by Roxie Noir
“Hey, Wilder,” she says.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Imogen
I was kind of hoping this wouldn’t happen.
I’ve been thinking about Wilder all day, obviously. I’ve been wondering if I haven’t seen him yet because maybe he was in worse shape than I thought, or maybe he’s fine and checked out without seeing me, or God forbid maybe something happened and he had some sort of heart attack brought on by the cold and he was dead.
My tired, frenzied brain got a little carried away with the possibilities, running through them all ceaselessly even as I kind of hoped that I wouldn’t have to explain just yet to my parents who I got stuck in the wilderness with for over a week.
“Hi,” he says back, coolly, one eyebrow raised. “Nice to see you, Mr. and Mrs. Gustavo.”
They’re silent and still for a beat, my dad standing by the window with his hands on his hips, my mom staring up at him like the language centers of her brain just evaporated, hands wringing together in her lap.
At least I know where I get my penchant for awkwardness from.
“It’s Mrs. Catton,” my mom says without moving. “I kept my maiden name.”
“Right,” Wilder says, because he already knows that. Or at least he did, back when he’d pick me up from my parents’ house for study sessions.
My dad squints at him, a frown deepening on his slightly lined face.
“Are you Marcus Flint’s boy?” he asks.
I swallow, because somehow this is already going off the rails.
“Wilder, these are my parents,” I tell him. “Mom, Dad, you remember Wilder. He was flying me to Yellowknife.”
I don’t know why I made the formal introduction. They all know each other, and the way that they’re staring each other down proves that they all remember everything.
More dead silence.
Great.
At last, my mom clears her throat.
“It’s nice to see you again, Wilder,” she says, her tone so stiff and formal I think it might shatter on impact. “You were flying the plane?”
I can see his grip on the IV pole he’s dragging behind him tighten.
“Yes, I was the pilot,” he says.
“Wilder’s the reason we made it out,” I say quickly, hoping to fend off whatever’s about to go down. “He’s the one who said we needed to leave the plane behind, if it weren’t for him we’d still be there, and you’d have never found us since you were looking in the wrong place, haha!”
“What exactly happened?” my dad asks, moving his arms from his hips only to cross them over the ugly sweater on his chest.
Even though Wilder’s wearing socks, a hospital gown, and has an IV in his hand, he still someone manages to give my dad this cocky, collected look that irritates me instantly.
“Instrument failure,” he finally says, jerking his head so his hair’s off his forehead. “One minute they said everything was fine, the next we were at fifteen thousand feet and dropping like a stone.”
“You lost altitude that fast and you couldn’t tell?” my dad asks, incredulously. “My ears pop in an elevator, for crying out loud. How did you not—”
“Dad, could we do this later?” I interrupt.
“He’s right, you know,” my mom pipes up.
“This boy crashed you into the side of a mountain and nearly killed you!” my dad says, starting to get excited. “How do you not want to know—”
“He also crashed himself into the side of a mountain,” I point out.
“He didn’t break a leg, did he?” my dad asks.
I shove my glasses up my face, frustrated. My parents have perfectly valid reasons to hate Wilder, but this isn’t one of them.
“Dad, I don’t think he managed to crash-land a small plane so precisely that I broke an ankle and he didn’t,” I say, forcing my voice calm. “It was an accident. Neither of us wanted it to happen, I promise.”
“I’ll come back later,” Wilder says, his eyes on me. There’s a hint of something in their blue-green depths, though whether it annoyance or amusement I can’t entirely tell. Maybe some of each.
“—Linda, you know that his father, that son of a bitch—” my dad says on the other side of my bed as I try to smile at Wilder.
“Now you’re just being ludicrous,” my mom answers him. “Honestly, who would crash their own plane…”
“That’s probably a good idea,” I tell Wilder, trying to smile.
I finally get my parents out two hours later, still arguing, though now it’s over something that happened thirty years ago with some sweater.
It’s kind of how they communicate, especially since they just had a long, sleepless, stressful week, so I don’t pay much attention to it. Maybe after we all get some rest they’ll be back and better.
When they’re finally gone, Wilder comes back, peeking around the curtain, grinning at me.
“Safe?” he asks, raising one eyebrow.
“The coast is clear,” I tell him.
He walks in, around the bed. I sneak a peek through the back of his hospital gown, and even though the gown itself us ugly as hell, he somehow makes it look good. Even with socks and an IV pole.
Unfair, I tell you.
He comes up next to my bed, leans in, kisses me on the temple, sits. He acts like it’s the most natural thing in the world that he’d kiss me like this, keeping one hand on my shoulder even after he’s seated.
My heart’s drumming an unfamiliar pattern in my chest. Even though my brain’s been going nonstop since I woke up, I haven’t really thought about the ramifications of our time together in the cabin.
I’ve got no idea what it all means out here, where there are other people around. Where we’d have to figure shit out because it’s suddenly much harder than I’m here and you’re also here and I’ve been thinking dirty thoughts about you for days and hating myself for it.
“Is it really broken?” he asks, nodding at my right foot.
I wiggle my toes through my cast.
“Spiral hairline fracture,” I confirm. “I got X-rayed this morning.”
Wilder sighs, leans back in the chair.
“Shit, Squeaks,” he says, his voice suddenly quieter, rougher. “I’m sorry.”
I reach up to my shoulder, take the hand that’s perched there and hold it, feeling suddenly brave.
Maybe this is something after all.
“Why?”
“For telling you it wasn’t.”
I start laughing. Wilder smiles after a minute, leaning back in the ugly vinyl armchair, still holding my hand.
“The hell are you laughing about?”
“What if you’d known it was broken? What were you gonna do differently?”
He shakes his hair out of his face, a cocky little head-jerk that I’m realizing I remember from years ago.
“Be nicer,” he says.
“Liar.”
“I might not have made you cross that landslide.”
I just look at him, trying not to laugh.
“Okay, I probably would have,” he admits. “It wasn’t that bad, you know.”
“You didn’t fall.”
“You could have watched where you were going, that rock was obviously going to—”
“Wilder?”
“Hm?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say, and he just laughs.
“Can I at least sign your cast?”
“If you can find a marker.”
He grins, stands, winks.
“Be right back,” he says, and leaves the room, IV tower in tow. I crane my neck one more time to catch a glimpse of his butt as he walks through the door.
Thirty seconds later he’s back with a Sharpie, crouching at the foot of my bed. I can’t see what he’s writing, but the devilish look in his eyes has me worried.
“What’d you write?” I demand when he stands again, capping the marker.
“You can’t read?”
I make a face, craning my nec
k and just barely lifting my leg so I can see what my cast now says.
Wilder Flint
You’re welcome for everything.
I blush. I blush hard, and at a loss I push my glasses up my face again even though they haven’t moved since the last time I did that.
He just keeps grinning at me, tosses the Sharpie into the air and catches it.
“Jerk,” I say, but I’m somewhere between trying not to blush and trying not to laugh.
“No one will know what it means,” he says. “Not unless you tell them, and why on earth would you do that?”
“Anyone who reads it is gonna guess exactly what you mean,” I counter.
“They’ll all know that I’m saying you’re welcome for carrying the heavy pack through the wilderness?” he asks, teasing me. “They’ll all know that you’re welcome that I fell into the lake and not you?”
He’s at the foot of my bed, leaning over it, one hand on my other shin. It shouldn’t be sexy — the hospital gown, the IV — but between the look in his eyes and the way he’s walking his fingers up my leg, that rakish smile… it kind of is.
“Well, if that’s what you meant,” I tease right back. “Though maybe you could write a footnote on there that says something like, ‘By that I mean you’re welcome for normal, wholesome stuff and definitely not anything dirty.’”
His hand reaches my knee, my thigh. Carefully, slowly, Wilder climbs onto the bed between my legs, certain not to bump my broken ankle.
“But that’d be lying,” he says, planting his hands on either side of my hips, his face right in front of mine.
“Are you suddenly opposed to that?” I murmur back.
There’s nothing between us and the open door except a curtain. Outside, I can hear two nurses chatting about which movies are coming out this weekend.
“I’m opposed to lying where you’re concerned,” he says.
I swallow hard, bite back a sarcastic oh, that’s new response.
“So you just want to brag?” I whisper. “Is that it?”
He grins, moves forward another few inches until the tip of his nose is right at the tip of mine. Somehow, I’ve moved my good leg up to his side, hugging it against his torso though the other leg is a lost cause at the moment.
“I just want everyone to know, Squeaks,” he says. “Everyone on this whole damn planet.”
He kisses me, and it’s fucking sensuous. Even in this hospital bed under the fluorescent lights it’s slow and sexy, his mouth exploring mine, his hand on my face, our tongues moving together.
We pause. We turn. We try a new angle, touch lips again experimentally, like it’s the very first time we’ve ever kissed. It feels like the first time we’ve ever kissed, everything somehow new and strange, a wild discovery.
He pulls away, still kneeling between my legs. He runs his hand down my side, beneath the sheets, finds the bottom of my hospital gown, pushes it up, and grins.
“No one gave you underwear either?” he asks.
“Guess they’re not standard hospital issue,” I say.
He runs a thumb along the crease between my hip and thigh, my whole body going rigid.
I glance toward the door. I can tell it’s still wide open. It’s still visiting hours, and even though I don’t know who else might visit it doesn’t mean no one will. Hell, a nurse could waltz in here any time she wanted.
“Leave it,” he murmurs in my ear.
“But it’s open,” I point out.
“So be quiet for once, Squeaks.”
He bites the lobe of my ear, making a thrill run the length of my spine.
“Even if it’s not your strong suit.”
I bite my lip, letting my eyes drift closed. I hate admitting it but there’s something hot about the idea, about knowing that twenty feet away there are people just going about their jobs.
Even if it’s also kind of horrifying. It’s not like I have a good record with people knowing my sex noises.
“Or tell everyone what we’re doing in here,” he says, his lips on my neck, hand up my hospital gown. “I’m done with keeping you my dirty secret, Squeaks.”
He brushes his fingers over one nipple, bites the other through the gown and I clench my teeth, determined not to make a sound.
“Well,” he says, his head moving lower. “I’m done keeping you secret, anyway.”
Without warning, the hospital bed buzzes slightly and tilts backward. I gasp, grabbing the rails, but Wilder just laughs.
“The dirty part can stay,” he says.
Then he hikes my thigh over his shoulder, done talking, and within seconds I’m white knuckling the bed rails. I come with my head turned to one side and the pillow pressed to my face, clenched between my teeth, wave after wave rocking my whole body.
Holy shit, I think when it’s finally over and I’m practically in a daze, the pillow still in my mouth.
I can’t believe he got even better at that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Wilder
“And you’re completely sure about that?” my dad asks, his voice crackling through the phone. Surprise surprise, McBride Mills, Middle of Nowhere, Canada, has bad cell reception.
“Yeah, Dad, I’m sure,” I say, staring out the hospital window, onto the parking lot. It’s not even a big parking lot. It’s not a big hospital.
In the distance is the angular, faded metal of mining equipment, then more mountains. God, I’m sick of mountains right now, but at least I’m looking at them through a window.
“You know that Flint Holdings does a very thorough monthly inspection of our entire fleet,” he says. “For one of our aircraft to suddenly malfunction like that would be very unusu—”
“Do you not believe me?” I ask, my voice blunt and hard.
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, and I clench my jaw.
“Of course I believe you,” he finally says.
“I didn’t crash-land a plane in the Canadian Rockies for fun.”
“Son, I’m not suggesting—”
“Walking through the snow for five days and barely making it out before winding up in the hospital for hypothermia wasn’t fun,” I point out.
I’m staring at the parking lot but I’m seeing my father’s face. In a suit, impeccable, as always. Watch on one wrist, and I’m probably on speakerphone while he’s driving his BMW to some lunch meeting because God forbid the man take thirty minutes to do nothing but have a conversation with his older son.
“Of course not,” he says.
“Then start looking at your planes,” I say. “Start looking at who you’re hiring and what their problems are, because the plane got fucked up.”
He clears his throat. Unperturbed, as always. I wonder what it would take to perturb the man.
“Most plane crashes are caused by pilot error,” he says. “And the insurance company is going to grill you five times harder than I am right now, son, so you had better be prepared to explain what exactly happened before they decide you fell asleep while flying.”
Suddenly, I remember something else.
“The beacon was missing,” I say.
Another long pause. The man is all long pauses, I swear.
“The emergency beacon?”
No, all the other types of beacons that you’d find on a small plane, I think savagely. I don’t say it out loud.
“Yeah. It wasn’t there.”
“You checked the—”
“I promise you I checked every single goddamn place on that plane for it,” I say through clenched teeth.
Another long pause. I know my father doesn’t appreciate being cursed at, but that’s not exactly my biggest concern right now.
“I see,” he finally says.
Now it’s my turn to say nothing. I can practically hear the wheels turning in his head, because plane crash is one thing, emergency beacon missing is another entirely. The crash could be my fault, but not the beacon.
“I’ll have it looked into,�
� he says carefully. “I’m glad you’re all right, son.”
That, at least, sounds true. He may not believe me about anything else — he may think I was drunk and high and too irresponsible to be flying — but at least he really is glad that I’m all right.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, and hang up the phone.
My mom is in and out all day, driving the nursing staff absolutely bonkers by doing stuff like complaining about the croissants in the cafeteria or the way that one of the fluorescent lights in the women’s bathroom down the hall blinks too many times when she turns it on.
When she’s not there — when she goes back to her hotel room for a bit to have a nap, or when she goes for coffee or something, just to get out of the hospital — I head out of my room to go look in on Imogen.
Once she’s asleep, her dad sitting by her bed. He just glares, and since she’s not even awake, I just leave.
Another time I peek in and she’s got a doctor and a nurse in there, both buzzing around her foot, carefully bending her knee, talking to her and her parents with very serious expressions on their faces. Bending her knees again, turning her leg very lightly side-to-side, and I figure I may as well let them do their job and show up again later.
Later takes a while, because my mom comes back, and she’s got croissants. Still not up to her standards — surprise — but apparently there’s one “decent-ish” bakery in McBride Mills.
I don’t tell her about the conversation I had earlier that day with my dad. I don’t see the point, because sooner or later it’ll either come out between them or it won’t, and neither way is really my problem.
I think I might be done working for Flint Holdings, Inc. I think I might be done with my father’s company completely. Something went wrong with the plane, I know it, and he won’t admit that maybe Wilder the Disappointment actually knows what he’s talking about sometimes.
“I don’t know why they want to keep you any longer,” my mom is saying. She’s standing at the sink in my room, wiping down the mirror. There’s no reason for her to be doing it, other than the fact that my mom is constantly moving, brimming over right now with nervous energy while I sit in the vinyl chair next to the hospital bed.
