by E. F. Jacks
Each time I shut my eyes, desperate to rest, I’m alarmed by even the slightest noise outside the tent. The normally peaceful sound of the wind rippling the river unnerves me. Somehow, I fall asleep.
I wake up to the sound of birds chirping and sunlight glowing into the tent through the nylon panels. My wet hair has created a groove in my sleeping bag overnight. I check the watch I packed because I knew my phone battery would go dead sooner or later. It hasn’t yet. My phone is of little use to me out here, so I’ve kept it shut off.
It’s after five in the morning. Ellis doesn’t seem to show any sign of waking soon. I sit up and towel dry my hair as best as I can. My underwear has dried overnight, and I change into the same clothes I wore yesterday. Fresh clothes every couple days are like a luxury out here.
It’s safer now that it’s bright, and I head out into the day to fetch my shampoo and conditioner, if I can.
I don’t have to go far after unzipping the flap. My half-filled bottles have been carefully placed right outside the tent’s opening. A shiver crawls through me. I snatch the bottles and duck back inside the tent.
Ellis is sitting on his sleeping bag, getting dressed.
“Did you put my shampoo and conditioner bottles outside?” I look away from him as he pulls on his pants.
He cocks his head. “No, why?”
I tell him what happened last night.
“You went swimming?” he says.
“Bathing,” I clarify.
His face reddens. “Naked?” he asks huskily.
He isn’t wearing a shirt yet. I glance at his feet. “Not totally.”
“It was probably some animal in the woods.”
I face him and quickly shake my head. “It was too loud for that, Ellis, and I swear I heard a person breathing. And there were these…boot prints.”
He moves his head back and his eyes widen.
I square my shoulders and brace myself for his fury. “I don’t know what’s going on here. It wasn’t you, was it? I won’t be mad if you were trying to peek or whatever. But please be honest with me.”
Ellis breathes out through his nose like he resents my accusation. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he snaps back. “You’re not bad to look at, but I’m not a pervert. I want to make that clear. Just because I spend a lot of my time in the outdoors doesn’t mean my manners are caveman.”
His anger jolts me back. “I’m sorry.” I gradually meet his gaze. His resentment is so powerful I have to turn away.
“Other guides might up and leave you here after what you said.”
“Ellis, I’m truly sorry.” I choke back tears. “Ellis, I—”
“You didn’t let me finish. I’ll complete the job. I’m not the kind of guy who bails out on a commitment.”
From the slump of his shoulders as he pulls a shirt over his head I can tell I’ve genuinely hurt him. Can he ever forgive me for doubting him?
I stare at the branch scratch on my arm. I didn’t dream what happened.
Ellis glances at me. “Are you okay?”
My voice is hoarse. “Yeah.”
Ellis squints over at me, like he doesn’t believe my answer. “I’ll go check things out to see if I can find those boot prints, okay?”
His words comfort me somewhat.
Chapter Eight
Ellis
After I pack up the tent and load our gear into the raft, I switch on the radio channel to speak with Tom, Fiona’s boss at River Tours. I’ve been instructed to have everything go as smoothly as possible. The radio is in a waterproof case with a shoulder strap that I’ve been lugging around every time we go onshore.
Pauline waits by the raft, bundled up in her life jacket. I have to say she confuses me. The night of the storm, I could have sworn she wanted me to kiss her. And then this morning she accuses me of spying on her, which I wasn’t. I hope she’s not mad because she’s on to me about the sunscreen I borrowed from her awhile back while she was sleeping. I could so easily fall for Pauline. But I can’t. Because I can’t see her again after the trip. And I don’t want to disappoint her. Or for her to get hurt because of me.
I wait a moment or two for the radio to warm up and call into River Tours headquarters.
A steady, deep voice comes on immediately. “Ellis?”
“Hey. Tom?”
“You mean to tell me you don’t recognize my voice?” A hearty chuckle resounds on his end. His voice is that of a benevolent uncle. “How’s it going out there? I’ve been hoping to hear from you.”
“We’re all right.” He’s quiet on the other end. “Tom?”
“Ellis, you sound different.” He pauses, clears his throat, but he doesn’t sound worried. He’s tired, and I can tell from the strain in his voice.
“I have a cold.” My ears are ringing again, and my head is pounding. I rub the side of my face and try to listen to him.
“Sorry to hear that. Listen, we can’t reach Fiona at all, so I went over to her house. Just got back from there, actually. No one was home.”
“Did you look in?”
“I called the police. They’re on their way to Fiona’s place. The whole thing feels a little off.”
Pauline has sneaked up behind me and is peering over my shoulder at the radio. Tom’s voice is cut off and fades as I quickly shut off the radio to protect her from hearing anything else. The more I’ve gotten to know Pauline, the less I like lying to her. But I risk losing my job if everything doesn’t go effortlessly. I can’t have her freaking out on me.
My eyes settle on Pauline. The color’s drained from her pretty, sun-kissed face. “I guess you heard that.”
Her voice is just above a whisper. “I heard everything. This is horrible. I only met Fiona once, but I feel terrible. Is she okay?”
Her face is so pale and worried, her voice so fragile, that I take her hands in mine. I want to hold her and reassure her. Only, I can’t. “Pauline, no one knows anything for sure. But I’m sure Tom won’t stop searching for answers.”
Pauline shakes her hands out of mine. Somehow I’ve reached a vulnerable place inside her, and she’s frightened. She’s strong minded, but I’ve come to grasp how susceptible she is under her hard exterior.
She tilts her face away from me. “I feel responsible somehow.”
I take a step closer to her and reach out to assure her she’s wrong. “You’re not to blame.”
“Yeah, but I’m spooked. Think about it. She’s about to go on my trip, then all of the sudden no one can reach her. And last night I think I hear someone watching me—”
“Pauline,” I say in a hoarse whisper. She looks at me, and her eyes lighten a shade in the sun, from brown to amber, the color I love the most. “It isn’t your fault. At all.”
Although similar thoughts have occurred to me, my mission is to complete the journey and stay out of anything else. It’s my job to calm her and finish the trip with her. But I’m determined to protect her too.
Her eyes pierce through mine, and I’m unable to look elsewhere. “You’re sure, Ellis?”
“Oh, God, yes, I am.” I move forward to pull her in for a hug.
She pats my arm, shakes her head. “Please, I can’t.”
I speak before thinking. “Honey, it’s okay.” She’s certainly not my honey. “I didn’t mean to imply…I got caught up in the moment.”
Her hands fall to her hips. “What did you expect me to do, drop into your arms because I’m upset?”
Damn, she’s sexy when she’s flustered. “You didn’t seem to mind the attention the other night.”
“How do you know how I felt that night? You’re not me. You don’t even know me.” She’s yelling now, and her eyes are red and beginning to water.
She’s so hot when she’s angry. My groin clenches and I almost have to fan myself. “I’m sorry. I am. It won’t happen again.” Her eyes are brimful with tears. I want to ask her why she’s so unhappy and find out her story.
“Did you ever find the boot prints?”
she asks.
“What are you talking about?”
Pauline comes closer. She isn’t crying anymore. There’s frustration in her voice. “The boot prints I saw, Ellis, in the mud. You said you would go see if you could find them.”
Blood rushes to my head and my ears burn. I genuinely have no idea what she means. I don’t remember promising her anything. Then comes the ringing in my ears again. Only, this time it’s louder, like a blaring alarm clock. I can’t look at her. The pain is so intense I can hardly keep my eyes open. “We better get going if we want to stay on course.” She once said I was a hero. A real hero would know just the right thing to say to console her.
“Ellis?”
I don’t look at her. There’s silence behind me, and then her step falls into place with mine.
Chapter Nine
Pauline
The next afternoon, Ellis seems to have forgotten, or at least overlooked, the tension bubbling between us. I’ve come to believe I didn’t actually hear a person the night I went swimming, and in my deranged state of mind I must have forgotten I brought my bottles back to the tent. The boot prints could have been from a day or so before.
There’s now a reserved sense of normalcy between us as Ellis and I ride in the raft. He treats me as he would a customer, and is accommodating, indicating points of interest along the way with a smile. I pick up his cue and treat him as I would a guide.
And the thing about him not remembering to look for the boot prints? His journal is starting to make a little sense. For somebody so young, his memory isn’t good. What is that about?
As I paddle behind him, his smooth neck muscles tense as he lifts his paddle out of the frothy, rolling water, then lowers it and slices through the current, it occurs to me we had been becoming friends. Except it was cut short by me, when I put up my shield and blocked him from reaching me. With the trip, I’ve already put my fate in his larger hands. Do I want to put my heart in them as well? I could get used to him calling me honey, and that alarms me, because after Seth, I’ve sworn off guys and vow not to get trapped in my emotions again. Way down inside I suspect Ellis might empower me to let down my defenses. Only I don’t know how to tell him he has a chance and to keep on trying.
He stops paddling in front of me. I’m jolted forward and my paddle almost dunks into the water when the raft comes to a halt. The raft dips in and out of the fast moving water.
Irritation tints my words, but my chest is tight because I can sense apprehension coming from Ellis. “What are you doing?” He wouldn’t have ceased for just anything. Something’s wrong. Then I see what’s made him stop.
An empty blue raft bobs near the white-pebbled beach directly to our right. It floats away from the shore’s edge, and then towards it again.
I stand up partway in the raft, crane my neck and look for signs of paddles nearby. Most raft paddles are floatable, like Ellis’s are. There are no paddles around the abandoned raft or on the white strip of beach, and there are coppery red patches on the raft’s sides.
Ellis speaks in a low voice, as though we’re discussing a secret. “Is that…?”
My response is barely a whisper. “Yes, it’s blood.” We speak quietly, as if we’re not alone. I recall my encounter the other night and shudder. What if…What if someone’s been hurt or killed? The raft looks familiar to me. “That’s Doug and Helen’s raft.” I recognize it because of the logo—the cowboy holding the paddle atop a grinning horse.
My chest squeezes so hard I can barely breathe as my eyes search for a sign of the family, those two little boys, somewhere on land or in the water. Although I don’t know Doug, Helen, and their boys well, I hope nothing terrible has happened to them. “I don’t like the looks of this.” Ellis begins to call out hello. His echo rings sharp and clear in the unending wilderness. I shush him before he shouts again. He glances at me behind him. “What is it?”
I shrug one shoulder. “What if someone’s out there, watching us?”
“Someone who might have hurt them?”
I nod.
Ellis straightens and takes off his shirt. “I better check to see if I can find them, to see if anyone’s hurt.”
“You’re going in the water?”
“We’ll search around their raft first, and then I’ll swim to shore and search there. Their raft’s high up. Someone could be down in there and we wouldn’t see them.”
I shield my face from the sun with my hand and look up at him. “How come I can’t come onshore?”
“Because just in case.”
“In case?”
“In case it isn’t safe. This way, you have a chance to escape.”
“And leave you here?”
He digs into his bag, and then tucks a sleek steel object into his pocket. “I can take care of myself.”
I stand up and jab my thumb to my chest. “So can I.” The raft shifts under my weight and I slip backwards.
Ellis reaches over and steadies me. “Looks like you could use a little assistance.” He grins.
I shake him off and sit back down with my paddle in my lap, smiling despite myself.
Ellis steps out of his jeans. “Stay here after we check their raft, okay? Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Why can’t we pull our raft up to the beach?”
“Because we don’t know what happened. We don’t know if there’s any danger out there.”
My mouth hangs open. I’m too busy getting a good look at him to fear what might be out there. Guilt catches in my throat when I think of Helen, Doug, and their boys. My eyes slide along Ellis’s broad chest and then down to his firm stomach.
Despite what almost unfolded between us the other night, I know my place as a customer, and remain seated. “I understand. I’ll wait here.”
Ellis draws our raft up to the side of the other one and checks inside. My heart lifts from anticipating that Helen, Doug, and the boys are somehow all in there. Ellis gazes back at me with disappointment shining in his eyes and shakes his head. He uses his paddle to hook their raft toward us and attaches theirs to ours with a piece of rope so we can tow it behind us once he returns from the shore.
Ellis climbs off our raft and eases himself down into the river. His arms cut wide, powerful strokes in the water. I keep our raft in place as best as I can and hold my breath until he arrives onshore.
Ellis quickens his strokes once he’s almost reached the beach. He shakes himself off on land and then walks the length of the beach, bending every so often to inspect something.
What would it feel like to be trapped under him in bed? In light of what’s happened, I feel terrible that my mind’s going to that sexy place. He’s so…hot. And different. Perhaps too different for it to ever work between us.
The wind is light, but the raft begins to drift, forcing me to dip my paddle into the river and stroke so that it stays relatively in place.
“Everything okay out there?”
I look up, and Ellis stands on the pebbled shore with his hands on his hips, watching me struggle to keep the raft from floating too far off. I wave my hand to let him know I’m fine. And I hope I will be.
He enters the thick forest surrounding the beach and calls out for Doug and Helen. His voice rings clear across the water.
Somehow I manage to keep the raft from leaving Ellis behind. After a while, he swims back to me. He declines my offer to lend him a hand, and hoists himself up inside.
I give him a few moments to catch his breath before asking questions. “Did you find anything?” I hand him my towel.
Ellis shakes his head and dries himself off. “It’s like they disappeared.”
He exchanges the towel for his clothes, which I draped over his seat.
“Should we search farther in the woods for them?” I ask. The towel is damp in my hand and smells wonderfully of him.
Ellis sighs and hunkers down in the raft, pulling his pants over his legs. Water glistens on his skin, and I look away. “I’ve thought about looking mor
e. But it’s getting into the afternoon. Since it’s only me here with you and you’re a beginner, I don’t think it’d be a good idea, in case I don’t make it back before dark.” His shirt rustles as he pulls it over his head.
“But they might not be hurt, right?” I peek behind at the blood smeared over their raft and shudder.
Ellis is silent for a few moments. “I hope they aren’t. Honestly? The blood…it’s…it doesn’t look good for them.”
“What do you mean?” The towel drops from my hand to the raft floor.
He rises and places his hand on my shoulder. “If they ditched their raft for some reason, and a member of their party is injured enough to have lost as much blood as is on the raft, and they decided to hike out of here, well, whoever was injured would have a hard time making it back to civilization.”
I look down at his hand and he removes it. Then I think of Helen and Doug and their two boys and my breathing stills. “What do we do? We have to help them if we can.”
Ellis’s eyes fix on mine and linger. “I can call into the ranger station. They’ll respond faster than the police can.” He picks up my towel from the floor and sets it on my bag. Then he shifts away from me and opens the radio case.
Something strikes me. I might not be finishing Sam’s journey in her honor as I intended, if Ellis plans for us to stay put for the rangers. All that matters is a tragedy may have occurred and we have to do everything we can to help that family. “So, we’re going to wait here for them…for the rangers to come?” This is straight out of a thriller film, but minus the thrills since it involves me and I am frightened as hell. Ellis groans so loudly I sit back.
“I can’t believe this!”
There’s such panic in his voice I jump up. “What’s happening?”
