Faith

by Lisa Helen Gray

  We’re first out, but a quick glance shows Maddox and Landon’s teams aren’t far behind us. The next is a wooden log, already covered in mud, with a rope above to help guide you along. We make it over with only a few slips before coming to a wall.

  “I’ll go first. Once I’m at the top, I’ll help you up.”

  “Is this a sexist thing?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

  He laughs. “No, this is a me wanting us to win thing.”

  I don’t get chance to argue because he’s already leaping up the wall and grabbing the rope. I watch his firm arse until it’s out of sight. He reaches down, and after a few steps backwards, I run and then leap to catch his hands. He easily lifts me to the stage, and I gasp, falling on top of him.

  “Well…” he grins, grabbing my arse.

  I giggle into his throat. Then Landon jumps up next to us, startling us. He reaches down to grab Charlotte, so I roll off Beau and down the other side.

  I want to groan and rethink this whole mud challenge. I’m wet, and my muscles are already burning. But one look behind me, at a gloating Aiden, makes me forget the aches and move forward. If I lose to him, I’ll never hear the last of it.

  The first flag is just on the other side of the next course, which happens to be a lot of elastic rope and a puddle of mud. First, we run across the bridge, and then dive into the thick mud.

  “Fuck, we need to go under, otherwise we could get caught in the elastic.”

  I push back the hair that has fallen over my goggles and nod, now realising why we needed the goggles and were instructed never to take them off.

  As we head under the first part, trying not to put our heads all the way beneath the mud, something catches my leg and tries to pull me back. I kick out, hitting something hard, and keep moving forward. I don’t bother turning back to find out if was one of the boys. Instead, I follow Beau, as he makes it easier for me to move through the mud. A quick glance to my side reveals Landon assisting Charlotte, laughing at her expression. Her face, her hair… Everything is covered in mud.

  I start to giggle as we get out of the net.

  I’m actually having fun. Even if I am getting filthy in the process.

  We grab the flag as we reach the post. Once it’s sealed safety in our pouch, we run onwards, following the arrows to the next course. It moves around, deeper into the forest. Footsteps running behind us let me know the others are close.

  But once we exit a copse of trees, I gasp. I’m out of breath and startled by what is in front of us.

  A water mudslide, so steep I’m concerned about how we’re going to make it up there. Why couldn’t it be a slide we went down? Now that, I’d flipping enjoy. Instead, we’ve got a single rope, for each group, to help us up.

  “Shit.” Beau laughs. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I gaze at the top and find another flag sitting on a post by a tree. Another two to go before the end. That’s if we make it up this hill.

  I grab the rope and climb, using both my feet and hands. It’s hard, and a few times I slip a little. More than once, Beau pushes my arse to keep me going.

  I’m near the top when I hear Beau yell out. I look behind me to find him sliding down, Aiden next to him.

  Damn my brother.

  We were so close.

  I keep moving until I reach the top, my arms burning from pulling my weight. I’m thankful I didn’t slip and have to do it all again.

  My body is like jelly as I slump towards the flag post. Once I’ve grabbed our colour, I look down the hill, keeping away from the edge, so I don’t slip.

  Beau is climbing up our rope again, Aiden to his left and Maddox to his right. The girls are further up, nearly at the top, thanks to the men below them.

  Hayden falls down next to me, breathing hard. She grins, her eyes dancing with delight. “This shit is awesome.” She pauses, squinting behind me. “Hey, what the hell is Beau doing?”

  Laughter bubbles from my lips when Beau kicks out at Aiden, making him fall back down.

  “Hey, you fucker,” Aiden screams, sliding down on his side.

  Beau moves to do the same to Maddox, but Maddox catches on and shoves Beau in the shoulder. He falls and slides down the slope, laughing. I should be pissed. We could lose. But it’s so funny to watch as they all fight to get up here first.

  Maddox, having looked away from his primary goal, misses Lily slipping, and they both slide down in a heap.

  “Shit!” he yells.

  “Oh, my God,” I laugh, my hand covering my mouth.

  “Come on, Imogen, we’ve got this,” Hayden shouts.

  Liam, hearing his sister, grins. He swings the rope he’s on and dives on Immy. Both of them slide down. Hayden and Immy both start cursing, but Liam just laughs, moving back to his rope. Immy, pissed at Liam, pushes him over. He falls on the floor, grunting.

  “I’m so going to drown him.”

  “We’re never going to make it to the finish line if they keep this up.” I’m still giggling when Charlotte reaches us. She’s still covered in mud, but the splatters on her face have dried up.

  “I’m going to kill Lily when we get back.” She tries her best to move the fallen hair out of her face, but fails.

  “At this rate, we won’t have any family members left,” I tell her, laughing hard.

  My eyes fall to the slide again. Beau and Mark are now tying. The muscles in their arms bulging. I’m glad Beau only wore a T-shirt now, because seeing him like this is seriously hot. He looks like he’s in his element.

  The others are scrambling in the mud to get back to the rope, falling down the mudslide leading up to it. It seems to be getting wetter and wetter every time one of them falls. It’s turned into a stream of muddy water rather than actual mud.

  I start laughing when Aiden tries to punch Maddox in the face for pushing him off his rope, but instead of hitting him, he hits Ashton. Ashton curses, pushing him a few feet down to where the water and mud are gathering. Clearly, they’ve forgotten they’re on the same team.

  “Ashton,” Aiden screams, spluttering muddy water from his mouth.

  I shuffle backwards on my knees when Beau is close. I’m holding my breath, hoping Mark doesn’t play any tricks on him. The only ones we have to worry about right now is Landon and Imogen, as they are both half way up the hill.

  Beau grins when he reaches the top, tagging my arm. As soon as I’m on my feet, we’re running. I’m laughing, not having had so much fun in my life.

  This has to be the best getaway we’ve ever done.

  A bunch of tyres come into view and we quickly manoeuvre our way through, laughing at Hayden shouting at us to wait.

  Yeah, like that will happen.

  “You snooze, you lose,” I yell, running to keep up with Beau.

  A long line of different logs at different heights are in front of us. In white spray paint is written whether we have to go over or under.

  The first one is low. We slide under, easily slipping through, before crawling to the next one, both of us rolling over it.

  I’m laughing so hard I feel weak, and when we go under another one, I feel hands on my ankles once again.

  “Oh, no you don’t, bitch,” Hayden laughs, trying to drag me back.

  Weak with exertion, I let her, and when we come eye level, I push her away and start crawling over her, laughing.

  Imogen is cursing Landon as he starts dragging her backwards too. I’m still a laughing mess as I flop over the next log.

  Beau is ahead of me, trying his best to jump for the next one, which is pretty high. He does it, rolling over and landing on the other side.

  I’m fucked.

  There is no way I’ll reach the log to get over it. Beau must read my apprehension in my expression, because he grins. He walks under the log and links his hands together, to give me a leg up. I giggle, placing my foot in his hands. I’m just getting my leg over when Landon throws himself over easily. I glare when he ducks under to help Charlotte out.

&n
bsp; “Let’s go,” Beau laughs, grabbing my hand. Together we run through some more tyres on the ground, again reaching another flag.

  Beau grabs this one and shoves it into his pocket. We keep running, following the arrows around another bend.

  A wide-roped ladder is against a wall and we sprint towards it, knowing this must be the last obstacle. I look around for the flag, not seeing one, but still carry on up.

  Landon and Hayden are right behind us, both jumping as far up the net as they can go. Beau reaches the top first, leaning down to reach for me. A wicked grin on his face as he pulls me up.

  I see why once I reach the top. We’re on a massive hill that is soaked with mud and water. Plastic sheeting is underneath, so this part of the course has been built by them. Dirty water runs from small taps on the side.

  My laughter is loud as I sit on the edge next to Beau. “Let’s do this.” I grab his hand, and together, we shoot down the slide, screaming and laughing.

  “Fuck yeah,” Hayden yells.

  We reach the bottom too soon and jump to our feet, before running to the finish line a few meters ahead of us, the flag blowing brightly in the wind.

  We grab it together, jumping up and down. I leap into his arms and wrap my legs around his waist. I must take him by surprise because he falls back a step, grunting.

  Completely in the moment, I lean back to look at him. “We won!” Then I kiss him, full on the lips, deep and wet. My fingers run through his hair to the back of his neck, where I grip him to pull him closer.

  I’m snatched out of his arms and I squeal in shock. “What did I tell you about kissing my sister?” Aiden growls. Mark stands next to him, scowling at us.

  Beau grins. “She kissed me.”

  That really isn’t helping.

  Aiden drops me to my feet and I whirl on him. “Never pull me away like that again.”

  His face reddens—with anger or embarrassment remains to be seen. “I’m telling Dad you kissed him.”

  “You wouldn’t?” I gasp, stepping back.

  What a traitor.

  “Oh, I totally freaking would. You wait until we get home.”

  “I hate you,” I scream, before turning and going to storming off. I stop short and pivot back to him, poking him in the chest. “And we won! Us. Loser!” I hold my fingers in an L shape against my forehead and stick my tongue out.

  He sputters before storming off to lick his wounds. He doesn’t even try to hide that he’s a sore loser.

  Beau walks over to me and wraps his arm around my waist from behind. “You told him, baby.”

  Turning around in his arms, I grin up at him. “We totally kicked all their arses. I’ve had so much fun, but I’ll be glad to get out of these clothes and shower the mud out of my hair.”

  He laughs, his eyes twinkling as he runs his fingers through my mud-covered hair. “I dunno; I think you kind of look sexy.”

  I roll my eyes despite the flutter in my stomach. I love it when he says things like that.

  “And I’m hungry. Feed me.” I grin, still jumping with excitement from winning. “And losers, you’re paying,” I shout.

  They all groan, shaking their heads at my antics.

  Next is tobogganing, and I can’t wait to show them up.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Come Monday afternoon, I’m glad to be home. My hangover from last night is still pounding away behind my eyes. But it was so worth it.

  The adult tobogganing slopes had a fully-stocked bar on the side and, if you can believe it, disco lights. With the weather cooling down, they even had heat lights by the patio. We had fun running up and down with sledges, and drinking in between. The little stunts the boys tried to do were hilarious.

  The whole weekend was brilliant, but for me, Sunday was one of the best days of my life. It was incredible. We all had so much fun, and we have the photos to prove it. Ciara, Josh, Trent and Jacob and Hope are going to be furious when they find out what we all got up to.

  Now, it’s back to reality, though I am over the moon to be home.

  Beau dropped me off at home before leaving to take the evening shift at work. He won’t be finishing until two in the morning. I sort of feel bad he swapped all his shifts with shitty late ones, so he could come along with us.

  I mean it when I say I sort of feel bad, because I’d loved having him with us. His sacrifice is appreciated.

  However, I wish I knew where we stood. How do I bring up the fact we’ve acted like a couple all weekend? It’s a hard topic to talk about—certainly not something I’ve ever had to do before. I have no idea what to do when it comes to men, especially Beau.

  It’s not like I can ask my cousins or sister for help; none of them have had a boyfriend either. They’ve dated, but with the men in our family, progressing past that getting-to-know-each-other stage is hard. Trying to get the guys to understand we’re grown adults is like trying to get blood out of a stone.

  With all the secrecy in her life, Hayden is the only one who gets away with hiding stuff so easily, and she still lives with my uncle Max and aunt Lake. None of us know what she does when she’s not with us, or why she sneaks out at ungodly hours. She thinks none of us know, but we’re not stupid. Only her brothers and parents don’t see it. How? I have no idea.

  The need to speak to Beau is going to keep playing on my mind. It’s not something we can avoid forever. We need to talk about what happened between us. I want to know where we stand with each other. I mean, are we a couple? I’m hoping the answer is yes, but I don’t want to come across clingy or needy. I’ve had enough friends get dumped because they’ve wanted too much too soon. Sad, but true. I don’t want to ruin what we have, even if that means we’ll only ever be friends.

  My lips lift into a smile as I think of how easily we’d fit the role of being a couple. Kissing him had been like a dream, and I thought nothing could be better than spending time with him. It felt like we had been doing it for months, after having known each other for years. It’s eerie how casual and aware we are of each other. I had been at ease the whole time with him, only feeling anxious when we’d been alone in the tent, and that was only because I hadn’t wanted to make a fool out of myself by showing just how inexperienced I am.

  I’ve never felt this way about a man before. I’m a dreamer, so when my expectations of the perfect man were never met, I moved on. I may have seemed small-minded to some people, but I never wanted to lead someone on. I didn’t want to give them false hope. It wasn’t fair on them or me. With Beau, he’s beyond any expectations I ever had. He’s more than I ever wished for. It sounds sappy, but it’s true.

  My phone starts blaring from my bag by the door. I’m thinking about ignoring it, but Beau enters my mind. It could be him. With that thought, I practically bounce off the sofa and rush over to my bag.

  The screen flashes with ‘work’ and for a second, I’m half-tempted to switch it to silent. I still have today off.

  However, I wouldn’t be who I was if I ignored it. Animals are a huge part of my life, and if one is in pain, I want to be there to help and comfort them.

  “Hello?”

  Nina answers, sounding tired. It’s eight at night and we’re normally closed. It feels later though, with autumn passing and the night’s drawing in early.

  “Hey, we need you to come in. We’ve just had a walk-in emergency. A dog has been run over and we’re prepping him for surgery. We can’t get hold of Susan. She’s out on Hoo Farm, tending to the pregnant horse.”

  I’m grabbing my keys before she’s even finished telling me. “How long has it been since he was run over?” I ask, running down the stairs.

  “Not long. It happened around the corner. The car didn’t even stop. A passer-by watched what happened and immediately brought him here. He has a broken leg, and although he’s a chubby dog, he’s underweight and malnourished. We think he’s got internal bleeding.”

  That’s good. Well, not good he got run over, but good he was brought in straight away
. It’s usually cats we have brought in after being hit by a vehicle, and ninety-six percent of the time, it’s too late for them. They aren’t brought to us in time. It’s sickening how the world can overlook them, labelling them as feral animals. They aren’t. They’re someone’s pets, a part of their family, their life. They become their everything.

  If I had the power to change the law, I would. Sadly, I don’t.

  “I’m on my way. Keep him comfortable until I get there. Can you get reception to call my mum and let her know I won’t be picking Roxy up until tomorrow?”

  “Will do.”

  My legs move faster. I need to reach the building in time to scrub up and perform surgery. When it comes into view, I relax a little, my hangover all but gone.

  The smell as I rush in is familiar. It’s like a second home to me. Owning a veterinary surgery has been my dream and life goal for so long, I couldn’t picture doing anything else.

  The only other thing I’d like to do, which I’m saving up for, is own a shelter for stray animals. We don’t have the funding or the resources at the centre. We just don’t have the room. We’re a small company, started up by me and Susan and a few investors my grandma Mary got for us. I’d met Susan at university, and although she’s a lot older than me, we became friends. Our ideas for our future had been the same, and together, we made our dreams a reality.

  I rush in and clean up, putting on my scrubs before meeting my colleagues in theatre, resting my mind so I can focus on one thing.

  Saving his life.

  *** *** ***

  After cleaning up for the night, I head back into the kennels to check on Buster―a name I granted him when I’d seen the chubby English Bull Dog.

  At first glance, I’d say he’s homeless or a runaway. He’s been living off scraps, not the hearty meals an English Bulldog is supposed to have. He isn’t chipped, but it’s still our duty as vets to try and find his owners―if he has any.