by Alexa Davis
“Why?” I snorted. “Why are you being such a goof?”
He glanced at me and walked ahead a few feet. For a moment, I was afraid I’d offended him. “I haven’t just been… dumb, with a girl for a long, long time. Would it offend you if I overshared?”
“Please, I think it’s your turn.” He chuckled and sat down on a rock. He leaned the ladder against his shoulder and wrapped an arm around it. “You remind me of someone I loved, who died.”
“Wow. That’s… that’s pretty heavy.”
“Yeah, sorry. She was awesome, though, so there is that.”
I sat next to him and stared forward. “I’m sorry for your loss, Logan. I’ve never even had someone to lose. I can’t imagine how that feels.”
He draped an arm over my shoulder and tugged me into his side. “It was a long time ago. But, after she died, I did exactly what you’ve accused me of. I just dated with no thought of a future with anyone I was with. So, you know. You were right.”
“You don’t owe me anything, I mean, we just met. I like you so much, and I’m happy to be your friend and help you out here. You made me feel like I could do something important. That’s not easy for someone like me.” I sighed. “Doing something, I mean.”
“I like you, too, Heidi. But, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. Women like you are very rare, you see. I have no intention of just being your friend. I’m going to be your lover. No kidding around this time.”
I stiffened and tried to pull away gently, but he held me tight. The ladder dropped to the ground, and he lifted me into his lap before I could fight him.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you telling me all this? I can’t...” I stopped speaking, embarrassed by the tremor in my voice.
“Exactly. You can’t imagine it. You aren’t comfortable with it. I’m going to wait for you to be ready, but I’m sure as hell going to make my intentions clear. I want you. I wouldn’t bother with you if you were just another beautiful woman in a long line of them.”
I glanced down at him and bit my lip. “Is there the chance of an actual date in this plan of yours, or are we just going to hike around until it’s time to take our clothes off.”
He groaned and pressed his forehead against my arm. “We should probably not give my imagination too much to work with right now. You smell like heaven, and I’m having a hard time not just kissing you now.”
My heart pounded on the inside of my ribs until I thought they might break. My palms dampened as I considered what I was about to do. I turned to face him, hyper-aware of how close he was as he tilted his head back to look up at my face.
I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. I felt a shudder go through his body, and low in my stomach I felt the tight heat of the fire he started. He waited, his eyes on mine, his face a cautious blank. My lips moved closer to his, and as I brushed against his mouth, it opened to me. My pulse bumped, and he made a small sound as his fingers threaded through my hair and he crushed my mouth against his.
He pried my lips apart, and I felt his tongue searching my mouth as involuntary sounds of need and pleasure escaped me. I whimpered, and he tightened his fist in my hair. Then he turned me and pushed my leg around him until I was straddling him. His free hand slid down my back and then up under the hem of my shirt. I gasped and pulled away as electrical shocks ran through my body at his touch.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, as he detangled his fingers from my hair. “I did not intend that. Got a little carried away.”
“I had to stop or I wouldn’t have been able to.”
“Wait, what?”
I blushed at his confusion.
“We didn’t have to stop? Because kissing you is my new favorite thing… like, ever.”
I laughed shakily. “Yes, but I wanted… I don’t even know. I wanted everything. This doesn’t seem like the time or the place.”
“Oh, God. No. I mean, yes, actually, this would’ve been amazing, but not for our first time together.”
“Yes. Exactly.” My nerves jangled at the prospect that I’d have a first time. I’d gone so long thinking no one would want me. But the way he’d kissed me wasn’t a lie. I’d felt him pressed hard against me like a romance novel hero, desperate to be a gentleman in trying circumstances, and I smiled at his back as he stood and straightened himself out.
“Sorry, again. I’m usually a little more chill than that.”
“Ah. Desperate for my body.”
“Pretty much.”
I blushed and shook my head as he threw back his head and laughed, chasing the birds from the trees.
“I was kidding.” I brushed past him and jumped as the ladder hit the ground with a clang. His arms went around me, and he pulled my body against the hard line of his muscular chest and stomach.
“I wasn’t.” He kissed me again, slowly, gently parting my lips and tasting me while he embraced me. “God, I will have all of you.” He blew out a breath and released me carefully, as I regained my footing. “After a real date, or six. You know, whatever the kids are doing these days.”
I blushed and stumbled a little as I put some space between us, glancing around to get my bearings.
“Until then, we have a camera to put up and loggers to threaten. I brought my war paint if you need some.”
He chuckled, then glanced down at me with his brow furrowed. “Did you really?”
“No,” I laughed, “but your face was priceless.”
He had a strange look on his face as he watched me that made me feel nervous and tingly at the same time. “You’re a lot of fun, Heidi.”
I arched an eyebrow. “But?”
“No ‘but.' Just trying to understand how a woman who is so easy to be around is so shy.”
“Oh. Well, people aren’t always the nicest.”
“I know you were treated pretty badly. But, I don’t think that’s it. I’ll figure it out. Just give me a few days with you. Or weeks. It could take a few weeks.”
“But then you’ll be gone,” I reminded him and turned my focus on the trail, which was rockier as the hill sloped up from the river.
He didn’t answer. The silence gave me the chance to appreciate the laughing call of the pine jays and the distant tapping of a woodpecker hunting for insects in the trees.
The ground was dappled with sunlight as the trees thinned and the path widened in front of me. Mosses and ferny undergrowth gave way to tall grass, already beginning to pale and yellow as days lengthened and water became more scarce. It was the water that Logan was concerned about, and we left the trees and climbed the hill high enough to get a better view of the river below us. Sure enough, the water lines were consistent with where they should have been months from now, lower than I’d seen them in my years with the park.
“You think it’s logging that’s causing the low water? How?” I asked as he stood with his back to me. His eyes were drawn upstream, and I followed his example and looked toward the sun as it dipped lower in the sky.
“I think that one or more of the tributaries is being blocked. Maybe by actual dams, maybe just by fallen logs. The road I came in on was almost completely washed away. If they used it as a makeshift log river, diverting water, then letting it flow back into a stream once they were outside the park…”
“Then they could use minimal manpower and tools, and no trucks to red flag them to us,” I interjected. “Well, fuck.”
Logan laughed abruptly. “That about sums it up.”
“We need to find proof. How do we find the one tributary out of twenty that’s being used by river pigs?”
“Wait, what? River pigs?”
“Log drivers. The guys who keep the logs from tangling up and making a dam, instead of flowing down river,” I explained.
“Well, all righty then. Heidi, quit your job and work for me,” Logan burst out. I stammered and he held out his hands. “No, seriously. Or if you prefer, you’d be working for Boyden, but coordinating through me.”
“You want m
e to just quit my job and look for loggers?”
“Where do you live now?”
“About an hour from here, in Cedar Park.”
“That’s quite the commute. In fact, that makes getting that date a lot easier, too.”
I shook my head. “I can’t just pick-up and leave my life.” He looked sincerely confused. “Okay, you can probably pick up and walk away from everything. But, that’s not me.”
“I’m not asking you to leave everything. I’m asking you to leave a shitty job for freedom and the ability to do what you believe in. With a more varied commute.”
“What do you mean, varied?”
“Not all of my work is at this park. Sometimes, I’m gone for days. Sometimes, I’m right around East Austin. But it’s my time, and my choice where I go. As long as I have something to report at the end of the day,” he added.
“How much time do I have to decide?”
“Oh, honey. It’s not an ultimatum; it’s an offer. You can decide now, or a year from now. But you should know, the longer you wait to decide, the more likely that you never will.” He pushed my hair back from my face. “Don’t you want to be happy?”
“Oh, Logan. I am happy. I’m happy every morning that I wake up and I don’t have chemo or have to wear a wig. I’m happy because I’m not dying, and for the last ten years, I’ve been cancer-free. How many twenty-four-year-olds do you know who’ve lived so close to death and survived?”
He blinked slowly, his face pale. “I’m an idiot.”
I took his hand and chuckled. “No. You’re normal. Most people don’t think like I do. I don’t expect them to. I’ll think about leaving. I mean, I just called in sick for the first time since I’ve been here, the day after I met you. Who knows what I’ll be capable of in a week?”
His arms went around me, and he placed a kiss on my forehead. I was disappointed by how chaste he was being and irritable that I wanted more so quickly. He held me for a minute, and I felt my body relax into him as I started to breathe in time with him.
I couldn’t be in love with a man I hardly knew. But my body didn’t seem to understand that, and tears formed behinds my eyelids at the rightness of his arms around me. I couldn’t be what he needed. He wanted a woman who would drop everything at a whim and travel the world having adventures. I’d had the biggest, scariest adventure already in my life. I wasn’t ready for excitement. But feeling so safe and warm in his embrace, I began to wonder what he could teach me about the fire he’d stoked inside me.
9. Logan
After spending one day, then three more, with Heidi, I was still fascinated. She was braver than I think even she understood. Quiet and withdrawn, because she was thoughtful. Sitting on the bank of a creek under the hanging branches of a cypress, I watched her toss bread into the water for the fish, smiling as an old catfish came up from the bottom and closed his gaping mouth over the soggy pieces.
I’d spent a lot of time watching her over the week. She’d called in sick for the first few days, then told Eli she needed more time, and surprisingly, he let her use some of her vacation time. When I thought about it, I figured it was more likely because she was close to maxing out on hours, not out of kindness. I hadn’t talked her into quitting, but she looked different, even after a few days of freedom from the hell her work really was.
I tugged on a stray strand of her hair, and she looked at me, smiling. Her jacket hung loosely on her thin frame. I’d thought she was just naturally rail thin, until I saw her take her jacket off to climb a tree, and I saw how muscular she was. Her eyes were soft and dreamy as she glanced back at me, her full lips parted in a sweet smile that I’d started learning how to draw out of her.
“Is it red or brown?” I asked, winding the burnished copper silk around my fingers.
“More brown, I think. But it looks red in the sunshine, so my mom always called it auburn.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “You seem to spend a lot of time looking at me.”
“I do that. But only with things that are important to me. It’s a photographer thing, I think.”
“Do we know each other well enough for me to be important to you?” She dropped her eyes. I’d noticed that she demurred anytime she thought I was complimenting her. It was sweet but made me wonder how she’d react once I paid her an actual compliment.
“You became the single most important person in the world to me the moment you took Honey the fawn out of my arms and started treating his wounds.” I tweaked her hair. “That you’re beautiful and charming and funny… I wasn’t expecting funny. It was a real bonus, considering…”
“Considering what?”
“Considering how much time I expect us to be spending together.” I winked at her, and she scowled.
“Another week. Until you go back to your regular job, and I go back to mine, and we maybe text each other or Facetime for a few more weeks. People don’t stick around, Logan. Especially not people like you.” She threw another clump of bread into the water.
“People like me? Like you said, we don’t know each other that well.”
“My dad’s a journalist’ did I tell you that?” I shook my head, and she continued, throwing pieces of bread at the water with increasing vehemence. “He’s won awards, too. He was great, for a little while. He’d stay home for a couple of months at a time, sit with me at the hospital.”
“What happened?”
She sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. “Mom said my illness ruined their lives, so he left and made a new one, with a new wife and children who didn’t get sick.” She threw the last crust and brushed off her hands. “Funny thing is, he stopped traveling. Got a new job as an editor of some stupid local rag of the small town he moved to and stayed there, happily, with his new family.”
“Pretty shitty of your parents to blame you, if you ask me. What exactly did your father have to say about leaving you?”
“I don’t know. I was in the hospital when he left, and I never saw or heard from him again.”
“And that was it? You never trusted anyone again, until your stupid track team in high school. Who then screwed things up for me.”
“When did this become about you?” She gaped at me, totally taken aback.
“The moment I realized that I don’t want to go back to Austin unless you come with me. I could spend time with you on the weekends, head over to Cedar Park and make you go to barbecues with George and Callie and their little one.”
She smiled, and her face was wistful. “Oh, that sweet little face,” she murmured. I glanced at her, and she scowled. “What?”
“I’m going to marry you, Heidi. You’d best get used to the idea because it will just make things easier for us down the road.” I glanced at her again. Of course, she’d met Callie. Until a few months before, she’d been a happy dog-momma. The suburb just outside Austin was a popular place for commuters like my brother, who didn’t want to pay Austin prices for homes. But I was curious why she hadn’t mentioned knowing Callie. I left it alone. Heidi was all about protecting herself. I just wanted to take some of that load off her and do the protecting.
“We’re getting married?” She looked up at me sideways.
“Well, sure, someday. I mean, you don’t want to rush into these things. I figure we’ll date for a few months, move in together, get a dog. When you’re ready, of course. I mean, somewhere in there you would get to meet my family, and they’d all get the chance to tell you I’m not good enough for you. You’ll ignore them and marry me anyway.”
“Oh, I will?” She was giggling now. “Do you plan out the lives of all the women you kiss?”
“Nope. No point, if she’s not spending the rest of her life with me.” I laughed and held out a hand. “So, Miss Heidi West. Would you go to dinner with me?”
She giggled and shook her head. “I’m sorry to say it, but I’m not sure where we could go, with you smelling like campfire. Are you willing to take a shower first?”
I put a hand over my heart like she’d cut me
. “How about this? You help me break down my campsite. We go back to your place and you, good Samaritan that you are, let me shower and shave.”
She gasped and stared at me wide-eyed.
“Then, we go out to a steakhouse.” I glanced at her and shrugged. “My clean clothes aren’t real fancy, so it has to be a jeans and boots kind of place.”
“Okay. Dinner would be nice. Too bad we can’t get you showered before we get in the car.”
I leaned forward and splashed water up at her.
“We’ve hiked miles and miles of the park. What if the water wasn’t diverted in one spot that can be found?”
“Well, if dinner works out, I was thinking that a helicopter ride would make a nice second date,” I offered. “We can take up a topographical map and see if anything doesn’t match up.”
“A helicopter ride? Outside of a couple of flights to the Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah, I’ve never been on a plane.” She grinned. “Are you just trying to secure a second date, even if you ruin the first?”
“You got me. The only question is, will it work?”
She nodded and stood, brushing off her cargo pants. She held out a hand, and I considered pulling her into the stream. She saw the look on my face and froze, panic etched across her features. “If you really want a date. You won’t do it.”
I sighed and nodded, then started to stand. I got halfway to my feet, and she yanked hard to the left. I felt myself slide toward the water. She cackled, and I did the only thing I could think of. I held on tight and took her with me. Her laugh turned into a shriek, and I hit the water flat on my back, with her on top of me.
When we surfaced, she smacked my shoulder, laughing so hard she couldn’t get her feet under her. The water was only to her ribcage, and the way her wet tank top clung to her breasts made my mouth dry. She ran her hands over her hair and pulled it into a wet knot at her neck.
“Well, that wasn’t quite what I was expecting,” she scoffed.
“You thought I’d be chivalrous and let go?”
“I thought you’d have better coordination and not fall in.” She grinned at me and started slogging toward shore.
