by Cindi Myers
“I guess it’s not so bad, living in the present,” she said. “Isn’t that what the Zen masters say you should do, focus on the now?”
“If that’s what we’re really doing.” He leaned forward and stirred the coals with the last piece of firewood. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m not just stuck in the past.” The past he’d had with her, when they had both been so happy. Knowing what they did now, could they be that happy again, or did that brand of bliss require a naïveté they would never have again?
He felt her gaze on him, and he wished he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t want to answer any more questions or think any more about mistakes and regrets. He tossed aside the stick. “The rain has stopped,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
“I guess we’d better.” She gazed out at the now-sunlit slope. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the rest of the trip will go smoothly.
Travis put out the fire, then led the way down, attempting to pick the best route while still headed northwest toward the river and the train tracks. They moved slowly, having to detour or backtrack twice to avoid cliffs from which there was no safe descent. At this rate, they wouldn’t reach the tree line before dark. For now, the sun beat down, quickly evaporating the puddles that had collected during the storm, reflecting off the rock with a brightness that hurt the eyes.
Leah moved even more slowly than he did. He stopped often to check her progress. At one point when he looked back she was sitting and inching her way down the slope on her butt. “I’m going to get down this,” she said. “I can’t promise it will be pretty.”
“Do you want to stop and rest?” he asked.
“No.” She gave him a weary smile. “I’m afraid if I do I’ll never get going again. I don’t remember when I’ve been so tired.”
He knew what she meant. Their brief respite in the cave had done little to relieve the bone weariness that had set in from miles of walking over rough terrain. Being hungry didn’t help, either, but no sense bringing that up. The protein bar that served as lunch had done little to end the gnawing in his gut. He drank from his water bottle, then extended it to her. “I can get mine,” she said.
“Save your energy. We’ll share yours later.”
“All right.” Her eyes met his, heated and knowing, as if she, too, was remembering when they had shared moments far more intimate than drinking from the same water bottle.
She gulped down water, then returned the bottle to him and heaved herself upright once more. “Let’s go,” she said. “It’s bound to be easier when we get off this mountain.”
Less physically demanding, maybe, but hacking their way across dense woodland wilderness, with an unseen enemy gathering around them, wasn’t his idea of easy.
They set out again. The sinking sun to their left cast long shadows across the rocks, and pikas, small rodents resembling a cross between a rabbit and a mouse, chattered at them from the granite rubble around them. He stepped down onto a rock that looked stable and it slid out from under him and he crashed to the ground, the impact sending a jolt of pain through him. He flipped onto his stomach and grappled at the ground, seeking purchase on the steep, slick rock. When he came to rest some ten feet down the slope, he was breathing hard, his hands scraped and bloody, a rip in the knee of his pants.
“Are you all right?” Leah called, half running, half sliding toward him.
“I’m okay.” He sat up. “Just...be careful.”
She stood a few feet above him, worry and weariness clouding her face, but not making her any less beautiful to him. “I’m beginning to get freaked out,” she said. “I just want down off this mountain. I feel so...exposed up here.”
“I know what you mean.” He stood, trying to ignore the ache in his knees and back from the fall and the hours of climbing. All Braeswood and his men had to do was turn binoculars in the right direction and they would spot the two of them up here on this bare rock. He adjusted his pack and turned back down the trail. “Come on. We need to pick up the pace if we’re going to make it into the trees by nightfall.” He would feel better under cover, and they could plan their route for tomorrow.
“There are people who do this for fun,” she said, starting down behind him. “They try to climb every one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-high peaks. Or every one of the 13,000-foot peaks.”
“Some people enjoy the challenge, I guess,” he said. “And if you did it with the right preparation and equipment, I can see how it might be enjoyable.”
“Count me out,” she said. “When I’m out of here I’m heading to a posh hotel with room ser—ahhhh!”
Her scream, and the sickening cascade of sliding rock and a falling body, tore through him. He whirled to see her flailing for purchase as she bounced down the side of the mountain like a rag doll.
Chapter Ten
Travis launched himself sideways toward Leah’s falling body, like a tackle intercepting the ball carrier in a football game. He struck her hard, shoving her sideways and momentarily slowing her fall, but as he wrapped his arms around her and tried to dig his heels into the loose rock, they fell together, rolling and sliding at a terrifying pace. Rocks tore at them and he struggled to keep hold of her, trying to roll to shield her from the worst of the impact. She continued to flail, grabbing at the ground, her face a mask of terror, while he continually fought for purchase with his heels.
In the end, it wasn’t their own efforts that saved them, but the bent trunk of a stunted tree that clung stubbornly to a ledge that jutted out over nothing. They came to rest against the trunk, Travis’s left foot dangling in empty air. The rough bark of the tree dug into his back, but it was the most welcome pain he had known.
Leah stared at him, her eyes almost black from her fear-enlarged pupils, her skin the color of the snow that lingered in pockets on the peak. “We stopped,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He buried his face against her shoulder and struggled to rein in the tidal wave of emotion that threatened to unman him. Fear that they had almost died, exhilaration that they had survived, rage that they should be in this situation in the first place and a paralyzing terror that he had almost lost her. He could talk about justice and his job and his duty to his country, but in those seconds when his life had been in the balance, the one truth he knew was that everything he had done from the moment he had laid eyes on her at Braeswood’s mansion had been for her. She was the reason he was fighting so hard, the reason he was willing to risk everything.
She nudged him. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He raised his head, then sat up, slowly, keeping his back against the tree. The ledge they had come to rest on was fairly wide and level, safe enough for some of the tension to ease out of him.
She struggled into a sitting position and swept her hair out of her eyes, then glared at him. “What did you think you were doing, tackling me that way? You could have been killed.”
“I had to save you.”
She wiped away a smear of blood and mud on her cheek. “No, you didn’t. You’d be better off without me. You could move faster on your own.”
“No, I wouldn’t be better off without you.” He shifted to kneel in front of her and grabbed both her arms. “I never was.”
He told himself he deserved the wary look she gave him. He had certainly given her plenty of reasons to not believe him, to be afraid of him even. He smoothed his hands down her arms, then gently pulled her to him. “I need you, Leah,” he whispered. “I always have.”
The touch of her lips and the feel of her arms tightening around him filled him with heat and light, like a powerful drug flowing through his veins. The kiss was both remembered and brand-new, the urgent pressure of her mouth against his own, the tangling of tongues and press of bodies something he had longed for and something he waited to discover.
She fell back, pulling him with her. He straddled her, one knee
planted on either side of her hips, her breasts pressed against his chest, her heart like a drumbeat in counterpoint to his own. One hand tangled in his hair while the other wrapped across his back. He kissed her cheek and tasted the metallic tang of the blood drying there, and pulled back. “You’re hurt,” he said.
“So are you.” She smoothed her hand across the dark bruise forming on his forearm where he had slammed into the rock. “But we’ll be okay. We’re together and we’ll be okay.” Then her lips found his again, silencing words and obliterating thought. Fear and doubt, aches and pains, didn’t matter in the face of their need for each other. He slid his hand beneath her shirt, cupping and caressing her breast, and he pressed his growing arousal at the juncture of her thighs. She arched against him and reached for the pull of his zipper.
Something—the call of a crow or the bite of the wind at his back, or the sharp jab of a rock against his hand when he moved—pulled him out of the drugging fog of lust and need. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I think maybe this isn’t exactly the right time for this,” he said.
She blinked up at him, then a blush warmed her cheeks. “I guess I got a little carried away,” she said.
“Hey, I wasn’t complaining.” He sat back and helped her to sit also.
“I guess we’d better get going,” she said.
“Wait.” He pulled her back down and reached around for the pack. “I want to tend to that gash on your face while there’s still good light.”
He found the first aid kit buried in the pack and cleaned and dressed the cut on her cheek and another on her arm with antibiotic ointment and adhesive bandages. She did the same for a gash on his knee and the cuts and scrapes on his hands. The sun had dipped behind the mountains to the west, taking with it most of its light and warmth. She shivered as the wind gusted across their rocky perch, and he fought the urge to pull her close once more. He was cold, too, now that the rush of adrenaline and passion had faded.
“Come on.” He stood and reached to pull her up beside him. “We’ve got to hurry down and find some place to spend the night.”
“Right. The last thing I want is a fall like that in the dark.”
Carefully, they made their way down the next steep stretch. Thankfully, the grade became more gradual after that. Soon, they reached the shelter of the trees and a deeper darkness in which the black of trees was barely distinguishable from the black of the air around them. He stopped so that they could catch their breath and to try to orient himself. “I’d rather not turn on the light,” he said. “In case someone sees it.”
She gripped his arm, fingers digging in. “No. Don’t turn on the light. I’m more afraid of Duane and his troops than I am the dark.”
“I’ll cut us another couple of walking sticks,” he said. “That will help us feel our way and keep our balance.”
Even that simple chore took longer in the dark, and he was forced to turn on the light briefly in order to find branches of the right size and shape. He trimmed them quickly and handed one to Leah. “Thanks,” she said. “At least now I have a crutch if I sprain my ankle tripping over a rock.”
“Don’t even think that.” He tested his own stick, a stout, knotted length of cedar that would double as a cudgel. “Come on.” He wanted to get deep enough into the woods to have good cover when they stopped for the night, but movement was more difficult than he had anticipated. Though the ground was more stable underfoot here, they had to constantly be on guard for tree roots, stumps and other obstacles. When he had banged his shins for the fourth time and she had tripped for the third, he took hold of her hand and pulled her to his side. “We’ve got to stop,” he said. “Before one of us is seriously hurt.”
“It’s so much darker here than in the city,” she said. “Darker than I ever knew it could be.”
“I’m going to risk the headlamp again,” he said, pulling the light out of the side pocket of the pack and slipping it on. “Just until we find a safe place to bed down.”
The light cast a weak golden beam across the forest floor, enough to reveal they were in an area of closely growing trees and dense underbrush. “No wonder we kept running into things,” Leah said.
“It’s good cover to hide us tonight,” he said, directing the light around them. “No one’s going to be able to get close without us hearing them.”
“I hope you’re right.”
As they had the previous night, they made a shelter of tree branches in the hollow left by a fallen tree. He spread the space blanket and crawled in, then pulled her in after him and covered them both.
She snuggled against his shoulder with a weary sigh. “I’d trade a year of my life for a cheeseburger right now,” she said.
His stomach growled in response. “Try not to think about it,” he said.
“It’s all I can think about.” She turned to face him. Though he couldn’t make out her features in the darkness, he sensed her face very close to him. “Distract me,” she said, her breath warm against his cheek.
As tired as he was, that plea was all the invitation he needed. He slid his hand beneath her shirt and over her breast. “Does this distract you?”
“It’s a start.” She squirmed against him and moved her hand around to squeeze his backside. “How about you? Are you feeling distracted?”
He nuzzled her neck, sliding his tongue into the hollow of her throat, savoring the silky feel and taste of her, a mix of salty and sweet. “Distracted from what?” He pressed into her, letting her feel his arousal, then covered her lips with his own.
She opened her mouth at his invitation and tangled her tongue with his, even as she explored his body with both hands. She pushed up his shirt and trailed her fingers across his chest, leaving sensations like the bite of sparks on his flesh.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said, resting his forehead against hers and fighting to rein in the desire that drove him to take her now, this very minute.
“I’ve missed you, too.” She pushed his shirt up farther and kissed his shoulder, then slid her teeth across his flesh. “I’ve missed making love to you.” She unfastened the top button on his pants.
He stilled, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. “I’m not sure now is the right time,” he said.
“Are you worried Duane and his men will find us?”
“I don’t think they’ll find us tonight. We’re too well hidden, and he’s already shown he doesn’t like to search at night. He probably figures we aren’t going anywhere.”
“Then why?”
He shifted, trying to get comfortable—impossible, given his current state. He traced the curve of her cheek with one finger, her skin like satin. “Think about it. We’re exhausted. Hungry. Filthy, lying on the ground. You deserve better than that.”
“I don’t care about any of that.” She cupped her hand to his face. “Look at me.”
“I can’t see you.”
Her lips curved in a smile beneath his finger. “Then feel.” She grabbed his hand and laid it over her heart. “You risked your life today to save me. But it wasn’t the first time you saved me. Through the worst of the times with Duane, I got through it by thinking of you. I remembered what it was like to be with you, whether we were walking in the park or making love in your apartment. I remembered how much we had loved each other, and that reminded me that I was worthy of love. A good man had cherished me once. No matter what happened to me, I had had that.”
“You deserve better than the way I treated you,” he said, and kissed the corner of her eye, tasting the salt of her tears, his own eyes stinging.
“We can’t change the past,” she said. “And tomorrow we could die. I hope not, but it could happen. If it does, I want to spend my last night with you. All these other things—the hard ground, my empty stomach, my fear—you can make them go away for a little while.”<
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“I want to make love to you.” He wished he could see her face right now, could read the emotion in her eyes. He settled for kissing the corner of her mouth. “But I’m worried about hurting you.” She had been through so much—he couldn’t think of it without feeling sick.
“You can’t hurt me.” She slid her hands down his chest and lowered the zipper on his pants. “I trust you, Travis, and I want to be with you. And that’s all that really matters right now.”
* * *
LEAH HELD HER BREATH, waiting for Travis’s answer. Would his lingering doubts keep him from bridging this final gap between them? Was she crazy for even wanting this, considering their situation? “I want you,” he said, and kissed her, a tender, dizzying kiss that quickly turned more passionate.
Undressing in such close quarters, in pitch blackness, proved a challenge, but one they were equal to. She giggled as he helped her squirm out of her jeans and underwear, and laughed at his attempts to shed his own pants while kneeling over her. Then he leaned away, reaching behind him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I had to get the condom from Buck’s pack,” he said.
She laughed. “Thank goodness for Buck.”
“That pack has saved us more than once the past couple of days,” he said.
“Yes, but you have to admit—a condom is not something most people would consider essential wilderness survival gear.”
“I think I read somewhere that a condom can be used as an emergency water carrier, or as a waterproof wrap for a wounded hand or foot,” he said. “That’s probably the reason it was in the pack.”
“Sure that was the reason.” She took the packet from him and tore it open. “But we’re going to put it to better use, I think.” She reached for him.
