RiverTime

by Rae Renzi

  She munched her dinner, letting her gaze slide over to Jack reclining on his sleeping bag, his eyes downcast in moody preoccupation. His body seemed incapable of arranging itself into an awkward form; his every movement invited touch. What would a Super Deluxe Plan with Jack be like…?

  She pulled her wayward thoughts up short and suddenly realized Reed hadn’t entered her mind in days. A twinge of guilt tried to worm its way into her mind, but she brushed it away. Normally, Reed would be in her thoughts, but the lack was easily explained. She’d been preoccupied with surviving.

  In the middle of the night, the storm hit like a sledgehammer. At the first loud crack of thunder, Casey lunged toward Jack, her earlier concerns about him knocked right out of her by the terrifying noise. He barely awoke. “We’ll be okay,” he muttered drowsily. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close.

  Lightning filled the sky with blinding streaks followed by deafening crashes of thunder. Casey cringed closer to Jack, hiding her face in his chest, feeling vulnerable. He rubbed her back and murmured soothing words, and soon, things didn’t seem so bad.

  As the thunder and lightning shook the heavens, earthly concerns within the tent showed signs of seismic activity. Casey became acutely aware of the bare skin of Jack’s chest against her face. The scent of him, the smooth feel of his skin, were at once an anodyne to her storm-driven anxiety and a catalyst to a different kind of upheaval.

  Casey felt his heartbeat quicken. Stupidly, her hand moved slowly across the muscular expanse of his chest. The sharp intake of his breath told her that he felt the same electric intensity as she did. His mouth moved to her hair, her face. His lips brushed across her skin, sending trills of excitement up her spine.

  She should stop him, right this minute. This was stupid, stupid, stupid.

  His fingers drifted under her T-shirt, up her back, over her shoulder. His touch was as soft as a feather.

  “Casey…?” His whisper was a caress.

  She tried to say no but it came out as a moan.

  It was all the encouragement he needed. His mouth found hers in a deep and hungry kiss. She melted into him. His hands traveled her body, spinning a web of sensation. She was ensnared. They coiled around each other, moving, feeling, tasting, touching. Her individual senses became confused until she couldn’t distinguish his taste from his touch from his smell—a synesthesia of sensuality.

  His hands made music on her body, which she matched with her own pulsing rhythm, oblivious to the raging skies outside, responding only to the wild, tumultuous storm within. He stroked her and touched her, built her up and led her down until she thought she could take no more, and then he delicately and rhythmically took her over the edge, until she arched in ecstasy and then collapsed.

  Jack gathered her close, then held her and stroked her hair until she was drowsy.

  Her last waking memory was Jack murmuring, “I am so fucked.”

  She tried to rouse herself enough to point out that, no, he wasn’t, they hadn’t, but she couldn’t shake off the deep feeling of lassitude and instead drifted off to sleep.

  In the gray light of early morning, the wreckage from the storm around the landing mirrored too closely how Jack felt. He’d crawled out of the tent at the first sign of life from the damn birds and walked down here to get some distance from the avalanche of emotions that had almost—but not quite—buried him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to calm his mind.

  What was wrong with him that he’d responded so strongly to Casey? Well, no-brainer on that. He’d let himself give in to her need for comfort and had taken it one step further. But only one step, thank God. Still, he was flirting with disaster, and he knew it. A good man, a decent man would leave her alone, stay far away from her. But good and decent were not words that were commonly applied to him.

  But, damn, she was just so…everything he wasn’t used to. He didn’t understand her, wanted to get into her mind, to find out what made her tick. He wanted to breathe her in, let her fill him up with her simple honesty, her goodness, her joy. It seemed that everything made her happy.

  Everything but him.

  Except last night something had happened. A tiny seed, something beyond pure physical need, had been planted between them. He was sure of it.

  He gazed at the raft bouncing in the rough water, tugging at the rope that secured it to a scraggly tree. It was damaged, so there wasn’t much chance of navigating the river with it, even if the river weren’t turbulent. But its bright blue color couldn’t be missed from either the river or the sky. It would be the beacon the rescuers located first. Then they’d come looking for survivors. For him and Casey.

  Not today, though. His shirt flapped against his side, keeping time with the waves slapping against the rubber sides of the raft. The leaves on the scrubby trees rustled in the wind. No, not today.

  But tomorrow…? Maybe. The weather could change in minutes, going from too rough to perfect in hours. In less than a day, the sky could be filled with search-and-rescue teams, coming to save them from the wilderness.

  Jack sauntered over to the raft and stared at it for a long while, stared at the river, and the sky. He climbed aboard the raft and tossed out the few remaining tools, then climbed out again.

  He drew his hand out of his pocket and flicked his wrist. In the gray light, his blade flashed once, then again.

  Casey stood looking dismally at the river, or rather, at the place in the river that had previously held the raft. It was gone, no doubt torn away by the storm.

  It wasn’t a complete disaster in terms of their survival. They had removed all the food by now, and many other useful things—the tarps, the camping chairs, clothes, tools—had migrated into camp. But the raft’s loss made the comfort margin narrower and diminished the likelihood of their being found. Which, from her perspective, was rapidly becoming a calamity.

  The memory of last night rushed back. Equal parts guilt and self-disgust swam through her thoughts, those unpleasant emotions accompanied by a slight undercurrent of alarm.

  What had she done?

  She knew she shouldn’t have gotten into the tent with him. Her instincts had warned her. He had used some kind of hoodoo persuasion, cast a transfixing spell to compel her to do things that just weren’t normal for her.

  Unless she had dreamed it? Had her fevered imagination locked on to the revelation of his profession and, fueled by the wild intensity of the storm, created the whole experience in her mind?

  The roaring of the river was a calming accompaniment as she reconstructed her memory of the incident bit by salacious bit. No. Her imagination might have been able to fabricate the physical side of the experience, but not the complex feelings that accompanied it. The ones that hinted she was treading a narrow path with poison ivy on one side and an abyss on the other, that life was not simple or predictable, and her decisions might as well be a toss of the dice for all the rationality she brought to bear on them.

  She didn’t think she’d imagined that.

  Nor could her imagination have provided the little detail that Jack had kissed her, had touched her, but nothing more. That, from what she had seen of him, could not have been imagined.

  Still, the rake had definitely capitalized on her frightened state. A tiny voice in the back of her mind added, But not for his own satisfaction.

  She tried to ignore that voice—it made it harder to be indignant and only added to her confusion about certain aspects of her life. A faint image of Reed, trailing reproach, drifted across her mind. Although the river trip was meant to help her gain some clarity about their future, she was pretty sure this was not the way to go about it. Decisions about her future should be informed by rational thinking, not some wild, storm-induced need for human contact. She had to harden her will against the purely biological response she had to Jack. Biology was stupid; she was not.

  She stood on the riverbank, watching the water flow by, trying to erect an iron-clad defense against Jack. After
several minutes of deep thinking, all she could come up with was I have to get out of here. Fast.

  Jack returned to camp looking cold, wet and spiky-tempered. Casey, trying to coax some damp wood into a much-needed fire for breakfast, decided not to mention the confusing episode—she wouldn’t know what to say. Her carefully nurtured self-righteous indignation dissipated at the sight of him.

  “The raft is gone,” she said.

  “I know.” He turned and walked to the tent, obviously annoyed.

  So she wasn’t the only one who’d realized they needed to get away from here, and that they were now absolutely stuck. She poked at the smoking wood irritably. When this had no effect on the fire except to encourage more smoke, she heaved a great sigh. Mustering her patience, she gathered a handful of dry twigs to feed, one by one, to the feebly glowing embers.

  She almost wished he’d asked for payment for professional services. It would not only solve the mystery of his profession but would have precisely defined the situation between them. Of course, maybe he thought of it as payment—for the food, the use of her tent, etc.

  The handful of twigs went sailing into the fire. Bastard!

  The fire flared satisfyingly but then immediately went out.

  Casey glanced over to the tent, where Jack stood with his back to her, muscles rippling as he pulled on a dry shirt. She caught her breath, then forced herself to look away.

  “Where in the hell are the damn rescuers?” she muttered to herself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The conditions on the river did not favor rescue—the water was still dangerously high, and the wind still strong, probably too strong for aircraft. Possibly in self-defense, she began to think of the tent episode as a strange, stress-induced aberration, especially since Jack never mentioned it, nor made even the slightest move for an encore.

  The campsite, at first a convenient place to endure the wait for rescue, now showed signs of longer-term habitation. Jack’s stone-topped table, where each day started and ended, became the heart of the daily routine, and Casey’s small stone cooking fireplace, where need married such pleasure as could be found among the meager supplies, was the soul. The protruding ledges at the back of the cavern formed a rough-cut pantry holding their supplies. Jack had found a basketball-sized rock at the side of the camp that had a deep depression on one side; he rolled it over to serve as a shallow water basin. Casey had balanced a long, thin pole across a gap in the back-wall shelving on which to hang towels. Other little things had been added here and there to make life easier, which had the unintended effect of making it seem less transient.

  In truth, the prevailing atmosphere fell notably short of desperation. If Casey overlooked her feelings about Jack, or possibly included her feelings about Jack, depending on his mood, her attitude toward the situation had evolved more along the lines of “best vacation ever” rather than “urgent struggle to survive.” From time to time she thought of Reed, but his image was increasingly resistant to being called up, as if his spirit were no more comfortable on the river than he would be in the flesh. He just didn’t belong here.

  In passing one day Casey made a wistful comment about missing hot showers. The never-ending wind deposited dirt and sand in every pore and orifice. Jack took it upon himself to devise a plan for a warm-water bath pool, about which Casey was wildly enthusiastic. His plan involved quite a lot of work, but what else did they have to do?

  She was eager to get started, so the next morning, bright and early, she carried a freshly brewed cup of coffee to the tent.

  “Hey, wake up, sleepyhead,” she called through the door flap. It was unzipped, so she poked her head through.

  “Jack. It’s bathtub day. Upsies.”

  Jack was an insentient lump.

  Casey crawled into the tent and waved the steaming coffee under his nose. “Coffee, Jack,” she crooned. “Nice, hot, delicious coffee.”

  One limp hand crept toward her. She glanced down and gently corrected the trajectory of the groping hand away from her legs and toward the cup of coffee.

  A smile cracked Jack’s face, the first in two days, and his eyes levered open. He leaned up on one elbow to take the coffee. “I could get used to this. Coffee in bed.”

  His words made her heart skip a beat, and for just one second she indulged in a delirious moment of imagining herself waking up each day with Jack.

  “Coffee in sleeping bag,” Casey corrected, sitting back on her heels. “And I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Unless you have an ulterior motive. Like now, for instance.”

  “Well, sure. If we get going soon, I bet we’ll have hot-and-cold running water by this afternoon.”

  “More like running cold, and standing tepid water—if it doesn’t rain. But anything warmer than frigid will be an improvement.”

  He reached down to throw aside the covers. Casey scurried out of the tent, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll get some toast.”

  He answered with a throaty chuckle.

  A little Jack went a long way toward taking the edge off the morning chill.

  “Why do you get the big one?” Casey waved her wholly inadequate digging tool, a large metal cooking spoon, at Jack.

  He smirked and lovingly stroked the camp shovel in his hand. “Because I know what to do with it.”

  They spent the morning digging a broad, shallow pit close to the tributary stream that ran perpendicular to the river and eventually into it. The bank sand was loose, and the excavation went faster than Casey expected.

  When the pit was about two feet deep, they planned to stretch one of the heavy waterproof tarps over the top until it was smooth, then lower it until it uniformly draped the sides. This turned out to be harder than expected, as the wind ripped it out of their hands twice before they were able to secure it. Once the tarp was stretched and weighted with rocks, they dug two trenches, one that angled in from the stream, diverting the gentle flow of water into the newly dug pool, and one on the other side to let the water out. Strategically placed rocks secured the edges of the tarp and allowed them to control the flow of water in and out of the pool. That was the theory and, to Casey’s delight, it worked. Even better, the weather joined the happy conspiracy, and sun poured down between rapidly scudding clouds.

  By early afternoon they had a serviceable bath pool. It wasn’t huge, but it could hold at least two people and was deep enough to sit in water up to mid-chest. The plan was that the dark color of the tarp lining the pool would encourage solar heating of the water. The idea of warm immersion made Casey practically giddy with anticipation.

  “Perfect timing,” she exulted. “The sun is directly overhead, so it will get maximum heat. I can’t wait.”

  Wiping sweat and dirt off his forehead, Jack smiled at her. “We should come back later this afternoon, after it’s had time to warm up. In the meanwhile, I’m going to suffer through at least one more dunking in the freezing water. I’m filthy.”

  He walked to the edge of the stream, dropped his shorts and waded in. The sunlight danced on his glistening body, each outlined muscle moving in perfect harmony with the others as he dived into the water. Casey abruptly turned away. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for both of them to be in the bathing pool at the same time…

  But when she tried to imagine not having the delicious experience of all-over warm cleanliness, she hit a giant roadblock. Her mind just couldn’t go there. Nope. Abstinence was not going to happen, no matter how risky. She’d put on some boxer shorts and a tank top and take her chances. A warm bath was worth it.

  Still, she spent too much time thinking about Jack. She should be thinking about Reed, and what to do about their relationship. She wished she were as certain as Reed—he had no questions about their future. He planned for them to become engaged, get married, have two kids and a dog. For Reed, life was simple. With both feet solidly planted in tradition, he set a goal and pursued it.

  And although she, too, liked to make goals and follow thr
ough, she found the step of identifying a goal tricky. The events of the past few days had made it painfully obvious she did not have her goal for a relationship firmly fixed in her mind. Should the goal be companionship and friendship? The desire to have a family? Commonality and similar aims in life? Should it be love? She couldn’t decide.

  The single fact she was certain of was that a relationship—a marriage—should absolutely not be based only on physical attraction, on passion. That was a death wish and, on that account, she was fairly safe with Reed.

  Casey wallowed in the bath pool, reveling in every swish of the deliciously warm water. The wind had died down for the moment, as it tended to do in the evenings, and the birds were lilting their songs into the air. Jack had given her a hard time about wearing clothes in the pool—he wasn’t—but she’d decided against tempting fate. She wore clothes and stayed the full diameter of the pool away from Jack.

  The box of wine they’d brought down to celebrate was almost gone, sipped away during idle conversation. In the resulting lassitude, Casey leaned her head back and heaved a sigh.

  “You know, I’ve been waiting for this feeling—the feeling of totally letting go—since the moment the dean slapped that diploma into my hand.”

  “You’re a student?” Jack was practically horizontal, his eyes closed, his head propped against the pool edge.

  “Yes. Well, I was. Finished now.”

  “Finished what?”

  “My PhD. I don’t think it’s fair for you to ask questions when I can’t.”

  “You’ve asked plenty of questions.”

  “You haven’t answered them.”

  One side of his mouth curved up. “What did you study?”

  “Social science. Specifically, film and culture.”

  Jack’s eyes popped open, nailing her. “Film? You study film? Then… Oh, wait. Film as in popular film? Or film as in documentaries?”