"Do you have any other clothes in your pack to change into? You look frozen."
She answered with a prolonged blink. "No. I have some clothes in my truck, but if I could get to it, we wouldn't be having this conversation." She dared a glance up at him. His eyes softened. Only then did Beth notice that her arm was still in his grasp. It was the warmth of his skin that caught her attention. An awkward lull passed, and then William draped the blanket over her shoulders again.
"Keep it," he said softly. "You'll be in the tent with Jenna. Les and I will take the truck."
Beth looked around William to the white king cab truck that stood guard duty at the campsite entrance.
"You'll freeze," she argued flatly.
"We have extra sleeping bags."
Beth just looked at him with incredulous eyes.
"I'll be fine," William reassured. "I'm cold blooded, remember?"
Beth inspected him for a moment. "I don't think so," she pronounced. "I think it's an act."
"Maybe I do have a thing for damsels in distress," William reasoned.
Beth smiled sweetly, putting a hand to his cheek and fluttering her eyelashes. "It's called a hero complex, Solo."
William's eyes almost closed. When he brought a hand up to cover Beth's, she hastily dropped hers. She had only touched him for effect, and she wasn't about to let him toss her hand aside in disgust. Pivoting and marching to the tent, she disappeared inside without looking back.
GALLANTRY
"…..how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."
~Mr. Darcy, Pride & Prejudice
Beth awoke feeling warmer than she should have. Once inside the tent last night she had stripped off her wet clothes and laid them out on the floor next to the knapsack that she assumed was meant for her. She had flinched with guilt when she saw the oversized, dry t-shirt there, probably donated from William's camping wardrobe. The scent of pine and laundry soap filled her nose as she pulled it over her head. As she slid into the puffy down sleeping bag, her thoughts turned to the 'extras' William had mentioned. Even if the said extras were as snug as Beth's, the boys wouldn't possibly be comfortable in the truck.
In the end, it turned out to be a moot point.
Heavy raindrops had assaulted the roof of the tent last night, and Beth had worried about Les and even William. Maybe they would move in with Kara and Lucy. It would only be slightly more proper than coming in with Jenna and herself.
Beth sat up in her sleeping bag, running a tentative hand over her ruffled hair. She looked over at Jenna and started at the sight of Les lying next to her friend, sandwiched between two blankets in a makeshift bedroll. Extras indeed, she thought.
Les and Jenna still slept, facing each other but not touching. With mortification Beth turned slowly to her other side, and felt a resounding sonic boom somewhere in the region of her chest when she saw another flannel blanket sandwich. Fortunately it was empty.
William had slept next to her all night? The blanket that William had loaned her last night was laid over her, and the blankets he had slept in were lying where her muddy clothes had been. Either he had slept on top of them all night (unlikely), or had thrown them into the river out of spite (probable).
Regardless, she was stuck in a tent with Les inside, and William outside, in nothing but her underwear and his t-shirt.
She wrapped the plaid blanket around her waist and stepped into her hiking boots, which were sitting at the door of the tent. Her toes squished into their damp muddiness and she wrinkled her nose. She unzipped the tent and stepped into the first beams of dawn filtering through the trees. The rain glistened on the leaves and branches like drops of hot glue, and crisp moisture flavored the air. The hickory tang of a campfire filled the air as its crackling broke the early morning stillness. She looked around for her clothes and spotted them slung over a nearby tree. Unfortunately, they were caught in last night's downpour and were completely waterlogged. Still, someone had hung her clothes up, and she had a good idea who it was.
She wandered over to the fire and plopped down on the log from the previous night. She resigned to sit there all day, clad in the red-and-blue plaid mercy of her worst enemy, which actually smelled quite good. She brought the corner of the flannel to her face. It had a subtle woodsy smell, not strong enough to be cologne. More like body wash, perhaps.
"Well, I wouldn't have thought blue was your color, but the red suits your temper very well. Overall I'd say it looks good on you."
Beth jumped as William's amusement cut into her thoughts, and she stood hurriedly. She knew how stupid she looked, sniffing his blanket with her muddled mess of hair, in his t-shirt. Her first impulse was to take the blanket off and throw it at his head, but this exploit would send the situation downhill very quickly.
As she watched his face, a rush of exasperation washed over her at the cocky smirk he wore. "Would you like it back now, then?"
"Thought you'd never ask," he grinned.
Rolling her eyes and turning away from him, she took a seat back on the log. She bent forward, cupping her face in her hands and resting her elbows on her knees. The only thing to do was ignore William Darcy. He was one of those guys that thrived on getting a reaction out of people.
The log's balance shifted slightly as he sat next to her. Couldn't he find his own log? They were in the woods, for crying out loud. Take your pick!
Slowly, she turned her head toward him, her face still resting in her hands, her eyebrows peaked in disbelief. The amusement had been chased off of his face, and his expressionless features betrayed nothing as to the reason he felt the absurd need to be near her. He took her hand from under her face, and at his touch she drew back and sat bolt upright.
William stood with a resigned sigh and tossed a small grey-and-white bundle onto her lap.
Beth unfolded the bundle, shock seizing her. A familiar classic car parked at In-n-Out drive-in looked up at her from her t-shirt, and underneath it were her grey sweats. Knitting her brows together in confusion she stood, almost losing the blanket in the process. She clapped her arms back down on the blanket and looked up expecting to see William standing there with his intolerable self-pleased expression. Instead, he stood several yards away with his back to her, at the open tailgate of Les's truck, slightly bent over, doing something with his hands. Marching over, she stopped just inches away and brandished her gym clothes at him.
"What are these?"
"I believe that would be your dirty laundry, sweetheart." He didn't look at her. He seemed to be totally engrossed with choosing a hook out of his tackle box.
Beth swallowed, ignoring his comment. "Yes," she paused, and then slowly articulated, "but how did you get them?"
His eyes did not deviate from the pink play-dough he pinched onto the hook, and he didn't respond.
"William?"
He began rummaging for something else in his tackle box, then pulled out some pliers and paused with them in front of Beth's lips, as if wanting to pinch her mouth shut. "I walked." He blinked and went back to his fish hook.
"You walked. You walked all the way back to the ravine, and then somehow managed to get in and back out without breaking your ankle. I see. And how did you get into my truck? It was locked!" She had finished with more force than intended, as if his breaking into her truck had canceled out his altruistic measures.
"The keys were in your backpack."
As she opened her mouth to retort, the realization of what he had done wiped it from her lips. She thought she must look like a fish standing there with its mouth open, waiting for him to snag her cheek with his hook.
"You can thank me later, Beth," he said, glancing casually at her face and then giving his full attention back to his hook. "Now, why don't you go put some pants on? It's a little distracting."
Beth watched him in silence with a disturbed expression. She should walk away now, but her hiking boots had become super glue, cementing her to the muddy ground. When sh
e didn't move, he put down his hook and pliers and turned to face her, like a parent calmly de-escalating his child's tantrum.
"Yes?"
Beth couldn't speak. Images of what had taken place shuffled around in her mind - the early hour he would have gotten up to hike all the way back to the truck; the thick mud that would have made the trek more difficult; his rummaging in her truck to find the clothes she had mentioned; her haughtiness when he came striding back into camp, his mission accomplished.
A mouthful of humble pie was making it impossible to speak, though she wanted to thank him. After hesitating a moment, and then trying and failing to speak again, she stood on tip-toe and brushed a kiss on his cheek. She could not bring herself to look at him now, and her eyes dropped to the ground as she turned away.
Les looked up when Beth entered the tent in William's blanket, and simply smiled at her like nothing was amiss. Leaning over Jenna with a hand on her forehead, he seemed to be checking for a fever. Jenna, awake but still lying down, looked weak and tired, and was clearly in pain. After pressing a concerned kiss to Jenna's forehead, Les politely excused himself - presumably so Beth could dress. The clothes William had retrieved from Beth's truck were cold but dry. Beth remembered throwing them hurriedly in her truck with the intention of hitting the gym earlier in the week. Luckily her experimental psychology lab had gone long and she hadn't made it. Way to find the silver lining, she told herself.
"How did you sleep last night?" she asked Jenna, folding herself into a sitting position beside her.
"Okay, I guess." Jenna always downplayed her own discomfort, so Beth knew she hadn't slept much, if at all.
"Does your ankle hurt?" While she asked this, Beth unzipped Jenna's sleeping bag to assess the damage. Her ankle was swollen, and some faint bruising was trying to surface.
"It hurts." If Jenna was admitting pain, then it must be much worse than she was letting on. "Are those your gym clothes?" Jenna asked, sidetracked.
Beth blushed a little at her prior indignation toward William, and she blushed a lot when their parting scene passed in front of her eyes. She said in a small voice, "He walked to the truck and got them."
Jenna opened her eyes, which were paler than usual, and raised her head slightly. Then a confused scowl creased her forehead. "He did?" The question hung in the air for a moment before Jenna's head dropped heavily back to her pillow and she closed her eyes again. "Huh."
"Yeah, pretty much."
A silent moment passed with no response from Jenna, so Beth pushed on.
"I just don't get him, Jenna. One moment he seems genuinely concerned - even considerate. The next he's pompous and self-righteous. It's so…..Jekyll and Hyde."
"We haven't known him that long, Beth. Maybe he's just a little shy."
"Then why does he provoke me all the time?" Beth wasn't really looking for an answer. She had to laugh about the scene that played out earlier, so she took the subject to a new level as she changed clothes. "Well, anyway, I took you up on that dare from yesterday."
"Dare?"
"I kissed him."
Jenna's eyes popped open, and she propped herself up on one elbow. "You…..kissed…..him?" she repeated slowly. "Details."
"Don't get excited Jenna, it wasn't like that. It's just that I wasn't very nice to him this morning, and when he brought me the clothes I felt really bad. I couldn't bring myself to say thank you after all the times he's cut my legs out from under me."
"So, where did you kiss him?" Jenna asked this shyly so as not to appear too eager for the juicy details.
"We were standing by Les's truck," Beth answered distractedly.
"No…..I mean where on him," Jenna clarified.
"Oh. Just on the cheek." Beth suddenly felt the need to busy herself with folding William's flannel blanket, aiming to appear unconcerned with the fact that she had shared a painstakingly intimate moment with her nemesis.
"What did he do?"
"I didn't stick around to find out. Just a little embarrassing, standing there in his blanket waiting for a reaction." Beth was mortified by the memory once again, and unsettled by the fact that her confession did not bring the comic relief she had been seeking. In fact, it didn't make her laugh at all. She decided to turn her full attention to Jenna, who still watched her with wide eyes.
"Are you hungry or anything?"
"A little. Mostly I just want to go home." Jenna turned onto her side and nuzzled down further into her sleeping bag.
"At least you got to sleep next to Les," Beth said, a teasing smile creeping across her lips. "I guarantee you were warmer than me." An image of herself flashed in her mind, being encircled in William's arms. Where did that come from? She scolded herself, appalled that such an idea could exist anywhere, let alone her own head. Brushing the thought away, she folded William's shirt and placed it on his blanket.
"I'll be back, Jenna. I'm going to see what there is to eat, and get you some Tylenol or something." Jenna started to protest, insisting that she was neither hungry nor in pain, and didn't want to be a burden.
"Whatever. I think Les is pretty glad you sprained your ankle." Beth smiled hopelessly at Jenna and smoothed her golden hair with her fingers. "Stay," she warned as she unzipped the tent and stepped outside.
Kara and Lucy sat at an old picnic table that must've been red at one time. The paint was cracked and peeling, and Kara had a disgusted look plastered on her face. The camp chairs were all puddled with rain, and the picnic table was the only place to sit. Kara and Lucy grumpily jabbed at a large pile of crumbs. Les stood next to his truck, talking to a man in a khaki uniform and looking concerned. Beth noticed that William was absent from the scene, and it bothered her that she noticed.
"Do you think she needs medical attention?" The man in the uniform asked.
Les bit his bottom lip, and looked vastly relieved to see Beth walking toward him. "What do you think, Beth? Is she getting worse? I thought she felt a bit warm this morning."
"Well, she is in a lot of pain, but I don't think it's too serious. We do need to get her home as soon as possible, though."
"Well, that's the problem, miss," the ranger interrupted. "There was a mudslide early this morning after all the rain last night, and the mouth of the canyon is completely blocked. No one coming in or going out."
"What?! How are we supposed to get her home?" Beth felt hysterics coming on.
Les looked thoughtful. "How long before the mouth of the canyon is open?"
"It'll be at least two days to get it cleared, barring any more storms like the last one. In the meantime, I have a first aid kit in the jeep. We can wrap her ankle and at least give her something for the pain."
As the ranger went to his jeep for the first aid kit, William trudged back into camp, a few trout swaying from his fishing line. Beth almost burst out laughing at the sight of him in his fishing hat. It was all wrong; like a GAP model milking a cow. He glanced up at her briefly and then back down again, as if she hadn't been there at all. He walked over to the picnic table and very unceremoniously plopped the trout on the table next to Kara. She jumped and shrieked.
"What is that?"
"These are called fish, Kara. Tonight's dinner, actually. Unless you had something else planned?" William feigned innocence, his eyes swiveling from Kara to Lucy. Beth had to suppress the urge to laugh.
"Oooooh! Is that salmon, William? I love salmon."
William rolled his eyes. "No, Lucy, it's trout. And, just so you know," he added, eyeing the two heaps of crumbs atop the griddle, "you're supposed to use this handy little spray on the griddle before cooking pancakes on it." He set a can of Pam cooking spray on the table between them. "Helps it not to stick." He turned his back on them and grinned, a very satisfied expression on his face.
When William's eyes lighted on Beth's and she couldn't decipher his expression, she looked away.
"Oh, and make sure you get all the bones out of the fish," William charged the girls.
Les beckoned
William over to meet the ranger, who recounted his mudslide narrative, while Beth snuck into their midst to grab the first aid kit and then hurried to Jenna.
After wrapping an ace bandage around Jenna's ankle, applying a cold pack, and giving her some pain killers, Beth rummaged in her back pack and was relieved to find a chocolate bar and half a can of Pringles left.
"Sorry Jenna, this is all I could come up with. Kara and Lucy attempted pancakes, but I don't think either of them aced HOMEC." She propped Jenna up with some pillows so she could eat, then handed her the Pringles can.
Jenna sighed, her pale eyes fluttering in exhaustion as she munched. She had only made it through one chip when she snapped the lid back on the can. "I think I'm getting a cold. My throat's sore." With that, she snuggled down in the sleeping bag and turned onto her side.
Worry bubbled up in Beth's chest. People didn't die from sprained ankles, did they? She thought of the ridiculous television shows her father watched on the weekends - Testosterone Vs. Nature and the like. Beth could never tolerate the staged drama of the whole thing. It always seemed so preposterous. But if she'd paid attention once or twice maybe she could've fashioned a splint out of twigs and vines or something. Of course, it would be no surprise if Jenna ended up with a head cold. She had been soaked through yesterday. Sighing, Beth watched Jenna for a moment before quietly slipping out of the tent. At least the injury had been wrapped and medication had been given. Hopefully with some quality rest, she would be okay soon.
Pride's Prejudice Page 5