by Noelle Adams
She made an annoyed sound in her throat and pulled away. “I’m fine, Paul. I’m not sick. It’s just getting hotter, and I wore too many clothes. It was cold this morning.”
It was midday now, and the temperature had indeed risen significantly from where it had been this morning. Paul had taken off the long-sleeved shirt he’d been wearing over his t-shirt this morning and was now just wearing a pair of casual khakis and the white t-shirt. Emily had taken off her zip-up sweatshirt, but she was still wearing her jeans and a long-sleeved white undershirt with a green t-shirt layered over it.
“Take off one of your layers,” he suggested. The trees had thinned some, and they reached a clearing where a creek trailed picturesquely through the woods. Beside it were several large rocks. “We need to stop and eat lunch anyway. Do you want to stop here?”
Emily seemed to think this was agreeable. As Paul unpacked their lunch from the backpack he carried, Emily took off her t-shirt. Then, with a sheepish look in his direction, she took off her undershirt and pulled her t-shirt back on.
Paul tried not to look at her in her bra, since he didn’t want to start thinking about sex midway through their hike.
They ate their packed lunch of sandwiches, grapes, chocolate cookies, and bottled water, chatting companionably about the Green Gables sights they had seen that morning and what they were going to do later in the day.
Emily was still hoping to be able to sleep out under the stars tonight, although Paul was worried because the sky at the moment was completely overcast. It had been mostly clear that morning, but now there was nothing but thick clouds overhead. He hoped it wouldn’t rain, so she would be able to sleep outside like she wanted.
He didn't really care if they slept outside or in the tent. He was mostly just hoping for sex tonight.
He’d loved how she’d taken care of him the night before—it had felt amazing in every way and had given him a intense physical and emotional release, one he’d desperately needed yesterday—but he wanted to make sure he could give to her as much as she’d given to him.
When they’d eaten, they picked up their stuff and started to walk again, following the route in Paul’s navigator. He figured they had about another half-hour before they reached the beach again, and then another half-hour before they reached their car.
Emily looked cooler now that she’d shed her extra shirt, and she still appeared bright and energetic. She kept mentioning spots she saw that looked like places in the Anne books, and Paul pretended he found the connections intriguing. He was glad Emily was having a good time. He didn’t mind hiking, but he had very little interest in a series of books for girls about a red-haired orphan who had a clear case of melodramatics.
He wasn't about to complain, though. Being here felt different, distanced, from the life they'd left in Philadelphia. Emily's last bout of fever and the aftermath—during which Paul had been almost crippled with wondering how he could possibly get through Emily's worsening illness and death—had weighed him down emotionally until he could barely breathe. Being with her lightened the burden sometimes, and being this far away, all by themselves, had lightened it a lot more.
It would just be temporary, but he'd needed it.
Twenty minutes later, Emily jerked to a stop, staring at a tree to their left.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“We already passed that tree,” she said, gesturing toward a small white birch. “Look, it has this weird forked branch here. I saw it before.”
Paul checked his navigator. “No. We couldn’t have. We haven’t looped back.” He showed her the small screen, which clearly indicated they were on the correct route.
Emily frowned. “Okay. Maybe it’s just an identical tree.”
They kept walking for a few minutes. Then Emily gasped and tugged on his arm to get him to stop. She crossed over in front of him and made her way through the space between some trees. “Look! That’s where we ate lunch!”
Paul followed her and froze in astonishment when he saw that she was correct. They’d somehow gone in almost a circle and ended up where they'd been a half-hour ago. “What the hell?”
He stared down at the navigator, checking back to see what it displayed as the route they’d just walked. Emily peered over to look with him.
“This thing is definitely confused," he admitted, feeling a swell of frustration tighten in his chest. He’d been focused on following the navigator and so hadn’t been paying much attention to the landmarks. "I wonder what's wrong with it.”
“It’s broken,” Emily said, looking from the screen up to his face. “What a piece of junk.”
“It cost a fortune!” He glowered down at the little device in his hand. "It shouldn't be a piece of junk. I wonder what…" He fiddled with it for a few minutes, hoping to find the trick to restore its routing capabilities.
Evidently getting tired of watching him fiddle with it, Emily said briskly, “Just give it up. The more expensive a gadget is, the more dramatically it will fail. We have a map. And I have a GPS app on my phone that might help.”
“I do too.” Paul lowered the little navigator in disgust and swung the backpack off his back so he could pull his smartphone out.
“No reception,” Emily said, frowning down at her phone. “We had reception earlier.”
“Maybe we’re just in a dead spot.” Paul checked his and found the same thing.
“Well, people used to do this all the time without the help of gadgets. I’m sure we can manage to muddle our way out of the woods without technology.”
Paul felt frustrated and annoyed by the failure of his navigator and by the fact that he’d led Emily around in circles unwittingly. He looked up at the sky. “It’s too cloudy to see where the sun is or at least we could tell what direction we were going.”
Paul glared down at the expensive piece of junk he was holding and muttered out valedictions on its head, as well as on the heads of everyone who made it and sold it to him.
Emily chuckled. “Don’t be grumpy. It’s not the end of the world.”
“We’re lost in the middle of the woods with no GPS,” Paul said, arching his eyebrows at her coolly, vaguely annoyed that she wasn't as annoyed as he was.
“We’ll figure it out. You’re just annoyed because you have major control issues.” She slanted him an almost teasing look. “Has anyone ever told you that before?”
He couldn’t quite keep his lip from twitching, despite the exasperating situation. “Not in so many words.”
“Well, someone should have told you that a long time ago. Things get messed up. That’s the nature of the world.”
Paul preferred for that not to be the nature of his world, but in this case there was nothing he could do about it. His navigator was broken, and their cell phones had no reception.
Since they were off the trail, there was no one around. He assumed if they just kept walking in one direction, they would eventually get somewhere they could locate. He didn’t want Emily to have to walk for miles, however, only to discover they had miles left to walk.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out something else.
“What’s that?” Emily asked.
“It’s a panic button,” he explained. “Connected to my security detail.”
“What?” she demanded, her eyes widening in what looked like outrage. “I thought you said we didn’t need to have security on this trip!”
“We don’t. At least, not following us everywhere. But I’d rather be careful—my dad still has connections in prison, you know—so a couple of my bodyguards are staying not far from our campground. If I press this, they’ll come find us.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “It’s not an emergency situation yet. Can we at least try to figure it out on our own before you call in the cavalry?”
Paul exhaled in frustration. He didn’t want to upset her, but there was absolutely no reason for them to be lost when there was something simple he could do about it. “I don’t want you t
o have to wander around aimlessly. We’re in the middle of the woods with no obvious landmarks and no way to tell direction. What do you suggest we do?”
“Well, give me a minute to think.” She frowned at him, obviously unhappy with his alacrity in calling for help. “I’m not Daniel Boone.”
“I assure you, neither am I.”
“We want to go north. Wherever we are, we’ll hit the coastline that way. Do you think that moss trick really works?” she asked, after thinking for a minute. “Does moss really grow thickest on the north side?”
Paul made a face, trying to be patient and not just hit the panic button whether she wanted him to or not. “I doubt it, but we could look. Do you see any moss?”
They looked around for a minute and found a rock covered with moss. Unfortunately, it was covered completely with moss, and they couldn’t tell one side that looked thicker than the other.
Emily was obviously disappointed by this discovery.
“Oh,” she said, perking up. “Somewhere I heard this trick for telling north. If you have a watch, you hold it out and then you put a stick over it and then there’s something about the shadow…and north is halfway between the stick and…” She trailed off, looking puzzled.
Paul gave a huff of amusement, although it was mingled with frustration. “Between the stick and the shadow?” he asked dubiously.
She scowled at him. “Don't be snide. There is a trick. I just can’t remember it.”
“Well, it wouldn’t matter. There’s so much tree cover here and cloud cover today, there’s not much in the way of shadows to use anyway. If we had shadows, I could just make a sundial.”
“Damn it,” Emily said, shaking her head as if the most obvious idea had just come to her. “We can’t be that far from the beach. I’m just going to climb a tree. I should be able to see the ocean if I get high enough.”
“No,” Paul objected, stiffening at the idea. “You might get hurt.”
“For God’s sake, Paul, I was climbing trees when I was five years old. I’m not going to get hurt.”
“I’ll climb one,” he said, resigning himself to the fact that climbing a tree was the only appropriate way for this wretched hiking expedition to end. “If someone has to do it, I will.”
“Why should you do it?” Emily demanded. She was bristling now as much as he was, and her eyes flashed with indignation. “I’m a lot lighter than you. I’ll be able to get higher up more safely. I’m not an invalid. I can climb a damned tree!”
“This is my fault,” he said, not about to budge on this. “We’re lost because of me. So I’m the one who—”
“That’s crap. Paul, listen to yourself. I’m the one who suggested we come here, so I can play the blame-game as much as you. But that’s not the point. You don't have to get annoyed because everything is not going perfectly, and you don't have to climb the tree for me. You don’t have to rescue me. You don’t have to fix everything. I’m not expecting you to do that. I’ve never expected you to do that.”
Paul froze, slammed by her words, by what they meant.
She was right. He did want to rescue her. He did want to fix her.
And he couldn’t do so in the way that really mattered.
“Paul,” Emily said, her voice softening. She reached out and put a hand on his chest. “I didn’t marry you because I expected you do everything for me. I married you because I thought you could help me do the things I wanted to do.”
Paul stared at her, breathing heavily and conflicted in ways he didn’t understand. He loved her. She was his. To him, that had always meant wrapping her tightly with his protection. If he was capable of climbing a tree, then he should do it and not her.
But he understood what she was saying. Deeply. And suddenly he realized he would feel the same way, if he was abruptly forced into helplessness because of an illness he couldn’t control. He wouldn’t want to give up all of his agency either, even to someone who loved him, who wanted to help him.
Emily was beautiful and radiant and resilient and sweet. But, in many ways that mattered, she wasn’t all that different from him.
For some reason, he'd never quite realized that before.
“Okay,” he forced out, the word harder than it should have been to say. “Okay.”
She blinked at him, her eyes anxious and somehow tender as well. “Okay?”
“Climb the tree. Be careful.”
Her face changed, twisted slightly with emotion, but it was so brief he couldn’t really put a name to it. Then she looked around at the trees surrounding them. "Which one do you think is the tallest?”
Paul spotted a huge birch tree several feet away. It had a thick trunk and several low branches. The leaves, unlike on the pine trees, wouldn’t get in the way of climbing.
Emily saw the tree too and ran over to it. “Perfect.” She reached for one of the branches and started to swing herself up.
Paul grabbed her by the waist and gave her a boost. Despite the other things on his mind, he couldn’t help but appreciate the way her lush ass appeared in her faded jeans as she crawled up onto the first branch.
She grabbed a higher branch and pulled herself into a standing position, bracing herself on the trunk. She grinned down at him. “I haven’t climbed a tree in ages!”
He tightened his lips, trying not to climb up there after her to make sure she wasn’t going to fall. Restraining the impulse was harder than he liked to admit.
Emily was right in claiming that he had major control issues, but he usually kept those issues under better control.
“Please be careful,” he murmured, with what he thought was impressive mildness.
She peered down at him, and her expression relaxed into something warm and fond. “I will.”
Then he had to stand at the bottom and watch her climb the tree. It was quite a tall tree, although it looked so sturdy that there probably wasn’t any unusual danger in climbing it. But he still didn’t like it. Particularly when she got near the top. The leaf coverage mostly blocked his view, so he just caught uneven glimpses of her jeans and her gold hair.
Then he heard Emily shout down to him, “I see the ocean!”
He let out a sigh of relief and waited for her to climb back down. She stumbled a little as she dropped herself down from the last branch, and he caught her and pulled her into a hug.
She hugged him back, her body practically shuddering with excitement.
“Pretty proud of yourself for finding our direction,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
She laughed out loud. “Yes. Just call me Daniel Boone!”
He laughed too. And he realized there might be some benefits to going against his controlling, possessive instincts—if it made Emily as happy as this.
* * *
The clouds cleared, and the stars came out that night.
By the time they finally returned to their SUV, the clouds were starting to break up. They were both tired when they returned to their campground in the afternoon. So Emily took a nap while Paul lounged in a chair and worked through some email on his smartphone, which fortunately could get reception from there.
Emily hadn’t wanted him to work during the weekend, but he figured it was all right when she was sleeping.
They grilled steaks for dinner and ate them with pasta salad. Then, at Emily’s suggestion, they built a fire and toasted marshmallows for s’mores.
Paul enjoyed the evening more than he’d expected. Despite the fact that camping would never be his favorite activity, it was nice to feel all alone in the world with Emily. They felt far away from everything—including her illness, including the doctors, including her impending death. To his surprise, Paul managed to relax. He was feeling pretty good when they went to the shower facilities to clean up before bed, as they had the night before.
Since the clouds had blown away completely, leaving the dark sky teaming with stars, Paul couldn’t object when Emily demanded that they sleep outside tonight.
They hauled th
e air mattress out of the tent and made up the bed again between the tent and the SUV. He’d left the lights of the SUV on while they worked, so they would have plenty of light, but then he turned them off, leaving only the fire to illuminate the campsite.
Emily was obviously thrilled by the effect, and she climbed under the sleeping bag happily, looking over to him expectantly when he didn’t move. Like the previous night, she wore flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt, so at least she wouldn’t get cold, despite the nip in the air.
“Come look, Paul,” Emily called out when he emerged again from the tent, where he’d changed into pajama pants.
He went to join her and got into the sleeping bag. He rolled onto his back as she had and stared up at the sky.
“Look at them!” she breathed, gazing up at the brilliance of the stars.
Paul had never seen stars so bright. In Philadelphia, he could hardly see them at all, except from the terrace of the apartment—and even then they looked rather dim. But even in the outskirts there didn’t seem to be so many stars as this, and they didn’t twinkle so fiercely.
He smiled and turned his head to look at Emily. She was smiling too, and she met his eyes. They gazed at each other in silence for a moment, and Paul’s chest tightened with feeling.
Then she scooted over and pressed her mouth against his in a kiss.
He responded immediately, pulling her into his arms and rolling her toward him so she was sprawled on top of him. The kiss grew hungry very quickly—probably because Paul’s urgency got the better of him. His lips devoured her as his hands skimmed over her soft curves, settling on her ass and pressing her pelvis down against his. Even through the layers of thick clothing she wore, her body was warm and tempting.
Emily was soon as passionate as he was. She groaned and gasped against his mouth, and she wriggled against his body. Her hands clutched at his ribcage and then started fisting the fabric of his shirt.
It took Paul a minute to realize she was trying to pull his shirt off.
He broke the kiss for long enough to help her, yanking his t-shirt off over his head. She made a husky sound of satisfaction as her hands started to stroke his bare skin.
