by Lee, Lia
I walk over to grab the diaper bag, then take Mason from Levi and lay him on the floor on top of his blankets. “Okay, dad, here’s how it’s done.” I show him how to open Mason’s sleeper and slip the waterproof change mat beneath his bottom. Levi stares at the very soggy disposable diaper clinging to his legs. “Pull those tapes and take the wet one off,” I say, unfolding a fresh diaper ready for installation.
“Uh, okay.” He does as instructed, recoiling slightly at the aromatic fumes released by the unfastened nappy. I laugh as I hand him a cleansing wipe.
“You’ll get used to it. Give him a wipe, from back to front.” I take the soiled diaper and roll it up for disposal, reminded of how I’d used the last one as a defense mechanism. My heart goes cold as the memory flashes in my mind. I don’t know how, but that man managed to follow us from the police station and tracked us to the Hungry Bear. Could he have seen us leave there, too? Could he be waiting outside in the forest right now? I hand Levi the new diaper in exchange for the used cloth. “Lift his legs and slide it underneath his butt, then fasten the tapes.”
“Got it. There. Not so tough.” Mason kicks his feet, happy to be warm and dry once more. Levi laughs and catches one foot, wiggling the toes with his thumb. “Feels good, huh, buddy?”
“What do you do with your trash?” I ask, gesturing with the dirty diaper and wipe in my hands. I can’t exactly expect weekly garbage pickup in this neighborhood. Levi glances down at the refuse, his adorably bushy eyebrows knotting together. The simple life sometimes isn’t so simple.
“I guess we’ll bury it,” he says, his nostrils flaring in a distasteful sniff. “Deep.” He takes the items from me and rises to stand. “But after breakfast. You two must be starved by now.” He walks to the kitchen area, dropping the bundle near the door on his way past. “There’s wash water over here.” He points to an old, chipped basin atop a makeshift stand next to the wood stove and pours some heated water into it from a long-handled pot on the stove. I shake my head in wonderment. Not so much at the rustic conventions that must be relied upon while away from civilization. I’ve been camping often enough to know. Just the vision of the privileged, card-carrying city slicker having been reduced to these methods. You really can learn things when you have to, just as he said.
“Sounds great. What’s on the menu?” I leave Mason where he is for the moment while I take advantage of the warm bowl of water and a bar of soap next to it.
“Fried ham and biscuits. How does that grab you?”
“No coffee?” I tease.
“Um, I don’t think you’re ready for the coffee I make. How about tea instead?”
“Sure.” I return to the old armchair and haul Mason into my lap, feeding him from the jars of baby food in my bag while Levi putters in his “kitchen.” Luckily, I still have the disposable spoon from the farmer’s market and don’t have to ask Levi for one. I don’t even know if he has such an item. I let out a sigh. Just one more complication to living in the middle of nowhere. Silently, I conclude that this situation really is unworkable.
We eat ham and biscuits together and drink tea, taking turns holding Mason. The cabin interior is now bright with sunlight streaming in.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Levi says, handing Mason off to me while he clears the food away. “Looks like a beautiful day.”
It certainly does. I wish I hadn’t had to leave Mason’s stroller behind. I picture some homeless person pushing around discarded bottles and cans with it at this very moment, and heave another regrettable sigh. In any case, I think we could all use some fresh air, and a walk sounds lovely. Still, the thought that someone could be waiting for us out there gnaws at the back of my mind, and I can’t help but wonder if I should ask Levi to take that rifle along for the trip.
Chapter Eleven
Levi
In spite of all the shit that’s happened, I feel an overwhelming sense of peace walking in the woods, carrying my baby son against my shoulder. With the mother of my child walking alongside me and the chill-edged air of a brilliant autumn day all around us, I feel strong. I feel alive, like everything I’ve ever needed and wanted is right here within arm’s reach.
Money doesn’t matter. Position and pride don’t matter. Out here, nature has a way of showing you what’s truly important and real. I don’t want to leave this place. But can I convince Dallas to stay? Adapt to something so disconnected from what she’s used to?
“It’s lovely out here,” she says, her words escaping in wisps of vapor in the crisp air. Her voice is breathy, as though short of wind from keeping up with my pace. I deliberately slow my strides, for her sake as well as Mason’s. I can’t be reckless with such a precious bundle in my arms. I smile at her remark.
“Yeah. Sure is. Lots of wildlife about too, getting ready for winter.” As if on cue, a pair of squirrels dart across our path and race up the trunk of a tall pine, disappearing in the high boughs. Animals. They’ve got it all figured out, and it makes me think that me and my new family could do the same. Gather stores for winter and just hunker down in peace, silence…and freedom. To hell with the outside world, the contrived and overly complex systems and institutions we humans have fashioned for ourselves, losing sight of real life in the process. This, I think, gazing up at the thinning canopy of green, red, and gold above us, this is life. This is freedom.
“There aren’t like…bears…around right now, are there?” Dallas asks.
I can’t lie and say there aren’t. But the odds of crossing paths with one is not as likely as encountering a squirrel or two. “They keep to themselves, mostly. Although they’re foraging heavily now, prepping for hibernation. Makes them a little slow in the chase.”
“That’s not comforting.”
I laugh. “It’s like they say. They’re more afraid of us than we are of them. You just have to make sure you don’t startle them, have them come up on you unexpectedly.”
“Or come between a mother and her cub?”
I feel the heat and weight of Mason’s body against my own and hug him a little tighter. “Yeah. I imagine you know how that works better than anyone.”
Dallas drops back and holds a hand to her mouth as she begins to cough. Maybe the altitude is affecting her, in addition to the exertion of stepping over roots and stones and navigating the mix of uphill and downhill grades. I have to remember she’s not used to this as I am.
I stop and turn toward her. “You okay?”
She coughs some more and nods at the same time. “Just this nasty flu. Seems to keep hanging on.”
“I thought you had meds for that?”
She waves my question away. “It’s nothing. It’ll pass.” She walks toward us. “I’ll carry him for awhile if you like.”
“I don’t mind. You need to catch your breath. We’ll go slow.”
She smiles and tucks her hand in the crook of my elbow, tossing a coy glance upward. “In walking? Or in other ways?”
I match her sly grin, liking where her thoughts appear to be going. “Any way you need, baby.”
“I think I’d like to go back now,” she says, giving my arm a squeeze. “This environment is giving me an appetite.”
“A healthy appetite is a good sign. Of being over your flu, that is,” I tease, certain she’s catching my meaning. “I’ll be happy to help you satisfy it.” We change direction and make our way back to the cabin. Her suggestiveness makes me want to run at top speed, but of course I can’t. Our return progress seems to take forever. The vision of getting the woman I love right where I want her, nude and on her back in the middle of my cozy loft bed, is making me uncomfortably harder with each step.
“Mason usually takes a nap this time of day,” she mentions matter-of-factly. “So, we’ll have to be quiet.”
“Mmm. Can’t promise that, but I understand.” At last, we reach the cabin and step inside. Mason is already sound asleep as I peel him from my shoulder and lay him in the makeshift armchair-cum-crib. “Is he always this predictable?
”
“Not always. But getting into a routine is the key.”
I step back, nodding as I get lost in the brilliant, seductive blue of her eyes. “I think I’d like getting into a naptime routine. With you.” I reach out, slipping my hand behind her head and drawing her close. She melts into my embrace. She wants this, too. I don’t mean to be impatient, but I can’t help myself. I’ve been alone, been denying my carnal urges for too long. “Dally. I’m going to make love to you. I can’t promise I’ll be quiet, or gentle. I need you. I hope you need me just as badly.”
Her reply is wordless, her watery blue gaze holding mine as she closes the distance between our lips. Her kiss is warm and needy, with nothing held back. The scents of the outdoors, of evergreens and verdant earth, of sunshine and rain that is in our hair and the fibers of our clothing, fill my senses and fuel my lust. The heat of us, the curves and ridges of our body parts fitting against one another in a human jigsaw puzzle of desire and need, break the last vestiges of control.
I pull the shoulders of her jacket down off her arms and let the garment drop to the floor. I wrest my heavy woolen shirt from my torso and add it to the pile. Before guiding her up the short ladder to my loft, I frame her wind-blushed face in my rough hands and deliver one more searing, demanding kiss, my lips crushing hers and my beard scouring her chin and cheeks in a promise of unrelenting intent to shatter all her senses.
Her breath exhales in frantic bursts as I break our kiss. I place her hands on the rough-hewn rungs of the ladder and cup her deliciously round ass cheeks in my palms as I urge her upward. With a few lunges of her shapely legs, she reaches the loft platform and rolls onto the mattress, my own hard body following and caging her soft one beneath me.
“Dally…” I whisper, ripping at the buttons on her blouse. My eager hands slip past the fabric and push her bra cup aside, reveling in the firm but yielding texture of her luscious breasts. My lips close around the stiffening buds of her nipples, sucking them to throbbing peaks then circling the taut brown skin of her areola with my tongue.
“Levi,” she gasps, grasping at my belt and fumbling for the buckle. “Please…I want you…now.”
I need no further urging as I release the buckle and rid myself of my confining denims. Dallas unbuttons her waistband and pulls the zipper just in time for me to return my lips to the exposed skin of her belly, working my way from her ribs downward, dragging my tongue in a slow line over her abdomen, pausing to dip inside her puckered little navel.
Her hips buck, and a pleasured moan escapes her lips. “Oh my God,” she gasps, pushing desperately at the remains of her jeans and panties, shoving the material over her hips and out from under her butt. I assist with the process, pulling both garments down past her knees and ankles, tossing them aside. She unhooks the front closure of her bra, her excited breasts tumbling out unfettered. I sit back on my knees, my rock-hard rod standing upright like a flagpole, to take in the marvelous sight of her.
I stroke the skin of her legs, luxuriating in their smooth softness. I take hold of her ankles and place her feet on either side of my knees, spreading her quivering thighs apart. The view of her pussy, revealed to me in all its heavenly glory, makes me salivate. Leaning forward, I plunge my tongue between her folds, homing in on her swelling clit, circling its soft, slick plumpness, tasting the sweet, invigorating flavor of her. Another unearthly moan rises from her throat.
“Levi,” she whimpers, her voice strained with need. “Make me come, please…”
Not yet. Not until I’ve had my fill of her, satisfied the craving for her that has burned and smoldered within me for so long, filled the void created by every lost minute we’ve been apart. I lick and suck, drink in the essence of her sex until my straining cock can’t take the pressure another second. Dallas squirms and bucks, panting in rapid, keening breaths as she teeters on the edge of orgasm.
I lift my face, bathed in her juices, from the wet heaven between her legs and move atop her heated body, the engorged tip of my cock poised at her primed, waiting entrance. “Now, baby,” I growl, breaching her hot, feminine gate and thrusting deep. God, I’ve nearly forgotten how good it feels, encased in the rapturous depths of a woman. My woman.
Dallas wails in her release, deliberately restraining the volume so as not to wake our sleeping child below. The sound urges me on, withdrawing then driving home, again and again, until the white-hot avalanche of ecstasy overtakes me, burying me as quickly and completely as its snowy counterpart. My heart pounds and my balls tighten, my cock pulsing in shot after shot of hot cum, equally unstoppable.
“Dallas…” I groan, my voice raw.
I’m paralyzed in the grip of my body’s reactions; I don’t want this moment to ever end. I want this; I want Dallas, our baby and our world to stay exactly as it is in this precious, perfect capsule of time, even though I know that’s impossible.
Slowly, our breathing decelerates and muscles relax, collapsing into the warm afterglow of sex, holding each other close. I can’t speak. There are no words to express my feelings right now, and I’m satisfied to simply wallow in the happy, suspended silence. I feel Dallas relax beneath me, lifting one hand to stroke my bristly cheek.
“This stuff has got to go,” she chuckles, tugging on random hairs from my beard. “It’s like making love to a sasquatch.”
“That good, huh?” I reply dubiously. “And you know this how?”
Dallas laughs. “Okay. I can’t say I’ve made love to a sasquatch. But after today I think I can say I’d ask him to shave his face.”
“Is that what you’re asking me?”
She smiles and nods, her fingertips tracing the line of my eyebrows. “Would you? I know it’s still you under all this, but I want to see the face of the man I fell in love with. I don’t want him to hide anymore.”
Hiding. Yes, I’ve been hiding. From many things. But the one person I don’t want to hide from any longer is her. “I’ll do it on one condition,” I say, taking her hand from my face and kissing her knuckles. “That you stay with me. You and Mason.”
“We’ll stay,” she says quietly, her chin dipping in confirmation. “For awhile.”
Chapter Twelve
Dallas
I don’t know how we’ve managed it, but it’s been nearly a week since we arrived here at Levi’s cabin. I’m starting to feel like a homesteader’s wife, mashing cooked carrots and potatoes into baby food after using up all the jarred stuff. Levi tells me he has made a few acquaintances with other rural residents who grow vegetables and raise animals. It seems that summer’s harvest is overflowing and the local gardeners are more than happy to give away extra bounty. I’m certainly thankful for it; we’ve made not just decent, but downright delectable dinners in the last several days. Commercial, imported grocery items just can’t hold a candle to domestically grown fare. The flavors and textures are simply amazing.
I chuckle inwardly. Who’d have thought it would only take a matter of days for me to “go native” and actually consider the idea of living off the grid like this…possibly permanently? Just days ago, I had sworn to Levi that I wanted to return to the city, pick up my career again. Now the idea seems almost trivial. This mountain air has an almost drug-like effect. It’s exhilarating. Not to mention daily lovemaking, whenever and wherever we feel like it. And we’ve been feeling like it a lot. I feel a blush rise to my cheeks at recalling the way Levi took me just yesterday, behind the cabin on a bed of leaves, no less. I’m finding that sex out-of-doors is both liberating and intoxicating. I might never want to do it in a conventional bed again.
However, I worry that I’ve not contacted my parents since the night of the kidnapping. As far as they know, I’m staying in a motel somewhere in the area, and they’re likely sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear from me. Whatever ideas I may have about my future, I will have to return to Forks eventually. I’m nearly out of diapers, for one thing. Surely it’s safe now?
I glance over at my son, who is on his
blanket on the floor. He’s become a voracious crawler since we’ve been here, and I have to watch him constantly. For the moment he’s lying on his back, playing with a rattle I keep in the diaper bag for his amusement.
Next to him is the roughly-oval-shaped basket Levi made for him as a kind of bassinet. I still shake my head in wonder over how this man, who had previously only mastered the art of martini-ordering and luxury car driving, has taught himself carpentry and basket making skills. It was actually fun walking through the woods, collecting the denuded willow branches of exactly the right thickness and length to make the item. Watching Levi shape the frame and weave the branches in and out was even more entertaining. While not perfect, the basket had the priceless quality of being handmade with love, and I loved him for making it.
Outside I hear the sound of an axe falling and the hollow clunk of dried wood as the split pieces knock against each other. My self-made mountain man is hard at work. I cross to the window to have a look. He’s worked up a sweat, and his flannel shirt lies discarded on the edge of the woodpile. I lean against the window frame and admire his tanned, muscled torso as he works, his shaven jaw conspicuously pale against the browned skin of the rest of his face. But it’s the face I remember.
His lean, six-pack abs flex and twist as he places the next piece of wood on the chopping stump. His biceps bulge as he lifts the axe and brings it down in a powerful swing, exploding the log in two. He pauses to wipe the moisture from his brow. As much as I like the view, he should put his shirt back on to avoid catching a chill. The last thing we need is him getting sick, too.
I’m still not a hundred percent, a lingering tightness in my chest still giving me occasional coughing fits. Mason seems fine, with no sign of any symptoms Dr. Halpert cautioned against. However, the antibiotics are finished, and I know the doc wanted us to see him again in a few weeks. One more reason a trip to town will be unavoidable. I turn away from the window, Levi’s labors reminding me to stoke the old wood stove full to make sure the cabin stays warm. He’s probably worked up a mighty thirst, so I fill a sport cup from Levi’s camping gear with water, then dress both Mason and myself for going outdoors.
