by Cindi Madsen
Well, that and Cam, because watching his powerful legs eat up the distance with ease was quite the sight, one she could fully get behind. He glanced back at her. “Sorry. Am I going too fast?”
“No. I’m…” Her lack of oxygen chose that moment to show itself, and a stitch lanced her side. She bent over, hands braced on her knees. “Okay, maybe a little too fast. I’m not in as good shape as I used to be.”
“Your shape looks just fine to me,” he said, flashing her a smile that was fairly perky for so early in the morning.
She studied his face, looking to see if he was simply being nice or if there was more. She worried that she wanted there to be more so badly that she might see it even if it wasn’t there.
After Quinn had convinced her to let them take care of Zoey overnight, her friend worried aloud that maybe Cam had wanted to surprise her and she’d gone and opened her big mouth and blown it. Honestly, Emma had needed the advance warning to calm her concerns over the idea of leaving her daughter overnight. But she promised she’d let Cam bring it up.
When he did ask her, though, he didn’t call it a getaway, or even a date. He’d said he needed to test out the harder trail for tours.
Still, he could’ve gone with his brother, and instead, he’d asked her. That had to mean something.
Cam extended a water bottle to her, and she unscrewed the lid and took a large drink. A couple more breaths and the cramp in her side eased up enough that she could straighten. “Okay. I’m good.”
“Let’s just sit for a while.”
“Really, I’m fi—”
“I know. But I need a break.” Cam grabbed her hand and tugged her over to a large log. They sat down on it, the sounds of birds and rustling leaves in the breeze the only thing filling the air. This was why she used to crave heading to the hills. Peace and quiet—something she didn’t experience much with a two-year-old.
Of course now she missed her two-year-old’s constant chatter, even as she was excited to have a minibreak. Worry rose up, too. She pulled out her phone, looking at the weak signal.
“I’ve got the satellite phone in case of emergency,” Cam said, patting his backpack. “But Heath and Quinn will take good care of Zoey. I bet she’s chasing Trigger around and getting into mud puddles as we speak.”
Emma laughed. “I’m sure she is. I can’t help but worry, though.”
“I know. I do, too. But I’m glad you’re doing this with me.” He patted her leg, and she tried to let the with me part reassure her. “It’s been a long time since I went this far into the hills, and I swear, the air, the water…everything’s different up here.”
Emma took a deep breath of the air. That she could agree with. She wished, just once, he’d let her see a bit more inside his head and what he was thinking, especially when it came to their relationship.
What if he still doesn’t completely trust me? There was a difference between forgiveness and forgetting, after all. And if that were the case…you couldn’t have a relationship without trust. Not a solid one.
He’d also made it clear that he didn’t want to make plans, and she didn’t want to come across as pushy—she was sure that was about as desirable as boring.
But she told herself that it’d been a month and a half, and while he might not want to make plans, she couldn’t not make some—not with her current project wrapping up, and pressing decisions about the future getting closer by the day.
So once they’d had a rejuvenating day and had settled into camp for the night, she’d take some initiative and ask him where they stood. Maybe she’d even be so bold as to tell him that she cared about him, and she was glad they’d had this time to get to know each other—she could do that much, at least.
Maybe that made her serious and a planner type, but look where she was, and what she was doing. Did boring girls traipse into the woods looking for adventure?
No, they did not.
Cam stood and extended his hand. “Ready?”
She slapped her hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet. “Ready.”
Instead of turning to head up the trail like she thought he would do, he lowered his lips to hers. She wrapped her arms around him, getting blocked by his massive backpack for a moment before settling for holding onto the sides of his waist.
He still kissed her a little too carefully, so she decided to see what’d happen if she pushed it further, even as nervous butterflies swarmed her stomach, mixing in with the happy, twitterpated ones. She slid her tongue inside and rolled it over his, releasing the moan that she’d held back.
Apparently it set something off inside him, because he drove his fingers through her hair, cupped the back of her head, and deepened the kiss. His other arm came around her waist, and he molded her tightly to him as he stroked her tongue with his, kissing her long enough to make the world around them spin.
When they broke the kiss, she gripped his arms, needing a moment to steady herself. Whoa. There were the fireworks I was hoping for.
Cam rested his forehead against hers. “You keep kissing me like that, woman, and I’ll be tempted to pitch the tent right here and forget the lake.”
She bit back a smile. “But how would you demonstrate your fishing skills? After last weekend, I’m still not sure you have any.”
His mouth dropped. “I had a two-year-old sabotaging my attempts.”
“Sure,” she said, laughing. “Blame it on the two-year-old, not the fact that you were using the wrong bait.”
“You think your bait is better than mine?”
She nodded.
“That’s it.” He kissed her hard on the mouth, then took her hand and started up the trail. “Once we get there, it’s on. Whoever catches more fish owes the other…” He glanced at her, his eyebrows ticking together. Then mischief flickered in his eyes, and she wondered if she’d bitten off more than she could chew. “A striptease.”
Emma could feel the heat rising to her face. “Trust me, you don’t want a striptease from me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, his husky voice echoing through her and putting her hormones on high alert. “But if you’re too scared…”
This is the passion I wanted—now it’s time to grab it by the horns and own it. “When I win, I expect dance moves with the stripping. Just so you know.”
He laughed, and they took off at a quick pace again, with her having to take two steps for every one of his strides. But now she had a new goal: she was going to catch as many fish as possible, because there was no way she was going to have to stand in front of Cam Brantley and do a striptease. Watching him strip, on the other hand…
She nearly tripped on the gnarled roots of a tree when she thought of all the muscles hiding under his clothes.
But once she recovered her balance, her goal remained the same: win at all costs and receive a show she was sure she’d never forget.
…
Cam was so used to long treks that he kept forgetting that Emma hadn’t spent the last several years marching here to march there to march somewhere else.
Besides, he needed to save his energy for fishing. Not that it took a lot of energy, but suddenly he had a whole lot of extra motivation to catch as many fish as he could. He’d been trying to honor Emma’s request to take things slow, but that kiss had made it hard to think about anything besides having her tight little body under his again.
His mind started replaying blips from their night all those years ago—Emma running her fingers across his torso until he’d been about to explode, her short skirt and dragging his hands up her thighs, crawling over her as he laid her down on the bench seat of his truck and kissed her neck. She’d made such sexy noises, too, and she’d been the one that’d reached for the button of his jeans.
Tree branches scraped his shoulders and cheek, and he wondered when he’d strayed toward the thick group of pine trees—his thoughts were making it hard to keep his concentration on the trail. He shook his head a bit, trying to clear it, beca
use it wouldn’t do for them to end up lost. So he forced his gaze ahead, guiding Emma back to the barely there trail.
Blue Lake was one of his favorite places, one that seemed completely untouched by man, and while he missed his little girl, he was glad to finally have some alone time with Emma, without interruption and split attention.
All of his attention was definitely on her now, from the way she kept licking her lips to the color in her cheeks and the determined way she took on the steep trail. Truth was, he probably wouldn’t take many people up to this point. There were plenty of other lakes and valleys that’d work for the tours, and some places were sacred.
They took one more break and then made the final climb. When they crested the ridge, where you could look across the bowl-shaped indention with the lake at the bottom, Emma’s jaw literally dropped—he’d been studying her, wanting to see her reaction, and it didn’t disappoint. Her gaze moved to the waterfall on the other side of the ridge, white water spilling down into the crystal-blue basin that reflected the sky.
“It’s…I can’t believe I didn’t know about this spot.” A few strands had spilled out of her ponytail, and the wind toyed with them, swirling them around her face where the sunlight caught them and adding a glowing effect. “It’s beautiful.”
Cam almost let something horribly cheesy slip and said, “It is,” while staring straight at her. He could see she loved it up here, the way he did. She’d surprised him at every turn, and day in and day out, he found his thoughts constantly drifting to her. She was beautiful, too, an effortless kind of beautiful.
She turned the smile on him, and his heart caught—he experienced that familiar tug he often felt around her, only it went deeper this time, down to his very core. “Race you down?” she asked.
“Are you sure you want to lose twice today?”
Two creases formed between her eyebrows.
“The race, and then our bet about who can catch more fish.”
Her confusion morphed into a feisty expression that heated his veins. “Oh, it’s on, soldier.”
Before he could come up with a clever comeback, she was moving down the hill, so fast he worried she’d fall and injure herself, especially with the extra weight of her backpack.
He took off after her, and when it came to balance, she had the advantage. Finally they reached the bottom—he let her win by a couple of steps, because he already felt bad that she was going to lose the fishing bet. Not bad enough to take away the terms—because thoughts of naked Emma were rolling around his head on repeat, and he couldn’t wait for the real-life version—but enough he’d decided he would give her the race.
She reached into her pack, retrieved the pieces of her fishing pole, and started to assemble it. “In a few hours, we’re going to be hungry, and let’s face it, if we wait until nightfall, it’ll be a bit chilly for stripteases, so I say we go till noon.” She glanced at her watch, and he did the same. That gave them about four hours.
After eating breakfast at six thirty and then their ninety-minute hike, they’d probably be more than ready for lunch by then. Not to mention, fish usually bit better earlier anyway. “Deal. I guess you know this means you’re agreeing to strip in daylight.”
“Turn that guessing and what you know right back at yourself, buddy.”
Of all the things he’d expected for this trip, her competitive streak wasn’t one of them. Honestly, he’d hoped there might be more kissing and even a bit of nudity, but he’d planned on playing it by ear and seeing how the rest of their day together went. He knew Emma was more of a nature buff than the other girls he’d dated, but there was still a difference between a leisurely hike and backpacking into a remote location.
There was also a difference between casting a fishing pole and actually catching fish.
As she went to bait her hook, she glanced at him, then turned away, blocking him from seeing what she was using.
Like he was going to copy her—night crawlers were where it was at when it came to this lake, he knew that much. He didn’t bother hiding as he baited his hook, pushing the worm into place so that it covered every inch of silver.
They both cast, giving each other a couple of yards’ space, and then set their poles.
After a few minutes, Emma said, “So, tell me more about the tours. What all are they going to include?”
“There’ll be a few different options. Like a simple fishing trip to the Hope Springs Reservoir, or other lakes with trails that take about thirty minutes to an hour to hike to, like Rock Lake or No Name Lake—”
“Ah, No Name’s pretty. I used to go there a lot, especially during times I knew the reservoir would be crowded.”
He loved that she knew these hills so well and that he could talk to her about it without her zoning out. “Yeah, and for those who want to avoid crowds and are willing to take more intensive hikes and pack in their supplies so they can stay a night, or even a week, I’ll bring them places like here. Once hunting season starts, Heath and I will do some tours that are more tailored to the areas and the type of game.”
Talking it all out was actually helping him not feel so overwhelmed—there were a lot of things he, Heath, and Quinn still needed to iron out, but at least the tours were solidly planned. “But if you’ve got any suggestions, I’m definitely open to them.”
“That all sounds good. When it comes to families or people wanting shorter, easier hikes, I’d say give them a lot of time to just be at the destination. Remember, a lot of them won’t be used to hiking or the higher altitude…”
“I didn’t even think about the altitude difference.”
“That’s why I make the big bucks,” she joked. “Back when I could hike all the time, it was about escaping for a while, without plans or the hectic pace of life getting to me. The only time it didn’t work was after I’d found out I was pregnant. Partly because I couldn’t stop puking,” she added with a laugh.
“That’d put a dent in the fun.”
She nodded, and her gaze drifted to a faraway place. “I kept thinking that I’d only ever done one bad thing in all my life, and I was being punished for it.” She turned to fully face him. “Not that you were a bad thing—that came out wrong.”
“No, I get it. I’m far from the smart choice.”
“I wouldn’t say that, either. You were the impulsive choice that day, although as you now know, I’d kind of had a…thing for you for a while.”
“You never said you had a thing for me. Just that you wanted to date me.” He scooted closer and bumped his shoulder into hers. “You had a thing for me?”
She wrinkled her nose and brought one hand up to cover her face. “Yes, okay? I had a huge crush, which was why I was rather…forward that night.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining. I’m sorry that you felt like you had to pay for it afterward, though.”
“At first I did feel that way—getting pregnant interrupted the plan I had for myself, the one that involved a fancy job in the city. I’d already put off moving in favor of going to the local college and living at home to save money, and I was a little mad that all that cautious living hadn’t guaranteed me the future I’d worked so hard for. Once I accepted I needed a new plan—one that involved being a single mom—I had to find a new way to deal with life. The little victories and future possibilities got me through the hardest days.”
“Yeah, thinking of doing this adventure tour business with my brother really got me through the last few months I was deployed.”
Emma kicked at the grass. “Was it awful over there?”
“Depends on which ‘there.’ Yeah, a lot of the places I was stationed were pretty awful. But I felt like I was making a difference. It was the times when missions didn’t go as planned, or when we’d lose people that made it awful.” Damn it. He didn’t want to get into that.
Emma scooted closer and grabbed his hand.
He charged on before she could ask more. “It made me realize how many things I took for granted, eve
n growing up the way I did.”
“With your dad, you mean.”
Cam sighed—apparently every subject held a land mine. At least this one was easier to deal with, because he didn’t feel like it was his fault, so much as it ended up making him who he was. “I’m glad he seems better, but like I said before, he was hard to live with. He got angry, and he took it out on me a lot. I almost feel guilty telling you about it, because now your life is sort of tied to his, too, and apparently he’s worked hard to change. I can tell he’s really happy about being a grandpa.”
“I get that. But you can talk to me about it. I know all too well how hard it is when you don’t have anyone to talk to.” She glanced at the end of her pole, then released his hand to reel in the line just a bit before moving next to him again. “What about your mom? I’ve heard different versions, of course, but I’d rather know the real one.”
“It’s not like my parents ever got along very well—”
“That’s something I can relate to,” she said with a mirthless laugh. Then she bit her lip. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just saying I understand what that’s like. If that helps.”
“It does, actually,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers. “Basically, after my dad was in an accident and couldn’t work, all he did was drink. They fought even more, and one day she simply yelled that she couldn’t take it anymore. She packed her bags and left. She used to call and check in from time to time. I remember this one especially bad night, about two years after she’d left, she called and I begged her to come home. Like, I fully broke down…”
He stopped, inwardly flinching at the admission.
“There’s no shame in a little breakdown,” Emma said, wrapping her arms around him in a side hug. She tucked her chin on his shoulder, facing him. “Especially when you were just a teenager who was taking on way too much responsibility.”
He didn’t ask how she knew, because she’d clearly read between the lines. Despite wanting her to see him as the guy who could protect her and Zoey from everything, it was a relief that she knew. That she obviously understood.
