. Hers were so thin, they could barely qualify for socks and, no doubt had contributed to her blisters. He gazed off into the distance.
Buttes and vistas that looked bare and rocky stretched out along the horizon to the right. In the other direction, the terrain looked flat. This sparsely forested area was the logical place to find water, but so far there hadn’t even been a trickle or moist ground. The grass here was as dry as the dirt. The best he could do was continue to head south and hope to find some kind of water source. If Vin had been telling the truth, the river he’d talked about could still be a long way off.
Scott reached for the canteen and shook it. It was about half-full. Not enough water to last even one person for the day. He uncorked it and took a small drink, just enough to moisten his mouth. He glanced up at the sky, squinting into the bright sunlight. It wasn’t too
warm, but that could change as the day wore on.
He lowered himself onto a rock and ran his fingers through his hair, staring in the direction where Amber had disappeared. His initial impression of her when they’d met along the highway three days ago had been completely false. The way she’d handled herself with those outlaws and again all through the night, had been surprising in more ways than one.
The more time he spent with her, the more he liked her. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself, and she wasn’t a whiny girl who shed fake tears to get attention. She was vibrant and full of life, except for one minor detail. She had cancer, and she was letting it get the best of her.
Amber’s reason for wanting to end her life had come as a shock. He’d never heard of the type of cancer she’d mentioned, but he was going to find out. There had to be something that could be done. Had she already exhausted all treatment options? She certainly didn’t look like someone who’d recently gone through cancer treatment.
She was too young to give up, and under her glum exterior was a woman ready to take life head on. The kind of woman he should have dated rather than the ones he’d chosen in the past.
Scott shook his head and stared off in the direction they needed to go. The sooner they left this camp, the quicker they could find a way back to town, and from there, home to the century in which they belonged. Then he could find out exactly what kind of help she needed to get proper treatment.
She was scared, and it caused her to act irrationally. How well he understood the fear of dying, even if his experience was different than hers. It had consumed him, nearly driven him mad to seek a desperate solution to his improbable chance of survival, but he’d taken a different route than Amber. He hadn’t given up.
That inner drive to live had saved him, whereas Amber was under the assumption that there was no hope. She didn’t seem to realize that she’d been fighting against impossible odds since they’d been transported to the past. If she really wanted to die, she wouldn’t have stood up to those thugs, or walked half the night to get to this point in their journey. If only there was something –
Timeless Bond (Timeless Hearts Book 8) Page 7
